October 2007
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Feh’s book
I’ve cut my friend invitations (not to mention the pile of other pending interactions) at Facebook down from a hundred or so to about fifty. I’ll get around to processing the rest of them (in an annoying non-ganged process that involves multiple clicks that I joked about in the past but can’t find now). I Continue reading
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A bridge through history
Took a day trip up through Southern New Hampshire, along Highway 130 from Nashua to Brookline, through the town of Hollis. Picked some apples there at the excellent Linn Farm, then checked out a covered bridge in Brookline (that’s New Hampshire, not Massachusetts) that we’d read about the bridge in the morning’s Boston Globe. Later Continue reading
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Leveraging relationship
Keith Hopper: …rooting the VRM opportunity in us vs. them, emotionally-driven arguments is an unlikely way to pave a path towards better relationships between customers and vendors, and I believe better relationships is ultimately the goal of VRM. The more I learn about VRM, the more I hear about the importance of benefits for Continue reading
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Exploring annoyances
Hoovers, which I like, and of which I was once a customer, wants me to take a “free trial” but buries what the cost will be once the trial’s over. The small print: $249.99/month for professional subs (can’t wait to save that penny), $50/month for individuals. Too much, Hoov. Sorry. Continue reading
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Running from Ron
Mike Taht: In a nutshell, the treatment of Ron Paul’s Republican candidacy demonstrates everything wrong with America. Paul has won, sometimes by outrageous margins, nearly every online post-debate poll conducted to date. The result? Every major news outlet has stopped reporting on the results, citing vague allegations of probable spamming and fraud Continue reading
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Wholly cow!
This is one of the coolest, most well-done musical performances I’ve seen and heard in years. Thanks to Steve Woolf for turning me on to Paul Dateh. (I know the headline makes no sense, but The Kid wants me to keep it.) Continue reading
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Free the public plumbing
Chris Pirillo: According to my friend Mike Elgan at ComputerWorld.com, Starbucks will begin providing their customers with free Wi-Fi within the next year. Specifically, Mike sees free wi-fi at McDonalds forcing the issue, and concludes… Unsurprisingly, coffee drinks at Starbucks are super profitable. By making Wi-Fi free, Starbucks will be able to counter the Continue reading
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Hard to explain
Sitting here watching the Sox cream the Indians in hi-def. As the game winds down, attention shifts to changes baseball broadcasting since I last paid much attention to it. One is that watching players spit is far less entertaining than it was in old low-def. Terry Francona looks like he’s barfing. I’ll bet he expectorates Continue reading
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A job for professionals
A new President is being “installed” at Harvard today. I’m imagining a crew with hard hats, excavators, cranes and barricades around a large busy hole in the ground, ready to be filled. Continue reading
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Lesson:
Never pick a fight with an attorney who happens to run one of the top tech sites on Earth. Especially when he knows how to play post-a-dope and you don’t. Backthanks to Dave for the pointage. Continue reading
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News as a verb
Michael Wolff, arch-quotable media scourge, has started a new medium of his own: Newser.com. He explains why, and much more, in his latest Vanity Fair piece: Is This The End of News? Excerpts — …in its various current forms, the news–as a habituating, slightly fetishistic, more or less entertaining experience that defines a broad Continue reading
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Quote du jour II
I’m an optimist… The newspaper will not be around in twenty years. Let’s say ‘taps’ and move on. Just said by Drew Clark at the luncheon talk at the Berkman Center. It was a toss-off line, but along a very constructive vector. Uncontained by legacy systems like the print one that both supports and shackles Continue reading
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Not VRM. But a good reason for it.
From Broadband Reports: 75-year-old Mona Shaw was angry after constant delays and broken promises derailed her Comcast Triple Play installation. Her solution? The woman took a hammer to a local payment center (via) and smashed a support rep’s keyboard, monitor and telephone. “Have I got your attention now?” asked the woman, who was arrested Continue reading
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Getting productively personal
This post by Trey Tomeny got me going on A VRM Proposal over at the ProjectVRM blog. Lots of good fodder there, and kudos to Trey for getting an interesting ball rolling. Continue reading
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Derupting the bastards
Excellent interview with Larry Lessig, on the subject of corruption. Here’s the corruption wiki. Bonus link #1: The corruption that is the FCC. Bonus link #2: Drew Clark of the Center for Public Integrity on “Media Tracker, FCC Watch, and the Politics of Telecom, Media and Technology” … today’s Luncheon speaker here at the Berkman Continue reading
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Health care or Health snare?
Putting patients in control of their own health care data is a Good Thing. Each of us should have the means to accumulate and store personal health care data as we move through various care systems, from routine interactions with doctors to emergency room visits to relations between ourselves and the insurance companies, hospitals, schools Continue reading
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Hello, Earth!
I’m at my Aunt Grace’s new place way back in the woods on a Maine coastal peninsula, feeling way cool that I have successfully guessed the WEP key on her wi-fi station, and am now connected to the Net via her rooftop satellite connection. Meaning that all these bits travel a 25,000 mile round trip Continue reading