When I’m surfing online and it isn’t for work directly then I’m mostly looking for news which can be world news or inspirational news to write about on my blogs. I think that the biggest problem of modern internet and global communication is that there are too many fraudulent sites and blogs out there to have clear and real view of what’s happening in today’s world.

When I was contacted by the guys of Newstin.com for a review I was quite excited since I’m real critical about the subject matter. There are a millions of so called News sites out there; why should I look into Newstin.com and can they really be called a news site?

If you look at the site you see a clear over view with the top stories at first glance. So far nothing to complain; the site has 10 main categories and isn’t cluttered at all. I’m having a closer look at two categories which are the category Health and the sub-category Male Health.

Both category indexes look very nice and transparent. Newstin is using the title and header text (approx. 35 words) of the mayor news sources. Some of the news sources which they are using are Business Week, medicinenet.com and the Washington Post. There is no user generated content like on news sites like Digg, this is real world news. All the links to the original articles open in a new window which works great for a good usability. If you don’t want the articles to open in a new window you can register and adjust your personal settings and have the article opened in the same window.

A nice little extra tool for the webmasters among us; you have the possibility to create a sidebar widget with the Newstin headlines.

My conclusion: Newstin.com is great news source with valuable content and a very clean page layout. I’m glad they asked for a review because this is a news source that I’ll be seeing a lot more of.

RAISE YOUR SPIRITS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON AT CHRISTIE’S

First Auction of Spirits to be held in New York Since Prohibition

Looking at what they had to offer I was really surprised, they really had a great assortment. Unfortunately I had missed it because it was last weekend. Not that I had bought a bottle (maybe one of the cheaper ones) but it would have been nice if I could have followed it via the net (if that was possible).

Christie’s had in particular 3 auctions that where really amazing.

The first was a $54,000 bottle of Scottish Macallan. This whisky was distilled at Macallan in Scotland in 1926, bottled in 1986 and rebottled in 2002.

The second was a 100 lot auction of rare wines and liquors sold for $304,800.

The “showstopper” was a collection of 729 bottles of whisky. This collection was sold for $102,000.

Now I really know it for sure; I’m going to invest in whisky or wine.

I ran into this simple explanation today that I wanted to share with you which I though was pretty interesting. The reason I looked this up is because I like to follow the financial and economy news from around the world. I studied among others business economy in my young(er) days. And now especially since I follow the news all the time now that I’m a Problogger and I’m at home “24/7”.

We all know that the financial crisis in the US is dominating the world economy. My guess is that this will continue in the next 1 – 1.5 year. On a side note; this effect has already struck several big countries like Spain who are now encountering the same problems. Since this is a global problem and the end isn’t in sight many economists and analysts are looking at this and are looking for a solution. Well, maybe not a solution but they want to give the cause a name.  

The expression “the Minsky moment” is repeatedly mentioned in this. Minsky did rang a bell but very vague and I didn’t had a clue what or who it was so I look it up. Now that I’ve read Wall Street Journalist Justin Lahart’s explanation it all came back to me (still vaguely, all I remember vaguely is that Hyman Minsky was one of the most negative economists of the last century).

At its core, the Minsky view was straightforward: When times are good, investors take on risk; the longer times stay good, the more risk they take on, until they’ve taken on too much. Eventually, they reach a point where the cash generated by their assets no longer is sufficient to pay off the mountains of debt they took on to acquire them. Losses on such speculative assets prompt lenders to call in their loans. "This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset values," Mr. Minsky wrote.

When investors are forced to sell even their less-speculative positions to make good on their loans, markets spiral lower and create a severe demand for cash [that can force central bankers to lend a hand]. At that point, the Minsky moment has arrived.

Thanks Brian Chin, for this short but vivid explanation.  

For me personal it’s the most important and anticipated night of the year and what a night it was!!

Tonight it’s fight night and it’s time for the 15th K1 World Gran Prix. The big question was; will Sem Schilt win his third in a row K1 final?

Tonight’s the night – It’s fight night!!

The tournament would start in the first round with some very promising matches. The one I was looking for the most was Badr Hari VS Remy Bonjasky. Both fighters were fighting at their best. They were great; this match was an exhibition model for what modern kickboxing is. Bonjasky won after 3 rounds on points. The other first round matches where Jerome Le Banner VS Hong Man Choi which ended in a 3th round jury decision (3-0), Sem Schilt VS Glaube Feitosa also a 3th round jury decision (3-0) and the fourth match was Peter Aerts VS Junichi Sawayashiki which was as expected a walk over by Peter Aerts. Aerts won within the first 60 seconds with a low kick followed by a huge blow in the head. The fighter from Japan was practically carried out of the ring after several minutes of lying there in the ring.

The semi finals were fantastic!! Jerome Le Banner took a beating from Sem Schilt. Le Banner's trainer threw in the towel in the second round. He couldn’t stand on his feet anymore. The second semi final was Remy Bonjasky VS Peter Aerts. This was also a demo model for what kick boxing on the highest level stands for. Both fighters fought as if it was their last fight.  Peter Aerts won the match with a third round jury decision (3-0).

The final with Aerts and Schilt was the Same as 2006. Both Dutchmen know each other very well and you could see this. Both fighters where on top of their game and it was a tough fight till the second minute of the first round. Aerts slipped in the ring and dislocated his knee. According the doctors his ligament is torn off.

A summary of the K1 GP world championship: It was again a great tournament with great fights like Badr Hari VS Bonjasky,  Aerts VS Sawayashiki and Le Banner VS Schilt. For me personal it was kind of a deception seeing Aerts going down with his knee injury. I had to quite kickboxing too because of me ripping of my ligament and wrecking up my meniscus. This isn’t screwing up my night though. Fight night 2007 was again a great night. Can’t wait to see what the K1 2008 will bring us.

You don’t have to be a modern man to have a wireless keyboard and mouse. Now a day’s almost every household has at least one wireless set. I alone have already have 3 sets on my desk.

The team of Dreamlab Technologies has hacked two wireless keyboards from Microsoft. Dreamlab warns that it is possible to “sniff” the keyboard strokes that are made. What this means is that it is possible to capture and decrypt keystrokes, meaning that user names, passwords, bank details or confidential correspondence can be very easily copied.

More and more keyboards and mousses are using Bluetooth these days but the majority still uses a rf-connection. Dreamlab Technologies examined this type and it seems that the security is lacking on these models.

Dreamlab used the Wireless Optical Desktop 1000- and 2000-models from Microsoft for the hack. The Swiss data company used a radio transmitter and self written software to capture the keystrokes

The software listens to the made keystrokes and decrypt them within seconds. As soon as the keyboard communicates with the computer a data package is send over and the Dreamlab software intercepts that and uses this for the decrypting of the keystrokes. Hacking wireless keyboards this way is extremely easy

 For more information and a video demonstration of the attack, visit Dreamlab Technologies.

We all would like to see some nice profits when we invest, but we also know that it is easier said than done. Especially now with the current financial crisis in the US and with the dollar which is doing great, Uhmm.

So many questions; where should   I invest in, what’s the best way to invest money, what are the investing tools that I should use, should I invest smart or more gutsy, should I invest in gold or maybe in oil?

What I have learned from investing money is; figure out what is for you the best way to invest money, invest smart and try to discover new ways of investing.

This weekend I saw a documentary about investing in Whiskey which I thought was pretty amazing. I’m a wine lover and I already knew that investing in wine is a good alternative if you don’t want to invest in the normal stock market. I don’t know why it didn’t happen for me, all I did with wine is drink it.

This documentary showed a good example of a smart way to invest your money.

The schottische distillery Ardbeg doesn’t have any old Scotch whisky barrels left in there stock. If you wanted a 17 year old Ardberg in February 2005 you could still buy it at the better liquor store. You would than pay for a bottle about $75. Which isn’t bad considering the current price for a bottle is $198 (November 2007). This is an increase of 249,6% in 30 months!!

On November 9 2007 the World Whisky Index is opened by former Dutch Minister of finances mister Gerrit Zalm. Not every part of the site is translated in English but they are working on it; I did register myself for the English newsletter though. Since the opening two days ago they already have an order portfolio of $750.000 which is pretty amazing to me seen that this only happened over the weekend and with bottles in the average price range between $400 – $1000.

You can have your whisky stored at home (with the risk that you drink it) or you can leave it insured and stored at the WWI. All bottles that you buy have an official document that they are approved and granted by the WWI and are shipped or stored with and official WWI certification mark. If you decide to sell your bottles than they first need to be certified and approved by the WWI.

One thing they’ve also mentioned is that; investing in whiskey is surprisingly popular among Japanese, Chinese and Russians.

Another great thing about investing in Wine or Whiskey is that when your share becomes worthless you still have a great bottle of booze;).

I’m going to do this, ill post my findings on this blog. If you are also investing in whiskey and/or wine let me know and if you want you can guest write on this blog. Good luck to all of you, let’s make some money!!

Ruud Gullit is leaving Holland to go to the States. He is going to be the new head couch for LA Galaxy. He will be couching the team of England’s proud, David Beckham who is the Galaxy captain.

The former Galaxy head coach Frank Yallop is leaving the club to return to San Jose for a second shift as the Earthquakes coach.

The Dutchman has a glamorous career and is in the list of the best football players ever. Gullit joined AC Milan in 1987 and helped the Italian club to win the European Cup in 1989 and 1990. He also played for Sampdoria and Chelsea.

He was the head coach for several big European teams like Chelsea and Feyenoord. Feyenoord was his last managing job and I hope that he’ll do better than that. I’m a big fan of Feyenoord Rotterdam and he didn’t perform well there, he got fired for mismanagement.

MM wishes Gullit with his sexy football all the luck!!

This warning comes from Vint Cerf; one of the founders of the current Internet Protocols and he says that it can happen around 2010 that people can’t enter the Internet anymore with new devices like servers, pda’s and even MP3 players.

The system that is now used for providing IP addresses is IPv4 and it provides room for four billion IP’s. This system creates IP’s with 12 numbers in it. The system that can solve the growth problem is IPv6 which was developed about 10 years ago. This “new” system can create 340 trillion new IP addresses but it is still not implemented all over the world.

Vint Cerf says in his interview with the BBC that the reason for this is that the customers (ISP’s) haven’t asked for it and that this why it isn’t implemented yet.  The main reason why they haven’t asked for this is because the IPv6 and IPv4 systems are not compatible so ISP’s need to run two parallel systems which will ad additional costs.

You can find the interview with more IPv6 developments at the BBC News site.

Microsoft Australia and Microsoft USA have confirmed it. There are again problems with Windows Vista. James Bannan from APCMag.com had some troubling times with the new Operating System. Now it seems that when you update your drivers, in this case the DirectX drivers. You might need to reactive your copy of Vista. The solution: call Microsoft and have it reactivated again!

You can read the complete story on APCMag.com.

My question: when will all the problems be over with MS Vista? My guess: Never! pfff

It is confirmed by J.K. Rowling. Albus Dumbledore the mentor of Harry Potter is gay!!

According BBC News and CNN J.K. Rowling made this revelation when she was in NY during her US book promotion tour.

The team of The World of Modern Men wishes the Hogwarts school headmaster Albus Dumbledore all the Best! LOL

And ehh Albus… I would stick with gray and green, I don’t think pink will do you any good.