Blinksale – The easiest way to send invoices onlinelink » tags: [cool] [tools] posted via Wists: permamark
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Niall Kennedy has a fair idea that Microsoft may be about to launch RSS search.
Lest we forget, this is not a Persian crime, but a religious one, and one based upon opinions that are shared by some people from all the Abrahamic religions. Some people email me wondering what I have against religion: I think belief is an abrogation of our moral responsibility as human beings to reason and empathise with other people rather than passing the responsibility to a text which cannot be reasonably challenged or ammended. I do think that religion makes good people better, but it makes bad people worse – and it is easier to destroy things than build them. Until someone disproves the 2nd Law, religion and humans are a volatile mix. I think that the more secular a society is, the more moral, creative and innovative it is. In America people are not arguing about whether gays should be executed but whether they can marry, I am not…
If I were Steve Jobs… I would use the Gillette model (free fancy handle, pay for the blades) to sell value-add products like iPhoto on top of a free OS. I would make power PC and the Intel version of OSX which has been worked on for a while – free. Particularly in light of this: Everyone wants ‘free’ Windows… | CNET News.com
Number of households in US: 101 million. Local Services market value: $600 billion annual. Household services: $180 billion annual. Amount spent on local offline advertising by contracting and real estate businesses: $25 billion annual. Dotcom investment in 10 online services during boom: $250 million [they were keen but too early] Amount spent on advertising local services to households: anywhere between $50 -$90 billion annual [this is the biggest untapped revenue opportunity for search] Largest category of services posting on Craigslist (taken by looking at a sample 2 days of postings): Sex services, 40% [i.e. Craiglist not a player yet, outside of jobs and real estate] Largest category of Yellow pages advertiser: Attorneys, $856 million in 2001. Largest single event resulting in Yellow Pages use: eldest daughter gets married [personalized search and user profiles will be important] Number of Overture searches that explicitly have a city in the search: 4% Number…
I wonder if this Slate article, Are Subway Searches Legal? – The rules for searching bags. By Daniel Engber was written by someone that : thought he had a point then realised that his argument was flawed; added the paragraph at the bottom marked ‘bonus explainer’ which tries and fails to defend against the flawed logic in the main piece; ran the story anyway. There are very real civil liberty concerns post 911, they highlight the fact that democracy is built from a peaceful society. But cummon, screening bags for bombs before travelling is not one of them. There is nothing that takes away your liberty more than being blown to pieces. Summary – piece highlights a claim that searching subway bags is ‘unconstitutional’, realizes that could be argued that is no diff from air travel searches. Tries to say that air travel is different because: 1. You have other…
Gibson has truly lost his marbles.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark
At least there is one thing in the news to be cheerful about – All hail people called Armstrong: Neil, Louis and Lance.link » tags: [news] posted via Wists: permamark
Verisgn estimate that at least one in 50 new sites is a spam site. Given that the total number of weblogs is normally measured by those that are actually posted to, this does not account for the growing number of spam blogs. I suspect that spam blogs actually account for an alarmingly high percentage of the total, and people like Technorati have to index them. A reputation system for blogs could effectively weed out this load. Verisign reports that it: “will change the way it reports the size of its domain name business, in terms of active registrations, because of the amount of speculation going on. It will reduce the size of the reported registrations by about 2%” “Names are being bought and then tested against traffic analyzers,” Sclavos said. “The ones that can generate more than the $6 or $7 [registration] fee per year are kept, the other ones…
My bullshitters investing guide, based upon absolutely no analysis or experience. I don’t even know if ‘Hearst’ is public – I don’t care. Iwonder how it will do? I’ll check back in a year. Pharma and cosmetics. L’Oreal They make proper sunscreen that the FDA haven’t yet approved, apparently. Or so some geezer down the pub said. Buy All the best deals are here, but nobody understands it, including professional investors. Buy into the people that make lab coats instead. ————— Media Hearst If big media doesn’t own little electronic media – Sell Clearly all media is undergoing a massive revolution everything big is going tits up. But the small stuff that will replace it is not public. So only big people who can invest in VC funds etc. will make money out of the little guys. ————— Commodities: Oil There is no way that the Saudis are telling the…
Looks like the pressure will continue for the Chinese Yuan to revalue. In true stupid amateur punter mode, am looking at a few possible investments. Maybe I should be reckless enough to buy stock in a dotcom like Ctrip.com (CTRP), a consolidator of hotel accommodations and airline tickets in China. They would benefit from Yuan revaluation in the short term if they don’t buy too many Aeron chairs or hire people who used to work in enterpise software. Q&A: what price the yuan? – Markets – Times Online
The thumbnail shows where abortion is legal in green and blue and illegal in red and orange. Nothing shows more clearly what an anomaly it will be if the US joins the red and orange gang being pretty much the only member in the northern hemisphere or anglosphere. Interestingly it also serves as an accurate map of fervent Christianity and Islam. (For the record, I think if you are religious then an anti-abortion stance is entirely logical, and I respect that. I do believe that raised taxes to provide support for single parents or abandoned children follows. I am not religious and not likely to ever be pregnant.) Some example countries below. Some of the countries where abortion is illegal (many, many scary places with a few exceptions such as Ireland): Afghanistan Angola Bangladesh Brazil Central African Rep. Chile Colombia Congo (Brazzaville) Dem. Rep. of Congo Egypt Indonesia Iran Iraq…