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?

Sopranos: Not a summer show

Fresh off a leading all shows 22 Emmy nominations, HBO announced programming news. The cable network will broadcast all existing 39 episodes in widescreen format starting August 12. Fans might hope that season four would premiere on week 40, in late May, but no–that ain’t gonna happen. Scheduling Sopranos then would interfere with the new seasons of Sex and the City and new hit 6 Feet Under, not too mention creative genius David Chase and crew might not be ready by then. So don’t expect new Sopranos episodes until September 2002 (production is set for October).

On the good news side of the ledger, HBO is apparently forking over $20 million to ensure a season five. This is probably a good thing, there has to be more than 52 great hours of television in this story. Chase did drop a few notes on his season four thinking, even though no scripts have been turned in yet. Chase said he has no plans to bring back Tony Soprano’s girlfriend, Gloria, played by Annabella Sciorra, or the injured Russian war veteran (Vitali Baganov), who disappeared in the snowy Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Okay about Gloria, who we did get some resolution with, but the Pine Barrens episode was a classic and I can’t believe Chase will leave that dangling.

The NY Daily News is also reporting that the deal may be for tow more seasons, not just one as the actors have contracts tying them up for six seasons (Chase’s deal was for four) and because 65, not to mention 78, episodes makes the show much more salable in syndication. I never expected Sopranos to be syndicated due the nudity and profanity but apparently they’ve been shooting two versions all along.

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.

World’s Smallest Political Quiz

Go ahead, take the quiz and find out in about a minute where you are on the range. I scored squarely as a “Left-Liberals. Left-Liberals prefer self-government in personal matters and central decision-making on economics. They want government to serve the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Leftists tolerate social diversity, but work for economic equality.” My Personal Self-Government Score is 80% and my Economic Self-Government Score is 40%. The quiz has been taken over 1.1 million times as of this writing, with my crowd running a poor third at 16.9%; not surprisingly for the Web, Libertarians are at the top with 38.1%. From the site’s FAQ: “Who produces the Quiz? The Quiz is produced by the Advocates for Self-Government, a non-profit, non-partisan libertarian educational organization.” The FAQ does make at least one good point: the old “linear” model of political beliefs (that is, from left to right) is outmoded. Bill’s additional opinion: When almost everyone, except the libertarian, is more or less characerizing themselves as a centrist we need a new model.

Political Compass is another site trying to popularize a new, more complex classification scheme for political views. There’s no real About Us page or detailed information on who’s behind the site except for this: “The idea was developed by a political journalist with a university counselling background, assisted by a professor of social history.” The only clue I could see is that a banner ad for an organization called One World Action is on every page, and One World Action is a group associated with the British Labour Party. [Pause while I take the test] Okay, well, just from the questions one would think this test was written by people left of center (to use the old, simpler classification). And it’s longer. Oddly, the last page, questions on sexual attitudes, are all questions that a liberal would answer Strongly Disagree except the last one (“What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state.”). I wonder if the sudden change of perspective throws the less careful off and skews the results. Anyway, my score was Economic Left/Right: 0.82, Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.55; on their grid, barely to the right of center on economics and somewhat more towards libertarian on that axis. Just goes to confirm my belief as stated above.

Farrakhan ‘sorry for anti-semitism’

Attempting yet again to gain entry to the United Kingdom, Louis Farrakhan apologised through his lawyers for anti-semetic remarks has has made during his career, according to The Times of London. Farrakhan’s lawyer “admitted that Mr Farrakhan had made “sensitive” remarks about blacks and Jews in America, and about American support for Israel but said the comments had to be set in context.” What context? Farrakhan for years has used the Big Lie technique to further his own (admittedly good) cause at the expense of Jews. Like many another before him, Farrakhan is getting old (67) and sick (prostate cancer) and he sees the likelihood of achieving his life’s dream receeding and so he is willing to begin compromising on what was so clear to him in younger years, to get the dream within elusive reach.

Last night’s movie: Dr. Dolittle 2

Uh, don’t bother the beaver. The godbeaver. Yeah, Eddie’s talking to the animals again and they’re getting organized. Much better than his other remake series, Dolittle gives Murphy a good range of other characters to play against–his wife, both daughters but especially Raven Simone, Archie the Bear, some mafioso small mammals and rodents, and the ever-nasty Jeffrey Jones (who’s bloated up quite a bit) supported by Kevin Pollack (who seems to take any role offered to him). Director Steve Carr, who previously directed the fun Ice Cube movie Next Friday and a bunch of rap music videos and commercials, mainly steps back and let Eddie rule here.

p.s. Murphy is currently working on a buddy cop comedy with Robert DeNiro for release next year called Showtime.

Mob’s greatest hits: awards keep coming

The nominations are out and for a second year running, The Sopranos lead the hunt with 22 mominations. Bruce Springsteen’s HBO Special got six nominations as well. Gandolfini, Falco, Bracco, Chianese (Uncle Junior), Imperioli (Christopher), and Aida Turturro all got nods. I guess it’s too soon but I can’t find a complete list of the nominations yet.

The trip to Italy

Part 2 of the trip journal, The Week in Palermo, has been posted. Palermo is a neat older city (or at least the part where we stayed and walked is), plus Dad and I visit Segesta, Agrigento (Valley of the Temples), and Monreale. More soon.

Cringely on the next wave of startups

I love Cringely. He wrote great stuff years ago at InfoWorld but got canned after a fight with his editor. Then he wrote a great book and some cool PBS specials. Now he writes a weekly column on the PBS website. Recently (while I was in Italy) he wrote a very insightful column on why startups fail. Biggest reason: founder and/or VC greed.

p.s. Cringely is a pseudonym.