Archive for January 2006
How to fix Google’s PR mess
This is a three part essay I wrote about Google’s PR woes and how to fix them: Part One: Keeping Mail and Blog Services out of the oppressor’s hands Part Two: Complying with the law Part Three: Digging out of your own hole I’m posting this as a placeholder for the entire series.
Read MoreA healthy ego is good for your computer security.
Mere days after my post about pundits being evil, evidence arrived in my mailbox that in fact having the outsized pundit ego may be hazardous to your computer security. Here’s a copy of the e-mail: Hello, Your photograph has reached editing stage as part of an article we are publishing for our February edition of…
Read MoreYour media diet just got expensive.
It was bad enough when DirectTV severed their relationship with Tivo. That was the moment I first decided I wasn’t probably going to buy the next version of the product. I doubt they’ll be much of a market leader in two years if they don’t figure out a way to offer a unique product to…
Read MoreHow to run a poker game directory and hide it from the police?
I’m a part of a message board where one of the advertised games was robbed at gunpoint. (This is starting to happen a lot here in Washington. This is the third such robbery as of late.) The problem is serious and real: if the community website has a listing of raked poker games (the prosecutable…
Read MoreCows are occasionally funny.
I love these kinds of jokes, as they satirize the excesses of every culture equally. I find this one particularly hysterical because it has such a heavy amount of Arab and southeast Asian content. The Europeans, Americans, and other white people are almost an afterthought. —- DUBAI SYSTEM:You have two cows. You create a website…
Read MoreWhy pundits are evil.
I ran into prominent former White House spokesperson tonight at one of the million 6pm receptions I get invited to every week. I chose to go to this one to honor the host (not the former staffer) but ended up talking to the staffer nonetheless. Pretty quickly the discussion turned to partisanship, this week’s story…
Read MoreAnalyzing a poker game from another point of view
Honing your card sense is a lifelong skill that appears to never fail to be useful. A good card sense for a table can tell you what starting hands to play and allow you to adjust your playing style to a loose or tight game. Your card sense for an individual player allows you to…
Read MorePoker and caffeine
Last Friday I hit the weekly meetup poker game. It was fun. A warm night, and the host lived in the neighborhood. I lit a cigar and walked the half mile to the game. I arrived on time, which in fact is too early, we didn’t see five players total for another half hour. Man…
Read MoreConversations with vendors, part 573
[Some days, like today, I think I could do a better job at selling other people’s products than they could…-Shabbir] <ring ring> Me: Hello? Vendor: Hi, this is Bob from XYZ Software. We noticed that your annual subscription to our software inventory product for your desktops is coming up, and we wanted to discuss renewing…
Read MoreIt’s your fault books are too expensive…
I caught this quote today in a Washington Post article about the high price of textbooks for college students. Bruce Hildebrand of the Association of American Publishers said professors choose which books to assign, and they can choose a simple text or one that includes such things as online tutoring and tests. "The average cost…
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