Groupon Is Effectivley Insolvent; Like A Ponzi Scheme

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Another good writeup I found that expounds on what David Heinemeier Hansson said earlier this week. Conor Sen, writing for Minyanville:

So a company that owes $230 million more than it has, and appears to be burning through $100 million or more a quarter, is using money raised from later investors to pay back early investors? Sounds vaguely familiar. I'm not accusing Groupon of doing anything illegal or unethical. Ponzi, Enron, and Madoff all swindled their investors by misleading them about the financial health of their enterprises. As Minyanville's Todd Harrison likes to say, "The only difference between intervention and manipulation is communication." Groupon is telling you exactly what they are in their filing forms and by their actions. Invest at your own risk.

An Open Letter To The Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls In The Gym Locker Room

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Thus far, the best thing I’ve read on McSweeney’s all year:

Does the courage to do this in public come with age? Perhaps it’s something a young man like me can’t understand. But you, you are on in years; gray and spotted like a ham in a paintball fight. Your scrotum reminds me of boardwalk taffy. Maybe you’ve been building up to this day your whole life and I’m witnessing the birth of a phoenix. You are no longer a man that blow-dries his balls in secret. You have transcended that station and now fall into an elite group of Spartans that blow-dry their balls wherever they God damn please. If caterpillars emerged from their cocoons as butterflies with heavy, sagging testicles I’d imagine they’d feel the same as you might right now. I haven't laughed this hard since reading this gem.

Rode Podcaster Mini-review

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While I am not a podcaster (I don't think anyone would find me interesting to listen to for periods greater than 5 minutes) I do use microphones a lot. I Facetime with friends & family, use Skype or WebEx to participate in conference calls when I'm working from home, I use Teamspeak or Ventrilo when gaming online..many varied uses. I've used many headsets over the years and grown increasingly frustrated in being able to find a 1. high quality sounding, 2. durable headset that is still 3. comfortable to wear. It has been my experience that you may only pick two of the three, as no headset that (admitted subjectively) I've used has met all requirements. Please, do not comment or email with suggestions. I'm past that now. Instead my new method is to not restrict myself to just headsets, but instead acquire a very nice microphone and which will allow me to expand my choices to any and all headphones out there. I've found that the ratio of headsets to headphones available is about 100 to 1. I'm confident I can find a headphone I will like. That being said, I recently took Dan Benjamin's recommendations to heart and purchased a Rode Podcaster Dynamic Mic, Rode PSM 1 Shockmount, and a Heil Sound PL-2T Overhead Broadcast Boom. I've been using this new setup, pictured below, for about 3 days now. I love it. This is much more comfortable than having to keep a headset on all day. For the first time I'm also appreciating the direct feedback you can get by plugging your headset directly into the mic. I may do a more in-depth review in the future, but for now, just know that I highly recommend this. If you find yourself using a mic a lot but also hating the existing choices that are available for headsets, consider a setup like this.

Groupon: Spending $1.43 to make $1.00

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David Heinemeier Hansson at Short Logic:

Groupon has filed its S-1 and hopes to raise $750M in its initial public offering. Given they’re currently losing a staggering $117M per quarter, despite revenues of $644M, they’ll be burning through that cash almost as soon as it hits their account. At the moment, it’s costing them $1.43 to make $1, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any cheaper. They’re already projected to make close to three billion dollars in revenues this year. If you can’t figure out how to make money on three billion in revenue, when exactly will the profit magic be found? Ten billion? Fifty billion? My wife shops Groupon a lot. I do not. Partly because I feel I don't need to spend money on most of the things they offer and I know if I simply ignore Groupon, I will save money. I feel the bottom is going to drop out from under Groupon in a few years and everyone in the tech media will raise their hands and run around shouting about how no one saw this coming, how could this happen, etc. For the record, I saw it coming. ( 1:00 PM June 3, 2011 - for future reference)

Motorola Admits Open Android Store Means Low Quality Apps

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Nancy Gohring, IDG News:

Motorola’s CEO blamed the open Android app store for performance issues on some phones. Of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned, 70 percent come back because applications affect performance, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said during a webcast presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology conference on Thursday. Unlike most other mobile app stores, the Android Market is totally open, meaning anyone can upload an application to the store. While Google removes applications that are found to be malicious, there is no mechanism for ensuring that applications perform efficiently. “For power consumption and CPU use, those apps are not tested. We’re beginning to understand the impact that has,” Jha said. You're just now beginning? Where the heck have you been for the past 2 years?

Sony Hacked Again: 1 Million+ Accounts Compromised

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The same group became infamous for hittin PBS earlier this week has just announced that they've now hit Sony with a SQL injection which allowed them full access to various Sony databases. LulzSec statement:

Our goal here is not to come across as master hackers, hence what we're about to reveal: SonyPictures.com was owned by a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now. From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING. Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks? What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it's just a matter of taking it. This is disgraceful and insecure: they were asking for it. Rob Beschizza, writing for BoingBoing: Sony traditionally is run as a set of 'silos', independent departments, divisions and joint ventures that have much autonomy from one another. This might be why there are so many different attacks: there is always another Sony silo which runs its own web infrastructure, where hundreds of dollars worth of web development can go down the drain, just like that. Ouch. As I said last week on Twitter, friends don't let friends create user accounts on Sony networks.