Summation

Lead21 launches blog

Lead21 just launched the Lead21 Blog. Writers include Chris Alden, Michael Kim, Alex Lloyd, Tod Sacerdoti, Maxine Friedman, Rob Reid, Anarug Chandra, myself, and others.

Books: Colossus: The Price of America's Empire

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire by Niall Ferguson

This new foreign policy book really made me think. Ferguson's argument is that America is an empire, albeit a reluctant one. He alludes to believing that this could be a good thing -- both for America and the world -- but often also shows how the costly running an empire really can be. He concludes the book by stating "I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job."

But what makes his book extremely interesting is the historical context he uses. Ferguson goes over so many of the U.S. large wars and tiny wars over the last 150 years. He also draws many parallels to the British empire -- and shows how a great deal of their forays were not successful (both in terms of British and the colony's interest).

The examples that most stared at me were the Philippines and Egypt -- where he draws parallels to Iraq.

The first example is one that is often used. America "liberated" the Philippines in the Spanish-American War and lost about 1000 lives conquering it (which was a very small amount for that day). However, people in the Philippines were not content to just shake off one master and get a new one. Over the next decade America lost another 4000 lives due to rebel activities on the islands. The war and conquest, which in the beginning was extremely popular, became increasingly less so over time. So much so that successive Presidents were trying to find a way out … and fast.

Egypt is an example I have not yet heard. The British effectively took over Egypt in 1882 when the country's pro-British ruler was overthrown. And though the British claimed on countless occasions that it wanted to leave Egypt as soon as possible, it was still ruling the country for the next 74 years. In fact, in 1956, the year the British did leave (and only because the national purse could not afford it), the British still had over 80,000 troops on its Egyptian base -- which was a tract of land near the canal that was the size of Massachusetts!

We learn from these examples that our transformation of Iraq is going to be enormously difficult and costly. If odds makers were making bets (and some surely are), the odds would definitely be against us succeeding. And Ferguson weaves in Americas huge debts (see my review of Running On Empty by Pete Peterson) of unfunded liabilities to the tune of $45 trillion (!!!) make saving the world an increasingly difficult thing to do.

Like Peterson's book, my outlook after finishing Colossus is one of decided gloom. And gloom is generally not in my character. Though I tend to be an eternal optimist and believe the world is becoming an increasingly better place, it is difficult to not see the enormous challenges that lay ahead of my generation.

Summation: Colossus is a academic book, but very much worth reading. I'd like to leave you one of Ferguson's key quotes from the book:

"there are three fundamental deficits that together explain why the United States has been a less effective empire than its British predecessor. They are its economic deficit, its manpower deficit and -- the most serious of the three -- its attention deficit."

Books: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11

Amazon.com: Books: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 by Thomas Friedman

What a gem. I must admit, I am a huge Thomas Friedman fan. And if you missed some of his columns over the last few years, this book is definitely worth reviewing. Friedman reads us his best columns since 9-11 and also weaves in his diary entries giving us a look at his inner thoughts and ways.

Friedman's book and analysis are incredibly powerful. I find myself thinking -- "I was I thought of that" a lot. Friedman has a great way of pulling a wide variety of seemingly unrelated facts and tying them together.

Summation: read this book.

Numbers on Iraq

Jeff Blanco blogs that at the current rate of loss in Iraq it will take us 84 years and 72 days to match the number of deaths in Vietnam. interesting analysis...

Nine Months of Search Engine Data of My GoogleNumber

It takes nine months for us to grow inside the womb and apparently it takes nine months to really analyze how search engines crawl and get results.

Every week for the last nine months I have done a search for "Auren Hoffman" in eight major search engines (Google, Lycos, All the Web, Teoma, Gigablast, Wisenut, Yahoo, and A9). I recorded only the raw number of results as my objective was to understand the reach of each search engine rather than the accuracy. Since, as far as I know, I'm the only "Auren Hofman", the results are fairly finite and easy to define. (a chart and the raw data is below)

This experiment was born of my fascination with other people's fascination about their "Google Number" (see What Is Your Google Number). When I started, my Google Number was only 794. It climbed to 2880 in March. Today, it is inexplicitely only 2220 -- which means that either:
(a) about a six hundred pages with my name on it have dropped of the face of the earth in the last five months
(b) Google changed the way it crawls and stopped caching certain sites
(c) google misrepresents its raw search results (we'll get to that later)

My observations:

1. Fluctuation in weekly results
Some search engines have results that fluctuate widely every week and others are very consistent (see graph below). Google fluctuates widely each week even though it is obvious (from just looking at the search results) that Google spiders new pages very quickly. Search engines like Gigablast and Wisenut fluctuate very little -- and it also seems they rarely add newly crawled information to the search engines.

2. Numbers that end in zero
I noticed that for results above 1000, all Google and Yahoo results end in a zero. Maybe they are rounding to the nearest ten or maybe they are just making an approximation (which might be the reason that results vary so widely). If you follow every result, they both seem to overestimate the number of pages.

3. There is a huge discrepency between the search engines
Even if the results from Google and Yahoo are a bit inflated, they are still vastly higher than the other engines (though All the Web) indexes a good deal of pages too. That means that purely on who indexes the most pages, there is a big difference between the engines.

And indexing the most pages is very important. Now everyone always seems to talk about relevance. And relevance is very important. But so is mass. Especially when you are looking for something more archane.

What is your Google number??

See Larger graph here

	Google	Lycos	All the Web	Teoma	Gigablast	Wisenut	Yahoo	A9
12-Nov	794	649	636	582
11/16/2003	808	402	636	582
21-Nov	866	652	636	582
12/7/2003	949	419	406	540	540	956
12/13/2003	1020	418	404	537	267	984
12/18/2003	1070	411	404	539	268	1001
12/23/2003	1060	411	408	539	269	1001
3-Jan	994	409	402	539	269	1001
10-Jan	993	418	409	539	269	307
24-Jan	2390	693	699	537	272	1001
31-Jan	2700	677	693	557	273	1001
8-Feb	1810	696	680	557	282	1001
14-Feb	1570	693	703	509	285	1001
27-Feb	1890	719	703	509	280	1001	2070
5-Mar	1920	668	655	509	278	1001	2190
13-Mar	2770	690	674	509	278	1035	2140
3/20/2004	2880	649	483	568	278	1035	2190
3/26/2004	2970	636	307	568	278	1035	2400
4/6/2004	2160	275	361	568	278	1035	2180
4/10/2004	2010	278	421	567	278	1035	2100
4/18/2004	2200	290	335	643	278	1035	1580	295
4/23/2004	2330	274	290	643	278	1035	1790	297
4/29/2004	2380	268	293	643	271	1035	1730	320
5/9/2004	2390	271	276	680	293	1035		303
5/14/2004	2250	255	258	680	300	1035	1590	304
5/21/2004	1890	246	217	684	306	1035	1410	297
5/28/2004	2010	252	238	683	314	869	1390	303
6/6/2004	2080	261	335	706	317	869	1410	292
6/11/2004	1910	254	334	712	325	869	1350	299
6/18/2004	1670	250	439	712	336	869	1350	295
6/24/2004	1400	248	451	728	361	869	1340	284
7/2/2004	1430	256	484	728	363	664	1310	288
7/8/2004	1370	254	484	728	360	664	1290	278
7/16/2004	1390	253	1220	741	361	664	1250	305
7/23/2004	1510	251	1190	741	361	664	1230	309
7/29/2004	1550	251	1200	742	361	664	1240	321
8/6/2004	871	251	1210	758	361	664	1230	341
8/13/2004	1640	366	1170	756	361	664	1310	345
8/18/2004	1720	378	1180	133	361	664	1330	328
8/25/2004	1950	367	1230	765	361	664	1330	302
9/10/2004	2220	332	1210	765	361	660	1240	300

Class distinction outside the U.S.

I've been traveling a lot overseas recently and I have noticed that there is a much more noted class distinction outside the U.S.

I recently flew business class and made two stops in Europe, three stops in the Middle East, and one back to San Francisco. In every other place except SFO, the economy class people were forced to wait until all us business class people debarked the plane. But in SFO, the flight attendant (who was Dutch -- I was flying KLM) made the point of letting all the passengers debark at the same time. The only advantage I had as a business class person was that I was closer to the door.

Is Europe and the Middle East much more class conscious than the U.S.?

I dare say yes. These societies have a much more rooted history of nobles, sheiks, and other people who got where hey are today because of their birthright rather then their ability. I find people outside tend to respect class much more. But go to NY and no one will let a billionaire cut them in line ("Kiss my ass Bill Gates!")....

Books: Emotional Intelligence : Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Books: Emotional Intelligence : Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman

i have been wanting to read this book for a long time because it was recommended to me by many friends. but when i finally read it on a trans-atlantic flight, i thought the book did not live up to its expectations. i believe in the concept of emotional intelligence strongly, but this book (like many others like it) could have been written in 30 pages rather than 300.

good concept, but skip the book (and just read the long reviews on Amazon).

VOTE or NOT - $200,000 Sweepstakes

My friends James Hong and Jim Young are giving away $200,000 of their money to entice people to register to vote at VOTE or NOT - $200,000 Sweepstakes

i know both these guys well. and though they have done well, $200K is still a significant chunk of change. but they believe in the cause.

support james and jim's goals...