Archive for April, 2008

My Sony Vaio Is Broken

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

Call this a post on learning to trust my instincts. Last spring, my old Dell laptop suffered simultaneous hinge cracks, making it unusable as a mobile computer. In desperation, I went to a couple of local stores to buy whatever I could find without a multi-week delay. My options were an assortment of machines by [...]

The Decline of Airline Service

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Delayed again? Want to know why? Professor Becker and Judge Posner have the economic and legal takes on the problem – something to read while you’re stranded at O’Hare or Podunk Regional.

Just Aim It At Your Foot And…

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

This seems like a strategic error.

Shifting Gears: Are entrepreneurs crazy idiots?

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

My Entrepreneurship seminar instructor asks, “Are entrepreneurs crazy idiots?” His answer is, “Not necessarily, but some of them are.” It’s basically a risk vs. rewards calculus – if you have little to lose and much to gain, you probably should take the plunge, but if that’s not you, you probably should not. I think that [...]

Lark – er, starling – of a Story

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Simply amazing. Hat tip: Pros and Cons

Have you started your social network yet?

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Or rather, 230,000 of them? That’s the promise (and achievement) of Ning, the latest effort by serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. The principle is simple: let people create their own social networks, for whomever and whatever reason. The results are amazing: the site is growing at 0.4% per day and aiming to host 4 million networks [...]

The Big Switch

Saturday, April 19th, 2008

As I mentioned before, Sarah and I are in Randy Picker’s Tech Policy Seminar, which has so far produced three weeks of really good discussions. The last two weeks were spent discussing Nicholas Carr’s The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. It was a very interesting and provocative read. While I think [...]

Minor Site Tweaks, More to Come

Friday, April 18th, 2008

As promised, a few little changes have been going on behind and before the scenes, today. First, the blog software has been upgraded. More noticeably, I added a LinkedIn button and the AddThis© bookmark dropdown menu. Want to add one of my posts to your del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, or other link list? Click away [...]

Life = Insanity

Friday, April 18th, 2008

I have not been posting too much, lately. One key reason for this: Sarah tore a tendon out of her ankle and then proceeded to get terribly sick, on top of it. (She’s okay now – has an air cast, needs physical therapy, and is still congested, but is decidedly on the mend.) Of course, [...]

Favorite Spam of the Day

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

I love this person, because he or she is incompetent in the most amusing way. One would hope that such blazing incompetence renders such people inept in their efforts to harm others, though for every con there is probably a gullible enough mark out there…
Subject: 2007 Fiscal Activity – $2839,49 Refund
From: “service@irs.gov”<service @irs.gov>
To: [my address]
After [...]