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

While the dotcom era may be over and Google has made memorable URLs redundant, entrepreneurs are still going for the short power-name according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):

A list of 645 recently funded start-ups put together by Pricewaterhouse showed that the average length for a company name these days is just 14 letters. By contrast, the average for the first dozen companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average back in 1896 was 18 letters.

One reason for the 22% decline is that today's entrepreneurs, judging from the Pricewaterhouse list, remain enthralled with power names that are short and Latinate: Trakus, Inmedius, Finatus. It's like roll call in the ancient Roman Senate.

This Associated Press story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) quotes all the Democratic Presidential nomination contenders speaking out against the leaked details of the $600 billion Bush economic stimulus plan:

Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina said the White House is "trying to use the Bush recession to put money in the pockets of the richest Americans over a long period of time while providing very little help for regular people."

"If this is what he thinks is going to help regular people in times of an economic downturn, it just shows how out of touch he is," Mr. Edwards said in remarks his campaign staff said were taped for broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, on the brink of announcing his candidacy, used his party's weekly radio address Saturday to slam the president's tax-break plan, saying it's "the wrong idea at the wrong time to help the wrong people."

According to this New York Times story (registration required) the Bush White House is gearing up to announce tax cuts to stimulate the economy:

Even a 50 percent reduction in dividend taxes would total about $150 billion over 10 years and would probably be the centerpiece of his tax plan. Under such a plan, the tax benefits flow almost exclusively to the very wealthiest taxpayers because they are the ones who receive most dividends.

...Citing calculations by the Tax Policy Center [a nonprofit research group run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution], Mr. Daschle said that a person making more than $1 million a year would save $24,000 in taxes under Mr. Bush's plan while a person earning from $40,000 to $50,000 a year would save only $76.

Even non-partisan experts are critical of the expected plan:

"If you are looking for short-term stimulative effect, you don't find it there," said Hank Gutman, head of the federal tax policy practice at KMPG, the accounting firm. "All it means is that people are going to be trading their stocks more. They won't necessarily be investing any more, and companies won't have any more money to spend."

Compulsive shopping is being looked at as a mental illness according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):

"Compulsive shopping" is increasingly being looked at not just as a silly habit or source of tiffs between spouses, but as a mental disorder. New studies indicate that antidepressants may help, while a budding movement to get compulsive shopping formally recognized as a medical problem could convince more insurers to cover treatments.

...Some critics don't see any reason for that to change. "There is an absurd and frightening proliferation of labels for alleged mental illnesses, and that proliferation is greatly fueled by the drug companies' profit motive," says Paula Caplan, a psychologist and researcher at Brown University, who has written extensively about the overlabeling and diagnosing of mental illnesses. She counted 297 labels for mental illnesses in the previous edition of the manual, compared with 374 in the current edition. "So you have to ask: Are they discovering new mental illnesses at the rate of 11 a year, or are they being invented?"

According to a Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) on the music industry's dismal performance:

Through Dec. 22 sales of compact discs, which comprise 94% of total music sales, fell 9.3% to 624.2 million units, from 688.2 million units for the same period in 2001, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Because numbers are still being tallied, sales from the last week of the holiday retail season aren't yet available, but SoundScan said it doesn't expect a material difference in its final year-end numbers.

I'm not surprised considering how pricey CDs have become unless they're being promoted and are on sale.

According to this interesting Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) on recent research about knowing when to fold is not that obvious. And the more successful you are the harder it can be to quit when it is time. In fact, "About 80% of pro athletes don't quit their sports. Instead, they're told it's time to go."

Researchers advise: Write down "stopping rules" before you take a job, outlining which scenarios and warning signals will cause you to quit. And be honest with yourself about your delusional impulses. Mr. Lott may have fantasized that someone like Jesse Jackson would come to his rescue, forgiving his racially charged remarks, says [Duke Business School] Prof. Staelin [who studies "escalation bias"].

In a study he co-conducted, 65% of senior managers who were engaged in a losing course of action opted to stick with it. Other researchers have found that would-be quitters cling psychologically to the "gambler's fallacy" that a win will follow a string of losses.

Continuing reports on the strength of ecommerce this year include this News.com story:

Buoyed by a rising population of online shoppers and more liberal spending by online shopping veterans, e-commerce in the United States in 2002 blew away old spending records with a nearly 40 percent leap over 2001, according to preliminary results from one research firm.

Not counting auctions, online consumer sales leaped to about $74 billion in 2002, according to ComScore Networks.

According to this New York Times story (registration required) on the distractions being caused by wireless networks being installed in universities such as the American University:

The wireless rollout at American University is especially ambitious, because it integrates cellphone coverage into a single data-delivery network that can deliver messages to laptops, handheld devices and telephones anywhere on the 84-acre campus. The university plans to stop offering traditional phone service in its dormitories eventually.

...Today's college students are a truly wired generation. A study in 2002 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in Washington found that 86 percent of students have gone online, compared with 59 percent of the general population. Although the study did not focus on wireless technology, the authors did delicately predict that "issues readily apparent with the spread of cellphones, such as etiquette and distraction, are likely to emerge as students are able to access the Internet anywhere, including in classrooms."

According to a News.com story:

Annual rent for high-tech work space in Silicon Valley averaged $15.24 per square foot in the fourth quarter, down 29 percent from $21.48 per square foot in the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real-estate services company.

Average annual rents in the region had been as high as $50.88 per square foot in the first quarter of 2001.

According to a News.com story there's a bidding frenzy taking place for Steve Jobs' autograph on the first ever issue of Macworld magazine. The bids on eBay are already topping $800 and the deadline is still one day away. In comparison,

"A signature of George Washington goes for about $500 to $1,000...and John Rockefeller, the first billionaire, gets about $250 to $500," said Michael Hecht, a director with the Universal Autograph Collectors Club (UACC). "But the prices people are willing to pay for Jobs is ridiculous. Even Jobs, who probably considers himself an important guy, wouldn't consider himself this important."

...Apple declined to comment on the bidding frenzy for its CEO's autograph. But the company may be pleased to see that bids are far outpacing those placed for a signed copy of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' book "Road Ahead," which is going for $20 to $25.

More details on the two satellite radio systems with over 100 channels (relatively free of advertising -- only six minutes per each hour) soon to be available on most cars, or even at your home, with static-free reception no matter what part of the country you're in. According to this New York Times story (registration required):

Like satellite or cable television, satellite radio requires you to sign up as a subscriber (usually through a car audio dealer) and pay a monthly fee: $12.95 for Sirius, $9.99 for XM (Sirius offers discounts for long-term subscriptions). You also need to buy new equipment. Replacement receivers are available for cars (they also receive AM and FM broadcasts and come with the typical options like CD and tape players), as are adapter kits that work with existing audio systems, feeding the signal through the cassette player or over an unused FM frequency. Starting with the 2003 model year, many auto manufacturers are including satellite radios with certain cars. For the home, receivers are available that connect to stereo systems, usually through an auxiliary input.

Sirius and XM use somewhat different satellite technology. Three Sirius satellites orbit the earth in a figure-eight pattern, with two of the three always over the United States. To ensure uninterrupted programming, all three transmit the same signal, but with a four-second delay between any two satellites. This allows a memory buffer in the receiver to smooth over any loss-of-signal problems. XM's network consists of two geostationary satellites hovering over the United States - one over the East Coast, the other over the West - that also employ a delay-and-buffer system.

Preaching for the Church of Stop Shopping and others are these few folks according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Other performers preach the same gospel, with their own twists. Ange Taggart, who lives in Nottingham, England, turns up in places like Troy, N.Y., to go into a store, buy a lot of things, and then return them. She recently filled a cart with Martha Stewart products at Kmart, then put them on the conveyor in a certain order, so that when she got her receipt, she said, the first letters on the itemized list spelled "Martha Stewart's hell."

There is also Andrew Lynn, who created Whirl-Mart last year. He gets a group of people together, everyone with a shopping cart, and they stroll the aisles of Wal-Mart or Kmart, putting nothing in the carts. When store managers tell him to take his protest elsewhere, he tells them: "This isn't a protest. We're performing a consumption-awareness ritual."

If you're having making your home Wi-Fi network reach most of your home then this Speedstream solution for you according to a Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):

The product is really two small gizmos that work in conjunction with one another. They're called the SpeedStream Powerline Wireless Access Point and the SpeedStream Powerline Ethernet Adapter. They're small boxes with electrical prongs that you plug into standard wall outlets.

...Essentially, the first device transports the Internet connection over your home's electrical wiring from a wall outlet near your DSL or cable modem to an outlet in the distant room where wireless reception is poor. The second device, located in that distant room, takes the connection from the outlet and broadcasts it wirelessly via a built-in transmitter. The signal is strong because the transmitter is right in the room.

Here's wishing everyone a great 2003! Now for us in the Bay Area that would mean the technology implosion starting to reverse itself and getting a much-needed high-speed train such as this new one between the airport and Shanghai which has reduced the previous 1-hour trip by taxi to a mere 14 minutes according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). Imagine making it to San Jose in 14 minutes from SF! :)

The train has reportedly reached speeds of 250 mph (400 kph) along a 19-mile-long (31-kilometer-long) track linking Shanghai's new financial district and airport.

The train was been built by a German consortium, Transrapid International, which includes engineering giants Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp AG, and the track was laid by the Chinese government. The maglev travels faster than conventional trains because it floats on air -- held a few fractions of an inch above its rails by powerful opposing magnets.

This shocking Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) details the incredible story of how Bernard Ebbers, the former CEO of MCI WorldCom went on an personal acquisition spree with bank loans thanks to the lessons he had learnt building WorldCom.

Ebbers grew up in Canada and the seeds of WorldCom were sown when he quit his job teaching high school and started buying motels, owning eight properties by the early 1980s. "Mr. Ebbers's big move came when he joined forces with other motel investors and formed Long Distance Discount Service, which eventually was renamed WorldCom" and Ebbers began to apply those same lessons to his personal empire.

Bank of America ponied up $253 million. Citigroup lent Mr. Ebbers $552 million. To help Mr. Ebbers pay back some of those loans, the WorldCom board lent him $415 million from the company's coffers. The bank loans went to fund a jumble of acquisitions, including timberland, a yacht-building company and a refrigerated trucking firm. Mr. Ebbers planned to manage the companies when he retired from WorldCom.

...Throughout Mr. Ebbers's shopping spree, there were evident flaws in his strategy. He sometimes snapped up properties at inflated prices, leaving bankers and WorldCom directors scratching their heads. Over the course of less than a decade, he secured a total of more than $1.3 billion in loans. Although he sometimes retired old debt with new, it is still a staggering amount for an individual. Mr. Ebbers took out those loans at a dizzying pace. But rather than tightening their purse strings, the banks kept lending him money.

Microsoft is working on a top-secret new version of Windows codenamed Longhorn with Gates himeself spending a significant amount of his time on it. But Longhorn has many similarities to Cairo, according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required), which never made it out.

Cairo was once touted by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as a radical "paradigm shift" in computing, mainly for its lofty goal of overhauling and unifying Windows' file systems. For everyday computer users, the benefits could include being able to seamlessly search through e-mail messages, Microsoft Word files or even Internet pages in the same way, instead of using one of the many separate file systems that exist today.

..."If they change the file system, they are going to break programs," says Michael Cherry, a former Microsoft program manager who is now an analyst for the firm Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash. Resistance from the Office group helped sink previous Microsoft efforts to unify file systems, and Microsoft should expect "a lot of resistance from Office" again, says former Microsoft executive Usama Fayyad, now president and chief executive of data-mining company digiMine Inc. He thinks a new file system is "a nice vision, [but] it's not a reality, and it won't be a reality in the short term."

My doctor last year got very unhappy with me since I wanted to simply talk to him on the phone rather than come in for yet another visit -- he gave me a short lecture about how he needed to earn a living. I responded that he should go ahead and charge me as I'd come to visit him but let me have feedback on the phone.

Nope, that wasn't possible. With two-thirds of the US having access to the Internet, it was only a matter of time before doctors started using email and/or the Web to give medical advice to their patients so I was delighted to see this news in a Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). Of course, the reason for this change is not because it would make things more convenient for the patients...it is because it would save the health insurance companies millions if not billions eventually.

Last month, Blue Shield of California became the first major U.S. health insurer to agree to cover online consultations between patients and their physicians, paying doctors $20 for a "Web call." The decision by California's third-largest health insurer could spark similar policy changes at other health plans during the next decade. The option is already under study at Cigna Corp., Health Net Inc., First Health Group Corp., Pacificare Health Systems Inc. and ConnectiCare.

...If patients could communicate with doctors over the Internet, more than 20% of all in-office visits could be eliminated, according to HealthCast 2010, a 1999 survey of health-care executives by PricewaterhouseCoopers. As a result, physicians would have more time for patients with serious medical concerns and employees would take less time away from work. Also, health plans could cut costs -- potentially several million dollars a month -- by paying $20 to $25 for a Web call compared with $50 to $70 for a doctor's visit.

A new medical problem for geeks? According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):

There are braces for bad knees, slings for sprained wrists, and now a remedy for sufferers of gadget addiction: splints for "Blackberry thumb."

...Fueling all this is an explosion in the number of people keeping in constant contact with friends, families and colleagues through wireless-data devices, more of which now use thumb keypads. The number of personal digital assistants in the U.S., including devices like the Palm and Blackberry, which is made by Research In Motion, jumped 43% to 8.3 million this year. Blackberry knockoffs such as the Hiptop are helping bring thumb-typing to the masses. And millions of cellphones can send text messages -- an obsession among young people in Japan and Europe that wireless carriers are promoting in the U.S.

According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) XM has raised $450M in additional capital from investors and customers like GM, just as its rival Sirius has raised $1.2B in financing recently.

The GM piece involves several components aimed at allowing XM to conserve cash. The auto maker is installing XM radios in 25 of its 2003 vehicle lines. GM will defer $115 million in payments that it would receive from XM between 2003 and 2005 under its distribution agreement; GM will in exchange receive $89 million of 10% senior secured discount convertible notes. GM also will provide a $100 million credit facility, and XM can satisfy up to $35 million in future obligations to GM in stock rather than cash. GM will get 10 million common-stock warrants for XM at $3.18 a share.

...XM is nearing 350,000 subscribers, and hopes by the end of 2003 to have 1.2 million subscribers. Most of the cash from the new funding agreements will be used to pay for sales and marketing efforts to attract new customers.

Analysts predict that we can probably not spend more than 35 nonwork hours a month on the phone according to this Wall Street Jouranl story (subscription required):

...we're rapidly approaching what the phone companies quietly dread: our natural blab barrier. In other words, we have just about reached the point where we have no more words left to impart.

It's the same kind of feeling you get when you circle an elaborate buffet table. You first think you can eat all that roast beef you took, but inevitably you leave a slab or two on your plate. Market research firm J.D. Power, for instance, reports that the average cellphone user talks 541 minutes per month, less than 40% of the 1,359 minutes available on the average plan. (That usage would roughly average 135 minutes a week, or just under 18 minutes a day, although in real life, usage changes throughout a week.)