Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'

Stock Slump

Many news sources are reporting that stocks are slumping for a second day on the back of the Shanghai index losing 8.8% of its value on Tuesday. However, looking at the web page of the Shanghai stock exchange, the index seems to be up by almost 4% on Wedesday. Is there a negative news bias on economic issues this week?

Update - According to the FT, bloggers seem to think that China was not the cause of the mass sell-off.

Trader Mike seconds that, and runs through the charts. “The selling was broad-based today [Tuesday] — 89% of Nasdaq stocks were down and 84% of NYSE stocks declined….I’ve said before that this move higher felt like a game of musical chairs and today the music seems to have stopped for real. There’s a whole lot of technical damage in the indices. All the indices crashed through their 50-day moving averages today.”

Company Relationship - Before and After

From Creating Passionate Users

It’s been said that the secret to a good marriage is… don’t change. In other words, be the person you were when you were merely dating. Don’t stop paying attention. Don’t stop being kind. Don’t gain 50 pounds. Don’t stop flirting. Stay passionate, stay sexy, stay caring. Answer their calls. Unfortunately, too many companies are all candle-lit dinners, fine wine, and “let’s talk about you” until the deal is sealed. Once they have you (i.e. you became a paying customer), you realize you got a bait-and-switch relationship.

A license to sin?

From the New York Times

Kivetz also interviewed 69 students from Columbia University who had returned one week previously from winter break and found that as a group they were split in roughly equal numbers between regret and contentment for having worked or partied. But when Kivetz talked to alumni who graduated 40 years earlier, the picture was much more lopsided: those who hadn’t partied were bitter with regret, while those who had were now thrilled with their choice. “In the long run,” Kivetz says, “we inevitably regret being virtuous and wish we’d been bigger hedonists.”

Henrik Larsson goes to Manchester United

Here is Sweden it is being reported that Henrik Larsson will be unveiled as a Manchester United player today. Haven’t seen anything being reported outside Sweden about it so far.

How rich are you?

Via Marginal Revolution comes an interesting site on showing how rich one is on a global level.

Happy Halloween


Quite an imaginative costume for the day that’s in it. Check out the story from Gizmodo on how the costume is made.

Step Away from the Computer

From Okdork:

Get back out into the world and do something. Go outside (not to a wireless hotspot), be social (but don’t hurt yourself trying), talk to your friends (without saying lol), spend time with your family (without mentioning Ebay, Amazon or Google), eat something that can’t possibly be eaten cold the morning after

How to kill your wife

Hit and Run runs through some of the data released by AOL last week and finds some disturbing searches being made.

America Online is getting raked over the coals for releasing a portion of its users’ search data. It deserves all the criticism it’s getting, but I have to say I’m a little freaked out by some of the AOL subscribers as well.

Take this search history, for “user 17556639″:

17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 how to kill your wife
17556639 wife killer
17556639 how to kill a wife
17556639 poop
17556639 dead people
17556639 pictures of dead people

Norwegian

After yesterday’s post about how annoyed I was by airline pricing strategies, I came across one today that completely shows how to make the customer experience an enjoyable one. Norwegian Airlines at each point showed me the complete cost of the ticket each including all charges. At the end, it displays the cost with the tax that was charged as you can see in the little summary below.

Departure
Stockholm - Oslo
Friday 28. jul 2006 18:30
Flight DY817 - Low fare
1 Adult 100 €

Return
Oslo - Stockholm
Sunday 30. jul 2006 15:50
Flight DY812 - Low fare
1 Adult 75 €

Total price (all inclusive) 175 €

Taxes account for 33 €
Web service charge 0 €

New cell phone to prevent drunk dialing

It’s funny, I didn’t know that the Koreans were big drinkers. That’s why this story about LG’s breathalyser is surprising. I would have expected the Finnish company Nokia to have invented this.

The phone can also be programmed to block selected numbers in the address book–bosses, moms, exes, pizzerias–if the breath analyzer records a blood-alcohol concentration over 0.08