September 30th 2002
Pulp review
Salon has a review of the new Pulp album.
Archive for September, 2002
September 30th 2002
Vanguard introducing some new index funds
Intrigue, of Sorts, Stirs the Quiet Land of Index Funds
Consider MSCI’s large-cap index, which will include the 300 American companies with the largest market capitalizations. Without a buffer zone, the index would have to sell a stock as soon as its market-cap ranking dropped to 301st, and buy it back if it rose back to 300th. But MSCI will have a buffer zone of 225 to 400 — meaning that a stock won’t be sold until it falls to 401st, or repurchased until it rises back to 225th.
While the zones will reduce turnover, their impact on fund returns is likely to be small. That is because, when buying or selling stocks, most fund companies that offer index funds just transfer shares from one fund to another. Mr. Tint estimates that this practice, known as crossing, already eliminates as much as 80 percent of the transaction costs that index funds would otherwise have to pay.
September 30th 2002
Jakob Nielsen on newsletters
Email Newsletter Usability (Alertbox Sept. 2002): In subjective comments, users basically said that newsletters are bad if they take too much time or demand too much work of the user. Newsletters are good if they cut down the time it takes users to accomplish something or if they are quick reads that do not feel frivolous.
September 29th 2002
Gerhard & Renuka
We went into Seattle (again) yesterday and over to the Eastside. Went to Crate & Barrel and bought a couple sets of glasses and then to Staples for (free) office supplies. Then to Gerhard & Tracy’s housewarming party at their new house in Lakemont. Then we went to dinner at Brasa with Renuka Abayanayaka — he quit and is leaving for Sri Lanka on Monday!
September 29th 2002
NYTimes Travel actually gets seattle
September 27th 2002
Hungry Lawyer
Took the ferry to downtown again and met with an attorney that we’re not sure we like or not. Had dinner and drinks with Reid, Marissa and Joel at a Japanese place in the ID. (Our second bus ride in a week!)
September 26th 2002
Poor Martha
Oh my, the Merrill Aide is pleading guilty and will cooperate on Stewart Probe. Also, rumors are that Waksal is trying to plea bargain too, possibly to provide info about Martha Stewart’s trade.
September 26th 2002
New HTTPD!
I just checked in a new httpd that speeds up browsing. It does this simply by not doing 2 joins that are unnecessary when just getting the list of categories and their counts for the browse hierarchy. In tests on dublin, the query went from 1.12 seconds to 0.21 seconds (81% faster). Note that this only affects the “simple” browsing case; not when browsing My Cookbook, another user’s recipes, search results, etc. Test it today so I can push it to the live site.
September 24th 2002
MS will “outsmart” Linux
Ballmer is clueless about open source. They actually think the MVPs are going to equate to open source coders? Ever meet an MVP? A businessman (Ballmer) will never understand what is about open source that is attractive. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you are a businessman, everything looks like a dollar.
September 24th 2002
Send my friend a pie?
HELLO 
I want to send the friend a chocolate pie, my friend in Canada in
city Toronto
I from Azerbaijan. The order for the house. It is possible?
You can send me a photo of your pies?
I am sorry me for mine English, I communicate with you with help of the
program of the interpreter
thanks
Seva
–from the Recipezaar mailbox
