Monthly Archives: December 2006

$350,000,000 for Hitwise? Wow, statistics don’t lie about … cash? Do they?

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This Hitwise asking price sounded way too high at first, but Hitwise has about 1200 customers. I think their charges range from a minimum of about 1000 monthly to what would not be more than 5000 or so monthly (I’m guessing wildly here).

Any company that’s counting on the unreliable reporting of the big analytics firms should be ashamed of itself, but putting that aside let’s assume Hitwise is taking in an average of 2500 monthly from those 1200 clients. This is a cool 3 million per month or 36 million per year. For an established and growing internet company asking 9-10x annual revenues is not outrageous. I’m guessing they’ll be thrilled to get half that, but… I say rock on Hitwise dudes!

Mathew Ingram is seeing 2.0 bubbles and thinks I have a high threshhold for outrage

Kim Family search backing off Merlin Galice Bear Camp route ?

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Update:   This report suggests Curry county authorities feel they’ve covered that county well and I’m hoping the quote in the CNET story just means they are focusing on the east rather than west side of the mountains rahter than assuming they took 42.   It’s possible but I think 42 is the wrong approach, rather they should comb the logging spurs off of the Merlin to Gold Beach route.   On the East side of the mountains this  would be mostly Josephine and Douglas county land.

This in from CNET suggests that Curry County authorities may stop searching the Bear Camp Route for the Kim Family. I don’t understand the logic here but I’m not privy to special info. The fact they were spotted in Roseburg suggests to me that the Bear Camp route is *very likely*, appearing on many maps and many online services as the shortest route to the TuTuTun lodge, the final destination of the Kims. Why would he have passed by Highway 38 and then taken 42? Also, 42 is much more travelled than Bear Camp and is not easy to get lost on.

I sure hope they search the Bear Camp area very thoroughly before giving up on that angle.

Earlier this year a family appeared to take that same route and wound up near Glendale via logging roads. They were stranded for 2 weeks under snow in an RV but survived thanks to provisions on board the RV.

Kim Family search update as of 1:30pm Saturday

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Northwest news report as of Saturday afternoon.

A 1:27 report from local KTVL TV indicates the leads have not been of much help to the authorities, and searching continues in Bear Camp area.

Details from Oregonian

Here’s another item indicating the family was seen at a Roseburg, Oregon Denny’s restaurant. I’m not clear why this would suggest to the police a Highway 42 route more than strengthening the Bear Camp route likelihood. I’m not sure, but think it would not make sense for Kim to have passed by highway 38 and then take 42. If Kim was looking for a shortcut I think he would have (wrongly) tried Bear Camp road. I can’t see disappearing on 42 unless you went into the river where you can easily disappear up on Bear Camp road spurs without even making a serious miscalculation. [Sunday: I just ran several routes through Mapquest and it looks like they show the shortest distance as Roseburg to Powers to Agness to TuTuTun in Gold Beach.  It appears to be about 7 miles less than the Merlin route.   I’m not familiar with Powers route so I may be underestimating it, but my gut says if they reviewed a regular map they’d take the Merlin route].

Here’s a link to a Google map of the Merlin, Oregon to Gold Beach area. A hopeful scenario is that the Kim Family took the Merlin to Gold Beach route (aka Merlin Galice or Bear Camp Road) and got lost on a logging spur road and then stuck in snow and are surviving on meltwater and any food they had on board. They could be OK since temperatures have not dropped too low up there this past week. Several people are lost in thata area each year but most are found safe or find their way out. A worse possibility is that the car went over one of the steep dropoffs along this route and was then buried in the snow that has fallen in that region since last Saturday. This area is one of the most remote areas in the state and it’s full of steep slopes.

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Our local Medford, Oregon newspaper websites are starting to have the most detailed updates I can find this Saturday morning about the Kim Family search here in Southern Oregon. Here’s a similar report from Gold Beach. They report that the search continues along major roads and the Bear Camp Road and in the remote and dangerous “shortcut” to the coast from Interstate five:

From the Medford Mail Tribune Website:

Search-and-rescue teams from Coos, Curry and Josephine counties combed remote roads known for their winter impassability. Jackson County searchers joined in with a private helicopter and could send a Sno-Cat to travel snow-covered forest roads, Sheriff Mike Winters said.

Curry County sheriff’s deputies used 4×4 vehicles and were able to reach about milepost 18 on Bear Camp Road where the snow and ice stopped their advance, OSP reported Friday night. Josephine County authorities called for their Sno-Cat to respond to search the remaining 20 miles of road.

The Coos County Sheriff’s Office sent 4×4 vehicles to the Agness Pass area, and also sent 4×4 vehicles into the Eden Valley as far as they could get past Mount

Bolivar. The U.S. Forest Service roads through the remote area intersect with each other.

The Oregon Army National Guard sent a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Salem to assist in the aerial search. California Highway Patrol and Coast Guard reportedly were assisting in the search, as well.

OSP, the agency coordinating Oregon search efforts and news releases, reported that relatives of the Kims have hired helicopter companies to fly the major roads from Interstate 5 to Highway 101, specifically Highway 42, Highway 38 and Highway 126.

Also note this new website supporting the Kim family. I don’t know who has created it but it appears to be legitimate and helpful.

HeadOn alternative remedy – Wal Mart Candles

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ABC’s reporting on how successful Head On has been: Six million tubes of wax at $6-8 per tube. Since the product obviously has no medical value, is this a marketing miracle? You bet it is! There’s a HeadOn sucker born every minute!

Let’s do the math:
Wax sells at about $2 per pound I’m sure HeadOn paid less but that number will do for now. That amounts to 12.5 cents per Ounce of wax.

HeadOn tubes have .2 oz of wax and a few tiny amounts of other effectively worthless ingredients. Thus their cost for the HeadOn itself is no greater than 2.5 cents per tube of HeadOn. Packaging and production costs? Let’s assume it’s 5 times the product cost, or 12.5 cents per tube.

Therefore a tube of HeadOn costs HeadOn approximately 15 cents.

HeadOn tubes sell for about $8, though there are discounts so let’s use $7 as the average sale proceeds per tube.

$7 proceeds from a $0.15 investment in the product and packaging! This is a markup of 46.67 times. A “four thousand six hundred sixty seven percent” markup. Microsoft Xbox 360 eat your heart out.

Their largest cost is likely the advertising campaign, but you can spend a lot for ads when your product is marked up over 46x your cost. I’ll try to find out more about what they spend on advertising later.

ABC Report:

With no science to back it up the ad was changed to stop implying (something?), though it seemed to me HeadOn has always been careful not to claim much of anything.

Cooling sensation may distract people from the pain. A doctor at the headache center suggests.

HeadOn claims to act homeopathically, with the wax containing tiny amounts of some homeopathic extractions . Homeopathy is one of the silliest and most ridiculous approaches to medicine, based on the notion that water imbued with unmeasureable amounts of substances has it’s molecular structure changed into powerfully curative “extractions” (hey, is there one to stop me from gagging on pseudo-science?) Like any quack remedy you’ll get placebo effects which have “real” curative powers.

The debate over quack cures is clouded by this placebo effect. Unlike real medicines which generally have potential side effects and rarely work in all cases, placebos, which only need the gullible participation of the user, can offer real relief, especially from minor symptoms.

I’m confident that HeadOn does nothing medical, but that does not mean it’s worthless.

However, prudent shoppers will choose my alterative “even better than HeadOn” emedy – one of those short stubby 29 cent Wal Mart Candles used for religious offerings. This will save you over $7 AND give you a religious infusion (but only if if you BE-LEEEEEVE!).

Send the $7 you saved vs buying a “real” tube of HeadOn to the charity of your choice, and you’ll not only get the benefit of the placebo effect you’ll actually do some good.

Digg this?

Chico the Wonder Dog

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Chico the Wonder Dog

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck.
Chico the Wonder Dog is our lab mix. This is a photo of Chico when I informed him that there is an ANOTHER Chico the Wonder Dog out there on the web, and he is a male Chihuahua.   That fine Chico has passed away but you can visit his blog here: http://atimeandaplace.blogspot.com/

Well, maybe he’s not an imposter, but I bet that Chicohuahua the Wonder Dog can’t eat an Alpo Birthday Cake in 125 seconds flat.

Kim Family search moves to Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road) area

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Most recent news here Kati and kids are safe, James missing but trackers on his trail as of 11pm Monday.

Our 6pm local news just reported that the search for the Kim family is now focusing on the Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road). It appears the family hired some choppers to fly the area today but the search is on hold now due to darkness.

I’m glad this area is the new focus for the search because it would seem to be a more likely area than any other route from I-5 to the coast. Family members are heading up from the San Francisco area as well. The logical approach will be to have cars drive each of the many spurs along that route to look for signs of the family car and continue with flights over the area. Some in SF have wondered how you could get “lost” in the modern age but you need to realize this is a huge and remote area. Hundreds of square miles of forest and steep mountains with virtually no traffic and hundreds of miles of logging roads.

Mapquest *right now* gives a “looks easy” set of directions along Bear Camp Road when you search for the shortest time route from Merlin to Gold Beach, but this route is not advisable in winter. Google Maps shows this route as well.

Update: The map they showed on local news indicated they are searching to the west side of the mountains just north of Gold Beach.

Tomorrow (Saturday) they’ll hopefully have good weather to fly over the logging roads that wind all through that area.

James Kim family missing. Could they have taken the infamous Merlin / Galice road ?

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Most recent updates from this blog are HERE 

Update 6 is here and is later info than below

I heard about the missing Kim family [ more recent Kim family missing] over at Techmeme [police information is here], thinking it’s unlikely I could offer any reasonable insight but it appears they were heading from Portland to Gold Beach on the Southern Oregon coast, an area with which I’m very familiar.

Online and printed mapping is sometimes problematic here in Southern Oregon and there’s a road that appears on many maps as a “shortcut” to Gold Beach. But in fact in winter it can be treacherous and often closes with snow. It’s the Merlin to Galice to Gold Beach route. Cell phones don’t work in this mountainous remote area along the Rogue River valley and the coast. A few folks have been lost (many more just scared out of their wits in bad weather) along this tricky route through the Siskiyou National Forest.

The troopers are probably examining this possibility (I’d say likelihood), and hopefully they’ll find the Kim family soon safe and sound.

Update: I called the Galice USFS District Ranger office and it appears the news had not reached there yet. They are advising against that route due to snow drifts that may not be cleared and confirmed that the route is not regularly patrolled. I’m going to follow up more on this angle shortly.

Update II: I just called the Northern Police dispatch number listed below and they did not seem well informed about local road situation, but indicated that the (Southern?) dispatch is following up. I’m going to call the Gold Beach ranger district to make sure they are aware of the situation. TuTuTun lodge, where the Kim’s were staying, is along the route I’m talking about (Via Lobster Creek bridge to North Bank Road) making it even more likely they may have taken the dangerous Bear Camp Road “shortcut” which has many logging road turn offs.

Update III: Gold Beach district said they’d heard of this on the news but I could not reach the road engineer or District Ranger to find out if people had checked extensively up there.

I fear this is a case where spreading the word won’t help much – rather a search of the many logging roads off of the Merlin to Gold Beach route is called for here.

Update 4: Update: As of 9 a.m. PST Friday, investigators said they were narrowing their search to Oregon’s Highway 38 as the family’s most probable route to their destination of Gold Beach. The Kims last spoke to an innkeeper there by phone about five hours before they planned to arrive.

Highway 38 seems less likely to me than Merlin Galice road, but I don’t have enough info to know if the police are using more than just intuition about the route. 38 is not nearly as hazardous as Merlin Galice / Bear Camp route, is travelled regularly, and unless they drove into the river there’d be signs of a crash. Without local info Kim could have correctly concluded that I-5 to Merlin would be faster than going via 101, and could also have (wrongly) concluded that the Merlin Galice route was short and safe.

Update 5: Leslie at CNET tells me that the SF Police are aware of Bear Camp as a possible location and appear to be searching in that area as well, which is good. I’ve contacted a friend in Gold Beach who will help spread the word as well.

Update 6

From the news report:

James Kim is a senior editor at CNET and hosts the web site’s popular Crave blog.

Police said friends and family knew them to usually keep in daily contact.

According to Det. Angela Martin of the San Francisco Police Dept., the family had lunch with a friend in Portland on Saturday between 2-3 p.m., then left to travel to Gold Beach on the southern Oregon Coast.

According to San Francisco Police, the family made two phone calls to a Gold Beath hotel that afternoon, the second call at 5:45 p.m. On that second call, the family reportedly asked the hotel clerk to leave a key outside since they would be arriving late that night.

That phone call was the last reported contact with the family. The Gold Beach hotel did leave keys out for the Kim Family but the keys were still there the next morning.

According to the Kim’s cellular phone provider, the phone was last used after the lunch in Portland. Calls to the Kim’s cell phone later Saturday went straight to voice mail.

The Kims were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with California personalized plates of DOESF.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Oregon State Police Northern Command Center Dispatch at 800-452-7888, or the San Francisco Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (415) 558-5508.