Tuesday 29 July 2008

A not-so-cuil new Google...

It's not heresy trying to challenge Google. But if you try, you better be really good at it, because Google hasn't found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary for nothing.

Every once in a while new search engines come along and promise to redefine the way we search the internet and to deliver much more relevant results to whatever one is after.

This week, the new entry in this long list, which includes a lot of recently or not-so-recently departed endeavours is cuil.com which apparently is pronounced cool and is the Galic word for knowledge. In my view, Galic serves a bit of a niche market, so I was wondering whether cuil does in fact have more of a mass appeal than the rather guttural language it is derived from.

Trying it out, the first thing that is striking is the very simple interface - effectively just a box to type in the search words. A little bit like Google, huh? Far from it, because the background is - BLACK! So much for distinguishing yourself from your competitors. As a side note, the company has been set up by former Google employees, which probably explains the similiarities and the publicity it is getting.

The front page claims that cuil searches about 120 billion pages, compared to Google at about 40bn, although this number is not confirmed. As some techie put it, simply searching a bigger haystack does not make it easier to find the needle, nor does it guarantee that you find one at all.

Trying out my own name in a classic bit of search engine testing, I came out around number 20, not as high as with the white-backgrounded friends from Silicon Valley, but still ok. However, you immediately see that the results are presented differently, namely in columns like in a magazine, even with pictures. Looks nice, but apparently a US physicist's search for his name came out with a picture of a naked soldier pleasing himself in the column next to his research. So the type of presentation can be a bit of a mixed bag.

Then I searched for my wife and something strange happened: I typed in half her name and got a result showing her full name. Then I typed in her full name and it responded that there were no results. That, I thought was weird. Although it did have the results (and was showing them before), it didn't return them. Maybe the haystack is just too big.

Furthermore, it has the feature that it suggests searches while you type. I typed "Here is the" and it suggested "Here is the City". Fine, I thought, but then the search for it didn't return anything related at all which seems fairly anti-climactic.

After the first test drive, given the choice of Black v. White, I might still err on the side of White. And I cannot quite see the Oxford English Dictionary including "to cuil" as a verb for systematically searching the web anytime soon.

On a lighter note, the name has already triggered discussions what it is most likely going to be misspelled as.

And I spare any comments about the similarities of the Galic word for knowledge and the French word for bottom.

Monday 28 July 2008

Savings for 52 rainy days

According to a study by the Yorkshire Building Society, the average Briton can only survive debt-free for 52 days if he/she would find herself out of, or unable to work.

This means that if the average person lost their job tomorrow, they would have run out of money by mid-September, not taking into account that they might want to go on a proper summer holiday in the meantime.

Taking into account that property prices seem to be in freefall (if one believes the headlines pretty much every single day) and the UK seeming to be destined for a recession, this all adds to a perfect recipe for disaster.

  • Take 52 days worth of savings set aside for tough times
  • Add a rather bleak prediction of an unemployment rate that - according to the Ernst & Young Item Club, which is a Think Tank - might rise up to 7% from currently 5.6% which would mean that more people find themselves in exactly those times
  • Stir in record oil, food and electrity prices and season with an inflation rate on an 11-year high which could imply that 52 days could soon be less than that
  • Add a 4.4% year-on-year drop in house prices (in the year through to July), and a property market which does not deserve the attribute "liquid".
Maybe the Bloomberg commentary Mark Gilbert wasn't that far off the mark when he recently stated that Optimist buy iPhones, pessimists hoard gold.

Maybe the upgrade to the 3G iPhone was a bit premature and I should have considered the latest macro-economic data.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

The Price of Happiness

Recently, some researcher has worked out what salary it requires to be able to live happily in London.

Which makes you wonder how to put a price tag on happiness, how much it is and whether it comes with a 12.5% discretionary service charge for whoever serves it up.


As a matter of fact, when the research was initially published in 2006, the income to guarantee happiness was set at £25k per year. Ironically enough (not in the Alanis Morissette-sense though) it was worked out by a research analyst at an investment bank, most certainly making a multitude of this happiness in an average year.

As it so happened, back then he worked at DrKW (aka the former home of Cityboy) but not soon later quit to take on a - even more certainly - better-paid job at a different bank. He must have perceived his happiness threshold to be slightly higher than what Dresdner had paid him up to this point.

Whilst this kind of research definitely makes for a good headline, it is highly questionable whether there is any validity in it. Asking anyone who makes more than £25k they will certainly testify that they couldn't do with this amount of money, and would unlikely be happy with it.

It is folklore knowledge that lifestyles evolve with rising salaries and people get accustomed to certain treats they start to, if not take them for granted, at least appreciate enough not to be willing to give them up. Weekend breaks, dinners out, other indulgences add up, and, whilst not essential, rank as nice to haves, and - the longer you had them - difficult to do without.

As an upper bound (which very few ever get to) there seems to be a level at which the marginal increase in happiness of any further pound of income is too small to make an effort for.

On the other side, there is clearly a minimum to cover essentials such as food, shelter and clothing (and it is worth keeping in mind that out of 6bn people on this planet, a lot do not even cover this).

And somewhere inbetween, there is a level for everybody to work out what they require to be "happy".

Maybe the current financial market crisis will cause some people to find out that they are able to be happy with less than the 7-digit sums they bagged in the recent fat years.

When lamenting that this year's bonus might turn out to be as desastrous as everybody perceives it to be, it is maybe worth keeping in mind what a friend of mine once told me (although it being a bit grim)

Very few people demand on their deathbed to be shown their Ferrari again, but they want to see the people they love.
And if you are thinking to yourself that you would in fact in this situation request your Testarossa to be shown, you probably still think you can put a price on happiness.

And it's very likely you think it's more than £25k.

Monday 21 July 2008

Market Bust - Baby Boom

Have you noticed an increasing number of pregnant women around the office? Could this potentially be directly linked to the market downturn?

Always trying to be as attentive as possible, it did not pass me by that there is a growing number of women in my firm who are growing quite literally, i.e. sporting a baby bump.

Wondering whether this could possibly be a coincidence, I discussed with a few colleagues (who I knew would not immediately report me to the diversity committee) to see whether it was only me who thought that there could be more behind this.

It very quickly transpired that there were a number of possible reasons for this clustering of moms-to-be.

  • The simplest reason could be that by virtue of the business and the age structure of the employees, a lot of female co-workers are in their early to mid-thirties which is (at least nowadays) the age at which women have babies.
  • It was suspected though that there could be a correlation to the market downturn. Somebody suggested that pregnancy could "immunise" against being laid off since banks would certainly not make an expecting woman redundant. Although general consensus was that this sounds too calculating to be a viable argument.
  • The link to the market downturn could be more subtle though: A pregnancy usually means for the mother to be up to 6 months off work which would naturally have an impact on the bonus for this particular year. If you are planning to have a baby anyway (and are reasonably flexible about the timing), why not go ahead with this plan in a year where the bonus sacrifice will be significantly less than in other years? Since business is slow in many areas, this might be a good time to take the baby break and return to a more benign market environment at the other end of the maternity leave.
Clearly, it is impossible to be conclusive about any such relation between the current market conditions and the number of bumps around.

Unless proven otherwise, we shall stick to the ancient motto: "Honi soit qui mal y pense" and believe all this is caused by the fact that - as Richard Curtis' would put it - "Love actually is all around."
Originally published on HereIsTheCity Life on 04th June 2008, the original can be viewed here.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

To be or not to be: A tourist

London is an exciting town, which is probably the reason why in the summer (which is currently although one can't tell) the city is over-crowded by tourists.

This can be a nuisance for the rightful residents who don't really care about all the touristy bits on offer. Although, maybe they should care.

It is quite surprising that a lot of those living in London have not been to certain spots that some people travel to London for. I definitely include me in that portion of the residents who have not been to The Changing of the Guards or to the London Dungeon.

But, very surprisingly, some touristy bits of London are actually quite fun, and can be even more fun if you have lived here for a while.

For instance: I went on the London Eye a while ago and enjoyed it a lot, I thought it was in particular funny because I knew a lot of things to look for, tried to spot the office, my house etc. Not what your weekend visitor would look for.

Occasionally you get visitors who insist on going to Madame Tussauds or go on an open top bus tour (not to show off your FA cup trophy that is), so whether you like it or not, sometimes you are exposed to common sights.

Hence I compiled a Top 5 list of tourist attractions I consider worth seeing, and a Top 5 of those which are only in business because tourists (unlike us sophisticated natives) don't know better.

Top 5 (no particular order)

  • Take a Jack the Ripper walk from Tower Hill tube station (and end up on Brick Lane going for a curry)
  • Go on top of St Paul's Cathedral (unless you can't do heights)
  • Take a boat ride on the Thames
  • Try catching a Routemaster bus (top level)
  • Going on the London Eye
Bottom 5 (no order, all equally bad)
  • Dinner at Aberdeen Angus Steak House
  • Visit to Madame Tussauds
  • Visit to London Dungeon
  • Drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe
  • Seeing a "show" in SoHo

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Random Thought #3: Clocking up the miles

Nowadays, things are built to last a few years if at all. Digital cameras have a life span of a couple of years before they need to be replaced and a really well-built car can make it through a decade if it's well looked after.

All the more astonishing that nature builds things which are so much more durable than that.


When hanging out with my son the other day I looked at his tiny feet and legs and couldn't help but thinking how miraculous human beings are.

It reminded me that I had recently dug out a very old picture of mine as a toddler which showed me sitting in the mountains in shorts and I looked down my own legs and thought how funny it was that I still had the same legs that were pictured some 30+ years ago and how well they had served me over the years.

If you think about it, the human physiology is quite amazing. Our baby, being born very recently, has hopefully a realistic chance of living into the next century, which still is more then 90 years in the future. By then, his heart will have beat millions of times, his legs will have carried him thousands of miles and his brain will have stored tons of information and hopefully a lot of pleasant memories.

The sheer fact of such a complex biological system being able to function for that amount of time is something that I think is quite hard to understand, but it makes you appreciate how precious it is.

And once you appreciate that, it makes disregard for life which unfortunately seems so rife in so many things you read and see nowadays, so much more incomprehensible.

Sunday 6 July 2008

The best Whatever this side of Wherever

In an attempt to come up with yet more superlatives to praise their products, vendors should not have reason, or geography get in the way of a punchy tagline.

Since I try to distribute my patronage of caffeinated drinks amongst all the coffee providers out there, my way leads me to Caffe Nero every so often. Apart from the fact that I usually forget my loyalty card and start collecting stamps from anew (leading to a rather large pile of loyalty cards that are nowhere near being redeemed for a free beverage), they also have the slogan:

The best espresso this side of Milan.
Whilst it didn't strike me as being overly silly, despite being difficult to either verify or falsify, a business lunch to Chez Gerard revealed their tagline as:
The best steak-frites this side of Paris.
Apparently, there seems to be a pattern in this. Maybe it is my failure that I have never read a textbook on advertising, which might reveal this to be a classic style feature, not dissimilar to alliterations and tautologies.

Logically however, I was wondering - where is this side of Paris? Or, assuming we are on this side of Paris (since Chez Gerard is obviously here), what's on the other side of Paris? Is it merely a matter of latitude and longitude? If so, is Berlin, although equally north of Paris but further east, this side of Paris or the other side? Which steak-frites have they compared it to then to get a comprehensive sample of steak-frites on this side of Paris?

All these things going through my head whilst waiting for the dish to be served, which, at the end did not turn out to be that spectacular after all. Then again, I never had steak-frites in Paris (neither on the other side of), so maybe they are all equally unremarkable.

But, a line that is good enough to praise espressos and steaks should have enough life in it to be used for so many other products as well. What about Whole Foods marketing their fruit as
The biggest apples this side of New York.
Or a brokerage in Canary Wharf describing their traders as
The biggest swinging d***s this side of the Square Mile.
Although maybe this ends up being too measurable after all.