Hashemian Blog
Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology
Saturday, August 26, 2006
A reader's view of aging
A while back I received an email from a reader, Jim, in response to a couple of my blog entries,. One was regarding my entry titled: Nursing home and aging. I regarded his response thought-provoking enough to publish it here in its entirety. With thanks to Jim for taking the time to share his views and allowing me to publish it.
Hello again Robert. I had two comments about two different blogs so I split them up rather than lump them together.
I had mentioned that I first read your blog about whois. But as I read your blog about nursing homes it effected me more. (Even to the point to do spelling checks this time!)
You were commenting on how your aunt's husband said "Age is just the number. What counts is how old your heart feels." and you felt strongly that you would trade wisdom and experience off in a second for youth. I appreciate that it's a brutally honest statement for you, but I don't think you've ever really asked someone who was 90 and in the throes of senility if they wanted the same. I think they'd want to be in full command of their facilities and feel good, but they'd appreciate all seasons of life they've been in. I've talked to many people over the age of 60 and they 95% of the time feel the same. I'm 51 and in the middle of my life. My mother died of cancer at 64 and my father lived to be 82 with no health problems. And in all those extremes, no one wanted to be young, they just wanted to be healthy.
Some times I imagine what it would be like to have a time machine and go back and make all the perfect choices in life. To choose better jobs than the bad ones I've had or avoid dating the women who were trouble, or buy eBay stock before it skyrocketed. But I'd be married to Angelina Jolie by now and miserable that she's so high maintenance and weird! And I wouldn't have my beautiful and exceptional daughter. Life is a journey, and we can't skip the Atlantic Ocean if we're traveling to the Bahamas. You're just in that mid life crisis I want to be back in my 20s kind of thing. Don't worry, it'll pass when you hit 45.
You ask "why do so many of us strive to stay as young as possible, as long as possible?" Why do you wash your car? You'd have more time for other things if you let it get dirty or rust or filthy. Do you like how it looks when it's clean? Does it last longer if you give it oil changes? Welcome to planet earth. It's a health thing, not a compulsive obsession. The plastic surgery-a-holics are another story, but I'm not one, are you? I rest my case.
When we grow old, we don't lose our agility or resilience or resolve. They just modify. I've had all the time I need to achieve my lofty goals, all but one. And I'm only 51. I've played guitar professionally in clubs and bars, been a DJ on two radio stations, been and still am an engineer, took helicopter and fixed wing flying lessons and been a pilot, wrote comedy for cable TV, have patents of things I've invented, have a wonderful family and life, and people tell me I look 10 years younger. Do you know why? Because "age is just the number. What counts is how old your heart feels". And it shows in our health if we have the right attitude. Take the advice of what the perfect toast said to the burnt one: "Lighten up".
-Jim
age,mid-life crisis,senior citizens <A reader's view of aging>
// posted by rh
Monday, August 21, 2006
Google Video Replaces Google Groups
 Remember Usenet? If not, ask your father and he'll tell you that Usenet was (and still is) the NNTP-based technology used to post messages online. For many years it operated much like the old bulletin boards. I would use my character-based terminal to post and read messages. Then a colleague of mine introduced me to Dejanews. Realizing the eclipsing nature of the Web, Dejanews had created a Web interface to interact with Usenet. Once I got on it, there was no going back.
A few years later Google bought Dejanews, and Dejanews became Google Groups. I liked it even better now. If I were searching for something on Google I could quickly click on the "Groups" link to search Usenet for the same term. But all that changed a couple of weeks ago when google started to peddle its new Video service and Groups was relegated to a new javascript box to appear when someone clicks on "more". Now going from Web search to Groups search takes two clicks.
Yes, I am whining, but why not? Two clicks is twice as many as a single click and over a period of time they add up. Plus I'm still trying to deprogram myself from clicking on the position where "Groups" used to be. Why take that convenience away from us to push some new service?
Google claims that placing the "Video" link on top has brought their video site a great deal of traffic. I don't dispute that, I count myself as one of those people who visited the video site and watched a few clips, but that's hardly a reason to alienate users of their other services.
I have to assume that Google's rationale of booting "Groups" from the top links arise from their goal of keeping their pages as clean and tidy as possible. But now they are sacrificing function for form and that's hardly sane. Let's face the reality Google guys. You are expanding your services and garnering new users fast. You are building a mega-site in Oregon to handle all the traffic coming your way. It's okay to have a few more links on the your pages. Don't go getting bashful now. Bring back the "Groups" link. Really, I don't mind it at all.
google,google video,google groups,usenet,dejanews,nntp <Google Video Replaces Google Groups>
// posted by rh
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Ducati dreams
I'm probably one of the few people on earth who hasn't seen the entire Matrix trilogy. I actually caught the first Matrix movie on a Virgin Atlantic flight a few years back. I liked the movie so much that I ended up watching it a couple of times. I saw the second installment, Matrix Reloaded, a couple of days ago after buying the movie on sale from a local Blockbuster on clearance for $1. Unlike the first movie I didn't find the plot very amusing but I admit the special effects were stunning. I especially liked the chase scene with Trinity and the Keymaker on the Ducati bike.
I have been riding bikes for most of my life. Bikes have been in my blood since early childhood. My protective parents never allowed me to have a bike, so I had to settle for a scooter as a kid. I did however had a friend with a street bike and I would secretly hook up with him any chance I could get. When I finally left home in my late teenage years, I bought my own bike and that was my only transportation for years. Yes, I've heard all the stories about people getting killed or maimed doing dangerous stunts on bikes. I must admit that a teenager or a twenty-something has no business riding a bike. I did my share of dangerous stunts and I can only be thankful today for not having had any major, life-altering (or life-ending) accidents.
Times have changed and I have grown older, but I still continue to ride, albeit much more cautiously than I used to, save an occasional burst of speed. Even so I still feel the same rush I did as a kid watching riders zoom by on rice rockets. I suppose the ultimate dream for a rice-rocketer is owning a Ducati. The Japanese might have the lion's share of that market, but the Italians still make the dream bikes, as they do with cars. Ducatis don't come cheap, but I could afford it today if I wanted to have one. The real quandary is once I own a Ducati, there's little else left for me to wish for in that category. That could be the real reason why I keep stalling on it. Sometimes it's more fun to wish for something than to realize a dream and become wishless in the end. I guess that means I'll be riding my Kawasaki and savoring the envy every time a Ducati leaves me in its dust, at least for a while longer.
matrix,ducati,kawasaki,bikes <Ducati dreams>
// posted by rh
Sunday, August 06, 2006
PPC Click fraud
Here's a vexing question for advertisers today: where should they place their advertising dollars to get the most bang for their bucks? Okay, this is not exactly a new, modern problem. As long as people have needed to advertise their products and services, there have been the complex issues of where and when.
The Internet is just another medium to contend with. At the end of the day, the idea is to connect with people and persuade them to open their wallets. Google isn't the first outfit to offer the pay-per-click (PPC) format to advertisers, but together with its online competitors, Yahoo and MSN, has garnered the most attention. Not the kind of attention that they really want, but something they need to work out if they are to survive.
Click fraud comes in many flavors. Its exact definition is still nebulous, but at its core, click fraud refers to charging advertisers for a service that hasn't delivered in good faith. Take a look at this very site you are reading this blog on. It's adorned with various advertising sections. There's Google Adsense, by which links from advertisers are displayed. This is known as contextual advertising. Google digests the contents of a particular page and displays the most relevant ads it has in its repertoire. Click on one the ads and Google will collect a fee from that particular advertiser. Then it will throw the site owner (myself, in this case) a percentage of that fee as commission.
Other ads might be from ecommerce sites like Amazon or eBay. Those are pay-per-performance ads. Click all you want, but no money changes hands until an actual purchase is made. The Google ads and those from other PPC networks are the ones in hot water these days. Advertisers claim that many of the clicks they are being charged for are fraudulent and frivolous. Some are done by rivals to siphon money out of their competitors' coffers. Others are done by unscrupulous partners that have set up sites just to collect commissions via fraudulent clicks.
The PPC networks claim that they have taken measures to thwart fraudulent clicks, but this is a tough nut to crack. Winning the advertisers' confidence is material to their survival, but not every fraudulent click can be identified. Turn the screws too tight, and many legitimate clicks might be tagged as fraudulent.
In the past few years operating this site, I probably have clicked on three or four links myself. Those were impulse clicks based on some legitimate interest I had on a product or service. Generally if I see an interesting ad on my own site, I type the URL in the browser rather than clicking the link, but I wonder even if those few clicks constitute fraud. I certainly had no intention to make ill-gotten gains from my action. You see why click fraud is so difficult to define.
There is however another valid argument to consider here. Advertisers realize that not every click or impression would result in a sale. We all see countless ads and commercials during the day. Web pages, billboards, magazines, newspapers, busses, radio, and TV are rife with them. Do we take action every time we encounter an ad? Of course not. If every advertisers expected that, advertising would have become extinct long ago. Advertisers pay based on reach, as in how many subscribers a newspaper has or how many viewers a TV program might have. It's a numbers game and the idea is that a percentage of the audience can be converted into paid clients, hopefully enough to defray the cost of advertising and then pocket the rest. If one method doesn't work for them, then they take corrective steps, by changing the format, changing the frequency, or abandoning the medium altogether. In that sense PPC, as with other types of advertising, does have an inherent self-corrective nature. Given that argument and a willingness by the networks to implement steps to combat fraud, PPC should prove no less valuable than other types of advertising at the least. It's up to the advertisers to gauge how they can best utilize it, or not use it at all.
ppc,click fraud,adsense,google,advertising,banners <PPC Click fraud>
// posted by rh
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