More whistle-blowing!

This sure has been the week of whistle-blowers. The Bin Laden story, the Mumbai terrorist attack story and now the emails from East Anglia.

The last story, is truely dissappointing and nasty coming from UN's Intergovernal panel on climate change.


Tax dollars are being allocated to this research and the least that the research community owes is to report their findings without getting caught in the political clap-trap.
 
Sad but true, the global warming campaign is yet another "elite-only" one.  Basically, one that cannot even be on the radar of the world's poor. They cannot afford it or care about it! But they are forced to think about it, because someone has a theory about it? Today's article by Bjorn Lomborg, talked about the conflicting theories around the melting glaciers in the Himalyas and reality around the poor living conditions in Nepal. Can we spend some cycles solving real problems first pleasey?
 
It would help to stop wasting all our think-cycles talking about global warming and focus on some of the real issues, especially when there is no convincing evidence that global warming is real in the first place.

Net neutrality regulated by FCC? Why?

Today's article in the journal was right on the money in pointing out that the FCC need not play "net neutrality" by imposing its power over the Web. The market, as we all know will play itself out and will reward the most fair option. Competing, even if the technology is ahead of the market, in a free market, is a healthy way to weed out unfair monopolies. The analogy of the FCC playing the role of the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission - which set rail rules and tariffs to slow innovation in transportation) bringing bureaucracy into an otherwise healthy free market place, makes this sound more like the "net bias" act.

Learning to survive the economic disaster...

Yes, it helps to start early and start at the very beginning of each story - the players and the stakeholders in each scene, to really understand the current economic disaster.

The economic climate is changing and new models are being applied. How will all this play out? Well... no one knows! But, reading about it is like ammunition you absolutely need to survive in these times.

The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell is a very easy read. It provides clarity in terms of how things work - both the basics and the politics of it. The author leads you to understand the mistakes made in the past. I found it very resourceful to have a structure within which I could then fit all the current news and daily headlines.

In a world of search engines and social media it is easy to get clouded by and follow the popular post! A clear understanding of the problem and the framework within which it operates, helps ask the right questions, before you agree or dis-agree with today's popular housing trend headlines.

That said, I think housing is yet to see bottom!

New generation of social media sites value privacy...

Historically, anonymity and promiscuity have been directly proportional. Today, here to stay, is a new rash of online support sites which work as support groups for people around the world. However, these sites are private, unlike the public social-media-style sites. CommunityofVeterans.org quoted in WSJ is a private peer support-group site - one of many next generation online support group sites. These sites are modeled after social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. The idea is to provide a familiar user experience to visitors and registered members. The concept mainly resonates with the social media generation and is catching on really fast, apparently.

Those of us who are not friends with our shrink or choose to see a shrink in another town, understand why anonymity is important to get therapy - mainly helps patients be candid and share their hidden fears and feelings.

Now, how could a site like bedpost.com help its users by being private? The website enables users to log their sex-life information and share it with their partners alone. Users maintain a log and reflect on what the graph looks like. This is bizarre!

Wouldn't it help more to know how many others share your pattern? What their profiles look like? Also, maybe, know how many vote that they like/dislike your taste?

Check out PlentyOfFish.com. It is a free dating site and has 15,000 happy registered users. It is listed as the most remunerative (bringing about $10,000 from Adsense per day) site. What's more, it has only the site's owner managing it! It is open to the world.

Today, "creativity and content" on websites bring traffic, users and lots of money. Anonymity is out-dated my friends!

Another win for California residents ...

Say you are an affiliate. You have web pages... on these pages you have links to products sold by online retailers like Amazon and others... your commission is based on traffic directed to online retailer sites through your website... these online retailers pay you directly for traffic they receive through your site. This is the simple model.

Today morning, Sacramento wanted to collect sales tax on commission paid by online retailers to affiliates residing in California. (Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island are others imposing this rule). This gives the online retailers two options: absorb the cost of sales tax in these states and pay all its affiliates uniform commissions, or pass the cost on to customers. Both options take away from the basic low-cost structure advantage of online retailers vs. brick-and-mortar.

Of course the online retailers don't like this one bit! They protested by threatening to drop affiliates residing in California. (I believe New York's Internet-sales-tax rules have forced Amazon to start collecting taxes in New York).

Could California really afford to loose out on income tax revenue on lost income by affiliates?

Really?

Quickly, this evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office provided assurance that California will not make this a law.

Thankfully, the online retailers won this one... I can still shop online to avoid paying state tax!

Digital diagnoses might save us!

More patients are visiting their physicians online because more insurers have begun paying for digital diagnoses. (BTW, this means that your doc will text you your diagnoses or you can have a live chat/video session).

The article from Wall Street Journal this morning lists people's experiences (for both mild conditions like sinus infections and chronic conditions like diabetes) indicating the huge convenience and time saving aspect of this format. There are forms and rules to ensure that the interaction is mostly secure and reliable.

Online visits cost far less. Patients pay $20 - $30 per visit or session when un-insured. Typically, insurance pays upwards of $100 per physical visit. Neither covers the cost of medication. Since health insurance providers are for-profit organizations and certainly maintain their lofty margins, people will be better off opting out of health insurance.

So, when the demand for health insurance goes down I guess it will get cheaper and affordable. At least that is how it should work.

I like the cost structure of this format because it has the momentum to drive this model for both affordable care and medication.... certainly better than the government paying for un-insured health care and taxing me more!

Besides this is another case where technology solves the problem better... a more sustainable solution ... The Innovators Prescription!