Deserving of a separate post I think – those mobile browser stats show one important thing: Nobody cares about the web on mobile phones. The top 3 mobile browsers added up to a paltry 0.16% of web traffic, which for most Websites is approximately nothing. Of course if you are Google it’s a lot of …
Category Archives: Life
Goodbye payphones…
At least in chunks of the USA. AT&T is getting rid of them by the end of next year. The USA had 2.6m payphones in 1998 and about 1m now. Apparently, the story goes, AT&T (or someone else) commissioned McKinsey years ago to determine the demand for mobile phones. The answer that came back was …
Wanted: A CTO for our well-funded start-up
My cousin here in Perth is launching his mobile application start-up in earnest, with solid VC funding all but finalised from a group that has a successful track record of delivering mobile start-ups to market. The mobile application itself complete, and it is currently being tweaked offshore for the hundreds of phones out there. Now …
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once again The Onion speaks the truth
Entire blogosphere stunned NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday. The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was …
US housing crisis – more evidence
The October US new house sales statistics were revised after official release from 735k to 727k, and the September ones from 770k to 716k. Those are big differences, and signs that all is not well in housing land. So via the WSJ blog, a few tasty tidbits about the stats: It isn’t just the bottom …
How to win at Monopoly
Quite simple. Get the railroads and milk them, then the Orange properties – Bow, Marlbourough and Vine street in the UK edition. After that buy the light blue, and so on. alternatively buy something in the first two rows, put 3 houses on there, and then use the profit to buy something in the last …
Beat the Christmas rush – buy your Nintendo Wii now!
It seems Wii’s are running out of stores in the US as soon as they arrive, as it appears that the Wii is the Christmas item of choice. Actually that makes sense – at US$250 or so the Wii is not too expensive versus the Xbox and PS3. And let’s face it – everyone loves …
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Overall portfolio return: 72% this year
It’s been a great year for my US portfolio, which sadly is relatively small as most of my investments go into small private companies, with some to GMI. Here’s the return to date (green) versus the S&P500 (Blue). That green bar hits 72%, though I’m fairly sure there is an error in eTrade’s calculations, and …
Making money from eBay, Apple and Microsoft
Here’s an update on how my US share portfolio is going. Previously I was afraid that the tide was going to turn, and my 43% gain for the calendar year to September would be wiped out. First – Apple, Microsoft and eBay. I sold down 70% of my eBay holding the other week, as I …
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FreeRice: 350m pageviews and at least $320k profit
It appears, from the numerous excellent comments to the FreeRice article, that I made, well, a formula error in counting grains of rice, and it also appears that my estimate of cheapo CPM rates is perhaps, well, far too high. I really should have done a proper spreadsheet rather than use the calculator on OSX. …
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Why not charge $40 for a pack of cigarettes
Via Freakanomics, it seems that for men US$222, and for woman US$94, is the true cost of a packet of cigarettes, when you add in the net preent value of the damage to your health and lifespan. The public sector economist in me says that you should step in when there is a big disparity …
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BMW’s new F800 GS
Will this will be the overlanding bike of choice for the next few years? he question is whether the F800GS combines the best or the worst features of the dependable but heavy R1200GSA and the light but underpowered F650GS. Either way I want one. The photo above is a snippet from one of several over …
BNZ saga – the card
So my BNZ security card arrived yesterday. Here it is: Now I know where it is at least. BNZ to their credit did initiate yesterday the next transfer request for my rent. We were going back and forward for so long that the rental payment date arrived, and a helpful CS person (another in the …
Cycling Friendly Perth
I see that Perth didn’t make the list of the top 11 cycling friendly cities in the world, although somehow I doubt that 4 of the top 11 friendliest bike cities are in the USA. Anyway – perhaps this photo I took on a bicycle ride today will explain why Perth didn’t make the list: …
BNZ: Owning customers on and offline
During my sagas with BNZ I’ve been struck at how unfailingly polite and efficient the BNZ Customer Service Representitives (CSR’s) have been. They may be dealing with obsolescence on their screens, but at least they are nice with it. They. That’s an issue, and an issue that commenter Keith Tan pointed out also happens with …
Lance Wiggs 