Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Blogshares goes live

Tonight is the night that Blogshares, the fantasy blog market trading game, goes live.  I’ve just been playing as a trader on the beta system for the last few weeks.  It’s been a gas… out of 5,000 odd players, I am ranked #25 in terms of total wealth.  But it’s getting harder and harder to move up the ranks.  Seyed Razavi, the game creator, has implemented a number of limitations in order to prevent pump and dump schemes.  This is good, because it makes the game more challenging, but it’s meant that I’ve had to shift my strategy to finding huge blocks of shares in blogs with very high valuations.  That’s hard!

Tonight I added a new dimension to my play.  Instead of just trading in my account, I’ve taken some of my fantasy riches and used them as a tool to market my own blog.  I’m offering to give away up to $1,000 blogshares dollars to those who link from their blogs to mine.  I’ve set aside $100,000 blogshares dollars for the first 100 linkers to do so.  And, I published a mock press release to announce this to the blogshares world! 

If this works, I’m already planning a bunch more fictional financial and press announcements for my blog.  Should make the game a bunch more fun ;)

Here’s the text of the announcement:

ALEC SAUNDERS .LOG UNVEILS LINK BOUNTY CAMPAIGN
Qualified Linkers can earn $1,000 bounty during the month of May

May 1, 2003 – Ottawa Canada. Today Alec Saunders .LOG unveiled it’s B*Link Partnership Program, as part of the teams ongoing campaign to create awareness for this fine blog. During the month of may, qualified linkers can earn a $1,000 bounty.

“We think that the whole world should be reading Alec Saunders .LOG”, said company President and CEO, Alec Saunders. “To encourage the world to link to Alec Saunders .LOG, our B*Link program rewards linkers with a $500 bounty for a single link mention, and a $1,000 bounty for a blogroll link.”

To qualify, bloggers must link to Alec Saunders .LOG first. Then send email to asaunders@sympatico.ca with a link to your blog, and your blogshares ID. Upon verification, Alec Saunders .LOG will gift your blogshares account with the appropriate amount.

Offer limited to the first 100 linkers.

Alec Saunders .LOG comments on world affairs, the technology business, and politics in Canada. Periodically Alec Saunders .LOG also reviews fine wines. Available in RSS format also.

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Press contact:

Alec Saunders,
President and CEO
asaunders@sympatico.ca

Rosemount 1998 GSM – Grenache Syrah Mourvedre

It was my honey’s birthday tonight, so I rushed home from work early and cooked dinner — grilled ribeye steaks topped with black tiger shrimp, mixed salad, and some of the FABULOUS Ace Bakery baguette.  Simple, and yummy.

To go with it, I dug my last bottle of the 98 GSM from Rosemount out of the cellar.  According to the winery, this wine is at the young side of peak drinking right now.  A pity, because I’ve already consumed the rest of the case. 

GSM is a fabulous wine.  It’s made from the three big grapes of a Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but with an Australian twist, and consumable much sooner.  The wine has a heady, perfumy nose.  No leather, vanilla from the oak, fruit, and despite the fact that the wine clocks in at 14.5%, not too much alcohol.  It tastes spicy, with marvelous flavours of raspberry, blueberry, and cherry. On opening, there are lots of raspberry and blueberry with hints of cherry, but as the bottle stands, the cherry gradually overwhelms the other flavours. Plenty of firm, but not oppressive tannins, and balanced acidity.  Again, heat, but not excessive alcohol. 

The 1998’s are no longer available in Ontario, but the 1999’s (Wine Spectator – 90 points) may be at some Vintages stores for $32.75 / bottle.  This is a steal, because it’s priced at US$26 south of the border.  Use this link to look it up. 

Senssssational!

Despite Ken Hitchcocks’ trash talking, the Sens take the lead in the series with a 3-2 overtime win.  They looked tired in the third period, but really poured on the gas in overtime.

Is the Energy Department’s explanation true?

Chris Laurence wrote in his Signifying Nothing that the energy department explanation for the pit production facility is convincing. 

By the time the new production facility is onlinein 15 yearsit is quite possible that considerable portions of the current nuclear deterrent force will be over 60 years old. Unlike Alec, I think it would be irresponsible for the government to have nuclear weapons that simply dont work (or, worse, could accidentally detonate due to aging components), and I dont think complete disarmament is a realistic alternative, particularly with both China and North Korea developing their arsenals and the likelihood of more nations going nuclear in the coming decade.

Further digging reveals some very interesting facts that I didn’t know about.  In U.S. and Russian Warhead Production Capabilities, ACT reveals that the average American pit has a 40 to 60 year shelf life, which means that they will need to start replacing them at a rate of about 500/year over a 20 year period, starting in roughly 2020. Russia’s need to be remanufactured every 10 years because they start with much lower quality. 

The Federation of American Scientists publishes a Nuclear Forces Guide which outlines the status of declared nuclear powers as of 1999.

The major threat to the US is/was Russia.  Russia has over 21,000 warheads still in existance, and a weapons complex that (while it is devoted to maintaining the current stock) could conceivably manufacture a lot more weapons quickly.  The US has 12,000 warheads, and a stockpile of an additional 4,000 pits. 

China, in contrast, has 500 warheads, of which 375 are in service.  They can deliver these via a grand total of… 30 long range missiles.  They also have one submarine, with 12 submarine launched missiles. No long range bombers.  The rest of China’s stockpile are theatre weapons.  China appears only to have developed a tactical defensive capability.

But even if you accept Chris’ argument that there is a requirement to maintain the current stockpile, then why is there a need to reopen the Nevada Test Site?  The test site is used to test new warheads, like the bunker buster being contemplated.

This looks and smells like a return to a cold war footing.   The US should be working with Russia to reduce their overall stocks, not developing new theatre weapons.

Cechmanek stops the Sens

The hockey game last night was almost surreal.  The Sens outshot, outplayed, outskated the Flyers all night long, but Roman Cechmanek stopped 33 shots for a shut out.  He  was a rock. 

The other surreal part of the game was the Flyers claim that the Sens played dirty…

In the aftermath of the win, the Flyers spent as much time bemoaning what they perceived as Ottawa’s dirty play as they did raving about Cechmanek.

The visitors claimed to have been stuck and poked all night by Ottawa sticks, with one incident resulting in a multiple-stitch cut to defenceman Kim Johnsson late in the second period.

Havlat should have had a penalty for the Johnsson cut, no doubt. Apparently it required 23 stitches to fix. But what the camera showed me all night long was Flyers tripping, holding, hooking, and fighting. This team has a reputation for rough, physical play, and they showed their true colours last night.  Moaning about it afterwards makes them look like schoolyard bullies — tough until somebody fights back.