Thursday, June 17, 2004

The Scotsman (and several other papers): Inderbinen said one of the best periods of his life came after his 80th birthday, when he started competing in skiing races for fun. He always won as he was the only competitor in his age category. He was given a pair of skis for his 90th birthday - a gift he put to regular use - and a mountain-climbing ice axe when he turned 95. 8:30:14 PM

AP - One in four credit reports has errors that are serious enough to disqualify consumers from buying a home, opening a bank account or getting a job — and an overwhelming majority contain mistakes of some kind, according to a survey released Thursday by a consumer group. [Yahoo! News - Top Stories] The story discusses false positives — good credit people labeled as not credit worthy — which are of course very important. But it ignores the flip-side, false negatives, which also have costs — non-performing loans, for instance — that we all end up absorbing too. Translation to proposed homeland security uses of commercial databases is left as an exercise for the reader. Hint: costs are harder to amortize in that setting. 6:50:01 PM

If you felt that your Spring was boring, here's how it could have been a bit more exciting. Andrew, who I've met through skiing connections, knows how to have an interesting time in the most horrendous conditions. More interesting than most of us would ever ask or be prepared for. 10:32:16 AM