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I just bought my self a ticket to see the Yankees play the Red Sox on April 16th in Yankee Stadium! I feel like a 10 year old kid with a crush on baseball.
Does it ever bother you how many people there are out there working on the same problems in their own little ways? In my technology centric world I see individuals, groups, and companies have great ideas all the time. Unfortunately they spend so much time and effort trying to make THEIR idea become THE idea for everyone, they often refuse to take a good look around at what other people are doing and try to collaborate a little.
There are so many instances of competing websites trying to fill one niche for example, were none of them really create a good product either because of a lack of investment in the sites, or simply because the competition is thinning out the user base to the point were no single site can emerge as a natural leader. Anyone who has every been into the big social networking sites will empathize when recalling how they tried to get their friends to join THEIR site only to discover that the market is saturated with options to the point that their real life “friends” are on so many different sites, there is no way to unite the whole group, which is kind of the point of social networking in the first place isn’t it?
Not being a big facebook/myspace/livejournal users myself, I notice the disadvantages of duplicated efforts in some of the smaller, more specialized sites that are actually more vulnerable to this type of community split. As a wine lover, I use corkd.com to catalog and rate wine that I drink as well as look for information on other wines that I’m considering buying. It’s pretty good but like so many “user powered” sites, it relies on the constant contribution of thousands of regular users like myself to keep it interesting and useful. The trouble is, the potential audience is split between corkd.com and the competing winelog.net. I recognize the value in having a choice, competition and even good old free market economies, but imagine if you will though if these two sites were to merge and adopt the best features of both into a single tool with the backing of (most of) both communities. Sure there would be some grumbling as you see when any of these transitions happen, but I feel strongly that in this case it would produce a better overall community for all involved.
I’m all in favor of small, independent players emerging in an already occupied market, so long as the big players are companies who don’t necessarily have the common good in mind. A good example of this would be a (relatively) newcomer like yelp.com coming in and doing a WAY better job than a corporate product like citysearch.com . On the other hand, I would love to see the smaller players set their pride aside from time to time and think about how they could be working together rather than competing as rivals to provide their target markets the best service.
The list of potential examples for this goes on and on, and that’s just with websites. Imagine if some of the same cooperation was considered by…oh I don’t know, Senators Obama and Clinton?
I do this all the time.. make myself a cup of afternoon tea in the kitchen here at work. Just like always I grabbed one of the plain white mugs out of the cupboard, poured the hot water over the tea bag and retreated to my office.
Only today I found something a little different about the mug when I sat down and started to drink..
“PC Load Letter”? What the fuck does that mean?
I can only assume that someone here brought this mug in from home to keep with them at their desk. The cleaning crew that comes through the office at night picks up dirty dishes from the desks and offices and puts them in the dishwasher, so I could see how it could end up in the general pool. Still, it cracked me up.
This is not the race that Clinton thought she would be running. Her campaign was built on inevitability, a haughty operation so confident it would have the nomination wrapped up by now that it didn’t even put a field organization in place for the states that were to come after the megaprimary on Feb. 5.
Clinton’s positions, most notably her support for the Iraq invasion and her refusal to recant that vote, were geared more to battling a Republican in the general election than to winning over an angry Democratic base clamoring for change. Not until last fall did she seem to acknowledge that she faced opposition in the Democratic primaries, so focused was her message on George W. Bush and the GOP.
Several Clinton superdelegates, whose votes could help decide the nomination, also said they were wavering in the face of Mr. Obama ’s momentum after victories in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine last weekend. Some of them said that they, like the hundreds of uncommitted superdelegates still at stake, may ultimately “go with the flow.”
Even counting the Clinton machine’s super-delegates. He’s winning it the old-fashioned way – state by state, argument by argument, debate by debate. Clinton should consider stepping aside if tomorrow’s votes go the same way. If she couldn’t put this thing away by now – with all her party clout, all her chits, all her husband’s pull, all her big donors, and all her brand-name recognition – she’s not going to do it in the end. All she will do is put her own party through an ordeal it need not experience. But I guess the Clintons have done that before, haven’t they?
With the most competitive and some would say important primary season of a generation in the balance, now is the time for democrats and republicans alike to take action and get involved with your political campaign of choice.
Barack Obama’s campaign (which I am a strong supporter of) has announced an $10 million, 24 state advertising campaign which could have a significant impact on the outcome of the super tuesday primaries across the nation next week. With that in mind, I found today to be the appropriate time to put my money where my mouth is and donate a modest but not insignificant amount to his cause. Sure, political advertisements are annoying and at times downright shameful but with this much on the line I’m willing to help facilitate the outcome that I feel is right.
These next 7-14 days may well have huge ramifications on America’s political landscape for decades to come. Whatever your political views, now is the time to make them known!
I had forgotten just how much I love working in downtown Seattle. For the past year or so, I’ve been working primarily with clients outside of the downtown business district. This has meant driving to work to ugly and unfriendly places North and East. Today, I complete my first (almost) full week of working with a new client right in the thick of things here, and I love it.
Today, as with yesterday, I walked the two blocks down to 5th & Pike to get my morning coffee at Monorail Espresso, which has got to be among the city’s best coffee peddlers. Seattle coffee drinkers, I beg you, WALK the extra few blocks for good coffee! I pass by two Starbucks and a Tullys en route to this place without batting an eye. Hell, I even have an unused Starbucks gift-card in my wallet from work.
Mrs. fall-line came through in a big way this week with a killer birthday present. I now find myself as the proud owner of a shiny new 8gb Apple iPhone. I’m not going to pretend to write a full fledged review of the device, as there are about 1.3 million (really, I checked) others out there which you can read until your eyes fall out.
After using it for a few days, I do have a few thought’s I’d like to share for the curious among you.
Most importantly, I love it. It’s a real joy to use. Day to day operation is smooth and beautiful in a way that makes you appreciate the mundane stuff like listening to voicemail. As long as I’m not thinking about he purchase price ($600), or one of the troubles I mention below, I’m filled with a warm fuzzy feeling from using it.
The good:
Contrary to some pre-launch speculation, it’s actually the easiest to use phone I’ve ever owned.
SMS messaging is a breeze. I’ve never been a texter. This device has changed that. I can write entire sentences in the time it took me to write the first word on a traditional phone.
Google maps is handy. No GPS unfortunately, but it’s still very useful to have such a responsive and powerful map interface in your pocket
E-mail, web browsing, calendar, alarm clock, etc all work well (though leaving room for a little improvement in some areas.)
It’s the best iPod I’ve ever used. Full stop. It’s awesome. I would like to have more than 8gb in storage sure, but I’m happy to sacrifice storage for the other (phone) functionality.
The bad:
It makes me nervous. I feel like I’m going to scratch it, drop it, or loose it. One big downside to carrying such an expensive device with you all day is that you create a relatively high risk of damage. I feel the need to protect it with a case.
The battery life isn’t tremendous. It’s not terrible, in fact it’ll go longer than most smart phones do. I’m accustomed to not having to charge my mobile phone for 2-3 days at a time though, so it’s a little disappointing to get a low battery warning after one day of heavy use.
I don’t like that the only apps available are web apps. True, it’s easy to develop handy apps for the device, but there needs to be a way of accessing some of these tools when not connected, or without having to wait for..
EDGE, it’s no 3g. ~59kps of data speed is enough, but we could do better.
Despite the complaints, I’m a satisfied iPhone owner. In case I wasn’t clear in my introduction, the good far outweighs the bad in my opinion. Is it worth $600? Well, I can’t answer that for you. I still struggle with this question for myself in fact. I’m very glad to have received it as a present, but I’m not sure if I would have bought it under other circumstances. I got one though, and I’m very glad to have it.
