Moving on to next year

Xmas w/ family and friends

Back in Hong Kong for Xmas. Going to be short on time for the next few weeks.


NBA fans out there, check out The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today's Game.

No more invites SNS

What if...I created a social networking site with no such invite mechanism...

Okay, I know it's the semantic web. But let's think through why it would be cool.
The reason why Facebook is such a hit is because it helps people connect with one another. The problem I see, however, is that the barriers to connecting with your friends is primarily the invitation mechanism. Either you or your friend must invite the other, and the otherside needs to accept the invitation. That's quite a barrier...let me explain why.

Except for the few who enjoy going around searching for all their friends (a small population), I think most people don't bother inviting their friends. I think this is especially true after they have accumulated a proportion of their friends on the network. The problem is that when we have reached that stage, nobody bothers to invite each other anymore. For example, I know many of my friends are on facebook, but I don't bother to invite them (and neither do they).

This barrier is huge. If I were automatically friend-ed with all my friends (via photos, wall posts, etc...) and my friends are ranked based on my network and the amount of interaction between each of them and me, I would have more reasons to be on facebook. I would be truly connected with my network and there would also be more entry points for interactions between my friends and I.

Competition

I dislike competitive people who feel they have a need to outdo their social network.

Granted I think I was like that once upon a time (in middle school or something), those who feel like they need to 1up everybody around them just turns me off. Beating out your social network really doesn't do anything but make you feel better about yourself, there are simply too many people in this world to be wasting your time comparing. You will always be a loser.

I'm not saying I'm not a competitive person, but I'm only interested in competing against myself. I think the difference is that when you grasp such concept, you will learn that out-doing your social network is actually anti-constructive.

Life is like a game. I swear by it.

Over the past 2 years, I suspect of having probably read/listened/watched every useful idea/concept/suggestion/advice about entrepreneurship out there. It sounds silly, but if you think about it, there are only a handful of useful/great ideas in circulation. Most of the rest is just noise or the same idea put in a different way.

When my next venture begins, I will want to run as fast as I possibly can. Unfortunately, according to the mistakes I made on my last venture, I'm not supposed to do that.

This reminds me my program is approximately 20% over. So get with the delivering.

Erik's Bookmarks

Finally converted to delicious. I probably ought to have earlier but finally I took the time to understand such a simple concept until after hearing my brother evangelize it for so long.

Please add 'echan00' if you are a delicious user. I believe the future of IT is being able to find what you want through all this bullshit.

Top 5 Gameplay Mechanics of 2008

From Gamasutra...


Braid (Jonathan Blow/Number None; Xbox 360)
Mechanic: time manipulation

Braid is not the first game to incorporate a time manipulation mechanic, but it is surely the first game to integrate one so crucially, permeating every moment and puzzle to a degree usually reserved for basic actions like running and jumping. And each world was treated as a gameplay variation on the theme of time, taking that central mechanic and expanding it in elegant ways.

The pervasiveness of that mechanical theme even extended to the game's narrative and protagonist, putting a gameplay property front and center in the kind of thorough way that remains surprisingly infrequent in game design, which makes it all the more impressive on the part of designer Jon Blow that the mechanic itself is so unusual.

Left 4 Dead (Valve/Valve South; PC, Xbox 360)
Mechanic: cooperative player assistance, AI director

Cooperative play has been undergoing a welcome renaissance lately, and Valve's recent zombie-themed shooter has reached a new high in the balance between genuinely necessary cooperation and individual agency.

Some games simply drop multiple players into an otherwise single-player campaign, and some become cumbersome in their devotion to constant cooperative acts, but Left 4 Dead's simple player-to-player assistance interactions -- not to mention the inherent benefit of cooperation engendered by the setting -- make group coherence eminently rewarding and manageable, even with random online players.

To cheat another mechanic into this entry, the game's AI director -- which oversees item and enemy spawning based in part on player behavior -- is a brilliantly seamless method by which to not only promote replayability, but to feed into the intrinsically frantic nature of a four-player close-quarters FPS.

And after all, if you start to suspect the game is out to get you, the urge and ability to fight back is all the more intensified by having three comrades-in-arms on the other end of a headset.

LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule; PS3)
Mechanic: real-time level editing

LittleBigPlanet is as much about enabling gamers to participate in level design as anything else, which means its user design experience needed to at least approach the level of accessibility seen in more traditional gameplay.

Certainly, creating a LittleBigPlanet level requires more investment of time and creativity than playing a LittleBigPlanet level, but it is telling that the lines between the two can be somewhat blurred.

It is perhaps even more telling that, thanks to the game's intuitive, real-time nature of level editing, Media Molecule has shipped a creation mechanic that has proved enormously usable for end users while remaining standard issue for the studio's professional designers.

Mirror's Edge (Digital Illusions CE; Xbox 360, PS3)
Mechanic: first-person parkour

The demo for Mirror's Edge generated considerable gamer hype based on the surprising fluidity and elegance of its central hook, first-person freerunning amidst a cleanly-defined urban setting.

Despite taking criticism upon full release for inconsistency and certain presentational elements, developer DICE nonetheless achieved an impressive feat with the implementation of the game's character control.

Combining a simple control setup with the immediacy of the first-person perspective, DICE translated a gameplay idea that had previously been well-explored in other formats into something extremely fresh.

Spore (Maxis; PC)
Mechanic: procedural character creation

Arguably the most significant gameplay feature of Will Wright's latest offering isn't even a direct part of what gamers would traditionally call its core gameplay, but Spore's procedural character creation mechanic can become an entire game unto itself.

Incorporating dynamic skeletal systems, animation, texturing, and more, Maxis achieved astonishingly robust results in an area of game design that in practice often ends up stilted and too-obviously artificial.

The tens of millions of diverse creatures and structures that have been generated demonstrate the diversity of Spore in particular, but the successful implementation of the technology should be encouraging to the development community at large.

So much to do in so little time

It's really not helping that it snowed today. I think I'm going to blame it on the weather -the drop in temperature has decreased my productivity lately.

hi⋅ber⋅nate
–verb (used without object), -nat⋅ed, -nat⋅ing.
1. to spend the winter in close quarters in a dormant condition, as bears and certain other animals.

I have a lot to talk about, but I guess I'll have to cut it here today.

Great graphics and gameplay. This new iteration of PoP is probably one of my favorites this holiday season. I dig the overall package and game design tweaks.


Still my favorite Death Cab for Cutie album.


I haven't seen the DVD yet, but the trailer looks crazy. Justice live is another experience compared to the album.


Great book. Highly recommended along with the Jim Collins series. I put it off from my "read list" until recently because I thought it was one of those "lets talk about one idea for 300 pages" type of books. Quite glad to have been wrong about that. Now I want to add a book recommendation widget on this blog...

Like it or not you probably are...

a Kanye fan (in some way or another). I'll respect talent and good music.

ITS COLDDDDD

All my motivations for making the trip to the icehotel (http://www.icehotel.com/Winter/Icehotel/) in Sweden got killed today.

It's -8 Celsius in Beijing right now, which according to my body, is the time to keep any and all skin from being directly exposed to the air when outdoors. Mentally, that would mean to stay home, stay home, and stay some more at home.

hkbomber: Why so Serious?

Exams are coming up and professors do revision sessions to help students get through the exams. I am not being cocky here but while everyone is worried about their grades, I am overconfident to a point where I dont see the need of over studying.

Most of the people I talked to in this MBA thought our class and works are intense, but this is nothing new to me. This MBA is busy, yes, but it has also been a relatively easy ride for me, at least compare to the 4 years of hell I went through as a Biomed undergrad in JHU.

I have always told my parents this... "unless there is some other planet with living people, I graduated from the best biotech university from the universe and everything else in life will not be as challenging as that" Seriously, how do you top from being the best in the universe? This doesnt mean I dont treat my MBA course with the attention it needs... I just dont see the need of stressing over it, especially when its just an exam of your analytical skills (somethings you can train in 10 days).

Why so serious?

- hkbomber

Too tired to talk

Facebook Comeback

Now that developers are sick of Facebook and are buzzing about iPhone apps, I've been looking into developing on the former platform.

The platform for Facebook apps has matured over the past half year or so and I've noticed a few changes during this time. Firstly, the overall profile page impression (or design) has been cleaned up due to better app restrictions and UI changes. But more importantly, psychologically, users have begun to weigh their time as more important compared to the apps (as if they are spam).

I think the need for quality apps on Facebook has arrived. Apps that can provide value to their users (and preferably not easily replicated) should charge for their service/product. I think users will pay for them if the above is true. A few paying customers is better than many users using your product for free.


One great example I've noticed is why the Texas Holde'em Poker app on Facebook is free to play while the iPhone version costs $10. It doesn't make sense to me.

Tired & Busy

Speculating NYSE:ATVI

Analysts expect the game industry to do well during a recession. The underlying opinion is that consumers will gravitate towards cheaper forms of entertainment (such as video games) during a downturn. They expect the current crisis to give this industry a good boost coming this Xmas.


I can't agree more with those analysts. And I've had an eye on my previous employer, Activision Blizzard, as of late. Their titles Guitar Hero: World Tour, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, and Call of Duty: World at War are going to dominate the game top-seller charts this season.

ATVI is at $9.34 right now. Just watch their next earnings report.

Or you could bet on Gamestop (NYSE: GME). But I like ATVI more.

Recession Business

Now that we're in a recession, are entrepreneurs supposed to alter their business model towards those that drive solid revenue streams?

I think most MBAs would tend to think so, but I'm reluctant to agree just yet. I mean what are the differences between a company which doesn't consider change regardless of a recession or not? Chances are that the company will be poor and bootstrapping anyways, so no difference there.

Secondly, granted investors are more enthusiastic about self-sustainable startups in general, I would also argue that the time it takes a startup to develop and fully go to market is about a third of a crisis cycle. This then means that starting a company with a longer-term model may position it for the upcoming bull run as well.

Furthermore, I'm under the presumption that businesses with longer-term models are more difficult to clone.

The difference between a product focusing on eyeballs and IP is also an interesting one. It's like the difference between games and web people or building a Tetris clone and Harmotion (or Okami, Mirrors Edge, etc...). On one hand, developing Tetris provides a defined product and install base (instant eyeballs): on the other hand, a new IP allows for creating a new market (more upside at the cost of accumulating users one at a time.)

But what about Puzzle Quest (the bejewel x RPG)? Can that be the best of both worlds?

the new IN and Out

I hear that McDonalds opened two exclusive Quarter Pounder Shops in Shibuya and Omotesando that are devoid of any of their branding.

With all black interiors the shops are minimalist to say the least. The menu is just as simple: Regular or Double Quarter Pounder sets in red and black packaging that has McDonalds shaping without the graphics

This is a pretty interesting campaign. I dig it.

Unexpected Surprise

Back in Hong Kong til Wednesday to check on my tail bone injury. I'm wasn't very impressed to find that the two doctors whom examined me (and my X-ray) in Beijing didn't find that my bone was out of whack.

Originally the plan was to attend Bloggercon in Guangzhou this weekend. I suppose I will have to wait until next year.

+++ Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul +++

Depression?

I hate to sound so gloomy (injured my tailbone) but we just got news jobless claims in the US reached 516,000 -a seven year high.

According to about.com, a depression is a severe economic downturn that lasts several years. And during the Great Depression of 1929, unemployment was 25% and wages fell 42%. Total U.S. economic output fell from $103 to $55 billion and world trade plummeted 65% as measured in dollars.

Okay so maybe we won't go into a depression because governments are "supposedly" smarter than they once were, but the world economy sure looks grim right now. Sometimes you think you only read about all these crazy events in history books, but look at where are right now; a big financial blowup, the making of capitalism and a few dirty hands. Perfect material along with the other shit conjured up by mankind.

Nevertheless, what still really beats the hell out of me is why I still know of so many people out there who are interested in looking at a job in finance. Aside from the fact that some of them don't even understand the nature of the field (only the $$$), they don't seem to be able to relate the current economy with their job prospects.

Blogspot Personalization

As you can see, I decided to do a little bit of custom work on my blog today. It originated from trying to get the 'followers' plugin to install (on the sidebar to the right), but it spider-ed into all sorts of other ideas and motivations...

I'm not sure I'll keep the 'followers' plugin around. I guess I will leave it up my readers to decide for me. I just like the idea of putting stuff out there and see what type of user engagement you will get.

I also added a 'rate my entry' plugin which will be interesting to have at the end of each entry. It's definitely less time consuming or complicated to use than leaving a comment. Hopefully, my readers will dig that.

I feel the template can use a bit more work. I'll settle with version 1 for the time being. I definitely welcome suggestions and advice.

horrendous e-waste problem

Link

On my ipod

+++ Albert Hammond Jr. - ¿Cómo Te Llama? +++

The title ¿Cómo Te Llama? is Spanish for 'How does he/she/it call you?' And unexpected record from the Strokes guitarist.

Real Life Photoshop Interface

Nothing short of cool for the Photoshop geek.

If this was supposed to build buzz, then I think it hit the right chords.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Moves 4M, Konami Makes $1.5B

Continuing from my previous MGS4 post about game sales...

The stealth action game is still a gravy train at Konami. With total Metal Gear series sales amounting to 4.33 million. That's more than a third of the Konami's total game sales for the six month period, with the games division pulling in about $950 million (USD) in revenue.

PlayStation 3 software accounted for 38% of the company's "digital entertainment" sales, which totaled 11.75 million games. Profit for the six month period was $232.8 million, with Konami's video game business doing a healthy $268 million in operating income.

With these figures in front us, I expect a 360 version of MGS4 in the future as well as a MGS5 (regardless of whether Hideo Kojima is in or not)

In class and nothing particularly interesting to say lately. Below are a few things from the past week or two...

I went to see the Warriors play the Bucks...

And saw Kanye West perform at a crap venue (everybody was sitting?!)

On the bright side, DJ Shadow will be here this weekend.

Things He wish he’d known when he was younger

I think there's a lot of wisdom to be learned from this man (Adrian Savage)...

• Most of it doesn’t matter. So much of what I got excited about, anxious about, or wasted my time and energy on, turned out not to matter. There are only a few things that truly count for a happy life. I wish I had known to concentrate on those and ignore the rest.

• Waiting to do something until you can be sure of doing it exactly right means waiting for ever. One of the greatest advantages anyone can have is the willingness to make a fool of themselves publicly and often. There’s no better way to learn and develop. Heck, it’s fun too.

• Following the latest fashion, in work or in life, is spiritual and intellectual suicide. You can be a cheap imitation of the ideal of the moment; or you can be a unique individual. The choice is yours. Religion isn’t the opiate of the masses, fashion is.

• If people complain that you’re too fond of going your own way and aren’t fitting in, you must be on the right track. Who wants to live life as a herd animal? The guys in power don’t want you to fit in for your own sake; they want you to stop causing them problems and follow their orders. You can’t have the freedom to be yourself and meekly fit in at the same time.

• The quickest and simplest way to wreck any relationship is to listen to gossip. The worst way to spend your time is spreading more. People who spread gossip are the plague-carriers of our day. Cockroaches are clean, kindly creatures in comparison.

• Trying to please other people is largely a futile activity. Everyone will be mad at you sometime. Most of the people you deal with will dislike, disparage, belittle, or ignore what you say or do most of the time. Besides, you can never really know what others do want, so a good deal of whatever you do in that regard will go to waste. Be comforted. Those who love you will probably love you regardless, and they are the ones whose opinions are worth caring about. The rest aren’t worth five minutes of thought between them.

• Every winner is destined to be a loser in due course. It’s great to be up on the winner’s podium. Just don’t imagine you can stay there for ever. Worst of all is being determined to do so, by any means available.

• However hard you try, you can’t avoid being yourself. Who else could you be? You can act and pretend, but the person acting and pretending is still you. And if you won’t accept yourself—and do the best you can with what you have—who then has any obligation to accept you?

~~~ Cat Power - the Greatest ~~~ How romantic.

My New Language Buddy (MyNLB)

I'll refrain from spamming my contact list about helping me out and rating my competition entry.

But if you respect my drive and enthusiasm for doing my own thing out there and taking the risks leading to where-ever I end up later in life, please rate my competition submission (I got hated on with 1 star ratings.) The link is above.

Now you can find out how I feel

the China Channel is a plug-in for Firefox that allows you to simulate what it's like to be surfing the web behind the great Chinese firewall. This delightful product recreates the surfing experience of someone at a standard Internet-connected computer in China where websites with "blocked content" brings you 10 minutes of dead air.

Some people really have nothing better to develop in their free time.

iPhone Game: Puzzllotto

Puzzllotto is the first application to come out of developer Mike Lee’s United Lemur development company. The $5 app is a puzzle game where each day from its release, the reward for solving the puzzle will increase by another $1000, with a maximum of $30,000 available to the winner. If nobody claims the prize by the end of the 30 days, United Lemur will donate that $30,000 to charity.

What an interesting marketing ploy. Each $5 app sold will bank United Lemur $3.5. That means they will need to sell an average of 286 copies of Puzzllotto per day to break-even. It will be interesting to find out how this app does for United Lemur but I am under the impression it will do more than fine (which will be based on how well the press circulates this interesting app.)

Back to Mobile

Okay. So I'm looking at mobile apps again...

The mobile landscape has made some significant changes this year. Most notably, the distribution of its applications have moved up the value chain from mobile carriers to the OS developers. Symbian, Apple, and Google are the new kings and they are taking a more or less "open" approach to what is available to the consumers (basically, the users will determine everything forward.)

I seriously think it's going to be the internet all over again. We started off with shareware and then gradually moved towards services (such as free to play) on the internet in the past. I don't think it will be any different this time since Google and Symbian have taken a truly "open" strategy towards their platform. I believe this is why iPhone apps are making a good buck right now (and won't last too long doing so.)

Now the question is, with all these new app developers rushing into these mobile platforms (ala facebook apps last year), what are the smart projects to be working on to take advantage of such situations? I say that because I know one thing NOT TO DO is to follow the crowd and develop just another app as well.

I Miss my Music

A few weeks ago, my Rhapsody subscription ended and I decided not to renew it. Given I've already been having trouble streaming (and no browser usage) in China, I decided it was finally time to part ways because I don't use it enough anymore.

I simply don't have the time/space to listen to anything. I would if I had more school work and am at my desk (but I don't). And neither does it help that I would get myself run over while biking around the neighborhood with my iPod plugged into my ears.

Recent albums I have yet to check out are:
Rise Against - Appeal to Reason
Oasis - Dig Out your Soul
Snow Patrol - Take Back the City
Metallica - [forgot]
Anberlin - Surrendar
Kings of Leon - Only by the Night
Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation

One hell of a pitch

Basketball is life?

I've been playing basketball for the past 13 years. Aside from a few months stretch here and there, I don't think I've ever really taken a break from it. In fact, the more I play, the more I see how it resembles life and the world around us. The depth in a game of basketball is limitless. The details are subtle.

Over the years, my skills and perception of basketball has changed radically. One major development is the change from 'Me' to 'We'. I like to think of it as smart basketball because I don't believe in consistent heroic efforts anymore. It's about winning and not scoring. Isn't that what leaders are supposed to believe in too?

In light of my Chinese classmates, I've been playing more basketball lately. It's a great way to blow off steam and escape. When I'm on the court my attention is undivided, it's the feeling of being consumed.

Dammit, Linkin Park bailed on Beijing last weekend.

I've been obnoxiously busy lately. A very good busy I would add. Probably described as trying to make the most out of business school. I would have more time to blog about something to blog if it weren't so.

Currently in the Running:




Did you know? Each Nintendo Employee Generates $1.6 Million In Profit (At Goldman Sachs, each are worth $1.24 million)

littlebigplanet

LBP just arrived!! It's probably the last of major PS3 titles I am significantly looking forward to after MGS4. Seriously, who isn't to like a 4 player platformer that requires teamwork and simple controls to play(joystick and one button to grab/push).
It's going to be interesting to find out whether the community is going to embrace the level creation tool and share interesting levels.

On the note of platformer games, Braid on XBLA is also similarly awesome.

A Rock Star

is not someone who takes the temperature, who gauges the marketplace before he creates his "art". A rock star is someone who needs to create and is willing to tolerate the haters along with the fans. He’s someone who incites controversy just by existing. That’s what we lost in the dash for cash. Unique voices. I’m not saying we haven’t ended up with some pleasant music, but it just hasn’t hit you in the gut, it’s the aural equivalent of Splenda, it might do the trick, but it’s not the real thing. The real thing grabs your attention, drives down deep into your heart and lodges itself there. A rock star doesn’t follow conventions, doesn’t go disco or add drum machines just because everybody else does. A rock star exists in his own unique space, and if you met him you probably wouldn’t like him. Because he tends to be self-focused to the point of being narcissistic. Because he cares. He needs to get his message out.

Not sure if there's much I can do about the warning, but I'm constantly reminded by a black symbol (a scheme usually relating to death) in my taskbar regarding how crappy my battery has turned out.


I really don't care. I had a great time running all over my battery. I just don't want to know about it.

I pick GOOG

Google just dropped another 5% to do below $350 yesterday. I'm not saying its time to get in, but I'm waiting on it.

Granted it seems pretty much inevitable that we're heading for a recession (or depression?), ad dollars are bound to drop when companies look for ways to cut costs and minimize expenses during this time.

GOOG obviously hasn't been cut any slack based on its recent stock price knife dropping, but they are probably still one of the best advertising platforms out there in the market. At the least, advertisers get a certain ROI via search advertising compared to television and print medias. And even within internet search, the major hurting will be on YHOO and MSFT's business more so than GOOG.

According to Barclay, total ad spending in the U.S. is forecasted to decline 3.6 percent this year to $284 billion and then another 5.5 percent in 2009 to $269 billion. Of that total, Barclays is still estimating that Internet ad spending will grow 17 percent to $24.8 billion in 2008. But that represents a $1.4 billion haircut from its previous 2008 estimate of $26.2 billion.



Are We Sure About Pending Collapse of Ad-Supported Internet?

Go on. Guess. The elderly? WRONG. Teenage girls? WRONG. Japan's biggest users of the DS are (according to this Nintendo-supplied chart, anyways) the same who were the biggest users of the GBA, and the Game Boy before that: boys. Specifically, 10-12 year-old boys. After that, though, it gets interesting. The most dominant demographics after the boys are women in their early 30s, followed by 10-12 year-old girls, followed by men in their early 30s. Not teens, not twenty-somethings, but people in their early 30s.

Just finished reading...

Tribal Leadership is possibly the best book about leadership I have read thus far. It defines a simple foundation to make sense of how people interact (and work) together, and how leaders ought to leverage beyond one-self to achieve more with less. Some of the concepts are familiar, but still very worth reading unless you have absolute no doubts about leadership.

hilarious

From Gizmondo


For when fruits, veggies, exercise, plenty of sleep and the occasional colonic won't do, Gamer Grub promises to be the first "performance snack formulated especially for gamers." In flavors like Action Pizza, Racing Wasabi, Strategy Chocolate and Sports PB&J, the snacks are not only fortified with vitamins and minerals, but are specially engineered to be crumb and grease free, protecting your keyboard from its normal all-it-can-eat junk food buffet. We're not sure precisely which brick of the USDA food pyramid that videogame genre-flavored morsels fall into, but we're willing to wave most (OK, some) judgment until we're able to test this stuff for ourselves.

Until then, here are our rejected headlines for this story:

Gamer Grub:
Because Playing Games Doesn't Repulse Women Enough
Because We've Always Wondered What Mario's Balls Tasted Like
Because Vomit Has Nutrients Too
Because You're Not Fat Enough Already
Because It's Obviously Good For You
Because Your Blender Is Broken
Because the Rotting Scrapings of the Cheetos Factory Gotta Go Somewhere
Because the FDA Takes Bribes
Because the Chinese Aren't the Only Ones Trying To Poison Us

According to Gamasutra and gathered statistics by Famitsu and Enterbrain, the PSP sold 1,583,731 units during the first six months of the year in question, and that brings the total number to well over 10 million (10,157,757) in the land of the Rising Sun. Not surprisingly, the DS was second with 1,314,919 units sold, and of course, still holds a substantial lead with a total of 23,484,680 units sold overall.


I still stick to my beliefs the PSP (or some alternation of portable) will get big. It's only matter of time until we see other players (such as MSFT) getting in on it.

Modern Sky Fest

Checked in at the Modern Sky music festival over the past two days.

The music scene in China is developing at godspeed. There's a good crowd, lots of cool art and good haircuts. Though, some of the popular bands whom head-lined weren't so much my liking. I think it's because they all had a Chinese mainstream sound to them.

I still have to check out the midi festival that started yesterday. But 刺猬 HedgeHog is probably my fav Chinese band of yet.

Currently in my playlist...

Jazmine Sullivan is an American R&B singer-songwriter, a protegee of Missy Elliott.
What's with everybody taking samples from Daft Punk?

Can't wait to go shopping

The stock market is in turmoil and there is no better time to buy than when everybody is screaming ‘sell, sell, SELL!!!’

The question is when to buy and who. If I were god, I would be able to tell you exactly what time and day that is. But unfortunately I’m not, so let's just speculate...


Risk/volatility is pretty high right now. We’ve been seeing some major market rollercoasting based on announcements of the bailout plan. Obviously, a bailout will keep the market stable and no bailout will kill the market like wildfire. I think there will be at least some kind of bailout (nevertheless can be a half-baked one).
The proposed $700 billion bailout plan shows every sign that the leaders of America finally acknowledge the consequences of the crisis we're confronting. The stats below reflect this:

NASA budget for 2009: $17.6 billion, or 2.5 percent of the bailout sum.

National Science Foundation (NSF) annual budget: $6.06 billion (basically the fore-front of R&D throughout the nation’s universities)

Military operations and other activities associated with the war in Iraq (2003 through the end of fiscal year 2009 ): $606 billion

Social Security program (annually): $608 billion

I think I ought to have appetite for additional risk at this time of my life. But at the same time learning to play smart and get in when the market stables down (at the cost of when prices will not be as handsome anymore) seems more worthy. I think such discipline will be a great receipe for additional investing in the future.

I'm going to get in on the leaders of industries that were hit hardest by the crisis. Leaders ought to have better fundamentals. And since they were hit hard, potential to make up the valuation they once had is probably also best-est.