I did a quick search in Google news and found this headline, which caught my attention quickly as it could have a pejorative slant with respect to Chinese-made stuff (which I would suggest is totally wrong-headed considering the volume and diversity of stuff made in China, or in any country really):

Cables snap and close SF Bay Bridge. Are cables made in China?

As my former colleague and advisor, Jerry Neumann says - there is no starting gun. Go and start a company now. It’s not as hard to get started as you think, and there is no such thing as failure.

A few books I’ve read recently (and some not so recently) about randomness, probability, human behavior, ALL of which are worth looking at:

Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Taleb. Instant classic, the followup Black Swan is great too but this is better IMO.

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard  Mlodinow. Great stuff, some great examples and overall I enjoyed it very much - good lay pieces on probability and misunderstandings around that.

Here are some others I recommend highly:

Predictably Irrational:The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

Awesome stuff, all.

Yikes - another newspaper site getting a bit discombobulated. This is what the Washington Post looks like today after Siemens got a hold of it…. this was in IE. Firefox looked similar so not a browser-specific issue.

Great piece by Jay Weintraub borders on rant but makes very good points as he lets rip on Google. Alas it is true but there is a lot to criticize.

Anytime I or any individual criticizes Google, it requires a delicate balance, because a single voice against an established system always struggles not to sound like whiny and scorned. When a system becomes ingrained and accepted, dissenting voices get marginalized and those with dissent often relegated to the same category as conspiracy theorists.

As Jay points out, Google still doesn’t get advertising, despite hype to the contrary and billions in revenue. But that as they say, is a story for another day.

Well someone screwed up. It happens, and goodness knows perhaps this might actually increase the response rates on your ads — but probably not. If anyone at Starwood wants to know why this ad is not working that well, it’s either the fault of:

a) The Chicago Sun-Times team, or

b) Whoever trafficks their ads, or

c) Advertising.com, the ad network who ran this ad on the page, or

d) The agency who Starwood is having run their ads (dunno who that is), or

e) Someone at Starwood trafficked it incorrectly…?

In any event - what you have is a 160×600 showing up in a 728×90 spot, and showing just enough skin for you to know it’s an ad for Westin. The URL it clicks through to (yes that does work) is http://www.starwoodpromos.com/westin-mastercard/&EM=Q3Q4_NAD_MEDIA_WS_EN_MASTERCARD

I don’t have a lot of readers, but I’d love to see the comments about where this actually got screwed up