What am I reading: Next (by Michael Lewis)

Coming back from overseas I had some time to kill at the Chicago airport. So I walked into a bookstore and was looking through books. Saw a book called "Next" by Michael Lewis. I already read a couple of his other books and thoroughly enjoyed them. One of these books were "The next next thing". So fist I wanted to make sure I was not picking the same book up again. I read the back cover and made sure it was not the same.

"Next", written in 2001, explains how internet changed our lives forever. In the book he explains 3-4 stories about internet and how people used it to make money and share information. Internet caters to information asymmetry. However, the anonymity it provides and millions of people volunteering free information is a big threat to those old-school big corporations.

The points made in the book are about the simple principles of the internet. After so many years (5 but in Dog[hi-tech] years it's worth 50) reading about these ancient phenomena made me think about some new business ideas. I highly suggest you to pick this book up and read it. It is a very fast read, but highly inspiring to those entrepreneurial minds.

-emre

Crying babies on planes

I am on my way to Ireland, country number 6 for 2006, and there is a 2 year old baby crying every 30 minutes for at least 10 minutes at a time. It is quite painful. Even my usual flight companion ear plugs do not help much. I cannot sleep. I am very angry. I am not mad at the kid who cannot probably explain her problem. I am mad at the parents who do nothing about it. Take her to a part of the plane where the least number of people would be disturbed. Take her to the back or the front of the plane where she can cry her guts out while annoying the flight attendants the most. What is the airline policy for babies crying so much that actually become real annoyance to 20+ other passengers? I think there should be some sound proof compartments for families with kids younger than a certain age.

Ranting from 37,000 feet
Emre