Rich Man, Poor Man - Stocks and Shocks

The week's stock swings could make one nauseous, if they weren't almost entirely to the downside. Some people are calling this the first sign of a recession, the end of the Web 2.0 bubble, and saying the long bull run for the market may be coming to an end.

All I know is that my 401k is taking a beating. Siphoning off a percentage every two weeks to Fidelity, we're fairly heavily leveraged in some of their broad funds. While mutual funds are supposed to protect your risk from the ups and downs of individual stocks, they pretty much guarantee you will get hammered when the market goes for a dive. And that's proven to be the case this week. (See: FCNTX, FDGRX, FDEGX, FCPVX, FEXPX)

Both Wednesday and Friday saw me lose thousands. I lost more money on Wednesday and Friday combined than I take home in a month's pay. Even my quick Apple investment I was so proud of just yesterday is already down a few hundred bucks. There's really nothing good to talk about in the market right now, but it's my hope that this is more of a one or two time bump than an overall trend.

The market has seen bigger hits before, and keeps coming. But today, going into the weekend, it hurts.

Yet Another Small Earthquake Hits SF Bay Area

Funny... our weather forecast didn't call for an earthquake tonight...

At 8:40, we had a series of sudden side to side jolts, which could be nothing other than an earthquake. Here in the Bay Area, we're used to these things, and it didn't last very long at all.

Like other recent earthquakes, the epicenter appears to have been on the Hayward Fault in the East Bay. Despite the frequency of temblors, the Bay Area has been relatively incident-free for the better part of twenty years.

Early reports have the earthquake at 4.2., stronger than the 3.4s and 3.5s of recent history, but not alarming.

Previous quake-related posts:

12/22/06: A 3.7 Earthquake? Call Me When You Hit 5.0.
6/15/06: Earthquake Shakes Things Up

Tidbits from the Link Blog: March 1, 2007

At what point does the information overload become too much, crossing the line from data to noise? Read/Write Web shows ever-growing millions of blogs indexed by Technorati, more stories per day from TechCrunch, a representative Web 2.0 blog, and Seth Godin says too many people are simply blogging about blogging, delivering noise over substance.

Meanwhile, in the real world, it looks like Apple is having significant traction, doubling computer sales in a year, and seeing iTunes grab more share from the competition. In fact, on the recent stock market weakness, I bought into AAPL in a big way, at $86.30 a share. It sounds expensive, but is at a discount from my last sale, and I was certainly in the green by end of day. Could be a longer-term buy and hold. On with the links...

Read/Write Web: The Attention Economy: An Overview
Seth Godin: The Disappointment of the Noisy People
TechCrunch: Digg Should Sue Wired

The Unofficial Apple Weblog: iTunes use increased in 2006
MacRumors: Analyst: Mac Sales Grew Over 100% In January

To see what I'm finding interesting, bookmark or subscribe to my link blog.

New TAB Post: What are the Core Mac Apps?

In the first TAB post following my "Apple Should Dump Purchased Items" fiasco last month, I speculated on just what the core applications are that define the Macintosh experience. While iTunes and the iPod have made traction on the Windows platform, Apple has held its other core applications, with the exception of QuickTime, close to the vest. iLife is Mac-only. Safari and Mail.app are also Mac only. What would happen if Apple ported those apps to Windows? Would it help with the "iPod Halo Effect"?

This time around, the story was better received, and I didn't get laughed out of Dodge. Good thing. That may have further damaged my ego.

That's the idea behind my most recent contribution to The Apple Blog, titled What Core Apps Define the Mac?. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.