Ready, Fire, Aim! - Mihail's Public Blog

Several of the major hotels have decided to team up a la the airlines' Orbitz to provide discount rooms on the Web and try and benefit from the market created by Hotels.com and Expedia etc. according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):

The site, Travelweb.com, is controlled by five hotel companies that are normally the fiercest of rivals: Marriott, Starwood (which includes the Westin and Sheraton brands, among others), Hyatt, Hilton, and Six Continents (owners of Holiday Inn and InterContinental)....

There are now ways, however, to take some of the guesswork out of the process. Many travelers, for instance, consult Biddingfortravel.com (www.biddingfortravel.com), a site where people post their recent successful bids. One traveler claims he landed a room at the Beverly Hilton (home of the Golden Globe awards) in mid-February for $86 a night on Priceline.

The ubiquity of CD burners and the ease by which different people can easily connect with each other over the Internet means that groups are forming around swapping CD mixes according to this New York Times story (registration required):

There are perhaps thousands of other mix makers who burn CD's for a circle of friends or online acquaintances. They are part of a thriving culture of mix swaps, or "burning circles," as Mr. von Lohmann and his friends call them. Some of these can be quite big. One swap involving members of a group Weblog called MetaFilter attracted about 260 participants, each of whom was required to send a mix to five others.

A University of Utah professor is making public in the Journal of Experimental Psychology the results of a study on how cellphones distract drivers according to this Reuters story:

Drivers who use a cellphone, even with a ''hands-free'' device, suffer from a kind of tunnel vision that endangers themselves and others, US researchers said yesterday.

...The finding adds to a series of similar studies - most notably a 1997 New England Journal of Medicine report that found talking on a phone while driving quadrupled the risk of accident.

According to this New York Times story (registration required) on the Formula One-inspired limited edition Ferrari:

The Enzo is Ferrari's latest exotic sports car, a $675,000 missile powered by a 660-horsepower V-12 engine capable of exceeding the top interstate speed limit by, oh, 147 miles an hour.

Buyers of products from out of state are expected to pay Use tax since retailers were given a break by the Supreme Court in that they don't have to charge and collect sales tax on any sales to states where they don't have a physical presence since that would be too much of a burden. However, according to this New York Times story (registration required) few buyers pay the appropriate sales or use tax causing state budgets to fall into even greater deficits.

Forecasters say the states may come up short next year by as much as $80 billion, which would create the biggest state budget crisis since World War II. A merry holiday season in cyberspace, meanwhile, has pumped up the receipts of online retailers — to $78 billion last year, according to Forrester Research, an increase of more than 50 percent over 2001.

That does not count the larger categories of business-to-business online sales and catalog sales, for which sales tax is generally not collected. A study by the University of Tennessee estimates that sales tax is not collected on $234 billion in online business-to-business commerce. And tax on most of what the Direct Marketing Association estimates at $125 billion in annual catalog sales is not collected, either.

Like automobiles, homes continue to enjoy enviable demand even as the rest of the economy falters according to this AP story on the New York Times site (registration required):

An estimated 5.56 million previously owned homes were sold in 2002, topping the record of 5.30 million reached in 2001, the association reported.

...The national median home price last year was $158,300, up 7.1 percent from 2001. The 7.1 percent increase was the largest annual increase since 1980, when the median sales price increased 11.7 percent.

At least someone seems to have some sense in politics unlike George W.'s decision to provide ludicrous tax breaks to the rich under the guise of helping small businesses. According to this New York Times story (registration required) New York Governor Pataki is taking an appropriate action:

In his annual budget address on Wednesday, Governor Pataki will call for closing what he calls a loophole that has let doctors, real estate agents and others buy vehicles like Hummers and Ford Excursions, then take a tax break intended mainly for farmers.

...Under Mr. Pataki's proposal, nonagricultural businesses in New York that claim the deduction for such a passenger vehicle on their federal tax returns would be required to restore the deduction to their state income statements and pay the state tax on it, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki said. The change could apply in the fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2004, if the Legislature approves it, the spokeswoman, Lisa Stoll, said.

Investigators suspect that the small plane that crashed on takeoff in Charlotte, N.C., on Jan. 8, killing all 21 people on board, may have been overloaded due to flawed estimates of the passengers weights according to this New York Times story (registration required). Therefore, "The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering all 24 airlines that operate the small planes to collect weight information from a sampling of their flights."

Standard guidance from the agency to airlines flying small planes, including US Airways Express, which operated the Charlotte plane, is to allow 180 pounds for each adult in winter and 175 pounds in summer. Both figures include clothing and shoes and 20 pounds for carry-ons. Children ages 2 to 12 are assumed to weigh 80 pounds, year round.

These figures were developed before obesity became the public health problem it is today.

A cool organization has a video that helps kids recognize dangerous situations and how to avoid them according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Each year, the Department of Justice reports, about 69,000 children are abducted, 12,000 of them by people who are not family members. In nearly two-thirds of these abductions, the kidnapper is not a stranger to the child. Yet, beyond warning children not to talk to strangers or to go anywhere with people they do not know, and perhaps cautioning them to avoid deserted streets and unpopulated shortcuts, few youngsters are prepared to prevent an abduction or escape from one.

A 33-year odl grad student is featured in this New York Times story (registration required) on how psychoanalysis continues to thrive:

After spending six years and about $60,000 on analysis, she says, she is less self-destructive, more responsible, more productive and more successful in her work. She has more compassion for others. She understands, in ways that have grown more layered and complex, her own strengths and limits and those of the people close to her.

In the last quarter century, psychoanalysis has been declared dead many times over. Psychoanalysts, once dominant in psychiatry, now stand on the sidelines of a field where drug treatments and brief forms of talk therapy are the rule. Thanks in large part to Woody Allen, Freud's talking cure has become shorthand for costly self-indulgence with no obvious benefit. And many psychiatrists barely hide their disdain for what they regard as an outmoded approach to treating mental disorders.

Millard Drexler, who "was credited with a retailing revolution: creating a store that sold only its own private- label merchandise,"and who made "the store a brand, and the brand a store," has now joined J. Crew as CEO soon after being forced to resign as CEO of the Gap to make way for a senior Disney Theme Parks executive.

According to this New York Times story (registration required) J. Crew had almost three-quarters of a billion dollars in revenue last year and has gone from being a family-run business (founded by Arthur Cinander) to being bought by San Francisco-based Texas Pacific Group that's famous for profitable turnarounds in the last five years.

J. Crew, which began as a catalog merchant, now has 195 stores, including 43 factory outlets. The stores account for 64 percent of the business, with catalog and Internet sales making up the rest.

...Mr. Drexler, who will also become chairman, is investing $10 million of his own money in J. Crew, which is not publicly traded. Analysts hailed his arrival yesterday as a coup for the company — whether he brought his checkbook or not. He will succeed the current chief executive, Ken Pilot, who once worked under Mr. Drexler at Gap and was considered to be doing a good job in turning around J. Crew for Texas Pacific, which bought 60 percent of the company in 1997. "It was just this unusual circumstance to be able to get someone of Mickey's caliber," said Owen Blicksilver, a spokesman for J. Crew, sidestepping the issue of who approached whom. "It grew out of a mutual interest," he said.

According to this AP story on the New York Times site, statistics compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Venture Economics for the National Venture Capital Association to be released Tuesday, show that investments in the fourth quarter of 2002 werer on par with the first quarter of 1998.

Last year's total was just slightly below the $21.5 billion invested by venture capitalists in 1998 -- the early stages of the dot-com mania that elevated the high-tech industry to dizzying heights.

Hoping to profit from the boom in tech stocks, venture capitalists poured $162 billion into startups during 1999 and 2000 while fattening their funds for future investments.

...In 2002, 756 companies received their first injection of venture capital, a 35 percent decline from 1,178 companies in 2001, the study said.

The changing phone numbers game according to this New York Times story (registration required) has some interesting info about why we're having to deal with so many new area codes (inefficient number allocation due to deregulation of the telecommunications industry and soaring demand for new phone numbers) and our changing phone habits:

Maryland led the way into dialing history - and dialing confusion - when it became the first place in North America to switch from 7-digit to 10-digit phone numbers, on June 1, 1997....

"Something like 80 percent of calls on cellphones are out of the speed-dial memory," said Linc Madison, a telephone consultant who maintains an area-code Web site called LincMad. "Stored numbers have taken over a lot of the burden of remembering or looking up phone numbers."

Cotsakos  who started his CEO stint in 1996 after serving as an executive at FedEx Corp. and ACNielsen etc. has resigned without any reason being given according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).

In early 2002, Mr. Cotsakos came under fire from investors for his 2001 compensation package, which had been originally valued at about $80 million. Mr. Cotsakos then agreed to return a portion to the company and its employees. In May, E*Trade rolled back Mr. Cotsakos's pay package to about $60 million....

An interesting New York Times piece on how the backlash against conspicuous consumption seems to exclude rap and  pop stars like J. Lo since they are preceived to have earned the right to "bling bling" or flash their wealth:

The answer is that despite appearances to the contrary, deep down Americans don't really have a problem with conspicuous consumption per se. It is all in the packaging: we're O.K. with bling bling so long as we believe it has been earned. Lopez makes for an interesting case study because her public image is simultaneously middle of the road -- as the star of the bland romantic comedy ''Maid in Manhattan'' -- and streetwise, as a pop singer who collaborates with rap artists and borrows liberally from hip-hop culture. It is the latter point that matters, because even now hip-hop culture remains a safe haven for ridiculous expenditure.

Oracle scores with Sheryl Crow concert at their AppsWorld conference according to this snippet in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

Ms. Crow, a pop singer-songwriter, kept up a running dialogue with the Redwood Shores, Calif., software company repeatedly from the stage during her hour-long performance. "Are you all Oracle employees?" she asked the crowd assembled at the Sails Pavilion, San Diego Convention Center, where the floor shook during some numbers. When the crowd roared, she quipped: "Wow, I didn't know there were so many of you. I'm going out and buying stock. Y'all are thriving!" (The conference drew about 12,000 people.)

Large chains haven't mastered Chinese food yet because Chinese food requires that it be cooked in woks that require more expensive stoves and significant expertise. This is because food in woks is cooked at up to 700 degrees that only the special stoves can provide according to this interesting Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).

The trickiness of woks means that a Chinese chain can't hire just anybody to come in and cook up an order of kung pao chicken. Tim Coonan, a classically trained French chef, had 20 years' experience when he went to work for P.F. Chang's, which has 81 restaurants. Instead of immediately serving up dishes, he spent six weeks in wok training. "You got oil, water and huge flames," he recalls. "It seemed dangerous and scary."

...According to trade publication Chinese Restaurant News, mom and pops make up nearly all of the nation's 36,000 Chinese restaurants -- more locations than McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's put together. The smaller restaurants often boast lower costs because they rely on family members or cheap, immigrant labor.

According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required), one of Sand Hill Road's preeminent funds has decided to cut back further by closing its Seattle and Reston, VA offices and an additional reduction in the size of its seventh fund as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Last January, MDV cut its $850 million Fund VII to about $650 million. Now the firm is cutting it by $200 million more. That means 53% of the original capital raised has been given back to investors.

Nancy Schoendorf, a general partner with the firm, says that after internal discussions, MDV, which focuses on early-stage deals, decided reducing the fund was the best way to guarantee investors a good bang for their buck. It was all "based on the math," Ms. Schoendorf said. Typically, she says, MDV makes 10 to 12 investments a year. It hopes to make a total of 35 for this fund. "We're looking at putting in $8 million to $12 million per company," she says. "That comes out to about $450 million."

The first Segway Human Transporter is being seen on the streets of New York city according to this New York Times story (registration required). The winner of a contest, Frank Tropea, is creating quite a stir and envy (since the Segway won't start selling until March) and is often asked the following questions:

How much does it cost? How fast does it go? What kind of mileage do you get with that?

(About $5,000, 12.5 miles per hour, about 11 miles per electrical charge.)

...In a world where toys still matter, he has the most awesome secret decoder ring of the moment, the shiniest Schwinn. The two-wheeled Segway's simple looks have been compared to an old-fashioned reel lawn mower's, but its seeming simplicity is deceptive.

Hysterical quote from a resident of San Francisco's Castro, Mark Lauden Crosley, when asked by the San Francisco Chronicle if driving an SUV contributes to terrorism as Arianna Huffington and Americans for Fuel-Efficient Cars' Detroit Project supposes in its controversial ads:

If you've ever seen a Ford Expedition or Chevy Suburban run a stop sign or red light, you understand that these things are weapons of mass destruction. Between the arrogance of guzzling imported gas like lemonade and the killer potential of those high bumpers, surely this is what Osama would drive.