Posts

Showing posts from March, 2009

Things Aren't Tough All Over: Hedge Fund Elites Reap Billions in '08

Image
Despite a year-long global economic meltdown that only got worse as the year wore on, the world's 25 most successful hedge fund managers raked in a total of $11.6 billion in 2008 — their third best haul this decade. The secret to their success? Well, some of it is a secret. But if you guessed big bets against banks and the housing market you'd be on the right track. Topping the list is former math professor James Simons, won’t discuss his strategy (really?) except to say that it is based on "rapid-fire trading across almost every possible market and that it relies on computer-driven programs designed by an army of more than 100 PhDs," according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine , which has kept this score for eight years. Simons, who runs Renaissance Technologies Corp., made $2.5 billion in '08, a year in which even most hedge funds lost money. Forget about trying to get in now; it's been closed to new investors since 2002. (Continue Reading at

Test Ride: Even in New York, the Aptera Stops Traffic

Image
If the Tesla Roadster is sex on wheels, the Aptera 2e is like making out with the cute woman down the hall: It's a lot of fun and you want to do it again soon. Tooling around New York in the funky three-wheeled EV is an odd experience where everything on the road slows down to check you out, when cab drivers not only obey traffic laws, they let you violate them at their expense, and New Yorkers — who pride themselves on being nonchalant about everything — stop dead in their tracks and ask, "Does it fly?" No, the 2e does not fly. But it might as well for all the attention it draws. The thing is, everybody knows the dirty little secret about cars: The real test isn’t how much tech it has or how fast it goes or how green it is or how many cup holders there are. The real test, especially for something so outlandish as an EV with three wheels and two seats, is this: Is it really a car, would you be caught dead parking it at work and what is the head-turning quotient?

Media Death March: Seattle P-I Stops Printing, Goes All-In Online

Image
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishes its last dead-tree edition Tuesday, the latest newspaper to succumb to the harsh realities of an internet economy where delivering bits is an increasingly inefficient way of delivering the news. News of the P-I's decision to publish online only was telegraphed for weeks , and it follows the decision of the Rocky Mountain News to shutter completely, the Christian Science Monitor to publish online only starting next month and deep concessions by staff at another Hearst newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, to keep that newspaper afloat. The owners put the newspaper up for sale on Jan. 9 and said they would shut it down if a buyer did not step forward. With a daily circulation of 117,000 the Seattle P-I is the largest daily to cease paper publication. The Christian Science Monitor is in 50k territory. "Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," editor and publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroo

What's Your Name Again, Fella?

Image
Another cruel reminder. Via TweepRoll .

Baby, You Can Drive My Carr

Image
There's going to be plenty of pushback on Alan Carr's NYT piece about how to save the newspaper , so I'll keep this short and sweet: Any industry which says it can only be saved by collusion is suspect on its face. Any decent journalist would scream bloody murder if that was suggested by, say, the financial services industry or the airlines or — closer to home — a Starbucks/Caribou cartel. The excellent examples of fee-based online services Carr cites cover niche topics, not geographical communities (except for The Arkansas Gazette, which gives away aggregator-length snippets). Odd argument, since these publications are doing exactly what newspapers aren't doing, by organizing around subjects rather than territory and not making me subsidize sports coverage I don't want. (Carr left out the Financial Times , which charges more than any of his examples and has an even more narrowly-defined clientelle.) Google doesn't need you. Repeat: Google doesn't need y