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Friday, July 12, 2002 |
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News: Little stores close their doors but re-open as eBay Power Sellers -- http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend12_20020712.htm Comment: Good article in Detroit Free Press about small business owners (especially, it seems, arts and crafts folk) who are selling on eBay instead of having a storefront. Interesting tidbits: eBay will give high-volume sellers a chance to buy group health insurance; despite the famous fraud case last year (when a Michigan guy stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from buyers), the vast majority of eBay buyers and sellers are honest; people are taking junk they used to try and sell at garage sales and selling it on eBay instead. Jennifer and I are cleaning out our house in the hopes of selling it this summer. Guess I'll have to look at everything with a critical eye toward selling it on eBay. Shipping is still a hassle, though. News: Scientists make an artificial polio virus in the lab: Comment: This is scary because it shows the potential for how easy it could be to use gene-splicing to make biowarfare weapons. But all disease-weapons are constrained by how they are spread. If they kill quickly (like Ebola), then the vectors (the people who spread the disease) die before they can infect many others. But if the disease kills slowly, it gives doctors time to quarantine the sick and figure out countermeasures. Mostly, I think, disease-weapons will be used for terrorizing populations, not winning wars. Click here to see current comments and add your own. 11:12:51 AM 
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