and I’m not talking about Jersey Shore. NYTimes.com has a great article about how the upcoming show “Our Little Genius” may traumatize its contestants, who are young children!

This show seems like it could easily traumatize a kid who gets a wrong answer and loses several hundred thousand dollars for his family! Is it time for some kind of reality show ethics committee or is that going to far in itself by censoring free speech and limiting opportunity?

I guess I should have written this post months ago. Maybe even years ago… but what the heck should I do with this blog? Facebook has entirely taken over for my blog and anything I would have posted here I post there instead.

I suppose I can pick a topic and try to share topical things on this blog… make it useful to a certain set of people. I could make it a journal of sorts, as I learn various aspects of my new role as a market research analyst (my internship has been extended twice already).

Does anyone even read this any more? I’m going to put Google Ads on the site in the hopes that it cuts some of my losses on Web hosting.

I had a crazy trip to Boston this weekend. Both ways, the driver got lost and actually asked the passengers for directions! Luckily, everyone had smartphones and could easily provide assistance. On the way into New Haven, the driver got lost multiple times and would have driven around for who knows how long if I hadn’t jumped into the seat behind him and given him turn-by-turn directions.

I was curious how the driver got his directions in the first place, so I asked. He handed me a sheet of paper that contained a giant paragraph of all-caps text explaining how to get from point A to point B. It didn’t even have line breaks between steps! If he made a single wrong turn (he made about twenty) he would be lost. Why wouldn’t Greyhound give their drivers a GPS? Is it so expensive?

How come every time Facebook makes some change, my news feed is full of people complaining? Is this a vocal minority or do most people dislike it when Facebook makes changes? They are about to offer people usernames (optional, I think) and I’ve already seen a bunch of people posting some kind of complaint about it on their status.

My personal opinion is that Facebook has gotten better and better over the years and I’m usually pretty happy when I see it evolving. Even when I do dislike a change (e.g. including comments inline with the feed) I eventually accept it and stop caring.

Facebook is such an emotional thing for people, it’s interesting to see how attached people get to it. How do you feel about Facebook’s evolution?

I just got a spam mail today with some fake job opportunity and a sketchy link to a Chinese Web site. It made me think how the spam industry can benefit by staying current on people’s needs and insecurities. Shame on these people!

P.S. If anyone has a real job opportunity for me, I’m still looking! Former software developer looking to do strategy/consulting/marketing. Unlimited potential!

A lot of folks like to talk to me about their ideas for solving the US financial crisis after I tell them that I’m in business school. Since I’m not much of a “finance guy” I don’t really have any of my own brilliant ideas to solve the crisis, but I just read a great couple of articles in the NY Times which sounded pretty convincing to me.

One of the more interesting points that the authors suggest is that instead of bailing out the big banks, we try to rescue the homeowners who are unable to pay off their mortgages. This suggestion seems both liberal and conservative at the same time! I don’t know if I completely agree with the idea, since what good is owning a home if you don’t have a job? I am no expert, so draw your own conclusions from these excellent articles: Criticisms of the financial system and suggestions as to how to fix the system

I rarely have patience to read through a very long Times article, but I actually did read these two long and fascinating NYT Magazine articles in the last couple of weeks. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in sociology, politcs, psychology, or any mix of the three.

Is Obama the End of Black Politics? is about how the concept of “Black Politics” - that is, the relevance and meaning of blacks in politics - may change forever if Obama gets elected. Fascinating points of view in this article.

The Trolls Among Us is an anthropological study of Internet subculture and its evils. What is the effect of anonymity on morality? Very fascinating.

What the…? [bison grunting] You guys okay? We’re trapped, and there’s seven of us. There’s no way we’ll fit in there. There’s room for eight. Oh, forget it, we have too many beverages. There’s, like, 12 cup holders in here. But what about this bison? [bison grunts] That thing got my blood a-boilin’. It’s probably just the seat warmer. (male announcer) seating for eight. only from honda…

Read this out loud and try not to smile. How do they come up with this stuff???

Lots of people ask me what it’s like growing up in New York city. This NY Times article about billboards that use video cameras to see who is looking at them gave me a thought that adds some color to what it’s like in New York. People interviewed in the article characterized these cameras as an invasion of privacy. It’s odd, but walking on the street with thousands of people around you actually feels more “private” than walking around in your apartment building! It seems weird but I can definitely relate to the feeling of freedom and anonymity when I’m walking around the city.

Your view of what’s right or wrong is entirely based upon what you already believe. Therefore, changing your perspective requires a leap of faith or discovery of some unconscious belief.

Sometimes the most difficult aspect of perfecting a skill is unlearning all those bad habits we unconsciously developed along the way.

If you’ve read an earlier post of mine, you already know I think SecondLife (SL) is, for most purposes, a huge waste of time and money. Blogger Randolph Harrison has written several negative articles regarding the financial and economic troubles inherent in the business model of SL. I could not say it any better than he has, so go ahead and read his comments on why he believes Linden Labs will probably end up offering SL for sale (then be bought for far more money than it’s worth by Fox, and then get transformed into something completely different).

Why do I dislike SecondLife?

For the participant, I believe it is a waste of time to establish a virtual life unless there is some valuable takeaway. People may become very much attached to their virtual persona and I simply don’t believe that’s a healthy dependency. First and foremost because I believe there are better ways to have a good time, and secondly because Linden Labs is effectively a God of their virtual universe and can do whatever they please with your virtual life. This wouldn’t be an issue if I didn’t honestly believe they were going to sell out in the next few years. If you want to have a good time, play a video game, read a book, see a movie, chill with friends, etc.

For the investor, I think it’s a waste of money and time to expect any benefits (either in terms of money or reputation) from your dealings in SL. Like Randolph said, the easy money has already been had. You’re too late to make it big. On the other hand, if you are looking to extend your brand into the virtual world, you’re too early (i.e. it’s too risky for big-name brands). It’s natural psychology to associate things which appear together, and you might have some very unwelcome visitors at your virtual store. Would you like to make the decision of whether to hire people to actively supervise your store and ban the people you don’t want (risking backlash from those you banned)… or to allow everyone inside and risk the possibility of naked furries having sex in your unsupervised virtual store and then having an article about it sent all over the Internet? Currently SL is mostly populated by people who would rather create their own merchandise than buy yours and my sense is that they passionately hate marketers and salespeople anyhow.

When I posted a YouTube deathwatch I was absolutely dead wrong… they got bought for a ton of money and are stronger than ever. I never said I disliked YouTube, I only said it couldn’t exist without breaking the law and that it can’t make money. I still can’t believe Google will ever profit off of YouTube until bandwidth costs plummet. I am going to agree with Randolph on this one and predict that SL gets bought by a major media company. I doubt SL can remain in a “pure” form and sustain its costs of operation. It will have to sell out eventually (unless it gets bought by Google )

Everyone knows that winning poker involves a lot of luck. What I like so much about it is that there is actually a very complex skill game buried underneath that luck element. The opportunities to see 5 community cards, the opponent’s face, and their betting behavior… plus the ability to cleverly affect your opponent’s decisions… provide enough traction for the game to remain a skill game over the long-term.

Even with that traction, how can I develop a strategy when there is so much randomness clouding my analysis of the game? Developing a strategy necessitates separating my “legitimate” wins from my “lucky” wins, and my “legitimate” losses from my “unlucky” losses. There is no clear line to separate them, it’s more of a blurry gray area. Plus… my strategy must change depending on who my opponents are. There is no universally optimal poker strategy which works against everyone. I thought Go was a tough game to learn… this is a whole different world.

I was just listening to a Stanford linguistics lecture on iTunes U. The lecturer described the cable news political debates as a “Crips versus Bloods” style of discussion. In other words, each side is entirely focused on standing up for their gang and winning the war. I don’t usually watch those shows but when I do, I am shocked at how one-sided each person is. Nobody ever admits weakness, admits that they might be wrong, or agrees with anything the other side says. They are so focused on “winning” that all they do is try to differentiate themselves from their opponent, make themselves look good, and make their opponent look bad.

If there is anything I’ve learned from all these business books I’m reading, it’s that seeking agreement is a great goal to have with you at all times. Our political landscape is extremely polarized and I believe that it is a result of the gang-like debates we see all around us: in the media, or at the lunch table. People want to “win” rather than agree. Winning is always nice, but it’s not as great a victory as agreement. When you agree, there is no loser and everyone wins.

A very cool take on the human-powered search engine idea. Mahalo appears to be a wiki which is open for viewing but closed (private) to a select group of trusted people for authoring. The site is in its infancy so it is not extensive but still holds an impressive amount of content. Each result page is nicely organized, which is something you’ll never see on Google. A great idea for people new to the Internet. I am really excited to see if this model can scale. So far there are no ads on the site but I assume that will happen eventually.