Marc's Webvox [Memex My Brain]

caps.fool.com was the first ((international)) online fantasy stock market I was familiar with. It has been around for years and it's great, also has a great community. But it has three flaws if you want to use it as a trading simulation ...

- You have unlimited funds. You can buy/add new stocks at any time. This results in most players adding hundreds of stocks to their active portfolios.

- The transaction costs are simulated with a simplified 0-5% ((neutral)) and 5%+ ((positive)) percentage rating when you beat the index. 

- You can get rid ((sell)) stocks easily by ending them without having a substantial loss, other than your ranking. Since  funds are unlimited, you can ((at least try to)) make up your losses by adding new picks.

Enter Updown.com which was been around for almost 12 months now. You have a virtual ((one)) million dollar fund and there are several restrictions ie. you can

- only sink 20% of your portfolio into a single stocks and there are additional restrictions for stocks with smaller trading volumes ((only about 5% of the daily trading maximum if I remember correctly))

- there are transaction costs (("virtual" $100 for each buy and sell)) and you can set trading orders and limits up to 60 days into the future.

Most importantly, you have that limited amount of money and can't just add buy/sell recommendations. In short, it's a great simulation of the stock market. I have been on Updown.com for one month now ((since April 16, 2008)) and I am up 29,7% so far...

http://www.updown.com/displayProfile.do?id=64740

((I think it's not too bad considering there no options and you can't pick a single stock and just sit back because of the limitations. Currently, I have about 15 stocks in the portfolio ))

I have taken an optimistic view ((buys only)), so I don't think I can uphold that momentum this calendar year because I think valuations are ((too)) high if you take into account that consumers will spend much less in the coming months and company earnings and therefore P/E and PEG ratios may look worse...

The only issue with Updown ((not a flaw since it's targeted at the US market for now, I guess)): You can't pick many European stocks ((unless they are traded as ADRs on the NASDAQ or NSE)) so it's harder to play along for people like me compared to US players.

Some people may recall that Polymervision announced the Readius device for mid-2008, a roll-out electronic display for mobile devices..

www.polymervision.com/

(( I wouldn't be surprised if the project hit another delay, but it's certainly one of the most advanced ones in this category ))

I was just reading up on this for a possible Apple eBook introduction in the 2009-2010 timeframe.

Interesting Kevin Kelly take on the recent WIRED title story...

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

Another take...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061026/102329.shtml

Original article

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all

PS: Speaking of Abundance. Interesting book on three major trends ((Abundance, Asia, Automation)), although the term "Abundance" was used in a slightly different context and with less emphasis on digital vs real goods...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594481717/ref=cm_rdp_product/102-4020406-0906530

Revenge of the Nomads in the first place...

http://www.thanko.jp/goronex/

(( Looks useful if it works as advertised, keep the hot laptop in distance))

More on the subject outside your home and work place ((third place))

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950487

and

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950378

Welcome to the THIRD PLACE ((it's not a Sony PS2 ad this time)). The term was coined in 1989 already...

The academic name for such spaces is “third places”, a term originally coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, “The Great, Good Place”. At the time, long before mobile technologies became widespread, Mr Oldenburg wanted to distinguish between the sociological functions of people's first places (their homes), their second places (offices) and the public spaces that serve as safe, neutral and informal meeting points. As Mr Oldenburg saw it, a good third place makes admission free or cheap—the price of a cup of coffee, say—offers creature comforts, is within walking distance for a particular neighbourhood and draws a group of regulars. The eponymous bar in the television series “Cheers”, “where everybody knows your name”, is an example.

Zoom to 2008. Wir nennen es ((nun)) Arbeit...

http://www.wirnennenesarbeit.de/

I'm not looking forward to the 3G iPhone, seriously. Everyone knows it's coming one day since SJ announced the original iPhone back in January 2007. However, these three devices ((or rather new device categories)) could be interesting...

1) iPad ((aka Newton 2.0 / Palmtop, the current iPod touch is getting into that device category))

2) Apple Ultraportable ((the MacBook Air is getting there, but still too large in my view))

3) iBook 2.0 ((Apple's answer to the Amazon Kindle, a simple eBook reader, unrelated to the original iBook laptops))

Some people might argue that category 1) and 3) could be merged into one device over time, but low-voltage display technologies ((EInk etc.)) aren't ready yet for moving content or colour output, at least not at an affordable price.

Apple might bring out either 1) and/or 3) at WWDC 20008 in June. I guess it's rather device 1), but that's just a guess. However, recent rumors make this more likely. See eg. ...

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/14/intel-confirms-atom-based-larger-iphone-mini-tablet/

and before...

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/11/3g-iphone-in-may-another-device-at-wwdc/

Another take on a potential eBook from Apple can be found here...

http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/3667

The Apple ((multitouch)) pad rumors have obviously been around for some time as well...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/26/is-apple-working-on-a-multi-touch-based-newton-successor/

PS: Note I didn't use the word "tablet" for devices 1) ir 3) because I think this name is linked to the rather unsuccessful MS tablet PC product category. Also, Apple's devices, especially device 1) will most likely have a smaller form factor than MS tablet PCs.

Outlook ? Make that Google Calendar... ((cheapo pun. Hey, it's a free blog ; ))

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/google_to_surpass_size_of_microsoft_windows_in_2009

(( The author's name will give some readers a bad "New Economy" flashback headache, but the article is actually interesting and worth reading))

Other bad news for Microsoft stock holders is the tendency of some large customers to skip Windows Vista and stick with XP until Windows 7 is out...

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080512_157155.htm?campaign_id=yhoo

I have only see anecdotical evidence of this so far, it will be interesting to look at the numbers.

Finally a good and up-to-date list here...

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/apr2008/pi2008045_506665.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

I especially like Seeking Alpha ((although the quality of the contributors varies wildy)) and B.I.G.

Somehow I missed this at the end of last year...

http://www.macworld.com/article/131153-3/2007/12/eddyawards2007.html

A lot of nice OS X application lists are featured in this blog...

http://www.coolosxapps.net/

For example, I found this small timer/alarm app on the coolosxapps blog which I would have probably overlooked on a site like versiontracker.com or macupdate.com...

http://nitram-nunca.com/downloads/minutes/

More good lists ((in German)) for Mac OS X Freeware apps...

http://freewareosx.wordpress.com/

and also...

http://www.aptgetupdate.de/index.php/2007/08/19/meine-top-liste-der-besten-macprogramme/

I especially liked iGTD ((ToDo list software, version 2 work in progress))...

http://freewareosx.wordpress.com/2007/03/18/igtd-revisited-auf-dem-weg-zur-besten-gtd-software/

(( also look at http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/32104 , also work in progress to 1.0 ))

and Bean, a simple free word processor...

http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

If you look for more than TextEdit and less than iWork or MS Word, Bean might be the right thing for you.

Finally, the truly excellent Journler digital notebook. I guess more readers are already familiar with this application...

http://journler.com/

PS: Somehow, editing existing posts from within MarsEdit doesn't work for me ((using Vox, don't know about other blogging platforms)) so I'm switching back to the web inline editor. I will give MarsEdit another try once WYSIWIG support is there. Maybe also Ecto3.x. It seems to look like Vox doesn't support editing of existing entries so it's not a software issue.

Merge in May and don't go away...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/06/sprint-clearwire-set-to-announce-12b-wimax-deal-with-comcast/

and

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121010437224271501.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Excellent summary on yet another example of Dead Media. In this case Microsoft's DRM-protected music scheme 1.0, ie. before the Zune crashed the M$ music ecosphere *...

Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are likely to get in this century — once described attempts to make digital bits uncopyable as “trying to make water not wet.”

Microsoft named this developer platform “PlaysForSure”, and they (and their partners) ran many, many ads decrying the fact that music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store would “only” play in iTunes and on iPods. This was, technically speaking, true — and indeed it is still true, and it is why I have cautioned Dora and you and anyone else who would listen that you should never “purchase” anything from the iTunes Music Store that you might want to “own” longer than Apple was willing to allow. Nor should you “purchase” anything from a “PlaysForSure”-compatible music store, and for the same reasons, only with the word “Apple” crossed out and “Microsoft” written in in crayon.

To their credit, if that’s the right word, you can now purchase some music from the iTunes store that is unencrypted and plays anywhere. Apple calls these songs “iTunes Plus”, because it sounds so much better than calling everything else “iTunes Minus.” Apple has also promoted podcasts and other non-traditional sources of “things you might want to download onto our handheld devices where we make all of our money.” Steve is many things, but he is not an idiot.

Source: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/05/06/the-day-the-music-died

PS: That MS music inititative was called "Plays for sure", as you may remember. Oh, the irony.

PPS: * People partnering with MS should be forced to read "Swim along with the Sharks without being eaten alive"
 or something along these lines.