Zimbabwe will knock 10 zeros off the country’s hyper-inflated currency next month, making 10 billion dollars one dollar, the nation’s central bank governor said Wednesday.
Not sure if you have been following this, but two brothers from India created a killer Facebook scrable application called Scrabulous. So Hasbro, the maker of the boardgame version of scrable, like any good corporation sued them immediately. So the Indian brothers were forced to shut down, temporarily saddening users. It didn’t take those guys long to launch an identical app under another name - Wordscraper, look & feel, so they are back at it. Good for them.
It boggles my mind why Hasbro didn’t buy the application, and instead built their own seperate application. Many people that haven’t played the board game for a long long time were actively playing Scrabulous. It also had a huge stickiness factor and good branding. When I speak about Facebook applications in my job, I often use this application as an example. Instead, Hasbro went ahead and had to go at it themselves. If I had to guess, I would think that Wordscraper starting with zero users today will outperform Hasbro’s application.
This is ironic and quite honestly surprising. Blackwater (the same one that caused a stir in Iraq) has offered to go kick some butt in Darfur. Quite literally. “At cost” blackwater will go down and train African Union forces in Darfur to fight Janjaweed that is killing so many people. When so many people seem to be ignoring what is going on in Darfur, or just discussing what to do about it but not really acting, it is kind of refreshing to see someone that is just going to go in there and try to change some things. I am not saying I believe in what Blackwater is doing worldwide, but I will be watching anxiously in this case.
Google released a new product that is a pseudo competitor to wikipedia, and I decided I would through my hat in the ring and participate. Why not?
So check out this quick piece I put together.
This is a photo of Aptera - the first operating car prototype that has achieved 230 miles per gallon. It is set to come to market sometime in 2010.
I commend the effort, and feel this is long overdue. I am tempted to get in line, but knowing that it is a start-up producing a car, it makes me quite nervous.
What I am wondering, is where is Toyota & Honda when it comes to creating a vehicle like this? I would be all about purchasing such a vehicle from one of the powerhouses. Or, rather where are Toyota and Honda in creating another Geo Metro. The Metro was built in 1989 and off the production floor got 50 MPG and could be modified to get 75 MPG. Can we not replicate that?
This strikes me as a bit ironic, since as a result of Zimbabwe’s central bank policy millions of people are living in poverty, without freedom, and with bleak futures. I would argue that there are probably some things that Jesus would not agree with.
Also, as a side note Gono’s salary is in the trillions of dollars per year.
Occasionally on this blog I will throw out recommendations of some of the things I like checking out and you might like checking out as well.
One of those things is This American Life. I have talked about this radio show quite a bit, but if you haven’t checked it out yet, you should. Every week, they take a subject and do a series of stories around it. It’s very good story telling and a great way to waste an hour.
Like any good American, I feel the need to own my own home. So I periodically flirt with the idea. Mostly, I want a home that I would like to live in (nice open space, conveniently located, etc). To have that in the Bay Area, it will cost you an arm and a leg. So it begs the question, will you ever recoup the money you invest? Well, after I put that question to the test with this rent v buy calculator, the answer is a resounding no it seems. Of course, this is highly dependent on your assumptions (most significantly how much rent is going to increase and your home appreciation). Bottom line, you better love the home you are moving into.
