Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Kaye Trammell wants to syndicate you. She just needs your RSS feed, but she can't always find it.

I use NewzCrawler, a Windows-based aggregator which has excellent auto-discovery. When it can't find a feed I am occasionally forced to search the page for some sort of icon or link to find the RSS or Atom feed. If the blog is good I'll do it, but I always feel like the writer isn't very concerned about me the reader.

I provide RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, and Atom feeds. It isn't difficult, and I feel that I owe it to the people that take the time to read what I've written. It's the least I can do.

(Link from Scripting News)

Evelyn Rodriguez of Crossroads Dispatches survived the tsunami and has been widely interviewed about her experience, including this interview with the San Jose Mercury News (free subscription required).

She writes that the media seem far more concerned about "what it felt like to be in the middle of the tsunami (the thrill part)", rather than the more important issues of thanking the people of Thailand, or suggestions for the US Embassy.

In the world of media competition that is certainly what sells, along with the ever increasing video coverage of the actual event. At the cleanup progresses, one hopes that the other messages won't be lost, otherwise we will have learned nothing from this disaster.

CNN just announced that the United States has increased aid for tsunami victims to $350 million.

Dave says that spectrum is infinite and costs $35 from Network Solutions. Or $7.95 from GoDaddy.

That if course does not include the cost of bandwidth and hosting services, which can tack on quite a chunk for a high traffic site. And when mentioning podcasting we are talking about well-connected people communicating with other well-connected people. Surely this is hardly grassroots democracy. Blogs are a good example, but many people still get their information from mass media like radio, television, and newspapers.

The whole concept of Open Spectrum seems nice, but the Open Spectrum FAQ says that "we will see an outburst of innovation as people and businesses realize they can reach a broad range of people with two-way applications that rely on the rapid movement of large amounts of data". Why have none of those applications surfaced in the current pay-for-service model? Even WiFi hasn't taken off everywhere.

Why isn't the provision of some basic level of connectivity a requirement of any company that wishes to purchase spectrum, just as low cost basic phone service for all once was?

Adam Bosworth and Krzysztof Kowalczyk are having an asynchronous discussion - ok dueling weblog posts - regarding how open source software should work and how it isn't working. Krzysztof suggests that open source software doesn't work as well in practice as in theory because companies prefer to take rather than give. To wit:

Google - we take it all, give nothing back. Come work for us.

In the early web days I worked with many ISPs both large and small. There wasn't one that wasn't using some cobbled together collection of free or almost free software. What did they give back? How about the many corporations that use some form of open source software? Is there now some absolute requirement to pay for open source software?

Open source software is akin to a labor of love. Occasionally it turns out to be a revenue generator or even create entire cottage industries, but it doesn't start out that way. I'm thinking especially of things like Linux, MySQL, and Eclipse here.

As for the software being free, that has certainly occurred in the case of Linux where companies are willing to pay to have access to support. We ofter refer to the cost of the software being only a small component of the total cost of ownership.

I'm developing some open source software of my own to solve a problem I see. I hope that people use it and improve on it. If not that's fine. It will still be useful to me and perhaps others. And that's what it's for.

On my tenth birthday in January 1971 my parents gave me a set of the 1970 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. I'm sure my parents paid hundreds of dollars for the set. It did not include man landing on the moon, which had happened in 1969, but they included a glossy magazine piece which included updates like that. I have a couple of the annual year books as well. I still have the encyclopedia because they look great on the shelf in the den. Occasionally I glance at them to see just how much the world has changed.

A few years ago we bought a copy of Microsoft Encarta for our sons. It probably cost us about $100. It has web links to updated information, but it wasn't always exactly current. The kids didn't use it very much, preferring to use a then new service called Google.

Today I went to Wikipedia to see what it had to say about the tsunami, four days after the event. I found a section on the Indian Ocean Earthquake. I found detailed and very current information about the quake, damage and casualties by country, ways to donate and help, as well as the overwhelming humanitarian response. This information was created and edited by anyone who was interested in sharing their knowledge and helping to inform others. This accurate and timely information was provided at no cost to me, though I am free to donate to the cause.

Wikipedia and the internet have provided a mechanism to allow me, my family, and everyone else to be much better informed about the world at large - right when we need to be.

Jeff Jarvis points to a couple of knee-jerk reactions to the tsunami, including a tsunami tax on Americans, and redirecting money from Iraq rebuilding to South Asia rebuilding.

I've also seen comments that the money for the inauguration should be donated to the tsunami effort.

I personally cannot fathom what must be involved in co-ordinating a response to a situation like this - the worst disaster the world has ever seen. I assume that it must be difficult for the government to determine how best to provide support, both financial and resource-wise. I expect that it might take some time to get it right, but the response of every nation has been overwhelming. The concern and generosity are clear. Amazon alone is up to 79006 payments totalling $4,835,338.53.

There also delicate issues to be considered and dealt with. Sri Lanka has already shunned a delegation from Israel.

It is truly sad to see some people attempt to use this disaster as a way to embarrass a country or to score cheap political points at someone else's expense.

Perhaps rather that attacking every possible misstep, why not give people a chance to act? This is a situation that requires strategic thinking - not knee jerk reactions.

The Globe and Mail writes that blogs are the eyes and ears of the tsunami disaster.

According to the Associated Press, wildlife officials in Sri Lanka have found no large-scale animal deaths from the tsunamis — indicating that animals may have fled to higher ground. Though the tsumani swept through Yala National Park, a photographer flying over the park saw abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse. Perhaps the animals could sense the impending danger and sought higher ground.

(Link from The Globe and Mail)

As of 1:00 pm east coast time Amazon has collected 34398 payments, for a total of $1,909,024 for the American Red Cross.

Today Amazon put a button on their main page to allow concerned customers to use 1-Click to donate directly to American Red Cross South East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Relief Efforts. As of now they have collected 13057 payments totalling $635,123.42.

I recently began working with a company called Redknee, where I work with several people from areas hard hit by this disaster. I've mentioned the company before, and they are certainly one of the best companies I've had the fortune to work with. A few minutes ago the CEO sent a message via email that the company would match all employee donations.

It would be amazing if more companies valued social reponsibility this highly.

Update: In the span of writing this post (I'm also watching Spiderman 2 with my son) Amazon is up to 13648 payments totalling $666,677.49.

Cafe Hayek suggests that controlling prices - eliminating price gouging - "camouflages the underlying reality". I agree.

I have always wondered what constitutes "price gouging"? I think that in the case of a natural disaster, the prices do indeed rise as a result of the supply and demand situation, and that is not gouging.

On September 11, 2001, gas stations in Tennesee raised their gas prices from $1.40 a gallon to $4.00 a gallon in a matter of four hours. There was no immediate threat to their supply. That is price gouging.

I think the general concern is more one of preventing a few greedy individuals from taking maximum and unreasonable advantage of a difficult situation, rather than merely allowing market forces to act.

Imagine having to pay a license fee for the right to own a television. If you live in Britain you don't need to imagine, because you are required by law to pay a fee of over $200 annually to the BBC. The BBC collected over $7.5 billion from the fee in 1993. This might have made sense when the BBC was the only thing available, but there is much more choice now, yet other broadcasters do not share in the fee.

If you don't own a television, you will be forced to prove it, and may face a visit from the television police. Failure to pay may get you a $2,000 fine or jail. When I was a kid I spent some time in Scotland with my mom's parents, and I can remember reading about the television detector vans.

In North America we don't pay a license fee. We just pay for cable television.

(Link from Asymmetrical Information)

Fortune has an excellent series in their Technology section about 10 Tech Trends, one of which is entitled "Why There's No Escaping the Blog". The article suggests that when faced with criticism over their MSN Spaces blogging tool, Microsoft deployed Robert Scoble. The article corrects this suggestion, stating that nobody at Microsoft asked Scoble to comment.

There is overwhelming information on the net that blogs are the marketing/advertising tool that your company needs. Create a blog and the world will beat a path to your door. Robert Scoble at Microsoft is the perfect example.

Or is it? Microsoft didn't start the blog. Scoble started blogging and established credibility long before he went to Microsoft. Microsoft, his current employer, is merely benefitting from that credibility. To their credit, they are effectively using the information that he gathers rather than ignoring it.

My point? A good blog is not the result of a marketing campaign. But good marketing can be the result of a good blog.

If you want to market your company, don't just talk. Listen to what is happening in the world of blogs. Get involved in the conversation. Give, and take. After a while, when you want to say something about your product, people will be in the mood to listen.

This is just like dealing with people. Be a good listener. Contribute to the conversation. Then people will be happy to listen to you.

(Link from gaping void)

We bought our oldest son a new Motorola V551 cell phone with Bluetooth. Just for fun we turned on out IBM Thinkpad with Bluetooth. Seconds later we were able to copy pictures from the cell phone to the laptop. It is so nice when things like that work just as you expect them to.

Cory has an interesting item about Digital Rights Management (DRM) vendors using latency to determine proximity of devices on the internet. To quote his co-worker:

So some systems have been adopting rules about not sending some programming to devices that take more than a certain number of milliseconds to answer you when you say hello and ask them for acknowledgment, on the theory that devices that answer really quickly plausibly are on the same local network, whereas device that answer more slowly probably are not.

At any rate, if I have paid for the content why would I not be able to view it even if I were sitting halfway around the world? Ideally I would like to load content to my audio/video server and they access it from anywhere for personal use, which should still be quite legal and unencumbered.

Unlike some people, I haven't taken the time to write down (or write a book about) everything my wife and I disagree on. Over the years most of the disagreements have become less important. Considering that our first argument, a day after we returned from our honeymoon, was over how to make the bed. Things like that seem somewhat inconsequential these days. Most of the time now we just laugh about stuff like that.

(Link from tony goodson)

Everyone worries about losing their job; not being able to find another one. But life can't be this bad.

Our visit with family over the holidays has found me at times without an internet connection. Connecting last night I was immediately inundated with news of the earthquake and tsunami in Asia. As I read the different reports from both mainstream media as well as bloggers I realized just how much I rely on the net for both information, as well as a personal and intimate slant on that information. Within a few minutes I was able to read wire stories, personal accounts, and outpourings of sympathy - many hours before I'll be able to read about it in a newspaper.

My world is expanded infinitely by the seamless community that exists on the internet, providing news and analysis as events unfold in real time. I still read printed news, but more and more I do so merely for the op-ed value to get the analysis from a particular viewpoint. Where I used to read two or three newspapers a day to determine the unbiased news, I can now get hundreds of points of view in minutes, giving me an instant 360 degree view of what is important in the world.

What do Canadians do the day after Christmas? Go shopping.

Dave's request for an iPod on/off switch made me think about power consumption for a minute.

Electronic devices, from iPods to automobiles, are never really off anymore. Our desire for instant on-ness means that these devices must always be drawing some residual power. Our first digital camera had a habit of draining its batteries even when it was turned off, meaning that everytime I wanted to use it I had to locate and install a fresh set. All of the electronics in you automobile present a constant drain for the battery as well.

Because we want our televisions to come on instantly, they are always drawing power as well. This constant draw contributes to our voracious consumption of electricity, even though we often proclaim our desire to reduce said consumption.

The provision of a real on/off switch would likely lead to the complaint that the iPod takes too long to start up. We just need to decide if instant gratification is really that important to us.

In yet another case of questionable patents, DataTreasury Corporation is skipping the software company middlemen and directly suing banks and financial service companies that it says have infringed on its two patents, which describe a way to store and retrieve transaction records electronically. Two related companies have already paid to settle the issue.

(Link from /.)

It doesn't take very long until the elegantly wrapped presents beneath the tree are reduced to piles of presents and crumpled wrapping paper. Based on the smiles here, I'll assume that it was all worth it.

Now we get to have our traditional Pillsbury apple turnovers. Merry Christmas!

My son was putting textbooks away after the end of his first term at university and he noticed he hadn't opened the CD that came with his German textbook; he hadn't needed it ($160 for the package, yet he only uses the textbook). He showed me the shrinkwrapped CD package. On the front it said:

Breaking this seal consitutes acceptance of the licensed contained in this product.

My cell phone company occasionally sends an updated license with their bills included with numerous ads and offers. They do not indicate that they have enclosed the license either on the envelope or on the bill. The license indicates that use of the service constitutes agreement with the license, but they do not indicate what, if any, changes were made from the old version. I wonder how many people read these licenses, or know that they have agreed that their information can be shared with a third party.

In the case of agreements like this, shouldn't it be required to get explicit agreement from the customer in the case of something like this? Can a company compromise your privacy based on their statement that you have implicitly agreed to something, perhaps without even knowing it?

Or ten times the price. In February the Dutch airline KLM will start allowing passengers to send and receive SMS and email messages for the not-so-low price of US $2.50, which is more than ten times the going terrestrial rate.

It is amazing that airlines can still get away with service like this.

(Link from Smart Mobs)

Johnnie Moore supposes how branding really happens:

I think what happens is that brands emerge out of the soup. After the event, a large number of Alpha Males lay competing claims to having invented them (success has many parents, failure is an orphan). As the history is written, many happy accidents are reinvented as the results of smart goal setting and thorough planning.

We might be more successful if we spent as much time understanding where we are, as where we want to be.

My neigbourhood is buried in snow. I've had the snowblower out twice to clear the driveway so far, but the road is at least a foot deep, so I think I'll stay in today.

All cell phone providers in Canada charge a $6.95 "system licensing fee", which is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit directed at the four Canadian companies.

Today I was speaking with a representative of one of those companies and asked about the fee. I was told that it was a government tax. When I corrected her, she told me that it was a government license fee. I corrected her again, and explained that it was the subject of a class action lawsuit. Another representative informed me that the lawsuit had been cancelled (her words), which is not true. Finally I was told that the "system licensing fee" was what the provider charged to allow me to make calls outside of my local calling area.

Is there no end to the misinformation and outright lies that cell phone companies will tell in order to suck a customer in?

The weather report started this morning with "Winter storm warning" followed by a pause then "not day but tomorrow". Knowing how accurate the weather usually is, I think I'll stay close to home today.

In the 1990s as a result of the low Canadian dollar and friendly tax credits a film industry sprung up on Ontario, eventually generating almost $2-billion in production activity. Now that tax credits aren't so friendly and the Canadian dollar so much higher, the film industry has dwindled, down by 36% since last year with production revenues dipping below $800 million, and expected to drop another 25% this year.

It was a mere confluence of events that created this industry and made it successful. That situation has changed. Yet rather than deal with this in some way, or perhaps becoming more competitive, the film industry merely rallied to ask for a bailout from the provincial government. Today the government bailed them out.

I've been out of work before and it isn't fun. But this is a government complains about the deficit that the former goverment left them. They introduced the biggest tax grab in history in the form of a health care tax premium. They won't negotiate with doctors. Yet they have $48 million to help out an industry that seems to have lost what created it and made it effective. An industry that, given the current sitiuation, may never be competitive again.

Why is it always the government's (read taxpayers's) job to bail out struggling industries?

Apparently all drugs with an "x" in their name are dangerous.

I just got off the phome with Rogers Communications. I've been having a couple of issues with them so I decided to ask for the number for their Customer Relations group. The operator informed me that they don't give out the number for Customer Relations because they don't want customers to call that group.

She did give me a fax number, and offered to connect me, but I am not allowed to contact them at my convenience.

Rogers, one the two largest cable television, internet, and wireless communications providers in Canada doesn't want customers to call them with their concerns. The only way to communicate with them is via fax or postal mail - not even email.

When the operator told me, I had to ask her to confirm it twice. I just couldn't stop laughing at just how idiotic this company could be. At least their website doesn't waste time bothering with some silly "we care about our customers" slogan.

Although it is interesting to see Walmart selling a Linux-based laptop for $498, including Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, and the OpenOffice suite.

I'd love to see the sales figures for that. Hopefully they'll also provide a model with more features like Firewire, USB, and DVD-RW.

I love reading gapingvoid; it's always so entertaining. But sometimes Hugh goes overboard. It's a bit early to sound a death knell for Microsoft.

This is a company with revenue in 2004 of almost $40 billion, and increasing, even through an economic downturn. More than 90% of all PCs ship with Windows. Microsoft Office is by far the dominant suite of tools in the office environment. Powerpoint might be a blight on the corporation, but everyone uses it anyway. On the consumer side they even have the hottest videogame, Halo 2.

Companies are not deciding wholesale to dump Microsoft products. They may be playing with Open Source, but those groups are more likely early adopters waiting to see what happens.

Yes Firefox is a runaway success, and I love it, but it is free. Free is exactly the reason most companies came to use Internet Explorer - it came free with Windows.

CIOs and IT managers need to be able to provide support, and they need someone to call. Open source software does not give them that support, regardless of how good the technology might be. That's exactly why companies like Red Hat we able to commercialize Linux and make money from it.

Microsoft understands the concerns of their corporate customers. Although they haven't been all that smart when it comes to addressing spam and malware, but they are learning.

So they don't make the coolest music player in the world. They aren't exactly failing. They seem to be doing something right, and they've survived adversity before, and made sharp turns before. A few years ago they went from "the internet doesn't matter" to "the internet is everything" in a matter of months. I wouldn't play taps quite that quickly.

I thought I'd try out Speegle, the new search engine that speaks its results. Obviously everybody else decided to try it out as well, because it took an awfully long time before it presented results, prefaced by this message:

Please be patient... our server is quite heavily loaded at the moment and search results may take a while to process.
do NOT refresh several times to try and make it work, please do not click stop and play repeatedly either.

It's a neat idea, but even if it is intended for the blind, it doesn't provide an indication of where to click to take you to the page you need. Perhaps it could also provide a plugin or extension of some sort that would allow the user to press a key while the result is being read to take the user to that page.

The Australian recording industry wants to freeze funds given to the Red Cross because it was donated by Kazaa maker Sharman Networks. A spokesperson expressed his hope that the Red Cross would co-operate, adding: "It would be incredibly disappointing if we had to sue them."

What's next? Taking candy from babies?

Robert Scoble's letter to Bill Gates has generated a whole mess of comments on his blog and by other bloggers.

Robert wants to make Windows Media cool by open sourcing product development. He thinks that if they don't get it done by June then they lose another generation to the iPod.

I have some bad news. Windows Media won't be cool, and you've already lost the generation. By the way, the next school year would be just a year anyway, not a generation. Microsoft isn't going to displace the iPod any more than XBox will displace Playstation 2, regardless of how cool Halo 2 is.

The success of the iPod isn't about better technology, open source development, or a better interface. It isn't about asking musicians or bloggers what they want. And no matter how smart some bloggers are, forget about including even one of their ideas.

Both of my kids have iPods. They each made decisions to spend $400 of their own hard-earned cash to buy a very cool product that plays all the music they want. They use them and iTunes every day, and they don't ever mention the interface. Those same kids don't care about Microsoft (they don't think of XBox as Microsoft), but they sure know that Apple is cool. And Apple didn't even build the iPod - they just market it. No blog convinced them to spend their money.

Bloggers didn't make the iPod. They have discovered some cool uses for it. Unfortunately, users often don't know what they want. In 1984, users wanted bigger long playing records. They didn't want CDs. Obviously they want them now. When the iPod came out people said who needs that, and who is going to pay that much to listen to music. Wrong again.

Don't lie to me and tell me some musician designed the thing either. And don't spend your dollars trying to create a cultural movement. Inspire one.

You want Microsoft to be cool? Come up with an original idea. Or re-invent something. Stop the "me too" products, unless you really make it worthwhile for me.

Hugh at gapingvoid refers to the following companies' statements as universal. He calls them "purpose-beliefs".

"Air travel should be easy, exciting, stylish and affordable." -Virgin Airways.

"Coffee should be properly brewed and somewhat romantic to drink." -Starbucks.

"There is no experience as amazing as taking to the open road." -Harley Davidson.

"Good ice cream totally rocks." -Ben & Jerry's.

These ideas transcend the companies. Their truths exist whether or not Harely or Ben & Jerry's is there to put them into practice.
...
A strong, concise belief about the world that, like the earlier examples given, your company doesn't own, but acts upon.

I contend that though these idea could certainly be termed "purpose-beliefs", the ideas are not universal. "Air travel shouldn't suck" is a universal idea. "Air travel should be easy, exciting, stylish and affordable" is a unique idea. Yet there are only rare companies who act upon these ideas. Were it not for these companies, most people would likely be resigned to accepting the status quo. If these "ideas transcend the companies", then why do they have so little real competition?

Instead I would suggest that these ideas are the "products" these companies sell. I can get a nice latte at Dunkin' Donuts quicker and for less, but I don't - I prefer the ambience of Starbucks. I could buy premium ice cream but I don't - I like Ben and Jerry's flavors. And is a Harley really a better machine? Or just way cooler to ride? These companies don't just sell things - they sell the belief - which works if I share the belief.

These companies have produced excellent products and acted with sincerely in marketing and selling the products to me. That concept should be a universal idea, or "purpose belief", but it usually isn't. That's a higher belief that I'd like to see expressed more often.

Seth Godin wrote that we should stop teaching students cursive writing because it is a useless skill. I disagreed. A reader took issue with my comments quite vociferously, but wasn't considerate enough to leave his name. Since he has denied me the ability to respond to him personally, I'll respond here.

He suggests I might be of his parents' generation, 65-70 years old. I'm 43. I've been using computers since I was thirteen, long before they could sit in your lap. I'm a university educated electrical engineer, marketing software products. I currently own 5 laptops, 2 desktops, and a Mac. I type for the better part of each day. Yet I still write every day too. I still love the feel of pen on paper. I use a hacked combination of printing and cursive, such that my pen never leaves the paper.

I mentioned PDAs, and he asked if I had ever heard of Graffiti (he misspells it). Yes in the 10 years I've used a Palm for, I have. The last time I looked, Graffiti was a combination of printing and cursive. And new tablet PCs tout their ability to capture cursive handwriting.

He suggests that grade school children (mine are in high school and first year university) should be taught in read-only fashion, because there are so many other things competing for our limited brainpower. I've never personally found my, or my kids' brainpower limited - the more I stuff in, the more it holds - though I can see his point from a time limit point of view.

As for a useful skill, that really depends on what you define as useful. If his children wish to become artists, is that not a useful skill? How about historians? Computers are a blip in history, while generations, even centuries worth of documents exist as script on paper. How about doctors? The computer has not yet replaced their bedside notes on charts, though it might be polite to refer to their scratchings as cursive. These are more likely to be replaced by speech recognition. Once speech recognition becomes common, will we eliminate written words altogether?

We too often forget that the printed word on paper is the only thing that has any kind of longevity. In my shory history in computing I've seen puch cards, tapes, 8", 5.25", and 3" floppies, CDs, and DVDs. Only 3" floppies, CDs, and DVDs are still readable, yet I still have paper notes I wrote over 20 years ago.

Imagine if the Declaration of Independence had been written on a computer.

I'm not suggesting that we spend weeks teaching cursive writing, but a few days shouldn't hurt too much.

A quote from third grade teacher Ed Boell at Horrall Elementary School in San Mateo, California, in this CBS News article says it best:

"The truth is, boys and girls, even if you write a lot of e-mail on the computer, you will always need to write things down on paper at some point in your life," Boell says. "The letters you write to people are beautiful, and they'll cherish them forever. Have any of you ever received an e-mail that you cherished?"

I still think that cursive is useful. It is always good to have discussion too.

I just finished watching A Very Brady Christmas, one of those Christmas shows that you feel so guilty watching, especially on a Saturday afternoon. I remember watching the Brady Bunch as a kid, and like every guy my age, especially liked Maureen McCormick. Some things just never get old.

I'm still trying to get Rogers to explain why my cable internet service sucks. The funniest thing so far was when they responded to my email including my account number with an email saying they couldn't find my account number.

Second prize goes to the email where they tell me that to fix my service I should proxy to their cache server. Then in the same email they tell me that is that doesn't help, then the way to fix my service is to turn off the proxy.

It's entertaining to see that regardless of when the emails are sent, they are always from a different person, and they always start with:

Thank-you for your email. We strive to provide you with the highest
level of customer support, and hope we can be of assistance in
addressing your questions.

We sympathize with your situation.

It's really sad when a company cares so little about their customers.

According to The Globe and Mail, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that levies on MP3 players are not legal.

The Copyright Board of Canada imposed the MP3 levies last December, in an attempt to protect music writers and performers from the “harm” caused by digital copying of music. The court ruled that it did not have the legal authority to do so.

The levies on all other forms of blank media remain.

Slacker Manager has a good method for determining if an employee can do the job they are applying for.

In a lot of past experience though, I've found that the job descriptions are often poorly written, and do not take potential change into account. I've never personally ended up doing the job as described in the job description.

You can provide training for a lot of things, so I'm looking for the person clearly able to assimilate information, draw conclusions, know what to do and get it done, and most of all, deal with constant change.

If a company treats the people it is trying to hire to work there poorly, just how well would you expect them to treat their customers?

The way a company acts says an awful lot about the was the company thinks.

Maybe before you make a big purchase, you should apply for a job.

My local Starbucks in Waterloo, Canada now has WiFi access provided by a local company named Fibretech. I thought I'd try it out, so I connected to the network and was prompted to sign up. I filled in a couple of initial screens, then reached the payment options screen. Expecting to see some pricing options, I was instead prompted to enter my credit card information, without any indication of what the charges would be. I immediately cancelled out.

When I got back home I checked their website. Their best package was $29.95 per month with a measly 1GB maximum data transfer.

Had the company given any thought to their customers, they would have provided information about the service plans up front before asking for any information. Yet they, like so many other companies, didn't put themselves into their customers' minds. They provided no way for me to find out anything about their service before signing up.

I needed to install Quicktime on a new PC, so I went to Apple's site only to find that the only way to get Quicktime is to download iTunes 4.7, which includes it. Just for fun I read the license agreement and found this:

Important: After installing iTunes 4.7 for Windows, you'll only be able to transfer music to your iPod using iTunes. To transfer music from MusicMatch Jukebox or Audible Manager to your iPod, you'll need to first import the music into iTunes. For more information, search iTunes and Music Store Help.

I'm not a scientist, but I am a skeptic. I believe that global climate change is likely occurring, but I'm not so clear as to the reason why. We have only been measuring temperature data since roughly 1850, or about 150 years. This is certainly much less than 1% of all history, so how we effectively extrapolate based on the information? Isn't that a bit like watching what I eat today and trying to extrapolate my weight a month from now?

There have clearly been cycles of global cooling and warming over the earth's history, so how do we know that this is just not a natural pattern?

It seems that this discussion has become more politics that science now. Any suggestion that the science might be questionable is either ignored, or attacked based on what the "vast majority of scientists" believe. As I recall, the vast majority of scientists also thought that the sun revolved around the earth, and the earth was flat.

Is there any scientist who can definitely state, with proof, that automobile emissions are the primary cause of the current global warming trend? Can they definitely state that this is not a natural occurrence?

I'd just like to know once and for all.

Yahoo! is beta testing video search. It appears that they look for the search string in related pages, as in this example where a search for "Fighter pilot" returns a video entitled "manandwife.avi". The web page does contain the words "fighter pilot" but Yahoo! seems to return the wrong video clip.

This probably won't help me find that clip of the family going through the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland quite yet.

(Link from Ross Mayfield)

Politics is (are?) conversations too. Private, sometimes secretive, with very select groups, but conversation nonetheless.

Seth Godin thinks that cursive writing is a useless skill. Haven't you ever written a thank you note, signed a card, or used a Palm-based PDA? Cursive writing, as antiquated as it seems, is a very personal method of communication. We could probably just print as well, but many people still judge others on the neatness of their writing. And many journalists still prefer to take notes in longhand, cursive writing generally being somewhat faster as the pen doesn't leave the paper.

Typing is an extremely valuable skill to be sure, but we must not forget that the entire world does not yet live life online. We need to be able to include everyone - even the unconnected - in our comversations. I'm not suggesting that cursive writing is a core element of learning - just a useful thing to learn.

By the way, I managed a speech recognition product that thousands of doctors use every day to dictate complex radiology reports. It is important to note that although the computer translates the words very well, it doesn't understand what the user is saying - a minor but very important distinction.

In the midst of comparing trust in Google and Microsoft, Dave makes this pronouncement:

The technology industry is built on a foundation of arrogance and disdain for users.

Rather than lose readers to RSS and blogs, Le