Best Buy’s product catalogue is now available via an XML/JSON REST API. Good work guys. Now we want store stock data via an API, that would kill.
Updates from September, 2008 Hide threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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paulmwatson
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paulmwatson
Some fairly interesting results from an iPhone survey (2000+ participants, mainly tech and Mac users I’d say.)
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paulmwatson
Folks, I don’t want to share news items with digg/delicious/stumbleupon, I want to share them with friends, family and work colleagues; actual people, not services. Share This and co. are blogger tools only, for the people who create content and want to promote it, not for the people consuming it who want to share it with friends.
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paulmwatson
I’ve unsubscribed from the Greenmonk blog because of the daily link-dump they include from delicious. I’d prefer single items and more detailed analysis of each link. Daily link dumps in a single post break my morning reading flow.
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paulmwatson
More proof that jQuery is the smart choice in JS development libraries; Nokia are integrating it into their S60 platform, all their S60 phones will get jQuery and Microsoft are making it part of their ASP.NET Ajax toolkit.
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paulmwatson
“We sent a message to Wall Street — the party is over,” which when translated into layman goes something like; Here is $700 billion, some TOCs but nothing that will endanger your Caribbean yacht. When I miss a payment I get my house repossessed. When a Wall St. banker “looses” billions aka buys a few Ferraris, he gets given a few more billion.
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Chase Morgan
BAIL OUT, OR – BARBARIANS AT THE GATE?
In the midst of the unsettled financial markets there’s been general agreement about one thing: the outcome of the current crisis will be far-reaching changes to the blobal financial system. For example, Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach believes the world’s central banks are now being forced to look afresh at how financial bubbles should be handled. Up to now their attitude has been that the markets must correct financial bubbles themselves.
However, the massive emergence of various kinds of derivative instruments created such huge inverted pyramids above an underlying asset class (such as prime mortgages) that things get out of hand when bubbles burst. Roach believes that central banks can hardly afford to condone bubbles in the future.
The question to be answered is: How and when they must take steps to avoid meltdowns?
Fin WeekAs some of Wall Street’s most venerable financial institutions teeter on the brink of self-destruction and are either taken over – in the case of Bear Sterns – or, as in the case of Lehman Brothers, allowed to implode, very few financial sectors appear capable of weathering the storms.
In view of the “bail out” agreement reached this past weekend it seems as if financial markets throughout the world will however react positively to this announcement. An announcement in my opinion not made by choice, however rather by force! Financial Guru – Warren Buffet correctly remarked that if the “bail out” plan was not approved – the American Economy would face certain “meltdown”!
In lieu of this it stands to reason that there weren’t much alternatives than to see the bail out plan pass through congress? A certain relief for most – al be it temporary. Both Presidential Candidates voted for the plan as has been seen. Not much of a choice by the looks and sounds of it!
Certainly the pressing question on our minds should be to now take a calm and responsible view back, on what has caused this catastrophy? We should all agree that it is a catastrophy, although suspended perhaps for the moment. One can only call it “suspended” as this has still to play out and we will see how this effects the struggling markets and economy alltogether in the short, medium and long term!
IS THERE ANOTHER 700 BILLION US$ available should this not work?
One cannot help but wonder after pondering on all of this for months on end – who is the biggest terrorist or threat facing America after all? Is it Osama Bin Laden – or worse, is it someone or something, much closer to home? I certainly don’t want to be in the shoes of the current President and wonder if anybody in his right mind would like to be in the future President’s shoes!
However, fill the shoe we have to, and it is now up to every single one of us to realise that the problems facing America is far greater than we want to believe. Republican, Democrat or Independant all stood together, cried together and worked together when the tragedy of 911 struck!
The tragedy of September 2008 is far worse!
We don’t have the liberty of taking on the world at present! No matter how righteous our beliefs are, no matter how convinced we are that terrosism should be fought in every corner, every nook and cranny, and in any place in the world. More Americans have died in this war than in 911 and we are not calling it a tragedy or catastrophy? No, we accept it because we are dying for our country, our beliefs and our ego!
Senator McCain says that he will not see to it that we pull out of this war before victory! He knows how it feels to come home defeated and to live to the consequences of knowing that a lot of people, or so he believes – has died in vain!
Are we staying at war because we don’t want to feel bad? Are we loosing our children because of ego’s?
Or worse, are we staying at war to loose our country and our very excistence?WE ARE FACING A POSSIBLE MELTDOWN!
IS THIS A BAIL OUT – OR ARE THE BARBARIANS KNOCKING AT THE GATE?
Undoubtedly the bail out is necessary, could it have been avoided – too late to ask! Can it be avoided in the future – we have no alternative but to believe it can! The question is how?
Now, we can tighten up the budgets on every field of the economy, we can harness in every corporate company to be more dilligent in their dealings. We can increase or decrease taxes, impose new legislation, fire the wrong doers or restructure government to be more lean and mean.
All of this is however in vain, if we are still going to remain a “country at war”!
It’s simple economics people! The war is killing America! It costs us a hell of a lot more than it costs Osama Bin Laden and Company to fight this! Perhaps he is a lot more astute than we will give him credit for! Perhaps he has gone into hiding, knowing that sooner or later – the “meltdown” will begin!
Sure we need to keep face in the world! Are we doing this now?
I don’ think so!
It is my opinion that if we wan’t to weather the greatest economic storm ever to hit our shores, we need to act and act now, before it’s to late! Our leader, Republic or Democrat will have to realise that we can’t stay at war and build our economy up again – it’s childish to even contemplate that.
If the world believes we are doing the right thing fighting terrorism offshore, then the world should climb in and help finance this war much more than they are currently doing! If not – we need to pack up and go home before it is too late!
No other country in the world other than America is facing a “meltdown”? Why should we?
I know there is a lot more to it than a normal citizen like you and me know about this alltogether. However, it is time we harness our strength as ONE NATION and forget about politics for now. We need to think about America – all of us!
The “Barbarians are at our Gate”, not in Irak or Pakistan!
Join me in my blog: http://chasemorgan.wordpress.com
GOD BLESS US ALL!
Chase Morgan
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Miles L. Henselman
If Ms. Pelosi and the combined houses of congress really want to send a message, they will just say no – no to the idea that individuals, companies or governments can make reckless decisions and expect responsible citizens to underwrite the risk; no to any wall street firm that is duplicitous enough to reward their senior management while also lobbying for bailout support; no to spending money they, the members of congress have not earned themselves. If the congress wants to press forward an economic stimulous package, how about returning last years income tax to the people who paid it?
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Chase Morgan
R700 Billion Dollar Bail Out Fails!
Well there we have it, the first round to getting the “bail out” plan to be passed has officially failed! Although the markets, the top news agencies, chief economists and the likes of Warren Buffet have predicted that America has no choice but to accept the proposal – it has failed!
Even I am surprised to say the least, as I am sure most of you are too! After reading comments such as – PASS THE PLAN OR FACE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN – it has done just that! The plan has been failed in congress.
The question certainly on everybody’s mind now is, are they mad, are they trying to ruin the country, or are they once again simply playing politics instead of thinking about America first?
The question is who is to blame again? Someone is going to blame someone else and Republicans are going to blame Democrats and vice versa. As the news breaks on CNN the latest statistics show that the total votes for the plan were 205 and against were 228! Democrats for the plan = 140, against = 95. Republicans for the plan = 65, against = 133.
Does this matter who was for and who was against – NO IT DOESN’T! Who brought the plan to the table in the first place – YES GUESS WHO?
The fact is it did not pass and we can now either FIX THE BLAME, or for once Congress can sit down and START FIXING THE PROBLEM – NOW!
The fact that people are already blaming each other for delivering a bad speach – I am referring to the Republican comments on Nancy Pelosi’s speach, is abolutely BULLSHIT!
COME ON AMERICA – we are grown ups, not bloody kids! Who are these people? A plan of this nature is certainly based on “documented facts”, “written drafts” and NOT ON SOMEBODY’S BLOODY SPEACH!
AMERICA IS IN TROUBLE – GRAVE TROUBLE, yet we still accommodate leaders who are voicing their political emotions and how they feel about the other!
WHAT ABOUT US YOU FOOLS?
What about the people in the middle class who are fighting to survive day by day, and simply don’t have the luxury of waiting for you boys to finish your party games and your power fits??
Please read my post on BARBARIANS AT THE GATE and you will relaise excatly what I mean! We have more enemies of ignorance in our midst than all the terrorists in this world put together!
WORK THIS OUT – AND DO IT NOW!
Visit my blogg at: http://chasemorgan.wordpress.com
Regards
Chase Morgan
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paulmwatson
Yes, there are many get-rich-quick knock-offs in Web 2.0 but articles like this miss a lot of the subtle innovation that is happening. It makes for a good headline but not for an accurate story.
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paulmwatson
Interesting that the iPhone version of Instapaper is “bringing tons of new users to the service” in comparison to the web version. Oddly, I don’t see the point of the iPhone version of Instapaper and find the web version to be very useful.
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paulmwatson
South Africa has the highest “gun death rate” in this list. One problem with the list is it does not take into account the black-market in guns. South Africa is awash in illegal guns and has poor gun law enforcement. The underpaid police are a major source of illegal guns.
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paulmwatson
Zinadoo turns 2 today, well done to the team.
James Governor 11:44 am on September 30, 2008 Permalink |
its a fair point. to be fair tom does include analysis with each link he posts but you’re the subscriber. or not as the case may be. if we provided a feed without the links would you resubscribe?
paulmwatson 12:40 pm on September 30, 2008 Permalink |
I would indeed resubscribe if the link-dump was taken out. I don’t mind the links but I’d prefer them as separate items throughout the day. I may be in the minority though so you’d want to check with some of your other regular readers before you go and do that.
Tom Raftery 5:37 pm on September 30, 2008 Permalink |
Not sure how to react to this Paul tbh.
You have made very positive contributions to discussions on GreenMonk so I don’t want to lose you as a subscriber but numbers of subscribers to GreenMonk have grown considerably since I started getting Diigo to publish my bookmarks as a daily post.
Previously I had a sidebar widget pull them in to a sidebar on the site but that was getting very little traction/visibility.
Diigo allows me to select a category to post under. I could create a Links category and have them posted under that. If you then had some kind of RSS scripty magic (see Im a seasoned programmer, I am) pull in all categories except the Links category feed, that might work but it would require a bit of work from your side too.
I’m open to any/all suggestions. Please feel free to throw something out there.
Tom
Tom Raftery 8:22 am on October 2, 2008 Permalink |
Paul,
I have just realised that Delicious was publishing a list of links in the rss feed as well as Diigo publishing a post on the site. I have turned off the Delicious Link Splicer.
Hope this helps,
Thanks,
Tom.
paulmwatson 11:59 am on October 3, 2008 Permalink |
I’ve resubscribed and will give more feedback.
Frankly this is a long-running RSS problem, something the clients need to figure out. Publishers should publish as much as they can.
Tom Raftery 2:07 pm on October 3, 2008 Permalink |
Great to have you back and thanks for the comment on the Microgeneration post!