The following innocuous sampling theory comment from Andy Gelman set me thinking in a bunch of dimensions today. The question had to with how to handle statistical analysis when your sample population is the entire population, and Andy's answer is important and instructive:

So, one way of framing the problem is to think of your "entire population" as a sample from a larger population, potentially including future cases.

Precisely right, and a point that many naive hypothesis-generators might keep in mind, whether in financial markets or elsewhere.

More here.

I've been messing about with this tool that tries to compare supply and demand for various jobs by geography throughout the U.S. You have to be careful how you interpret it, as the following chart suggesting farmworkers (and animals (sic.)) should race to New York City and San Francisco shows, but it's still interesting.

Nice to have a firm date for when California must have a budget and stop shopping IOUs. Here is Wells Fargo from a release yesterday:

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) said today it will accept registered warrants issued by the State of California from its retail and business customers for a limited time. It will begin accepting the registered warrants for deposit on July 2, 2009 and stop accepting them no later than July 10, 2009.

“We’re very disappointed, as are many Californians, that California has taken the unfortunate step of issuing IOUs in lieu of its payments to some businesses and individuals,” said Lisa Stevens, head of Community Banking for Wells Fargo in California. “Wells Fargo has a long history of taking extraordinary measures to help our customers and will accept registered warrants from our customers, but only for a limited time, to allow them time to make other arrangements. We are reluctant to take this step, but are doing so to help our customers who are not at fault and with the expectation that the Legislature and Governor will complete the budget within days. We join all Californians in urging our Legislature and our Governor to take the appropriate steps as soon as possible to resolve this budget crisis.”

[Emphasis mine]

Yesterday I posted that Trada is looking for a Test Engineer.  Gnip is also looking for software developers – three in fact:

• Senior Software Developer
• Senior System Adminstrator
• Senior Web Developer

If you are Boulder-based and fit the qualifications, email Jenny-Lynne Elledge.

Trada, one of our portfolio companies in Boulder, is looking to hire. They’re looking for a tech-skilled individual who thinks they can do just about everything, because they might be asked to.  Primary role is testing their online advertising app but there’s a huge opportunity to contribute much more.  There’s dev work; cloud systems admin; operations tasks; end-user support; and customer facing account management tasks that can be added to the mix for the properly skilled (and properly motivated) individual.  While still in stealth these guys are already rocking. Interested – contact Michael Lawless at mlawless@trada.com.

If I told you that I had just filed a patent for “a system to sell equity in domain names”, I’d expect you to laugh at me.  I haven’t ranted and raved against software (and business method) patents for a while because I got bored of doing it.  The PTO has gotten so far behind on responding to patent applications that the whole notion of a four year cycle to get a software patent approved just underscores how ridiculous the whole thing is given the pace of innovation in software.

But – today’s silly patent popped up somewhere and I just couldn’t resist poking fun at it. Go Daddy has filed a patent for a method of selling equity in domain names.  I can’t wait to see what the SEC has to say about this one.

I sure do hope the new regime in Washington D.C. has the balls to address the software patent issue this time around and end this madness.

There is some good stuff in the current issue of Foreign Policy:

• Thing again about Asia’s inevitable rise (Source)
• The end of finance is the end of macho (Source)
• The 2009 Failed States Index (Source)
• The collapse of the Baltic states (Source
• Why birth rates matter (Source)

There is amusing (in an admittedly academic sense) new paper out seemingly showing that venture capitalists obtain a significant portion of their performance by investing in deals outside their local area. That, of course, runs contrary to the usual VC mantra that they only invest in their local area.

A cynic (or an entrepreneur) would like say the answer is obvious. Venture capitalists are meddlesome sorts who get in the way of running a company, so startups will do best to the extent that they can keep VCs a few timezones and/or flights away.

For some reason the paper’s author don’t proffer the above explanation. Instead, they argue it is a combination of higher hurdle rate forcing VCs into making better investments, plus some geographic arbitrage. While both are possible, even if geographic arbitrage in venture is mostly a loser strategy, I’d also bet there is a reputational effect going on. In short, the “smart money” from out of town gets to do deals in the hinterlands at better valuations than does a local fund.

Source:

Buy Local?  The Geography of Successful and Unsuccessful Venture Capital Expansion
Henry Chen*, Paul Gompers**, Anna Kovner***, and Josh Lerner**

I’ve been a delighted iPhone user since they upgraded the software to have mail / contact / calendar sync with Exchange.  With the 3.0 version of the software, I’m even more delighted.  I’ve had an iPhone 3GS since the day they came out (thanks Ross for standing in the non-line at the AT&T store for me) and – with the exception of the crappy AT&T 3G network – I find new little magic happy things every single day. 

As my app portfolio continues to radically expand and I endlessly fiddle with placement, I thought it might be useful to reflect (and memorialize) the apps that are currently on my first screen.  Here’s goes – left to right, from top row to bottom row.

1. Calendar
2. Messages
3. Maps
4. IMExchange: Finally, someone got Outlook Task syncing with an iPhone app.  Worth the money.
5. Camera: Much improved – actually good pictures!
6. Photo
7. Weather
8. Kindle: Yes, I can actually read books on this.
9. Brightkite: I use this to post pictures to Twitter.  And occasionally log where I’m at.
10. Clock
11. 100 Pushups: Damnit – I will get stronger.
12. FlightTrack: Indispensible when used with TripIt.
13. Vlingo: Apple Voice Control is good, but Vlingo is great.
14. iPod
15. App Store
16. Settings
17. Phone
18. Mail
19. Safari
20. Tweetie: I’ve tried them all and this one is the best.

Page Two are my “less regularly used, but at least once a week” apps (like Fandango).  Page Three are apps from our portfolio companies (have you played Mafia Wars on the iPhone yet?  or Vampires?  or used your Pogoplug?)  Page Four is a bunch of random other junk, although I’m pretty aggressive about deleting apps I never use.

I wonder what Page One is going to look like a year from now?  Any gotta-have-em apps that I’m missing that you guys out there in blogland would recommend?

On a personal note, Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends and family.