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Friday, March 22, 2002 |
Exuberance
Dave mentioned the drop in several companies' market caps. It reminded me of this:
Now, speculation - in which the focus is not on what an asset will produce but rather on what the next fellow will pay for it - is neither illegal, immoral nor un-American. But it is not a game in which Charlie and I wish to play. We bring nothing to the party, so why should we expect to take anything home?
The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities - that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future - will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands. [from the 2000 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway]
Anyone interested in understanding the "bubble," and of what historical proportions it was, should take a look at the 1999 letter as well as the one from 2000. Warren Buffett said this in this year's letter:
Here's one for those who enjoy an odd coincidence: The Great Bubble ended on March 10, 2000 (though we didn't realize that fact until some months later). On that day, the NASDAQ (recently 1,731) hit its all-time high of 5,132. That same day, Berkshire shares traded at $40,800, their lowest price since mid-1997. [from the 2001 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway]
Today those same shares are worth $71,700 each.
Another bit of Warren Buffett's wisdom
One final note that seems so timely given the events and discussions on so many weblogs this week:
The Constitution’s First Amendment allows the media to print or say almost anything. Journalism’s First Principle should require that the media be scrupulous in deciding what that will be. [from the 2000 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway]
Trust me, these letters are wonderful for anyone running a business or attempting to understand how other businesses are being run.
10:36:31 PM 
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HTML Resources
Adding to Russ Lipton's "Learning HTML" list:
Now I've got to go back several weeks, find the debates about style sheets and try to understand (in the light new knowledge about what a style sheet is) why there was such a debate. It isn't clear to me what the pro's and con's are. (and it wasn't then, 'cause I didn't have a clue there were things called tables & style sheets in web design!)
7:44:16 PM
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New laptop on the way
This is a reminder to review the discussion/documentation about moving Radio to a new PC.
A Port Beckons: Moving to a New PC. Moving programs and files from an old computer to a new one can be a thankless chore. But there are tools to make the job easier. By Larry Magid. [New York Times: Technology]
I want a new digital camera to go with it. Prices are coming down on a fairly rich feature set and with specs above 3 megapixels. How soon will we see cameras with Foveon's new chip in them at street prices of $400 to $800?
6:54:41 PM
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I'm linking to the Scripting News post below as a reminder to myself to go back and study what it means. There are several lists in Radio that I'm watching, but not entirely clear about. Russ may be covering these topics in one of his posts today. [Yep, I checked!]
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Referrers (unique to your user number/site)
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...and there are probably others
A new feature on Weblogs.Com shows the top 100 pages pointed to by weblogs that pinged in the last three hours. It's rebuilt every hour, Murphy-willing. [Scripting News]
Hey, this may be clearing up a bit. Some of these are identical with different places or ways to get to them.
6:42:13 PM
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New to web design?
Some of us are new to weblogs, web design, HTML, etc. Russ Lipton is helping with his documentation for Radio. Jenny Levine has Radio Docs 101. I've even put together a list of questions I'm trying to answer.
I can't completely connect the dots, but I think we're headed toward knowledge of how to put the proper HTML into templates pages on Radio to create a unique look for our weblogs. If that's the case, we're then faced with what HTML to put where to achieve certain looks, effects, etc.
In no way do I want to steer people to "the other camp," if such a thing exists, but you might find some of this anyway. For whatever reason, I have the impression that lots of Movable Type sites are CSS-based (I could be very wrong). If that is desirable, and I'm not sure it is, you can go here to see sites that MT says are among their best. That is, in the sense that they use features of MT to achieve certain effects.
If I'm committing a faux pas by pointing to "the competition," someone please correct me. That is NOT my intent. I'm still trying to learn.
10:42:31 AM
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Good morning
This quote, if true, means I've got to be nearing the expert status in the very narrow field of reading(not doing mind you) web design instructions and documents.
Niels Bohr. "An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." [Quotes of the Day]
Actually, I'm attempting to learn several things at once. It's pretty clear that you must know how to edit templates in Radio if you are to change the look of your weblog. This results in either: 1) alterations to an existing "theme" or 2) creation of a new theme. I suppose you could also start modifying the templates and wind up with something that you don't publish as a new theme.
In addition to learning templates, I'm trying to learn HTML. So far, no problem with the concepts and tagging text. As I stare at a blank page or a page of text that needs to be for HTML, placing the correct tags in the proper places to achieve the look is still a struggle.
Finally, there is something going on about CSS vs. tables and the more I read, the less I understand about the whole issue. Take a look at this post at Meryl's site. If you follow the links, you'll find some pretty interesting designs. Getting from there to a Radio weblog is still quite a leap.
I'd like to avoid the wrong side of this debate, but I can't tell which is the right side of it. I think I understand (correctly?) that the standards bodies are advocating some "pure" form of HTML and CSS provides that. I know less than enough to be dangerous here.
Thanks Russ for your continued documentation of Radio.
8:30:20 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.
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