Month: August 2008

Anything is better than zero

This is a great video post about the value of building a company one step at a time. Get ANYTHING you can to help build your company and not wait around for the ‘world’ to come to find you. Building your site out in a slow and grow is still growing.

My initial ad revenues for my sites mirrored many others. $0.69 one month, $1.21 another. But in time, with links and cross linking, that starts to build and add up. Now the revenues are 100x that PER DAY! It comes. It just takes time and effort but it comes. I can’t tell you how many folks like to make spreadsheets with $100,000 in profits for month two of operation when in reality they’re lucky to even book a dollar in revenue.

Bootstrap. Bootstrap. Bootstrap.

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Best Buy to start selling iPhones

Figured folks are tired of talking about the Olympics and Russia, so a bit of tech news.

The lines I saw at the Apple store this weekend are an indication demand is still pretty high, so Apple is now looking to find some additional retailers to carry the hyper-popular iPhone 3G. Today it was announced that Best Buy is going to start carrying the iPhone starting in September. Analysts are now projecting 4.7 million iPhones to be sold this quarter.

I’m still loving my phone. I’ve added a few more applications including Phone Saber and the Paper Football lite games. Pandora continues to be my number one used application.

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Olympic Opening Ceremony dancer Liu Yan seriously hurt after rehearsal

Rumors are swirling that the ‘Silk Road’ solo dancer, who was to dance atop the ‘carpet’ during the Olympic Opening Ceremony, was seriously injured in a fall after a practice and may have permanent damage, possibly never walking again. Liu Yan, a famous Chinese dancer who was suspended above the swirling painting was in the hospital in Beijing following the rehersal. Details are still quite sketchy.

Beijing Olympic organizing committee spokesman Wang Wei acknowledged at the daily press conference today that she was hurt during the accident and remains hospitalized but declined to comment on the reports of her paralysis.

“This is a very private question. I understand that she was seriously injured, but I’m not sure whether she is paralyzed or not,” Wang said.

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Smog to go down as smug goes up with launch of DC Smartbike program

Not for use by children, because a child would get his butt kicked for riding something this funny looking

Washington DC has grown a select, privileged and elite group of world-renowned cities by adding a high tech ’smart bike’ program to ease transportation around the cities inner-core. Euro-loving DC-ite’s are feeling quite smug.

The bikes, which look nothing like anything any red-blooded American would want to ride, are positioned around DC with high tech credit card system to rent them. For an annual fee of $40 you can grab a bike at any of the downtown locations and peddle around. I’m not a big fan of these bikes. Mountain bikes would be a bit more rugged, and the smaller front wheel just screams ‘flip over me’. But I guess they have their reasons.

The bicycles seem to be located primarily downtown as DC is basically on a hill. If you head past the basic outline of the original city (GWU to Florida Avenue to Union Station) you’ll find that much of the city is on a slight incline. Riding to the NW Corner of the city is actually a nice workout as it is a slow and long uphill climb (making coming back into the city an absolute joy as you coast downhill for much of the way). One suspects if they had a station in upper NW it would never have any bikes, as they’d all be coasted back into the city.

The location and availability can be checked online but is presently broken. One wonders if they’ll get an iPhone application out soon that shows what’s available where. That would be a double-smug bonus. Using your iPhone to find a smartbike. Bonus points.

Anyway, as I’m not technically living in DC and did my stint biking around the inner core when I was a bicycle messenger, I suspect I’ll pass for awhile on the annual subscription. But we’ll see how it goes. If it get a few more cars off the road I’m not going to complain.

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Now it will get ugly in Georgia.

Russian officials are claiming all Russian forces are out of Georgia.

Georgian officials (and Western journalists) are reporting the city of Gori is under attack.

Now reports of a tank column heading out of Gori towards Tiblisi.

So who is right? Probably everyone.

The tank convoy is probably composed of South Ossetian ‘volunteers’–basically bandits, running around in ‘donated’ tanks seeking to settle scores and loot and pillage. With the Georgian army basically in disarray, let alone the police, it’s going to get positively medieval in some of these areas. Guns will rule and the only protection will likely come from armed neighbors and ad hoc militias.

This sort of warfare is not known for their observance of the Geneva Convention or other rules of war. It’s likely the human rights abuses we’re going to see in the next few days will far and away exceed any of the ‘claimed’ abuses over the last week.

It’s going to be ugly.

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Russian sportsmanship sadly lacking in loss to 'Georgian' volleyball team

Russia and ‘Georgia’ took to the imitation ‘beach’ in Beijing and played a rather close match which saw the Georgians win and the Russians get knocked out of the tournament. Despite the pleasantries on the sand with hugs and handshakes, when the Russians got to the microphones they let lose a tirade that can only be described as ’sore losers’

“They are not even Georgians,” said Shiryaeva.

“Sore losers,” said the president of the Georgian Volleyball Federation, Levan Akhvlediani. “The Russians should go home.”

“It is very stupid for Georgia to start a war with Russia because we are very big and they are very small, but that is always the way in history with Georgia,” said Uryadova.

“They probably don’t even know the name of the Georgian president,”
snapped Shiryaeva.

“Mikhael Saakashvili,” said Santanna who — for the record — was born in Brazil, lives in Brazil, has a Georgian passport and has been there twice. “I met his wife at the athletes’ village the other day. She was lovely.”

“They are Brazilians,” repeated Shiryaeva.

Wherever they are from, they won.

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Russian tanks and looting Ossetians in Georgian town despite cease-fire

Reports are coming in about Gori, Georgia and the presence of Russian tanks and South Ossetians who are looting and sacking all that they can find.

Violence has flared up in Georgia, where Russian tanks have been seen patrolling the town of Gori, says the BBC’s Gavin Hewitt near the scene.

People leaving the town say there is looting going on involving South Ossetian separatists.

There are reports of residents being stripped of everything at gunpoint on the entrances to the city.

Western journalists reported 10 Russian tanks attacking parts of the city despite the cease fire.

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Obama's weakness apparent in response to Russia-Georgia war

Commentators are starting to pick on Barrack Obama’s missteps in his statements regarding the Russian / Georgian war. Obama has issued three statements while on vacation in Hawaii, with the first one being a wishy-washy calling for restraint on all sides, but then taking a grade-school level jab at McCain’s policy because one of his advisors once lobbied on behalf of Georgia (please…). Then he issued another statement blaming Russia for most of the violence, and then he caught up to McCain’s level of rhetoric a few days later.

It took first-term Sen. Barack Obama three tries to get it right. Headed for a vacation in Hawaii, the presumed Democratic candidate for commander in chief issued an even-handed statement, urging restraint by both sides. Later Friday, he again called for mutual restraint but blamed Russia for the fighting. The next day his language finally caught up with toughness of McCain’s.

Obama had a free shot to ‘act’ like a President. Say the right things, advocate a strong position and go forward pushing that position. This was a total free throw–not a single thing he said had to become policy or enforced or, to be honest, have any impact on the situation on the ground in Moscow and Tiblisi. It was a chance for him to, at the very least, act Presidential. He could have said anything–A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G–to show how he stood out on matters of foreign affairs. And when he had this chance, he frittered it away with blandness and petty politics. A policy as sharp as a dull crayon.

Leaders in the Ukraine told the Russians the Black Sea fleet would not be welcome to return to Ukranian waters if they participated in the Georgian operations. Yea, the Ukraine took a tough stance, despite Russian FSB contacts trying to kill their President a few years ago and the same sort of sabre-rattling going on with Soviet Russian armored divisions at their door step. The leaders of the Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and Latvia flew to Tiblisi at the same time it was being bombed after they called on NATO to “stand up against the spread of imperialist and revisionist policy” by Russia.

And Obama just told everyone to play nice together and one of his aides did a moron trying to drag lobbying into the issue of Georgians, Russians and South Ossetians dying en masse.

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