Category: Personal

Ponzi scheme: What does that mean?

Many times you may have read or heard the phrase Ponzi scheme in connection with an investment and wondered where the name originated. Well, thanks to Mark Knutson, you can read all about it on the Charles K. Ponzi Website. In short, Ponzi was an Italian immigrant who, in Boston in the 1920s, promised investors outrageous returns on their money in a very short time. What he really did was use money put in by later investors to pay back early investors, of course taking a cut for himself, until the scheme collapsed under its own weight (that is, there were too many ‘later’ investors and not enough money to pay them their reward). Further, the local authorities couldn’t understand where his investment gains were coming from and, auditing him, uncovered the truth. Another name for this is the pyramid scheme and, more recently, multi-level marketing. [a few hours later…] Came across another interesting article about MLM

Thanks to the Captain of the USS Clueless for the referral.

Pompei: a contrarian view

Given my recent visit, I was definitely interested when I saw a link to Mary Beard’s article What Might Have Happened Upstairs in the London Review of Books. The article uses a book review as the launching pad for a discussion of current academic thinking on Pompei, though Beard also comments favorably on the book. The view is very different from what you get at Pompei itself, which I suppose isn’t too surprising given the touristy, money making environment.

Instead, this article makes the major point that Vesuvius had been smoking and bubbling for several weeks prior to exploding and so most of the folks with half a brain or more had left by the time of the big bang. The other point not mentioned on site, but in this article, is that from the time the lava cooled until the official beginning, 250 years ago, of the area’s excavation it was constantly being searched by looters for goods they could haul off and sell. One can imagine how little was left for the excavators to find.

I do not look like this

For those of you wise/foolish enough to search in, say, Google for me and happen across an article about Silicon Valley College, this picture is NOT ME! It’s another Bill Lazar who lives in Sunnyvale. I have never lived in Sunnyvale, I do not have a receeding hairline (at least not yet), and I am not completely, or even largely, gray.

Nor am I the (now deceased) former president of the Luxor Cab Company of San Francisco.

Nor am I associated with the Lazar Foundation of Portland, OR, although its mission is one I would favor: to support environmental groups and research in the Pacific Northwest. In 1999 (latest year available), the foundation made 91 grants totalling $835,005. The Lazar Foundation was founded in 1959. Cool!

I am, however, the co-author of CA-Visual Objects Developer’s Guide with Gary Stark and Carl Ganz. However, this book was published in 1995 and is waaaaay out of date, so don’t buy it even if you can find a copy.

Sports and patriotism: why?

Lance Armstrong is a great racing cyclist, having won the previous two Tour de France races and now leading his third. But I’m not much of a cycling fan, I’ve only ever seen highlights on ESPN, and the times I’ve been interested are when Armstrong or Greg Lemond (four times at the top: 1986, 1989, 1990, and 1991) have won. Otherwise, I could really care less. I’m not really jingoistic but there’s just something about an American athlete or team winning an international event that revvs me up.

Once again, porn is driving new technology

Remember the first VCRs? What types of tapes were most likely to be found playing in them? Porn. For what type of Internet content are the most people will to pay? If you said porn again, you’d be correct. So is it surprising that with the most recent generation of PDAs, devices that support video on color screens, porn is once again pioneering the economic model? The LA Times reports all this and more in Private Screening in Public Places. Me? I never look at the stuff!

Today’s movie: Requiem for a Dream

Director Darren Aronofsky knows weird. I mean strange. Plus, he knows Brooklyn or he found someone who told him the way to Coney Island and back. So, if you want to see a really cool film that is only superficially about the evils of drugs but is really about the evils of addictions of all types, check out this film. Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans (yes, the same guy who made you puke in Scary Movie) give great performance–only Connelly gives head (although you don’t actually see this onscreen)–and Aronofsky and editor Jay Rabinowitz take their performances to an entirely different plane with shot selection, pacing, and sound effects. Definitely cool but you need to have an open mind to enjoy.

How to Become As Rich As Bill Gates

Philip Greenspun’s essay starts out sassy: Lesson 1: Choose Your Grandparents Carefully and Lesson 2: Choose Your Parents Carefully. But he does get serious with his last four lessons. And he takes a stab at one of the enduring questions of capitalism, which is why do really rich people keep trying to get richer:

Socrates asserts that people who’ve inherited fortunes tend to be light with their money but that people who’ve made their fortunes “have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.”

Don’t miss his amusing sidebar, The Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock, which could use some updating but is still good for a laugh or cry, depending on your mood or his take on money and investing.

First Enterprise promo with footage is out!

Mark your calendar in a big bold font on September 26 for the premiere of Enterprise. The good folks at TrekEnterprise have posted the first promo with series footage, a digitized version of the UPN commercial. I just can’t wait, this is going to be soooo good!

When a good man goes bad

Back in the 1970s and ’80s, Jeffrey Archer was an author whose novels I read avidly. He’s recently gotten involved in politics in the UK, almost becoming mayor of London before being charged (and now convicted) with perjury and intending to pervert the course of justice at his 1987 libel trial against The Star. During the suit in which these crimes were committed, he won 500,000 pounds from The Star; the tabloid printed a story alleging that Archer paid a prostitute for sex. It’s a convoluted story but he apparently lied to bolster the truth, not because he actually paid the pro. But now he’s going to pay: 32 months in prison. Archer, of course, is going to appeal.

And Lord Archer wasn’t the only creative type to go down to the law today: Old Dirty Bastard (aka Russell Jones) of rap group Wu Tang Clan was sentenced to four years in NY’s finest accomodations for possession of a controlled substance, cocaine and marijuana.

Itanium: Sun Microsystems’ worst nightmare?

Ashok Kumar, an executive and senior research analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, posted an opinion piece on CNET.com explaining why the first generation 64 bit chips from Intel won’t do much harm but the second and third gens, coming by 2003, will cause Sun serious difficulties if Sun persists in only offering the proprietary SPARC line.

Not so sure Kumar is right though. Improvements in Solaris and newer versions of the chip will improve performance and while, as stated, other *NIX vendors will offer their systems on Itanium I expect these vendors will also attempt to maintain the price points of the systems at current levels so that Sun will still be able to compete on price/performance. Perhaps more significantly, Kumar is overlooking two things Sun has kept in the backpocket: Solaris on Intel, which is not actively being ported to Itanium but a good amount of the work was done before that project was put on hold, and the Cobalt Server Appliances, which run Linux on Intel-compatible chips. If necessary, management could seriously rev up either or both of these quickly.

Do it yourself law for Californians

Our thoughtful employees in Sacramento have assembled the California Courts Self-Help Center. “This site is intended to help you find legal assistance, learn about California law, work better with an attorney, and represent yourself in some legal matters. This site does not provide legal advice.” Looking through the site, it appears to have a good deal of useful information for state residents even if you intend to use an attorney. One topic not found on the site is information for individuals facing criminal charges but I agree that such information is lower priority than what is here: family and juvenile law, domestic violence, small claims, traffic court, and help finding free or low cost legal representation and additional information resources.

Another top site for this kind of information is Nolo Self-Help Law, which just won the 2001 Webby Award in the government and law category.

Sleeping policeman

A lot of what government does is regulate behavior: under 21? can’t drink, have an infection? get a prescription before you can buy antibiotics, really mad at someone? oh no, you can’t kill them! Coming soon, per this Economist.com article is intelligent speed adaptation, technology being developed in Europe that will combine GPS with maps that include speed limit information to prevent drivers from exceeding that limit. Sure, I know, speed kills and causes more accidents and higher insurance premiums but somehow I doubt this will get too far in America, the home of the free. What do you think?

A great lady dies

Katharine Graham, fomer chairwoman and CEO of The Washington Post Co. died today from head injuries received in a fall a few days ago. Mrs. Graham, working with editor Ben Bradlee, transformed the Post into one of the world’s leading newspapers during her tenure. Without her backing, I’m not sure the Pentagon Papers would have been published or if Woodward and Bernstein would have been able to pursue the investigation that lead to the resignation of President Nixon. She was thrust into a leadership role unexpectedly in the early ’60s when her husband commited suicide after a long bout with mental illness and she remained at the head of the company for 30 years. Her autobiography won a Pulitzer Prize three years ago; in it, she saw herself as an accidental tourist at the helm of a high speed yacht but those who worked with her insisted her success was no accident.

Tonight’s movie, sort of: Touching Evil

Well, Touching Evil isn’t a movie but a TV series, although tonight’s broadcast of the first episode was two hours long. A British import shown on PBS’ Mystery, this detective show was pretty good if you’re willing to put up with not understanding all the dialog due to mumbling Britishisms. Robson Green stars as a detective inspector just back to work after recovering from a gunshot to his brain and he’s up against a nasty bit of work in pharmaceutical engineer Dr. Ronald Hinks (Ian McDiarmid, Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars Episodes I and II). Given the vagaries of public television scheduling, I sure hope the next episode is on at the same time next week; according to the KCSM schedule, it is.

Today’s movie: The Score

Bob Graham, writing in the SF Chronicle, gave The Score a very positive review. My parents gave it a glowing report. I went with two of my friends and we all were looking for rusty railroad spikes to drive through our heads to end the agony. This is a Hollywood heist movie, like The Thomas Crown Affair, and the key to a successful heist flick is a continual ratcheting up of the tension (such as when Rene Russo accompanies Pierce Brosnan to his Caribbean hideaway) but director (and Miss Piggy/Yoda voiceman) Frank Oz never gives us any tension to ratchet up until almost the very end, which he then ignores for the remaining 90 seconds of the film. Don’t be surprised when Brando first comes on screen: he’s bulked up and looks like an orca in a bad suit. Not recommended!

Added captions to the Italy pictures

In another stunning example of Bill’s incredible PHP programming skills, captions have been added to the 2001 Italy Trip Pictures. The captions are stored in a database and will be used in multiple locations on the site.

Emmys update

The Academy has now posted a text page with all the Primetime EMMY Nominations listed and so we can see where the rest of the Sopranos’s 22 nods came in. The show got four of the five drama writing and three of the five drama directing nominations plus Annabella Sciorra for drama guest actress and noms in casting, costume, editing (two), sound mixing, art direction, and makeup in addition to those mentioned here Thursday.

The Springsteen nominations were for outstanding variety, musical or comedy special; directing for a variety or music program; editing for a miniseries, novel or a special; lighting directing for a variety, musical or comedy program; sound mixing for a variety or music series or special; and, technical direction, camerawork, video for a miniseries, movie or a special. Bruce himself is nominated as a producer with the outstanding variety, musical or comedy special nod.

Star Trek: Voyager capped its last season with eight nominations but none for acting, writing, or directing: costume, makeup, music composition (two), sound editing, and special visual effects (also two).

Shalom Auslander is an angry m%$@#*f*&$##

But in a good way. Like Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor (if Pryor was white). Anyway, he writes a weekly column for Esquire called Dubious Achievements. Recently Auslander picked on Congressman Condit, Tough love teen camps, and Nikki Taylor. The columns are short, so read lots and don’t blame me if your ears burn from the anger and profanity.