URL shortening gets wild

Does the world really need another URL shortener? Apparently, the U.S. government thinks so. It just launched http://go.usa.gov as a link shortening service for government employees. It shortens links from any .gov, .mil, or .si.edu site.

via techcrunch.com

Oh no, don't tell me there was somebody who said: "Well, you know, we think that we need to do something in this space, and it looks like the URL shortening is the best thing to apply those several millions from the budget"... And three or four years later, here we go, the Go.USA.gov!

And the usage statistics is so cool too:

Go.USA.gov has shortened 247 URLs that have been clicked 14010 times.

It looks like you missed a couple of zero's and K's, didn't you? Because the site takes more then 17 seconds to open on my sorta fast Internet.

The best of luck though. The US gov't is really going for IT nowadays, and this at least is cool.

# Posted via web from opportunity__cost

Forex trading techniques for newbies

I am interested in trading, particularly in currency trading, that is Forex.

I'm pretty much newbie here and I never went far away from the demo account — first of all, I'm not comfortable with dropping few $$ grands for deposit. I also not sure that minimum deposits of few $$ hundreds would be enough for me to really do something. I used to play out of $300 on the demo account and it feels pretty much limited. And at least, but not last — I still have no solid technique to rely on.

Running out of the demo account I was pretty much comfortable with short term trading. Occasional medium term trading - swings, I've tried that, too, but I never had a plan for them — it was mainly like a game.

However, a lot of Forex traders advocate short term trading as inappropriate for newbies, and, basically, require pretty good intuition for them to succeed. But these types of trading - ranging from minutes ending with days - feels like the fastest indicators to your plan success in trading.

Interesting, are there any short-term techniques appropriate for newbies that can be successful and predictable (on a certain level, of course)? I'll keep looking for that and keep the blog updated.