Memoir of a (Momentary) Dot Com Mogul
Linked by Howard Fosdick on Mon 19th Nov 2012 09:15 UTC
In the News Levi Asher offers his free memoir of his rise and fall in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The autobiography covers Asher's twenty-five years in programming: his founding of the oldest ongoing literature website Literary Kicks in 1994, his success with the dot-com website iVillage in 1999 (and its subsequent collapse), and how all this insanity affected his personal life. It's a quick, entertaining read.
E-mail Print r 3   40 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/khr
Thread beginning with comment 543022
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[6]: Comment by deathshadow
by kwan_e on Fri 23rd Nov 2012 04:05 UTC in reply to "RE[5]: Comment by deathshadow"
kwan_e
Member since:
2007-02-18

It seems to me that the concept behind indexes is sound, but they've been corrupted.


But they're so easy to corrupt. Even the CPI - who chooses what goes into the "basket of goods", and who chooses which prices to put into the calculation? Unemployment and new jobs figures are even more of a joke. The just redefine the definition of unemployment and new jobs until it looks good.

It's like ley lines. You can look at any data plot and find things that match whatever you want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line#Shape_analysis

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[7]: Comment by deathshadow
by Alfman on Fri 23rd Nov 2012 04:42 in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by deathshadow"
Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

kwan_e,

"But they're so easy to corrupt."

I'm not disagreeing, but just because they are corruptible by a party deliberately seeking specific results doesn't mean statistics can never be applied responsibly. It's the fault of the people practising it rather than a problem with statistical analysis in and of itself. 80% of statistics are made up anyways ;)

"Unemployment and new jobs figures are even more of a joke."

Yea, I often get frustrated with the methodology not telling me what I'd personally like to know about the market. I know I could do a better job than the government at gathering and analysing data for more informative data, but then I'd be missing the point that this isn't actually their goal.


"It's like ley lines. You can look at any data plot and find things that match whatever you want."

I'd never heard of those, interesting link!

Reply Parent Score: 2