37 Signals Affiliate Program

I use Basecamp and Highrise and often recommend them to others, so I figured it would make sense to get paid for my recommendations. My referral links are below. Use them to give me credit for signing you up.

Milton Friedman on Limited Government

This is great. He talks about the minimum wage, social security, the true meaning of "conservative" or "liberal" and the case against government interference.

AllPeers Invite-Only Beta Starting

I got this email a few days ago from Allpeers. Apparently they are starting the beta test. So far, I can only invite 3 other people to use the service. According to their blog, I must have been one of the first 100 people to sign up for the beta. I really need a new hobby.

The invite:

Dear Beta Tester,

We are now getting ready to start the first phase of the AllPeers Beta
Test Program. This phase is invitation only and uses a version of the
software that requires the use of a special activation key. This
activation key is tied to your email address. Since we want you to be
able to test AllPeers with a couple of friends, we need to know the
email addresses of the people you are planning to test with so we can
provide you with their activation codes.

This is an early version of AllPeers which is being released for testing
purposes only. If you are interesting in trying out this early version,
please click on the following link:

http://www.allpeers.com/betaphase1.php?email=dingleberryhoopeysplash@gmail.com

In addition to information about your operating system and country, you
can provide emails for up to three people for whom we will send you
activation keys.

NOTE: Filling out the form on this webpage is a requirement for
participation in this phase of our beta program. If you do not follow
the above instructions, you will not receive a download link or
activation code for the software at this time. You will be contacted
again when we start the next phase of our beta program, which will use
an unrestricted version of the software.

Yours Sincerely,
The AllPeers Team

Earbuds

The earbuds that came with my iPod don't block out enough background noise and are not especially comfortable.

I'm looking at these:

• Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones
  


• Koss "The Plug" Portable Headphones
  


• Sony MDR-EX71SL Fontopia Headphones with Closed Type Design
  

Any thoughts?

Lies, lies, and more lies

I recently got an email about a Ben Franklin quote that claimed to show he was anti-semetic. This is completely false, and you can learn more about misattributed quotes here.

A.I.G. Finds a Major Foe in Ex-Chief

Few people who know Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman and chief executive of the American International Group, thought he would go quietly. Now it is clear he is not going anywhere.

A recent spate of lawsuits between A.I.G. and C. V. Starr, one of two highly capitalized private companies that Mr. Greenberg controls, shows that Mr. Greenberg, who is 80, will do more than just use Starr's $22 billion worth of A.I.G. stock to build a private equity giant. He will also compete head-on with A.I.G

Behavioral Finance

One of the classes in which I am now enrolled is Behavioral Finance. This is the utilization of theories from psychology to explain patterns in the stock market (it can be used for other markets as well, but we've been chiefly dealing with stocks thus far).

This is in oppostion to most financial theory which assumes that the people taking part in the economic interactions are rational actors. The main thrust of the course so far has been calling doubt upon the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), which is one of the big theories in conventional finance. There are 3 forms to the EMH, with varying levels of predictions. Much of the evidence presented in class seems to contradict all three forms.

For a good intro to finance in general, I'd recomend my textbook from my intro course: Principles of Corporate Finance.

The texts for this class are: Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance by Andrei Shleifer and Beyond Greed and Fear by Hersh Shefrin.

Here are some other books on the topic.

What's in a name?

What is Hermetic Logisitics?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary (via http://www.answers.com)

her·met·ic adj.

• Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air.
• Impervious to outside interference or influence: the hermetic confines of an isolated life.
• Of or relating to Hermes Trismegistus or the works ascribed to him.
• Having to do with the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical.

lo·gis·tics n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

• The aspect of military operations that deals with the procurement, distribution, maintenance, and replacement of materiel and personnel.
• The management of the details of an operation.

In reality, hermetic and logistics are just my two favorite words. I love words with three or more syllables that end in "ic". Agnostic. Anthromorphic. Fantastic.

It's a nice benefit that the words happen to mean airtight operation. In reality this is anything but.

What's this all about?

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to write about yet. Right now I'm thinkin about politics, business, technology, philosophy, or whatever funny/interesting things happen in my life.

I've had a few web pages in the past, but all of the hosts I've used are now defunct. It's a little daunting starting without a clear goal, but the fact that I'm the only one reading for now makes things a bit easier.

I've long planned on starting a website that has a format similar to http://slashdot.org with topics similar to those covered by the New York Times' Dealbook newsletter (business, M&A, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, law, finance...). This site may eventually morph into that format, but no firm plans for now.

Test first post

This is the first post