Thursday Workout

Cardio - Elliptical

Time = 90 minutes (1 hr 30 minutes)

Calories = 1,018

Distance = 8.72

Weights - Shoulders

4 exercises of 4 sets each, for a total of 16 sets.

Wednesday Workout

Cardio - today was biking. 

Time = 112 minutes (1 hr 52 minutes)

Calories = 658

Distance = 24.87 miles

Weights:

Biceps - 3 exercises of 4 sets each,  total of 12 sets

Triceps - 4 exercises of 4 sets each, total of 16 sets

28 sets in all.

New Yahoo CEO - Carol Bartz

Yahoo has finally made a move this month.  Carol Bartz, Autodesk's  limo-riding,  abuse-spewing, performance-enhancing former CEO is going to be Jerry Yang's replacement.

It didn't take long for Sue Decker to resign

Monday Cardio

Cardio on the elliptical. 

95 minutes (1 hour 35 min)

1,100 calories

9.4 miles

Faster than my normal rate.  And two bottles of Gatorade - one the regular Gatorade, the other a G2

Bushism Of The Week

"I understand small business growth. I was one."
New York Daily News, 19 February, 2000

So here, we learn that G-dub may not be a human after all, but a startup gone mad.  Makes sense.

A link to the last Bushism Of The Week

LiveJournal Dying

(Originally posted on Jan 7th, 2009)

LiveJournal today announced a "restructuring" in their US (San Francisco) office.  All product and engineering team members are gone, top to bottom.  Only technical operations (keep those servers humming, boys!), legal, admin and customer service teams are staying... as of now. 

SUP, the Russian internet startup that bought LiveJournal in 2007 for $30 Million, will probably start consolidating all tasks in Russia.  LiveJournal is quite popular, but just like all other social networks (except MySpace), has failed to figure out how to make money.

LiveJournal is just the latest social network to start going under.  Some others I've covered (a sample of the pain in social networks) are:

• Hi5,  which represents the second tier of social networks after Facebook and Myspace
• LinkedIn, representing the business social networks
• Sneakerplay, representing the ultra-niche networks
• Ning, representing the overly funded network enablers
• Zivity, representing the adult social networks  (yep, it really is a downturn)
• And, of course, Facebook's theoretical value falling (theoretically) from $15 Billion to $1.5 Billion. 

Quite painful, unfortunately. 

Wednesday Workout

I had a couple of visitors over the last week, so didn't manage to work out for a few days.  Decided to dive back in violently:

Cardio:  Elliptical

Time taken = 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes)

Calories burnt = 1,524

Miles covered = 13.33

Weights:  Shoulders

4 exercises of 4 sets each, for a total of 16 sets.

I realized a few things:

a) Gatorade is far superior to Vitamin Water, or Propel Fitness Water.  G2 (Gatorade's new drink) is even better - less calories, same minerals.  During last night's workout, I had one bottle of G2, and one of Propel.  I could feel the difference in my leg muscles, after I moved on to Propel.  After I had finished, I drank a bottle of Vitamin Water (orange flavor - yum).  But it took its own sweet time in helping out.  

So my two cents - if you know your workout is intense, stay with Gatorade or G2.

b) I shouldn't dive back in with this long a cardio workout after a few days' rest.  It was a little painful at the end.

c) My speed of recovery has improved tremendously.  The first time I did 2.5 hours of cardio, I could barely lift any weights afterwards.  This time, (after about a 15 minute break), I had a full weights workout.  I started with lighter weights, but by the end of the workout, was lifting at almost my normal capacity.

Layoffs And More At Alcoa

The economic downturn, including the Automotive companies' woes, are seriously hurting basic commodities.  Aluminium producer Alcoa is going through some pain, including:

• Laying off 13.5K - 15K employees (13 - 15%).  Also freezing salaries, and new hires, and eliminating contract positions 
• 50% reduction in capital expenditures in 2009
• Cutting 750K tonnes/year of output (18%)
• Selling four business units

Hopefully these measures keep the rest of their employees safe in 2009.

Whats New At Cuil?

Last time we checked,  Cuil had lost their VP of Product, Louis Monier.  How are they doing now?

Unfortunately, their traffic doesn't seem to be doing too well.  They botched their launch slightly;  they had great PR, got a lot of traffic, couldn't handle it, and didn't have the best results for searches. 

Cuil does still have a following.  But as the two charts from Quantcast and Compete show, below, their current strategy of incremental improvements has not won back their launch audience yet.

Quantcast

Compete 

Funny Autos Bailout Joke

Thanks to Jae for sending this one