greed

The Kindle 2 has enough features, for some

With the launch of the Amazon Kindle 2 and its text-to-speech feature, a broader range of reading materials would now be available to the 15 million Americans represented by The Reading Rights Coalition, a group which defends the rights of those who cannot read printed words because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury, or other disabilities. However, The Authors Guild is looking add a hoop or two for people with print disabilities to jump through .

As previously written by my colleague Greg Sandoval, "the retailer, which makes the popular Kindle electronic-book reader, announced late Friday that the company is modifying systems to allow authors and publishers to decide whether to enable Kindle's text-to-speech function on a per-title basis."

According to The Reading Rights Coalition: "The Guild has told them that in order to read their books with text-to-speech they must either submit to a burdensome special registration system and prove their disabilities--or pay extra. The Guild's position is contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all and discriminates against millions of people with print disabilities. The Guild's position is outrageous and discriminates against the millions of people with print disabilities who are eager to be their readers and customers."… Read more

Survey links CEO approval to stock performance

Updated August 21, 2008 at 11:02 AM PST with comments from Glassdoor's CEO.

Glassdoor.com uses an online questionnaire so employees can rate their companies and CEOs. I took the questionnaire. It's all the usual stuff, like what do you think of the leadership abilities and competence of senior management, would you recommend your company as a place to work, that sort of thing.

I thought it would be interesting to track the stock performance of the

public companies with CEOs that had the highest approval ratings versus those with the lowest approval ratings.

Guess what I found?

Over the past five years, shares of all the companies whose CEOs had the highest approval ratings were in the black, while shares of all the companies whose CEOs had the lowest approval ratings were either in the red or flat. We're talking 8 of 8 in the black, 8 of 8 in the red or flat.

What does that tell you?

First, that we live in America, the great land of greed and capitalism. If you're stock is in the money, the CEO's a god. If your options are under water, he's a dog. And don't flame me, it's what employees had to say, not me. But for what it's worth, I don't think that's a bad thing.… Read more

Why do we fall for bubbles?

It can happen at any time: market bubbles burst, companies crash and burn, investment portfolios become worthless overnight. The common denominator in these events is overconfidence, irrational exuberance, call it what you want, it all comes down to lots and lots of people taking risks they shouldn't take.

Why do we do this to ourselves, in spite of all logic to the contrary?

We even have age-old sayings we choose to ignore all the time: What goes up, must come down; the bigger they are, the harder they fall; don't put all your eggs in one basket. Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead sang, "'Cause when life looks like easy street there is danger at your door."

Do we listen? Nope.… Read more

Should CNET be supporting Windows? I say 'No'

CNET Channel has announced that it is partnering with Microsoft to help consumers purchase Windows-supported products with ease and little hesitation. Just what I wanted from my unbiased, neutral news broker.

CNET Channel's high-quality, accurate and consistent product content helps over 2,100 high-technology manufacturers and channel businesses in 35 national markets drive their online businesses and increase sales effectiveness. As an aggregator of best-of-breed content and e-commerce services, CNET Channel will now deliver 'Certified for Windows Vista' and 'Works with Windows Vista' logo information… Read more

ATMs for kids: Are we missing something?

Speaking of parental duties, what kind of values does something like a toy ATM machine indicate? At least a play cash register implies some responsibilities, such as work, commerce and what it takes to buy something. But an ATM?

Hammacher Schlemmer claims that the toy "helps children learn money management as they maintain a savings account up to $999.99." Two points here: First, so far as we can tell, many kids think of ATMs only as machines that spit out money. Second, $999.99?? That says it all. Maybe the smarter ones will teach themselves how to … Read more

'Tis the season to Crave: Leslie Katz's picks

NOTE: From now through December, every few days a different Crave expert will be posting his or her top 10 gadget picks for the holidays. See what we crave, and maybe you'll get some ideas! Here's our third installment.

Leslie Katz is an editor at CNET's San Francisco headquarters. When she's not wrestling with commas and semicolons, she's probably reading, gardening or TiVo'ing.

1. iRobot Scooba. I may be a clean-freak, but I can't seem to keep my linoleum floors as shiny and happy as I'd like them to be. With this … Read more