Well, I finally found the Leatherman Fuse multi-tool I had gotten for Christmas. It was in my laptop bag, and had (unknowingly) flown with me a bunch of times across the country.

So much for crack TSA x-ray screening.

And now we know why Netflix opened offered movie “rentals” for unlimited streaming: Apple’s announcement yesterday about moving into on-line movie rentals.

All of this competition and choice is great for consumers.  With Apple, Netflix, Amazon and others duking it out for movies, we’ll have great options with great features (like HD) at fair prices.

And, this is a great example of why there’s nervousness about network neutrality.

A very plausible scenario:  watch a bunch of Apple HD movies, and Comcast dings you with a “too much bandwidth” warning for the month and threatens to disconnect you.  Of course, you can watch all of the Comcast-provided movies you want — is that fair?

Today is Jan 15th, and Q4 2007 estimated tax payments are due (in the US).  If you’re self-employed, you estimate your tax liability during the year and make “withholding” payments (4) along the way.

If you’re self-employed, you have the privilege of paying two additional taxes (on top of income tax):   self-employment tax (12.4%) and Medicare (2.9%).   The SE tax phases out at $94,000, but the Medicare tax applies to your entire self employed income. Find out more at https://www.laborlawcc.com/new-york-labor-law-posters-state-and-federal-combo.html.

If you’re consulting, keep in mind when setting your rates that your marginal tax rate (combined state and federal) may be over 50%.

From a developing story about an Air Canada flight that made an emergency landing after 9 on board were injured during in-flight turbulence:

“It happened very fast,” one unidentified female passenger told the media at the airport. “One side of the plane just went up a little bit sideways and then just went back down. Our friend was really hurt. … She flew up and hit the ceiling and went back down.”

Moral:  keep your seatbelt fastened at all times.  I do, because me landing on you during a flight wouldn’t be pretty. Besides, I really like aviation so I know about these things. I’m the guy always filling the conversation with random aviation tidbits. I have already been trying to find an aviation job for a little while. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I do want to work in the industry. Maybe I’ll start with something simple at first, and then move on to something a bit more difficult like flying lessons, but we’ll see. 

I strongly disagree with Greg Linden’s prediction for 2008:

We will see a dot-com crash in 2008. It will be more prolonged and deeper than the crash of 2000.

The crash will be driven by a recession and prolonged slow growth in the US. Global investment capital will flee to quality, ending the speculative dumping of cash on Web 2.0 startups.

Bubble 2.0 will burst, and I agree that US economy and recession risks are huge factors.  But I don’t think it will be comparable to the crash of 2000.

The big factor:  the fundamentals are much different this time around.   Since 2000, customer behavior has evolved significantly (when was the last time you placed an order through an 800 number?).  Broadband adoption passed the half-way mark in the US, and video use has taken off.  AJAX and Flash technologies enable highly interactive user experiences.    Time in front of the television is shifting to time on the Internet.  Off-line advertisting dollars are shifting on-line, because that’s where the users are.

The other factor:  much more of the action this time around is happening outside of traditional venture capital (who’s over-investment behavior drove the first bubble).  As the capital needed to develop a Web idea drops, more entrepreneurs are bootstrapping, raising small amounts from friends, or using their own capital.  Those entrepreneurs are not spending $10m of VC money on launch parties.

Bottom line:  the bubble will burst, but it’s not going to be as bad as 2000.

There have been several reports of AT&T’s “naked DSL” offering (i.e. DSL without the analog phone line), which apparently was condition to merge with BellSouth.

Anyone who understands IP technology knows where this ends:   we’ll just have fat IP pipes (DSL, fiber, cable modem — doesn’t matter).  The latency will be low enough for real-time services, and the bandwidth will be high enough for video streaming.

We’re almost there.

I was setting up our vacation home last year:   we’ve got fast broadband, who needs “digital cable”, a “set top box”, a “radio”, or an “analog phone line”?  We can already download almost all of the audio and video we want to see.

(I did have to give in on the phone; the freeze-alarm out-dial needs to work when the power’s out.)

We went home for the holidays, and a long-time family friend was lamenting about his retirement.  He thought he had the necessary cash assets, but was having to work more than he expected.  I’ve also had a number of entrepreneur friends mis-estimate the amount they need to “retire”.

Most advisers will give you a ~2% guideline for retirement income:   if you want a lifetime inflation-protected income stream, budget on taking out that amount annually (or aggressively, 3%).  You can’t extrapolate from current CD or T-bill yields:  $1m may get you $50k/year today, but (a) $50k will be worth a lot less 20 years from now, and (b) yields will vary year to year.

Some of the annual gains need to be allocated to increasing the principal to keep up with inflation.  Plus, you have to account for variability in annual returns, and paying taxes (realized cap gains, dividends, interest) on those re-invested gains.  When it’s all netted out, you end up in the 2-3% range for annual income.

(This all applies if you’re relatively young.  Older retirees may be taking out principal each year).

Happy New Year to all three of my blog readers!  (…you know who you are)

For today’s bit of esoteric knowledge, last night you may have noticed that we did not have a leap second adjustment this year.  It turns out that man’s timekeeping has gotten more accurate than nature’s (“mean solar time”, the Earth’s rotation is slowing), and there’s a multi-year international debate about what to do about it.

See Wikipedia for the details.

From this post from Silicon Alley Insider:

eBay’s stock is dead in the water, and its two key constituencies–buyers and sellers–are pissed. Here’s our Four Plan Plan to fix the place

(from: Fixing eBay: Our Four Step Plan)

I think eBay is following the “AOL pattern”.

AOL helped millions of users get on-line. But as the Internet got more sophisticated, the users realized that the Internet was a lot more interesting than AOL. So they began to find other ways to get on-line.

Similarly, eBay as helped small business entrepreneurs get started selling on-line. But as Internet eCommerce tools have advanced, those entrepreneurs can easily host their own stores, complete with shopping carts and payment. In other words, they can bypass eBay and sell directly to customers.

Ebay’s situation is not as far along, of course, as AOL’s is. But it seems to be trending in that direction.

Boy, have I gotten spoiled with Verizon FiOS.  I’ve got 20mb down, 2 (or 5) up, and it’s not shared bandwidth. I have sub-10ms ping times to core sites.  I pay $100/month for the business version, which gives me 5 static IPs and no blocked ports.

We’ve had a hard-wired, always-on, dedicated Internet connection our house since 1992 (in some form:  56k DDS, ISDN, etc.).  But for the past year, I’ve experienced something I never expected:  I have far better bandwidth at home than work.