Cow’s Life - Thinking Outside Of The Barn

I have been an individual investor for almost 10 years. The current economy indicators worry me a great deal.

CNN just ran a report on the surprising fall of the consumer spending, which is the biggest drop since Nov 2001. We all know that a large portion of our economy depends on consumer spending. With the pressure from rising energy price, large government spending on war, and dealing with disaster aftermath, I am getting a bit worried about the money in the stock market now. Here is the full report.

However, the money magazine (also owned by CNN) asked Vanguard to run an analysis on the possibility of the stock market crash and the result came back quite optimistic. According to the Vanguard’s Center for Investment Research, the real probability of the crash is about 2 percent.

Maybe I am paranoid about this whole situation and maybe CNN’s experts are right about the short term setback, however I am afraid of the chain reactions that few people can predict. Although I am not going to take drastic actions such as moving 80% of the stocks from my retirement portfolio into bonds or cash, I think it is time for me to do a health preliminary check to protect my long and short term investment goals.

I am not a financial advisor, so don’t take my words seriously. I am just doing what I need to do to protect my investments. So here is a list of actions I will be taking in the next a few days while I am on Blogger Holiday:

1. Although I rebalance my retirement and long term portfolios once a year, I am going to do an emergency rebalance now, which is 4 months earlier than scheduled. So I am going to sell high and buy low now to shift the money among bonds, international, REIT real estate and US stocks
2. I am leaving my 401K future contribution alone for now. If stock drops significantly, I am going to raise the contribution percentage of the stocks so I can buy low.
3. Go through all of my short term stock mutual funds (short term meaning I need the money in the next 5 years), sell as much as possible and move them to my bond funds.
4. Move a portion of my cash reserve into treasure bonds or other government short term bond funds. As long as I have enough to cover 3 month bare minimum living expenses, the rest shouldn’t be sitting in cash or money market right now.

In summary, I am trying to cash in what I have made in the stock market now and start looking into the bond funds. I am quite optimistic about bond returns since the rate has been hiking up like crazy. Worst case scenario, I may not make as much if the stock market does hike up in the next a few years, but I know I won’t be losing 30% or 40% if the market crashes.

Ever since I wrote the post about losing bet to the MillionDollarHomePage, I got spammed by the copycats every now and then. Some of them shamelessly claimed that it’s their idea. There are also some honest ones admitting the borrowed idea but proudly put out their own designs.

A lot of people are speculating whether these copycats are actually making any money. Or, are they getting any traffic at all to their sites? So to answer these questions, I put a list together with some stats information of each site.

You will be surprised that this list is actually pretty long.

Continue…

Update on Oct 2: I am surprised to see so many creators of the “copy-cats” here and I learned that many of them are honest people who are just trying to make a few bucks, buy some homes, pay off the debt and plant a few trees with a borrowed idea. I have then expanded the list to include the honest ones and listed the possible scammers so people don’t fall into their traps. Wish everyone (the honest ones) luck with the pixel business!

Most searched words
I am getting a whole lot more search hits from MSN than Google and Yahoo combined. Despite the change of the search engines, people are still searching for the same thing! Yes, Yuna and her hot ass with the addition of some very eye popping phrases:

• Yuna anything with her feet
• Interview with Yuna (Do people really think she is for real?)
• Yuna naked in 3D
• Yuna 3d sex

I have to admire people’s innovative thinking and the desires for the 3D technology.

A poll from Darren’s site shows that the majority of the website hits are from search engines. It’s certainly not the case for me. I get more than 85% hits from the regular readers and only a handful from search engines every day. I guess it is pretty hard to achieve keyword density when I am not talking about a niche topic.

Most viewed photos
Surprisingly, MuddVolleyBall is still the #1popular album on the site although ColoradoMemory and Katrina album are catching up very quickly. But the most popular photo is from the ThongsMustDie album and it doesn’t even qualify as a photo.

Most viewed posts
Besides the two posts that received the spotlights (elite blog and losing bet to MillionDollarHomepage), the most clicked post is “help Katrina victims” that still sits on the top of the site. It seems that Real Estate rule also applies to the Blogotown — Location, Location, and Location.
The runner-up is my ThongsMustDie joke. Boy, aren’t we all in love with those hot sexy undies!

MillionDollar Page not so “million”
After losing the bet and paid my dues. I got about 600 visitors per day from that site in the first 2 days and then the click rates drop so significantly that I start to wonder if I am getting anything at all from that site. After my icon appeared on the million dollar homepage, I got total of 1636 clicks. I am not impressed at all.

Glory days with digg.com
When a post hits the spotlight, that post is going to circulate on the Internet for a while. My elite blog post managed to generate 2500 clicks in Sept even after digg.com striped it away from its homepage. And I got tons of incoming links because of this post. Although we are all taught to produce quality contents on a regular basis instead of chasing star posts, I think having a few star posts definitely help the bloggers to gain some exposures.

There is no one size fits all
I have always wondered if a personal blogger like myself should chase after the readers or those interesting random thoughts that stimulate my own brain. I choose the latter.

However, because of my persistence of blogging about my own interests, I have pissed off a regular reader (see his comment at the bottom), and bored another one (yeah, my post did the final push to put Mr(Ms) Yawn to sleep). My friends also complained about my occasional long lasting geeky mood that leaves them nothing to read.

If I tell you that I don’t care about my regular readers fleeing away, that’d be the biggest lie. I do care. I actually care a great deal about the regulars. But I also believe that a personal blog is a mirror that reflects the uniqueness of the blogger. If we lose our own styles, then, there is really no point to blog. So for the time being, I intent to keep being geeky about core processors and gigabits, business news and financial news. Climbing topics will always be there, as well as the dick jokes and relationship topics. At last, the focus of Yuna’s Village is to collect positive and inspiring thoughts. So I still plan on being super serious from time to time.

Blogger Depression and Blogger Holidays
I don’t know how many bloggers are under the gun point of the blogging schedules nowadays. I used to blog whenever an idea stroke me. Posting schedule? You kidding me? What the hell is that?

But after blogging for a while, especially after gaining a nice size of readership, the idea of posting schedule starts rolling in.

We are humans and one of our limitations is not able to come up with good ideas everyday. I noticed that I started to shift from “blog when I want to” mode to the “blog because I need to” mode. That just killed my creativity.

Although I said in my own research paper that a successful blogger should post everyday and on schedule, I am going to declare Blogger Holidays. And my first holiday is next week so I can focus on my own job and my Playstation2 for a while. After all, it’s a hobby and there is no reason to get burned out because of something I am supposed to be enjoying doing.

It looks like the struggling Tommy Hilfiger has to put itself up for sale and Wal-Mart is the biggest bidder among all. Now talking about bad merge and odd couple, this pair certain makes to the top of that list if the deal goes through. My 2 cents are that if Hilfiger wants to keep its not-so-hot brand image as it is if not any worse, STAY AWAY FROM WAL-MART!

Frankly speaking, I don’t like Wal-Mart. It’s noisy, dirty, crowded and … crowded. It kills local retail businesses and drives out little unique stores from the neighborhood. I used to shop there but I don’t go there anymore. It’s not worth the time to drive 20 minutes one way while the much cleaner Target is within walking distance.

Some people ask me, “How do you survive without Wal-Mart??!!” To a lot of folks (my own folks included), I am like this alien from Mars with two horns because I don’t shop in Wal-Mart. Hey! There are a lot of alternatives. Target, grocery stores, small family retail stores, etc… There is definitely a world outside of Wal-Mart.

Hilfiger has already started selling products on walmart.com. I personally think Hilfiger makes pretty good clothe such as man shirts. I always buy a few for my family members now and then. If the brand gets absorbed into Wal-Mart, I don’t know if I would trust the quality anymore. I think Wal-Mart would first ditch its design studio so a pair of Jeans could be sold at a Wal-Mart price like $19.99. This is just all wrong!

You bet! That’s why Microsoft is still pushing for Xbox 360 after losing $4 billion since the launch of Xbox 4 years ago. And Bill Gates is preparing to lose even more when Xbox 360 releases in Nov. “We are thinking long term.” Said Stephen McGill, head of UK marketing. Translation? Long term plan is to kill Sony, kill EA, kill Nintendo so everybody plays Microsoft games on Xbox 1200 in the long run.

But this time, it’s not going to be as easy as crushing Netscape or driving Apple out of the door. They first have to worry about Sony’s consoles. Everyone knows that game software is where the money is. To take over the game industry, Microsoft has to do what they did in the browser war with Netscape by leveraging the base, OS at that time, but console base this time. A game console is equivalent to the Operating System. Without taking over the base install, you can forget about game software monopoly. As far as the market concerns, Sony still holds majority of the shares. According to DFC’s forecast, Playstation 3 may be able to grab 53% market share which leaves Nintendo and Microsoft to grab a quarter each.

Sony knows very well where they stand. According to this month’s official Playstation magazine, it roughly takes $500 to manufacture a Playstation3 hardware but the retail price is set to $399. Merrill Lynch Japan has predicated a 1.18 billion loss for Sony after the first year launch. Sony might lose even more if Microsoft decides to cut Xbox 360’s price when Playstation3 hits the store shelves. So the budget gamers might be able to get a deal if a few month waiting doesn’t sound too terrible to bear.

Assuming Microsoft is able to take care of the Playstation problem, they still have to worry about EA and Nintendo, currently the two top game publishers in console game sector. It’s going to be tricky to hijack Mario and Madden NFL, Mr. Gates!

With a deep pocket and the determination to win the billion dollar interactive entertainment market, it’s anyone’s guess whether Microsoft is able to repeat the history and win this video game war.

It took me a few years to finally accept the thong concept and worked up the nerves to toss away a large portion of VS cotton panties in exchange of little pieces like this, this and this. But I have never stopped bitching about it. Seriously, this is the most uncomfortable thing that ever got invented! But I know if I am going down this path to talk about the crack-flossing pain, you’d think I whine too much.

So, to set the record straight once for all, I am going to give you 10 reasons why the THONG is one of the most dangerous fabrics exist in man kind history! And why it has the potentials to cause fashion disasters, emotional distresses, environmental hazards and social chaos:

1. Like I said earlier, it may cause environmental hazard when not worn properly
2. It may cause people to suffer from sudden heart failure
3. If not properly trained, people will be wearing thongs in all kinds of wrong ways like this, this, and this, thus causing UDS (underwear-disorder-syndrome)
4. Teens may be so emotionally involved that they decide to declare national holidays on there own.
5. People will easily use wrong sorts of materials such as this
6. Modern fashion would suffer a great deal if a thong is worn like this and this.
7. Certain thongswill severely challenge the average people’s intellectual capabilities to comprehend phrases like “wearing clothe” vs “not wearing clothe”
8. Soccer fans, one of the most devoted sports fans will lose their focuses.
9. People may start to use lab subjects such as this and this for their next creations and eventually piss off the animal rights organization.
10. And it is going to hurt when accident happens.

Ok, if you are still not convinced. Get this:
The thong was originally invented for men to cover their private parts while posing for the art classes during World War II. So for the sake of respecting the history, every guy should put it on and experience the new kind of floss for at least one day. Then, we can all decide if we want a root canal or a butt-floss.

Here is the complete photoblog entry.

“Screw the Nano!” said Motorola CEO Zander a few weeks after the mini version of the iPod mini came out. Boy…somebody is getting jealous here. Read the full report if you are curious to see how a big CEO is losing his temper.

They can bitch and fight all they want. When the competition is on, it means more choices for the consumers. Motorola just launched Rokr, the first iTunes compatible phone even before Apple releases its own version. But I doubt if Apple would be the one to create a “tech-mix” like one of those “MP3/Camera/Phone/walkie-talkie/voice-recorder/laser-pen/GPS/etc…” device in the near future. They probably still want to play their core iPod game for a while. As a techie junkie myself, I can’t wait to see what Apple is going to do after Nano. An iPod phone may not be a bad idea.

So, if Motorola is all fired up because of Apple’s success, then build a Nano size portable GPS that can be hooked onto any LCD screens, with MP3/DVD/phone/Satellite-radio controls. I know I will buy one for my car.

The hardest part of a consulting life is to say goodbye to the people I care about CONSTANTLY even after making an attempt to stay in one location.

My good friend/climbing partner/salsa partner/Yuna’s Village frequent visitor MaleDNASpecialist (alias he used on this site) is permanently leaving Colorado tomorrow since his contract with his current client has expired. I gave him a CD with our climbing videos and pictures, hugged him outside of Maggiano and walked away with a pretty heavy heart.

Usually, I am the one who is leaving everyone behind and move onto another city because the nature of my job. My worst experience was when I had to leave Richmond, VA close to 2 years ago right before I came to Denver, CO. I was consulting in Richmond for a financial firm and met a few great guys. We quickly became really good friends and formed a small game team called “Unreal”. Soon, Ryan’s girl Colleen came on board also. Every Wednesday, we would have family style dinners and share a few gossips about work and other silly stuff. Then, we’d kick each other’s ass in Ryan’s game room. We are not just some game buddies goofing off once a while in front of 3 game consoles. We’d be there when anyone needs help or a friend to talk to. We share the same views and other passions such as technology, foreign movies and Japanese cultures. We’d do home improvement projects together. We talk to each other about friendship, relationship and personal problems. We traveled to San Diego together on our own dimes to attend SigGraph conference. When you are talking about a tight circle of supportive friends, I couldn’t ask for more than what we had shared. I went back to Nashville for Christmas that year thinking I’d be back in a couple of weeks. Then the shocking news came. The client didn’t renew the contract and went for the cheaper Indian consultants. Overnight, I lost my job in Richmond. We did everything in our powers for the next 6 months trying to get my job back but every attempt led to a dead end. I was very grumpy about moving to Denver at that time. It’s been 2 years and I still go back to VA at least twice a year to hang out with them. Once real friends are made, they are friends forever. So here is an album dedicated to my dear Virginia friends.

This is my last week on the Denver project before I move onto Colorado Springs. It’s going to be sad to leave this office where so many wonderful people had once worked and had fun together. I probably attended at least a dozen goodbye parties at Rock Bottom to send away my great friends like Paco, Traveling Aussie and RJ. Although I am lucky enough to stay in Colorado this time, I won’t see my climbing partners and friends that often anymore because of my busy weekend travel schedules. These are the people who welcomed me to Colorado, showed me a great time in the mountains and shared their passions with me. So here is another album dedicated to the Denverers/semi-Denverers I have crossed the path in the last year and half.

Saying goodbye really sucks. But there are always going to be cool and exciting people down the road for us to meet. I am looking forward to have some good time again in Colorado Springs!

At first glance, I was really puzzled when eBay’s CEO Meg Whitman made the decision to acquire Skype for a whooping $4.1 billion in mid September. First of all, I can’t seem to be able to connect the dots between an online auction site and an online phone service company. I was hoping Whitman could give a better explanation but even Fortune’s article wasn’t able to decipher the 78 page PowerPoint presentation as why eBay made such an odd move. “Meg’s motive?” Fortune wrote, “”(is to) keep(ing) pace with Google and Yahoo”. Hmm, what does that mean? Even the market isn’t so enthusiastic about the news. eBay’s stock is down 7% since the rumor of the merge broke.

I was flying this weekend. After my flight got severely delayed, I checked into the Admiral Club and met a business man who seemed to be really bored. So we chatted. I learned that he owns a small printing business with his partner. Since I own a side family business as well, we started chatting about how to expand business and compete for more customers. At one point, he said something that got me thinking. I don’t remember his exact words, but here is the summary:

“… We ought to think 10, 15 years ahead. We have to have the visions that people in today’s society may not understand. That’s how we stay ahead of the game…”

Four years ago when Yahoo’s new Hollywood CEO Terry Semel wanted to transition a Directory Search Engine into a Hollywood style media company, we probably all gave him the same reaction, “You are going to do WHAT????!!!” Now, the reality shows his vision is really working. Yahoo is no longer a search directory and online ads saler. If you are interested, check out this article as how Semel turned Yahoo into a Hollywood style new media company. Even IBM has changed so much since I first joined the company in 1996. We are the first to manufacture PCs and now we no longer make them! Instead, our R&Ds are making all kinds of chips and processors for XBOX 360, PS3 and Nintendo Revolution! 10 years ago, none of the IBMers would believe this. I know I’d be shocked. But I think we made a good decision by ditching the money-losing PC hardware division and grabs a share in the hotter digital entertainment industry before Intel does. (Author’s note: Actually we haven’t been a hardware company for years. Our core business has shifted to services and consulting because of Lou Gerstner’s vision after he took over the company in early 90’s).

After all, it’s the vision that makes a company staying successful years after years. It might seem odd today that eBay is merging with a communication company. But as more and more sellers and buyers are demanding better communications on the bidding merchandises, it might make sense to team up e-commerce with communication.

Hey, maybe Jerry Seinfeld deicdes to host a real-time digital video auction to sell his auto collection one day. You never know…

This is the guy who leaked XBOX’s 360’s specs earlier. Oh, this is not Star Wars’ Han Solo reliving in the 21st century. This guy works for Factor 5, the company develops Star Wars games. So if he has posted something on a public forum to purposely leak the info out, I’d say the odds of specs being accurate are probably pretty high.

So, let’s take a look at a few highlights of the new Revolution specs:

• 1 dual-threaded IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz core with 256KB of L1 cache, 1MB of L2 cache, rumored to have L3 cache as well.
• GPU core at 600 Mhz that will support up to 2048×1268 resolution, though HD support is still being decided.
• 256 MB’s of 1T-SRAM which is much better than the Gamecube
• Main memory:512MB of 700 MHz 1T-SRAM
• The physical processing chip will have 32 MB of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller.

Although XBOX 360’s specs shows three 3.2 GHz cores and two hardware threads per core (yeah.. no comparison I know), but I doubt the gamers are expecting Nintendo to win the power processing war here. I know I don’t and I never will.

But I sure hope they will consider HD as part of the package. Ahh… Mario brothers in High Definition…. Now that’s something sweet for everyone to have…

Wait… Are there any gamers on the site who care for the GHz and Mhz? Or just me talking geeky by myself here?