Newmark's Door

Maybe the next Big Thing

"ROBERT SCOBLE: I Just Wore Google's Glasses For 2 Weeks And I'm Never Taking Them Off".

Disagreement: "Is Google Glass a World-Class Hoax?"

"1993 Vs. 2013"

Nice and concise: "Side by side photos will remind you just how awesome our technology has gotten in only 20 years."

"5 Common Misconceptions That Destroy Computers"

Of interest primarily to the inexperienced and the naive. But for them it could be really helpful. 

• #4. "My Computer Is Slow. It Has to Be a Virus!"

The problem here is that people use the word "virus" to mean "bad program doing weird things to my computer," but there are some important distinctions to make, because they have different solutions. If you do have a nasty virus -- an actual virus -- there's an excellent chance you'll need to get help from a professional. But what you probably have is much easier to fix. If I've fixed 500 computers in my life, I can count on one hand how many of them had an actual "virus." The rest were all malware, an overload of spyware, or a Trojan horse, all of which are much easier to remove.

If you get a new PC . . .

. . . you might well find that these two sites save you some time: Chocolatey Gallery and Ninite.

(I've used Ninite and like it; I haven't used Chocolatey yet. But I will.)

"How To Rescue Wet Gadgets"

I hope you don't need this.

So you did it. Or maybe you did it again. Dropped your favorite gadget in a sink or a toilet. Or you spilled an entire 40 oz on it. Oops. That doesn't mean you can't save it though. Here are a few tips that might just bring it back to life.

"Why Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia Haven't Killed Off Real Estate Brokers"

Economists lose another one. Sigh.

Economists have long been perplexed by the resilience of the real estate agent. Theory suggests that the relationship between agent and buyer or seller is far from optimal, and that conflict is often borne out in practice. At the root of the difficulty is what economists call the Principal-Agent Problem, which describes the diverging, often conflicting, interests of the principal (the customer) and the agent representing him or her. (Since agents bear much of the costs of selling a house, in the time they spend hosting open houses and touring with clients and the money they spend advertising property, they’re rewarded for pressuring clients into selling quickly and accepting suboptimal offers, or, in the case of a buyer’s agent, for allowing the client to pay too much.) In 2008, Stanford University economics professors B. Douglas Bernheim and Jonathan Meer published the results of their study of nearly 30 years of house and condo sales on the university campus. They found that an owner’s use of a broker to sell their property reduced the eventual selling price by 5.9 percent to 7.7 percent, compared with homes sold by the owner directly.

Yet only 9 percent of homes were sold directly by owners in 2012, down from 13 percent in 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

"These City Skylines Prove Just How Far Video Game Graphics Have Come"

Sure do.

(I remember playing an early version of Flight Simulator in which the New York City skyline was represented by a single cartoon spike--supposedly the Empire State Building.)

OMG! Is Facebook old and busted?

Maybe. "Bye, bye, Facebook: Americans abandoning in droves, says poll".

Apple: a hedge fund with a technology company attached

"$600 Billion In Trades In Four Years: How Apple Puts Even The Most Aggressive Hedge Funds To Shame".

"Tech Freedom: Tech start-ups strain against regulatory headaches"

Maxim Lott:

But while DC and New York have repealed rules, many tech companies including Uber still face an uphill battle elsewhere in the nation against what they say are unnecessary regulations, even being forced to leave the U.S. entirely. Here are their stories: