Disqus - Latest Comments for Sean

Re: 10 Things I like About the iPhone 3G : ex-Windows Mobiles User

Sean — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:08:58 -0000

From what I've heard, the GPS is pretty battery-hungry, so it's been designed to fire up, get coords and then shut down again. Presumably turn-by-turn would require it to be on continuously and the ban on turn-by-turn apps is to avoid problems with battery life (especially since you can't swap the battery out for a fully charged one).

Re: The Long And Winding Road To Bruny

Sean — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:44:06 -0000

Glad you're enjoying the trip. I see from SmugMug that you visited the old Cascade brewery. I hope you've been sampling some of their brew (I know from a tweet that you've been drinking the northern brew, Boag's...there's always a few of those in my fridge!). Anyway, so far your snaps are looking very good.

Re: 2008 Olympic Medal Counts by Population

Sean — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:54:52 -0000

@sam: The more the merrier, I say! But, I'm glad you found my piece as well! In a follow-up post I actually decided to award the adjusted Olympic games to Jamaica. This is because they came second in the medals per capita and third by GDP. In fact, if you look at score (Gold = 3 points, Silver = 2 points, Bronze = 1 point), Jamaica actually came first per capita!

Note also that the Netherland Antilles place in the ranking was short-lived as their runner was disqualified and lost their medal!

I've popped all the data (including GDP results) over on Swivel and you can find everything here: http://www.swivel.com/users/show/1009803

Re: 2008 Olympic Medal Counts by Population

Sean — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:55:38 -0000

@Gaurav Why? Because it's fun!

Re: I miss the old twitter.

Sean — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:34:14 -0000

I agree wholeheartedly. The killer feature for me that twitter had over pownce, jaiku, kwippy, identi.ca, etc, etc, etc was the sms. Now that's gone, I'll be easy pickings for the first service that fills the void!

Re: 2008/03/24/twitter-spam/

Sean — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:56:02 -0000

Nice post. I have also just blogged on the issue of spam on social networks.

Re: 10 “Pearlers” for Positive Stock Market Investing in Negative Times

Sean — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:44:30 -0000

I've been meaning to chime in here, and now I'm finally getting around to adding a few thoughts to the points already made by Carlee and Nathan.

First, adding to the points Nathan has already made on the US housing market:

* The easy lending standards led to a bubble: part of the reason prices fell so much was because they'd risen far too fast as too many bought properties in the expectations would keep going up. They did for a while, but then the music stopped.

* The bonds that helped channel global funds to the US housing market did not get their ratings by mixing good an bad loans. Rather they used "tranching", a structuring technique that is explained well in this video.

* I agree with Nathan that our Aussie banks have balance sheets in better shape that others around the world. Nevertheless, liquidity became a problem. What this means is that if everyone wants their money out of a bank at the same time (or if no-one will buy bonds from the bank as older ones mature), then the bank has a problem, regardless of how good the bank's assets are.

* As Nathan says, all businesses relying on lending to some degree in their business operations, even if it's just for working capital so they can pay staff and creditors on a regular basis even if the timing of their business income is lumpier. This, combined with the enormous uncertainty generated by falling sharemarkets, means that problems in the finance sector will have a knock on effect to other sectors. So while the bursting of the tech bubble hurt investors, people working in the industry and some banks with loans to failing companies, the spill-over effect was much less than is the case with the current crisis.

* Finally, for more extensive reflections, let me point you in the direction of a recent blog post on the crisis (by yours truly) that gives an overview of what has happened, with a particular focus on Australia.

Re: links for 2008-06-21

Sean — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:21:09 -0000

Simon, thanks for the plug!
Sean.

Re: How ReTweets Spread: The Epidemiology of Viral Messaging on Twitter

Sean — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:57:13 -0000

@Dan: I wasn't aware that any @ messages were hidden (I see plenty in my stream). When/where are they hidden.

P.S. Love the RT analysis.

Re: I Can Haz Hoomin Hart-aik

Sean — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:36:51 -0000

It took me a while to stop laughing and compose myself sufficiently to write a comment. That lolrus caught me entirely by surprised...the funniest thing I've seen in ages. And it works on so many levels!

Re: Socialnomics Should Not Be Voodoo Economics

Sean — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:06:12 -0000

I posted the following comment on the SocialNomics post:

I am a bit confused about #12. According to twitter, Ashton has 3.6m followers and Ellen 3.3m. While they both beat Panama (3.3m people), Ireland (4.1.m) and Norway (4.6m) are both bigger than either follower count. Perhaps you meant Ashton and Ellen combined have more followers than any one of these countries. If this is the case, then the statement is still misleading as it would suggest that Ashton and Ellen combined have more followers than the population of Ireland, Norway and Panama combined, which is certainly not the case.