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November 30, 2003
Only $80?
DNA sequencing for children: "Discovery toys is selling an $80 toy called the DNA Explorer, which allows small children to extract and sequence the DNA from a variety of foodstuffs." That's a long way from the chemistry set I used to have.
There's gotta be some devious, sinister way to use this thing (sharks with frickin' laser beams?) and you can bet some kid in suburbia somewhere will figure out how.
Posted by sam at 12:21 AM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2003
Melting glaciers may make billions
Melting glaciers may make billions thirsty: "The world's glaciers could melt within a century if global warming accelerates, leaving billions of people short of water and some islanders without a home, environmentalists said."
Posted by sam at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)
Buy Nothing Day
Today is Buy Nothing Day sponsored by Adbusters.
Posted by sam at 11:20 AM | Comments (2)
November 27, 2003
We've got leftover Turkey for months
There are benefits to cooking Thanksgiving dinner at your own house. Eating pumpkin pie at four in the afternoon, for example. I didn't have to fight with Derrick and David for leftover sweet potatoes or rolls. I could make the sweet potato stuff with 10% potatoes and 90% brown sugar, pecans and marshmallows. And we watched Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life with dinner.
Dinner was great - Breean has photos of the grub. But I forgot the cranberry sauce. And it's just not the same without the family.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by sam at 10:09 PM | Comments (4)
"I'm a Maverick, not a mogul!"
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban challenges the dynamics of the movie industry. Beautiful, it's about time.
Posted by sam at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
The answer is... no
Big Thunder Mountain broken by negligence:
Looks like the fatal crash on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain was the result of poor maintenance. Disneyland's maintenance has been suffering ever since a group of McKinsey and ex-McKinsey consultants advised them to save money by cutting back on preventative maintenance and forcing out experienced, senior cast-members. Management consultants: is there anything they can't screw up?
Posted by sam at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
What is The Meatrix?
Posted by sam at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
November 26, 2003
Best online food
This is more for my future reference than anything else. A Holiday Ride From the Internet to the Table. The best online food gifts, from fish to sweets to fruit. I'm a little bit skeptical of mail-order barbeque, but the cakes look good.
Posted by sam at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2003
This is the best: "Approach versus 'Being Approachable'"
Accenture had two memos recently published on Internalmemos.com. No dates are provided though, so I'm going to assume they were released relatively close to each other.
- "Reshaping Our Workforce", in which the CEO says that 1% of the total workforce will be laid off.
- "Creating an Environment of Retention", in which the Asia Pacific CEO discusses the problem of top performer retention.
This reminds me of my first week on the job at Praja. Walking through the hall I saw a friend from school who had worked there part-time for several years. He was there to get a letter of recommendation from the CEO for his application to the MIT Media Lab. He said to me, "Sam, I think all the smart people left already." He got in, BTW, and now works on runs the Government Information Awareness project.
A month and a half later I was thrown to the curb along with 70% of the company.
Posted by sam at 10:41 PM | Comments (2)
November 22, 2003
The dangers of produce mom never told you about
Mom, you'll like this: Produce Becoming Increasing Source for Food Illnesses: "Scientists and some government officials say illnesses have risen sharply because people are eating more fresh produce and want it year-round, leading to an increase in imports from countries with less stringent sanitary standards."
I don't mean that you'll like people getting sick from produce, just that it's about the increasing costs of non-local food production.
Posted by sam at 05:06 PM | Comments (1)
More from the science-meets-Simpsons series
Remember Blinky the three-eyed fish created by nuclear waste dumped in the water behind Burns' power plant? Well, GloFish are not quite that cool, but they are genetically engineered to glow in the dark. [from /.]
Posted by sam at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
Is it Christmas already?
Posted by sam at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
My favorite quote: "Power isn't fun anymore"
From Washingtonpost.com: The Slough of Uncertainty [from bubblegeneration]. The nature of power in business is changing, and if your company doesn't understand the implications, it's in big trouble. I don't like the CBS example though. Maybe it's just because of my political sensibility, but I think that's just a case of Big Media's extreme gutlessness.
The corporate executives who preside over these empires are questioning all the rules they've lived by. Bigness, for instance. For CEOs, bigness turns out to mean that they have to spend their days managing downward -- communicating with increasingly remote and baffled employees, trying to explain why certain decisions haven't been made.
In the era of Internet blogs, all memos are leaked, which only adds to executive insecurity. Businesses today swim in a rancid scum of aired feelings. One lone guy at a PC keyboard loosed the right-wing Web warriors who brought mighty CBS to its knees over the Reagan miniseries. CEOs can no longer kid themselves they are admired and fearless leaders -- and if they cherish any such delusions, a visit to the company chat room will quickly cure them.
...
"Power isn't fun anymore," one financial services honcho told me at a function the other night. "You can't do anything by fiat."
Posted by sam at 12:44 PM | Comments (1)
November 20, 2003
It's the economy, stupid
Which Party in the White House Means Good Times for Investors? Democrats, and it's not even close.
One interesting finding is that although both large and small companies do better under Democratic administrations, small companies do especially well, while larger ones do only a little better. The return on the smallest 10 percent of traded companies is 21 percent higher during Democratic administrations, while the return on the largest 10 percent is only 7.7 percent greater.Of course they have absolutely no idea why this might be true, and neither do I.
Posted by sam at 06:06 PM | Comments (2)
November 19, 2003
Sam's Wal-Mart watch
Wal-Mart kicks off toy price war:
The Wall Street Journal reports that a survey conducted by Banc of America Securities found that Wal-Mart's prices of 15 popular toys were 12 percent lower than those of Toys "R" Us.Toys "R" Us is down 2.65% today alone after posting a quarterly loss of 18 cents per share. They're in big trouble.
...
And it reported that some of Wal-Mart's retail prices are below wholesale prices. For instance, it is charging $29.74 for the Hot Wheels T-Wrecks Play Set, which has a wholesale price of $42, and $19.46 for the Sesame Street Hokey Pokey Elmo, whose wholesale price is $24.
Posted by sam at 11:26 AM | Comments (2)
November 18, 2003
A little pressure
Somehow I made it through eight chapters of statistics this afternoon. I've had an exceedingly difficult time concentrating on it until today (midterm tomorrow).
I wish the professor brought in some real-world examples to bring this stuff to life. I'd like to hear about real disasters caused by faulty studies or poor statistical interpretation. Without that, this class is dry.
Posted by sam at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
Worse than Worldcom? Enron? Even Mary Meeker?
NY Times: Funds and Games. Economist Paul Krugman gives a solid rundown of the current mutual fund scandal, quoting Arthur Levitt who calls it “the worst scandal we've seen in 50 years.”
If he’s right this is going to get a lot worse. You’ll see a lot of institutional money flowing out mutuals, and with prices dropping the common folk will probably start to sell as well. Who’s going to be picking stocks for a disillusioned public that can’t trust anyone?
Posted by sam at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2003
Saving Private Lynch
Jessica Lynch, From hero, to whistle-blower, to celebrity:
Lynch is also a mite angry about the Pentagon's manipulation of events and can't seem to stop correcting the record.Naturally the Pentagon and the media (okay, which deserves more blame?) want to put her in the 'rescued hero' box and use the miraculous rescue script we're all so familiar with. But it doesn't fit. And until today I didn't even know.
She says she never got off a shot because her gun jammed. The Iraqi medical staff were kindness itself. She was out cold for three hours after her Humvee crashed in the grenade attack, so she doesn't remember any sexual assault. And shocked Iraqi doctors deny it.
As for the dramatic, Rambo-style hospital raid on April 1, she says there was no resistance, no Iraqi military in the hospital, and staff even offered the rescuers a key.
The Pentagon "used me to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch told a fawning Diane Sawyer on ABC last week. "It's wrong."
Posted by sam at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
Record labels under attack
Pearl Jam, on Its Own, Seizes the Moment and Sells CD on the Web. PJ sold 4,800 copies of a new song in two days on their own web site. I'll have to get it later tonight.
Posted by sam at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)
It's the small victories in life
This is so cool! I just found out that if you search Google for "cornell bloggers", two pages on tingleff.com come up as the # 1 and # 2 results. We'll see how long it lasts! My goal has always been to be the first Sam (yeah, good luck) on the list and this is a small step in the right direction.
To show my respect I started a very small directory of Cornell bloggers. As always Harvard is the competition. Contact me with any updates. And to tell me anything I can do to help grow the list!
Posted by sam at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2003
Hotel gyms
WSJ.com: Hotels Pump Up Their Gyms to Lure Execs Seeking Pecs (sub req'd). Finally. This is what, 10 years behind customer demand?
A good gym and high-speed internet access is about all I ask for from a business hotel. Both in the same hotel is pretty rare.
Posted by sam at 01:22 PM | Comments (2)
November 14, 2003
The Wal-Mart you don't know
Fast Company describes The Wal-Mart You Don't Know:
On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.The consequences are clearly not only about losing jobs. But with consumers unwilling to shop elsewhere at higher prices, and suppliers forced to... supply, what can you do?
...
Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart.
Posted by sam at 06:36 PM | Comments (0)
'That information is absolutely false and he had no right to release it to the public'
H&R Block sues for the anonymous posting of "false" and "confidential" information. 'Scuse me? I'd love to be the judge to hear that argument.
Posted by sam at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2003
Sam's first b-school lesson
Sam's first real lesson from b-school: if you really want something done, don't use email. Most people are too busy and too overloaded with meaningless 'stuff' and junk mail to pay attention to anything important. Not really news, but it hadn't fully hit home with me till now.
Posted by sam at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
"Your paypal.com account expires"
This is horrible. People, please don't fall for stuff like this.
"To avoid any interruption in PayPal services then you will need to run the application that we have sent with this email (see attachment) and follow the instructions. Please do not send your personal information through email, as it will not be as secure."
Posted by sam at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2003
From a job posting that will remain nameless:
"Skilled at synergisizing information from a plethora of market research and competitive analysis resources." "Synergisizing"?? Hahaha. It's hard not to enjoy it when people expecting perfection from us screw up.
Posted by sam at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)
Not the first time I've learned from Dave
I learned something new from Dave Barry today. Many office thermostats are fakes!
Heating in large buildings is usually controlled by a few sadists in the basement, with non-functioning thermostats positioned throughout the building to keep the minions happy. Dave points out that most office workers are similarly effective.
And those 'close door' buttons in elevators don't do anything unless you're a fireman or operator with special access.
Posted by sam at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)
First large study of social vc investments
From HBS: The Hard Numbers on Social Investments [from SAP Ventures]. Harvard b-school students analyzed the financial returns of 110 early-stage investments by Investors' Circle, a VC "intermediary whose mission is to support early-stage, private companies that drive the transition to a sustainable economy."
They looked at 110 out of 128 investments from 1992 to 2001, seeking to determine whether social investments can provide positive returns. The answer, in classic MBA fashion, is "it depends."
Keys to success were similar to traditional VC money: "Those in the top quartile invested in four times as many companies as those in the lowest quartile and participated in 40 percent more rounds of company financing as compared to all other investors." The problem was liquidity.
Posted by sam at 06:22 PM | Comments (2)
November 10, 2003
Pop art
I forgot to mention that I put up photos from our move across the country. From now on I'll try to keep my photo index up-to-date. Hopefully more coming soon.
Posted by sam at 12:36 AM | Comments (4)
November 09, 2003
From Malcolm in the Middle
Wisdom from Breean's favorite Hal: "Employee of the month awards are the opiate of the masses."
Posted by sam at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
Snow!
I went to NYC Thursday night with the Johnson Consulting Club. We spent the night at the Helmsley Windsor on West 58th (good location, nice rooms, horrible breakfast, overpriced). Then visited IBM Business Consulting Services, Deloitte Consulting and the American Express Strategic Planning and Business Development Group on Friday.
Of the three the Amex was easily my favorite, for the actual work, the lifestyle (less travel) and 'cultural fit'. Amex is the only job I've seen through on-campus recruiting that I would actually take. If only it were 1999 and they had to beg me to take the job, rather than the other way around. Maybe by the time I graduate.
We arrived back in Ithaca at one in the morning Saturday, and I swear it was 20 degrees colder than when I left. It was easily 10 degrees colder than the city.
Saturday morning we woke up to light snow - the first of the year. It was beautiful.
Posted by sam at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
Sounds good to me
CD Baby sells CDs by independent artists. Supposedly musicians take home $6-$12 per CD sold vs. $1-$2 for major labels. They also claim to listen to every CD they sell to provide personalized recommendations.
Posted by sam at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2003
What does this mean for Democratic presidential candidates?
Bloom Is on the Economy: "The unemployment rate fell to 6 percent in October, down from a peak of 6.4 percent in June but still far above the low of 3.9 percent reached in December 2000." Seems to be reaching the tipping point.
Posted by sam at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2003
Wal-Mart is doomed
Stores Follow Wal-Mart's Lead in Labor [from bubblegeneration]:
Wal-Mart's mania for selling goods at rock-bottom prices has trained consumers to expect deep discounts everywhere they shop, forcing competing retailers to follow suit or fall behind.Wal-Mart will see an increasing number of scandals as a consequence of their solitary focus on price. They'll try to blame everything on contractors or suppliers - will that legal/PR strategy be successful?
The Oct. 23 arrest of 250 illegal aliens working for outside cleaning crews at 61 Wal-Mart stores nationwide underscores another aspect of Wal-Mart's low-price formula: a fervent effort to hold down labor costs. This week the retailer said it has received a "target letter" from a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania, signifying that Wal-Mart itself is under investigation for its role in using illegal workers.
Part of the reason the chain is able to offer a microwave oven for under $30 or a 24-can package of Sam's Choice cola for $3.64 or a gas-powered lawn mower for under $150, for instance, is because it contracts with outside janitorial services -- some of which have questionable hiring practices -- and relies heavily on lower-paid part-time workers, say unions and competitors.
Posted by sam at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2003
The The Hard Road to
The The Hard Road to a Paycheck. Employment rate for African American men is 60%:
The employment rate for white men in September, for example, was 70.3 percent. The rate for Hispanic men was 75, and for Asian American men it was 70.1.
Broken down further, the rate for African American men ages 40 to 44 -- Kelly's group -- was 10 percentage points lower than for whites, and the rate for men ages 20 to 24 -- Carter's group -- was 21 percentage points lower than for whites.
Posted by sam at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2003
Simpsons fan creates tomacco
If you remember the fifth episode of season 11, you'll remember how Homer and Bart conjured up a plant they called 'Tomacco'. It was an addictive cross between tobacco and tomato, and everything from cows to pigs (Chief Wiggum) went crazy for it.
Apparently one dedicated fan has actually cross-bred tomatoes and tobacco to create... tomacco.
Posted by sam at 09:00 AM | Comments (2)
November 02, 2003
Going back to Cali
I booked my California travel today. Arrive in San Diego on Dec. 16 at 9:30 pm, return from Long Beach to NYC on Dec. 21 at 9 am. I have to be in LA for Breean's friend Thuy's wedding, so I'll be up there from the 19th.
I'm flying Jet Blue for the first time. It sucks not to get United miles but UA was just too expensive and did not have enough flights.
Posted by sam at 03:18 PM | Comments (3)
Yum
The FDA says that cloned meat is probably safe.
Posted by sam at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2003
Not that there's anything wrong with washing dishes
WSJ.com says that employers are now asking for SAT scores, primarily for entry-level jobs in financial services and investment banking. My god, that's even worse than using undergraduate grades.
B-schools see the same behavior from elitist consulting firms and i-banks. I've decided that there is a purpose to it. If an employer makes it known that they require a specific GPA/test score/etc., I don't have to waste my time researching them as a potential employer. "Cultural fit" is their term, I believe.
Of course with an attitude like that I'll probably end up washing dishes at Applebee's next summer.
Posted by sam at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)
More on the job market
Interesting piece in the NY Times about conflict in the workplace between Gen X/Y (18-34) and their older counterparts. The establishment complains that "the things they ask us about are benefits, rewards and career opportunities - the things that impact 'me' - rather than where are we going to be as a company in 10 to 15 years."
But of course nobody under 35 (does anybody over 35?) expects to be with the same company for nearly that long. Why? It's a "sophisticated response to a workplace that operates without the myth of job security."
There's also complaints that for "Gen X'ers, everything is apparently open for negotiation," frequently over work-life balance. Again, sounds reasonable to me.
My question is how business and the economy will change when we're in charge?
Posted by sam at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)
It turns out that the
It turns out that the hotel key card thing I talked about earlier is an urban legend. And I fell for it! Oh well.
Posted by sam at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)