Tabloid Edition

Getting in trouble in LA

When I was younger I was always worried about Los Angeles. I'[d heard all the stories about gangs, riots, huge murder rates and all the rest. then I actually went and lived in California and found out that the real danger was rather different.

Yes, it most certainly had been true that there were parts of the City where you really didn't want to go at all. But what then happened in the 80s and 90s was the police reaction to all of that. And as the recently departed police chief, Gates, was very gung ho in trying to deal with the crime problems crime did indeed go down.

However, what also went up as a result of he police being very gung ho about it all was that the rights of the innocent who were suspected were, how shall we put this, not entirely respected? SWAT teams used to bring in simple possession of drugs cases. A definite feeling that because of the size of the crime problem that anything the police did to reduce it was just A OK. Which is what led to the thing you really needed in the area was no protection from the criminals, but protection from the police: a Criminal Defense Attorney Los Angeles.

Which is a rather sad commentary on those who are paid to serve and protect but it is the way it all works now.

Jason "Mayhem" Miller

Err, guys, you're not supposed to be doing this out of ther ring, you know? Fighting is what you're being paid to do inside it?

Here's the video of the Jason Mayhem Miller brawl for your delectations:

How to win at auctions

Now this is an interesting little site. How to win at auctions....well, actually, I think we all know how to do that, yes? Simply offer to pay more than everyone else and you'll win. No, what the Auction blog is really about is how to really win at auctions. How to get the most over time while bidding the least. Using game theory about how to win at auctions if you like.

Worth checking out.

Betting on sports

Yes, I know, a lot of this isn't entirely legal online in the US. But that doesn't mean that people from other countries cannot enjoy pitting their wits against others in online sports betting. As long as you are outside the US then there's a plethora of sports that you can bet one. From the traditional horse racing through rugby to of course, the great world game, football betting. Given that soccer (or football, to taste) are probably the world's largest leisure activity, either as a game to play or as a game to watch, it shouldn't come as all that much of a surprise that people like to bet on it.

There was a time when betting on football was limited to win lose or draw. But the newer online markets have allowed much greater sophistication. You can bet on who will score the first goal, how many corners there will be, just about any aspect of the game or any statistic or number that it throws up. The secret is that the bookmakers aren't really taking the bests themselves. They're really just acting as marketmakers. They're organising for you to bet against the other people betting....and they're taking a small slice of the action for doing so of course.

Flash sales: the new art of retail

Flash sales are becoming more popular with both retailers and consumers it seems.Recent reports have shown that by offering time limited deep discounts retailers can build both brand loyalty and also unload surplus stock:

Over three in five Americans prefer to spend their hard-earned dollars on discounted items online than in retail stores, found Kelton Research's study. Hardly surprising when you consider consumers saved a combined total of around $500 million by shopping via online sales in 2009. That figure is expected to double this year. One of the most popular ways in which consumers get the best deals is via "flash sales". These limited-time deals offer attractive discounts averaging 50% off retail prices.

The defining feature of these "flash sales" is that they only exist for a short time. While consumers might need to get an online coupon or, in more extreme circumstances, receive and invitation email, they can get those great discounts.

From hte retailers point of view the short time scale that the offer is made for means that they're not liable to cannibalise full price sales by offering the discounts. And that is of course what retailing is all about. Making as many full price sales as you can and only offering discounts to those who would not pay full price anyway.

More about getting your business online

Back a little bit we talk about how you need to approach the business of getting your business online. It's not just that we all know that you've got to be online these days in order to be running a decent business. It's also that you've got to work out exactly what you're going to do with the business online first. For only then can you decide what you're going to need in terms of websoting support, tools, bandwidth and so on.

To give you another example here. I've a little business which really invloves around 40 people around the world. We all know who each other is, have email addresses and telephone numbers and can manage the global trade in this manner. There's absolutely no point at all in having a trading platform on the web. Nor of trying to run a community or any of those other things.

However, I do want to have a marker out there. Just in case there's a new entrant to the business (either buyer or supplier) I want them to know I exist. So I need a website that turns up in Google seaches. Nothing fancy, not elaborate and the text hasn't changed in years. But it does still bring me the occasional enquiry and I'm not missing any new entrants into the marketplace.

For something like this programming tools, uptime, bandwidth, they're all near irrelevant which is why I use a budget host to operate that site.

There's just no point in spending more money than you have to.

Those Jesse James Sex Tapes

There's a wonderful set of rumours going around about Jesse James (Sandra Bullock's husband, at least for the present) and the possible existence of a series of sex tapes. At one count there are as many as 12 of these tapes made with various girlfriends and mistresses.

What really amused me about these stopries about Jesse James Sex Tapes is that as a sideline I somtimes feed stories to one of the tabloid newspapers in the UK. So when I spotted the first blog posts with hte Jesse James sex tape romours I contacted them and asked if they were interested in my doing some more research.

Their answer was interesting: they'd heard the rumours but weren't going to touch them at all. Despite the way in which it's typical tabloid fodder. For one of the rumours is that one of those tapes is in fact a Sandra Bullock sex tape. Now whether this is in fact true is entirely unknown...I emphasise that it's a rumour, nothing else.....but it has Jesse James and Sanda Bullock in a position that might be described as, well, a tad unconventional and also features a shotgun.

What concerned the tabloid was that it might have been the shotgun in that unconventional position, not just Mr. James.

Sorting out your business on the web

I think we've all pretty much learned that we need to have a presence on the web if our business is going to thrive these days, yes? There's just no way that we can get to our potential customers if we don't?

However, just knowing this isn't enough. We also need to work out exactly what it is that we're going to do once we get onto the web. There are any number of different techniques that can be used here. Maybe we're just going to have a holding site. Something to let people know that we're there, something that will show up in search engine enquiries.

Or perhaps we actually want to sell directly from the site? Or maybe only provide after sales servfice? Possibly even the entire business will be just the site itself?

The thing is though, we need to work out which of these is our aim before we start to think about site design....and before we start to think about where we're going to get our web hosting. For what it is that we want to do will affect who we get to do that hosting. For example, if we're going to sell from the site then we need to have money handling tools provided. Or perhaps we're going to need php hosting fopr some aspect of the site? Or maybe uptime is more important than cost, of bandwidth more than programming tools?

So the first thing is to work out what you actually want to do with your business website: only then can you work out where you're going to host it.

Polish President's plane crash

Ach, ghastly news. The Polish President has died in a plane crash in Russia. Dying with him was most of the Polish top political class. His wife, the Governor of the Bank of Poland, the Head of the Armed Forces. Just a terrible tragedy:

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and central bank Governor Slawomir Skrzypek were killed today along with several key members of the country's political elite when their plane crashed in western Russia, where they were to mark the 70th anniversary of a massacre of Polish officers.

The 60 year-old president's wife, Maria, and leaders of the country's main opposition parties and military, including the Army Chief of Staff Franciszek Gagor, also died in the crash, which happened as the aircraft was on approach for landing in Smolensk, Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said in a phone interview. The crash killed all 96 on board, including 88 passengers and 8 crew, according to Russia's Emergency Ministry.

The macabre thing is that all were flying to Smolensk for a ceremony commemorating the murders in the Katyn Forest. When Stalin's henchmen shot thousands of Polish Army officers in WWII. Not once but twice has Poland been beheaded in the same place.

What happens after a DUI arrest?

Well, according to a friend this did happen to the first thing after a DUI arrest is that you get taken off to have a proper alcohol level test done. This might be with a breath measuring machine, a blood test or even a ruine test. Depends upon the place really.

Then there will be being held in a cell until you've sobered up. That friend was thinking about all the movies he's seen of holding tanks in jails. He really wasn't looking forward to it. However, he was so drunk he fell asleep and when he woke he looked around to see if there was some great big menace in the cell. And looking around he saw that everyone was looking at him: he was that great big menace.

When you've sobered up you'll be released and then comes the court case. At this point you really will need someone like this: Los Angeles DUI Attorney | Drunk Driving Defense Lawyers

. There's always the possibility of your defending the case yourself or even pleading guilty but there are, even for such a simple charge, ins and outs to the system which make this risky. Will you be able to retain your licence to get to work and back? How high will the fine be? Will you have to do jail time, go to alcohol awareness training?

Finally the court day will come and then you'll find out quite how much you're going to have to pay for your stupidity in driving under the influence.