Foxmarks is better

I recently switched from Google Browser Sync to Foxmarks to keep the Firefox bookmarks synchronized between my Vista work PC and iMac at home. Google kept making little mistakes that became nightmares if I did any sort of large organizational changes. So far Foxmarks hasn't made a single mistake, and I take comfort in the more transparent process. I haven't had to use them yet, but I'm also glad it has the "force overwrite" functions that Google didn't.

Google did also sync my passwords and sessions, something the more specialized Foxmarks doesn't do. However, living without that feature hasn't turned out to be big deal.

Housing Bubble Endgage

We saw this coming years ago. I don't post about it anymore now that it's common. I would like to post this 60 minutes video, however, which sums up what happened in typical high-production-values style.

Awesomest Music Video

Da Merc

Spot-on.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

It's better than I thought it would be. I'm actually looking forward to the next episode...

Water Bear: World's Toughest Animal

And they're only 1mm long. Tardigrade (Wikipedia)

Water bears are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. They can survive temperatures close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151°C (303°F), 1,000 times more radiation than any animal, nearly a decade without water, and can also survive in a vacuum like that found in space.

Nature's Great Survivors: Water Bears

Rug

Pragmatic Nutrition

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs. My trainer showed me this short article and it has really resonated me. Of course understanding and acting are very different. Can I get up to 90% complience?

All the fundamental principles you need to achieve good health and optimal body composition are out there already, and have been for years. Unfortunately, with 500 experts for every fundamental principle, and very little money to be made from repeating other people’s ideas, experts must continually emphasize the small (and often relatively unimportant) differences between their diet/eating plans and the diet/eating plans of all the other experts out there.

Wood Burning Car

Yugo runs by wood-gas

It takes about 15-20 min to start the car because the wood needs to be decomposed. Capacity of the firebox is 35 kg of wood or coal , which is enough to do 150 km.

Instead of 1 litre of gasoline, 2.5 kg of wood is spent. 20 kg of wood are consumed after 100 km which means that driving "on wood" is up to 10 times cheaper than the conventional driving using gasoline.

BlackBerry 8830

I've kinda gone in the opposite direction with my new phone. Still no camera and I don't listen to music off it, but I've really gotten into the email and text messaging and there's nothing like a full keyboard for that. And the web is actually useful with the relatively large screen, trackball, and fast EV-DO access. And I see the manufacturers are starting to settle on a universal power adapter - mini USB.

Mark Cuban's First Rule of Success

Outspoken billionaire Mark Cuban starts 2008 with another great blog post. It's his first of a series of rules by which he has found sucess and that he uses to judge companies he invests in. Somehwat ironicaly then it's about not going after venture capital.

The Best Equity is Sweat Equity. Dragon's Den contestants should read this - or not because maybe there would be no show...

Most entrepreneurs tend to think in terms of what raising money means to them. How it can get them started? How many people they can hire? How much they can spend on office space? How much they can pay themselves? They forget to put themselves in the position of the person or company they are asking for money from. They think they are considering that person's position by making up numbers and calling them expected returns for the investor. If you only give me X dollars, you will get X pct back in X years. You will double or triple your money in X years. Any investor worth anything knows you are just making these numbers up. They are meaningless. Worse, if you tell a savvy investor that the market is X billions of dollars and you just need one or some low percent to make zillions, you are immediately kicked to the curb.

I'm not nearly a Venture Capitalist (yet), but I know to dismiss any business plan that includes "...is a 8 billion dollar market. If we can get even 0.1% of...". This implies that because a tenth of a percent is so low, it should be easy to get. HA! No one is giving up $8 million without a hell of a fight.

The reality is that for most businesses, they don't need more cash, they need more brains.