1971 was the year of the pig, and i was always raised thinking i was a pig. my brother and sister laughed at me because of it. if i had only known then, what i know now: that i’m a dog, dammit! so says wikipedia’s entry on Chinese Astrology. Jan 20, 1971 was still Year of the Dog:
From the entry for Chinese New Year: “Many non-Chinese confuse their Chinese birth-year with their Gregorian birth-year. As the Chinese New Year starts in late January to mid February, the Chinese year dates from 1 January until that day in the new Gregorian year remain unchanged from the previous Gregorian year. For example, the 1989 year of the snake began on 6 February 1989. The year 1990 is considered by some people to be the year of the horse. However, the 1989 year of the snake officially ended on 26 January 1990. This means that anyone born from January 1 to 25 January 1990 was actually born in the year of the snake rather than the year of the horse.
Many online Chinese Sign calculators do not account for the non-alignment of the two calendars, incorrectly using Gregorian-calendar years rather than official Chinese New Year dates.”
so i’ve discovered a slight arbitrage situation that’s led to a little side business that’s making me some nice pocket change. and i’ll share it here for free:
so, people are out there buying all these hdtvs, high-def dvd players, playstation 3’s, etc, right? well, HDMI cables are what connects them together.
BestBuy rips you off. the cheapest 3′ HDMI cable they sell is $48. you can buy them online for $5. this is common knowledge, it’s not like it’s a big secret. but ya know what - buying a single cable online is too much hassle for most people. they want their cables now (who can wait to play with new home theater equipment?).
and there’s no quality difference. because they’re digital cables, the picture either comes thru perfect, or it doesn’t work at all. monster cables are the biggest ripoff ever.
so i’ve bought a bunch in bulk, and have been selling em on craigslist for about $15-20 each. they can pick up from 2 locations: SF (home), and south bay (work). for the past month or so, i’d say i sell about 5 a week, which puts a cool C-bill in my pocket each week! all i have to do is answer a few emails, take a few calls, and arrange for people to come and pick em up. easy money!
these guys were a big hit at demo ‘07, the web tradeshow where new startups show-off their new technologies. eyejot is dead-simple video emailing. could be handy for all those macs with built-in isights…
yesterday, Steve Jobs posted a letter on apple.com about DRM (digital rights management) use in online music stores (like iTunes Store).
because of DRM, songs bought on iTunes Store can only be played back on ipods (not other devices), and other online stores can’t sell songs that playback on ipods (because they use their own different DRM). it’s a “walled garden” situation that Apple is making a lot of money from. because of it’s success, a lot of folks are angry at Apple (especially European nations, for some reason) for not opening up the market place. their assumption is that it’s a monopolistic situation that Apple wants to protect…right?
well, wrong, says Steve. in fact, Apple prefers abolishing all DRM and having everyone sell songs that work on all devices. why? because DRM doesn’t work to stop music piracy. plus, no music CDs have DRM on them (which account for 90% of all music sales), and it’s super-easy for anyone to rip & upload them online. so why should digital downloads have them?
anyways, it’s a surprisingly open stance (i was even surprised). it deflects the pressure from Apple to the big 4 music labels that insist on having DRM. here’s the letter:
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