Note the “amazing rate” of 4 percent. WaMu has been chasing depositors with well-above-market interest rates. The national average is 2.42%. Chase, which will be taking over WaMu, pays a relatively stingy 0.20%. (And that requires a $1,500 balance; WaMu didn’t require any.)

An email received shortly after WaMu was seized by federal regulators.

A friend forwarded a link to BuyMyShitPile.com, a site that explains the Paulson administration’s (as George Will referred to it) proposal better than most journalists have:

Use the form below to submit bad assets you’d like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD “MMMbop”, it’s not what you can sell these items for that matters, it’s what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

The sad irony is that as I write this the total claimed value of assets on the site is a mere $153,122,659,240. Still a long way to go to $700,000,000,000.

Screenshot from BuyMyShitPile.com

While the site is a joke, this is not:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

That’s the language in the administration’s proposal to Congress. King Henry indeed.

IM, email, cell phones, blogs and social networks have dramatically changed how I talk with friends and changed the nature of those relationships.

Status messages often are a trigger for communications, inspiring conversations about upcoming (or just finished) trips. Friends use status messages to subtly hit up contributions for charities, to acknowledge such contributions or to flog blog posts. Facebook status messages have allowed me to meet up with friends when traveling. I often learn about world events through my friends.

Asynchronous communication allows me to catch up on what my friends are up to when I have time. I spent most of a four hour flight to Chicago reading about Jon’s trip to Russia and checking out his pictures. It beat whatever was in United’s Hemispheres magazine. Another 15 or 20 minutes went to viewing flickr pictures from other friends. Something we used to dread — friends subjecting us to slideshows — we now seek out and eagerly comment on.

As to Twitter, I’ve gotten more active on it in the last couple of months. So far, it has only taken off among my relatively geeky friends; my Twitter circle is a fraction of my networks on Facebook and LinkedIn.

The permanence of email addresses, cell phone numbers and connections on social networks makes it easy to stay in touch with people in our mobile society. Google and Facebook makes it relatively easy to find lost friends. No more having to guess at where they might live and finding an out of town phonebook or calling 411.

There are some downsides. 

The individualistic nature of cell phones, email and social networking have had the effect of reducing incidental communications. Cell phones virtually eliminate the incidental conversations I’d have with the spouses of my friends and family. Most couples I know don’t answer each other’s cell phones and some check caller ID on landlines before deciding whether to answer. My friend Amy was married last year and I have yet to talk to her husband.

A quick Facebook birthday greeting has, for many, replaced birthday cards and phone calls.

Maybe communications has gotten too easy. Social networking tools are constantly suggesting new friends based on algorithms. A few clicks to invite them all. I now have way more high school friends on Facebook than I had friends in high school. 

Overall, I communicate with a lot more people, a lot more often. But the quality of that communication can be lacking. It might be a wall post scribbled in between meetings. Or a tweet from my iPhone while I’m waiting in line.

It just isn’t the same as a long phone call or a visit.

I started working on this post in May. Joe Kraus’ post on the social Web inspired me to finish it.

I stopped growing early. After what I can only assume was a massive early growth spurt, I capped out at my current 5’3″. The picture above was taken before I entered middle school; using mom as a benchmark, I must be near full height.

Being short presents a lot of challenges. I struggle to see at concerts and sporting events. It can be hard to find friends in a crowd. Clothes shopping is a frustrating ordeal. Getting a drink in a crowded bar can take a while (except for the drinks that oafs spill on me).

Being short can affect two other important parts of life: career and relationships.

Numerous studies have shown that shorter men are less likely to become CEOs and make less money than their taller counterparts. Short men who do make it into leadership positions are often viewed as dictatorial and petty, with an ax to grind with with the world.

While it’s hard to say what would have happened in my career if I were taller, it’s safe to say I’ve reached an above-average level of success for someone my age. It hasn’t been by stomping on people; I don’t think the people who have worked for me would say I’m dictatorial or petty.

Relationships are another matter. Being short presents a significant barrier in dating, which isn’t helped by “research” that says short men are more prone to jealousy. A quote from the comments to the story is telling:

I’m a woman and whenever I tell any of my girlfriends I’ve a guy in mind for them, the first question, even before his values, personality, looks, income, job, family, culture etc is always, “How tall is he?” If the answer is not over 5’10 I might as well not bother.

It’s an attitude I’ve encountered over and over. I’ve heard women repeatedly complain about not being able to find smart, successful, caring, honest men while at the same time thumbing their noses at men because of their height.

Looking at it from a market perspective, I know that I have to offset my perceived deficiencies in other ways. Being a jackass won’t help my case. Would I be as nice, as generous or as caring if I were taller? The honest answer: I don’t know.

Unfortunately, the dating market is one with severe information distortion. It’s easy for a jerk to be nice, a miser to be generous, a chauvinist to be chivalrous, a married man to pretend to be single. These things are easily faked, at least for a short time. Short men can’t fake being tall.

It’s tempting to say that women who won’t date someone who is below average in height are shallow, uneducated or ignorant. Tempting, but wrong. These attitudes persist among the most educated and independent women I know.

I’ve heard from some women that they have no inherent objection to dating short men, they just won’t because they don’t want to deal with “short man syndrome.” That’s a huge cop out.

It’s not uncommon for me — even among my close friends — to hear short jokes, the kind that would be clearly off limits if made about race, gender or sexuality.

Hollywood, which is full of short men, potentially could influence this situation. I had a glimmer of hope a couple of weeks ago while watching the pilot of Unhitched. In the show, Kate (played by Rashida Jones) is considering whether to date a shorter guy. All her friends encourage her to have an open mind.

She shows up on the date with a nicely dressed guy who escorts her to front row seats at a Celtics games. He chats it up with the players, who all seem to know him. How’d he get those great seats? He’s the leprechaun for the Celtics. Ugh.

I debated whether to post this entry because I don’t want to be labeled as having “short man syndrome.” If an articulate post about something that affects me deeply means I have a complex, so be it.

Am I short? Yup. Am I angry about it? Only when I read unfair, insulting and sterotypical comments like these.

I’ve spent the week thinking about what to do next. I’ve heard from many friends and colleagues about various opportunities, but the big question is “What do I want to do?”

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. What else should I consider?

• I want to launch products quickly and get them in front of consumers. I want to be in an environment where I can get things out the door quickly. The best market research comes from having real customers use and respond to live, working products. If you can execute quickly, you can smooth the rough edges based on real feedback instead of that of 8 people who are there for $75 and a slice of pizza.
• I want to do something big. Several of the products that I was working on at AOL had the potential to radically transform the way people use the Web. I want to do something on the scale of what flickr has done to photo sharing. It could be changing the way people use their mobile phones, how they watch videos or how they drive.
• I want to be around intelligent, creative people. They give me energy and ideas and we make each other more productive. Of course, they need to be in an environment that rewards intelligence and creativity.
• I want to be at a company that truly embraces Web 2.0. In addition to my blog, I frequently comment on other sites. To the extent that I can speak freely on my blog and elsewhere, it can be a valuable asset to the company. Not so much if I’m a corporate mouthpiece.

If you’re doing something along these lines, and feel that I can contribute, please drop me a line.

Note: This is my wishlist for what I want to do next and is not meant to be a reflection on any of my previous employers.