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September 30, 2004
Google News may never make money
Here is an interesting take on Google News: Wired News: Google News: Beta Not Make Money. They will get sued by the news sources for selling (monitizing) ads around the content of the news sources. Basically the deep linking problem that Ticketmaster had. The other side would say the content providers won't bite the hand that feeds them. But I am sure these branded news providers are in no hurry to become front-ended.
This is a MAJOR challenge for a start-up in the space. Google may have the traffic and chops to front-end news. But a startup? They will wither under the barage of lawsuits and threatening letters.
Posted by Martin at 4:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Apprentice 2: The Lamest episode EVER
Ok, not conflicted at all this week. This episode sucked so bad that I am not going to recount the greusome details. Here it is in a nutshell: Task was for each team to create a restruant concept, menu, etc. open for one night and the winner would be the one that received the best Zagat rating based on customer surveys. The men killed the women again. Incompetent Apex team leader Jennifer C. gets fired in a no-brainer.
Now for the commentary. Two nights ago I was wide awake at midnight (too much coffee) and started channel surfing. I found a first season Saprano episode. The one where Tony moves his mother into a nursing home and Chris is still not a made man and is on drugs and rips off the wrong trucks. Lots of time spent in BadaBing. Lots of course language and random acts of violence. A total slam on Starbucks rip-off of Italian culture by the NJ gumbahs. I LOVED it! It reminded me how great the first season was and the things that made me fall in love with the show and the characters. Then I remembered the lethargy and pain of last season. Made me pine for the original edge. This week I was pining for the old episodes as well. I hope The Donald and his producers are not reaching the end of this concept. While there was some drama here, it was LAME LAME LAME and the firing decision was obvious from the first few frames.
There was only ONE bright spot. Remember last season how the women used sex to sell so much that The Donald had to call them out on it? I kept waiting to see if the men would catch on to this trick. I expected them to hire women to sell things for them, which they did somewhat in the icecream task. This time, though they used John as a sex object to change four gay men in their restraunt from grumpy old men into happy bubbly customers! John did his bros a solid and deserves extra bonus pay for that one!
For the boardroom I picked Jennifer C., Jennifer M. (bad interior design/concept, and Elizabeth (emotional breakdown). Jennifer C. picked Elizabeth (they hate each other) and Stacy R. (called her a "troll" and ripped on "old Jewish ladies" - Stacy is Jewish). Blatantly personal reasons rather than performance reasons to bring those two. The Donald booted her as I knew he would. Good for my average.
My prediction for next week: Reorganization! New teams.
HOW AM I DOING?
So I am 2 for 4, batting 500%. (Up yea!)
I am dumping Elizabeth as a finalist, this week she is too easilly sent into emotional tailspins. Can't perform under pressure.
My choices for top finalists are down to two obvious (from the beginning) :
Raj
Jennifer M.
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - GONE! Yea I was right!
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacy - Too mousy.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Those on the move up this week:
Mary - She is a cold blooded heartless competitor. This is the kind of women The Donald likes. She was a solid contributor on this task. Even though her earrings are still too big.
Posted by Martin at 2:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
The Apprentice 2: Pamela gets in touch with her inner bitch
Landed from SFO attending the Web 2.0 conference just in time for the show. At Starbucks during the show I ran into Mark Cuban and we talked about his show The Benefactor. He is happy with how it is being received. It only took him a month to film it all versus over 2.5 months for The Donald and The Apprentice. Mark was as happy and bubbly as ever enjoying all the playing around that he gets to do now. I asked him if he has another season planned and he said he wasn't sure. Whatever happens, I know Mark will be having fun.
This week we got TWO marketing Tie-ins. The meet up was at the UPS warehouse, and the challenge was to sell a product for 12 minutes on QVC. As with last week, the producers put up front a comment from The Donald which turned out to be the key issue in the task: Price is important. The teams had to choose a product and pitch it for 12 minutes on QVC. I don't like staging the key issue like this. It makes it too easy to figure out who will win/loose. STOP DOING THIS DONALD.
As I had predicted last week, there was a team re-org. And to no surprise, Donald put Pamela over with the Apex to "whip them into shape". I predict disaster.
So Mosaic picked their team leader, by drawing straws (again). I can't even remember who it was, because he didn't do jack! Kelly and Raj were the stand-outs in the process. The men picked a grill to sell (very manly again). Kelly wanted a high price, Raj wanted a price under $70. I would have personally gone with the under $70 price I think. The missing facts (missing for the audience anyway) were price history for similar products. I am sure QVC has this kind of thing. Also gross margin was not even discussed! The task was measured on gross revenue, not gross margin. That makes the pricing decision much easier and the task less interesting. Come on Donald, make these things real! We also didn't see the process which led them to the DeLonghi Panini grill. Which products did they consider and discard? That would have been interesting. I didn't like the selection because the product is a nice to have and crowds up the kitchen. How many people really want another small appliance on their counter? Anyway, the men put together a pitch and sold their product for 12 minutes pushing 252 grill, way below their goal of 800. Not really much drama here, although they were ready for a loss.
All the drama was (again) over at Apex. Pamela had the thankless task of uniting a team of women who hate each other and have lost every test yet. Her style was to become ultra bitch and just ride roughshod over everyone. This is in stark contrast to other Apex leaders who took the more participatory style. It was refreshing to see, but unfortunately had the predicted effect. Unhappy team members and dissatisfied people. Probably MORE division rather than uniting. While watching, I was trying to figure out what management style would bring this motley team together. I think the key is going to be to get them to focus on the EXTERNAL enemy: Mosaic. On every task, they have been focused internally on the individual performances and the interworkings of each person. They need to unite against a common outside enemy to take the focus off themselves. Obviously this didn't happen this week. Apex chose a whacky "new" product, "It Works", a cleaning block for removing markers and crayons from walls and stuff. They priced it too high (Pamela) for a product that customers were not used to buying. You had to convince people to try a new way of cleaning something with a new product that they never heard of. That behavior change would have been easier to swallow with a sub $20 price. When you get over that, the customer has to think harder about taking the risk. Pamela put Stacy on the legal stuff and Stacy did what lawyers do, overlawyered the process. She spent too much time with the QVC counsel pointing out potential liability issues. Pamela was right to point out that Stacy's job was to get the QVC guy to a yes. I bet Stacy is a litigator not a corporate counsel. Maria and Sandy self-selected to be the on-screen presenters. Sandy was a natural and Maria was a disaster. Too fast talking and too many gestures for TV. From the control room it was blatantly obvious. Pamela called down on the radio to Ivana to tell Sandy she did a great job and Maria that they needed to talk. This conversation was heard by Sandy and Maria, OOPS! Pamela was being the bulldog in a situation where she should have used kit gloves. Anyway the presentation went on air and for the first couple of minutes they didn't sell squat. They had to demonstrate the product for half their 12 minutes before orders started coming in. By the way, the computer system that QVC has to track calls, orders, etc. is WAY COOL! After a last minute push helped by a caller, Apex ended up selling 659 sets of cleaning blocks at $27.23 each for a total of $17,944.57.
In the boardroom, the stats showed that Mosaic had won by just over $10! Wow, a quick calculation in my head had the men loosing, but this was close! Ouch! Pamela the Warton/Harvard grad had failed. So who should go to the boardroom: Pamela, Maria, and Stacy. I picked the line-up right! So into the boardroom. I pick Pamela to get fired since her management style, while decisive, led to wrong decisions and didn't work for her team. During the "who should get fired" stage Maria and Stacy fell back on a well used line for Apex: We failed due to poor leadership. Every week the team has ganged up on their leader and not taken any individual responsibility gang up on Stacie J. causing The Donald to say "hey this is the only thing those two agree on. They don't even like each othershow turned from reality (ok, it is a stretch) to PURE TV. The Donald said "go get everybody" in order to flush out the Stacie J. problem. It was a surprise boardroom move and I am sure well planned by the producers. Only theatrix. I thought it was irrelevant to the business decision. So all the women come down and every one of them says Stacie J. scares them and makes them affraid. Mostly around the magic 8 ball incident two shows ago! So the Donald fires her because her whole team is against her and he "can't have any loose canons." I know she is not right for a finalist, but at least let her fail on her own merits during a task instead of submitting to the will of the masses.
The ultra-conspiracy theory put forward by Michelle (at Ignition) was that the producers arranged that to fire Stacie J. while putting the blame on the team. At the start of the show, it was clear to me that the producers had gotten Stacie J. to be the Omarosa of this year, but maybe they thought she was now a liability. By having the team gang up on her and the donald saying "I had no choice" then he gets out of the blame. Hummm...
HOW AM I DOING?
So I am 1 for 3, batting 333%.
I am sticking with Elizabeth as a finalist, she was much better than Trump gave her credit for.
Pamela, Ivana, or Mary should be one of the next to go.
My choices for top finalists are still:
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacy - Too mousy.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Mary - her fumble on the printing pricing puts her at risk. She has some gumption though and may come back.
Those on the move up:
Kevin - Although he has no real business experience, he did well as team leader this week and showed some chops.
Andy - Still on the short list to go, but he had the big idea of giving away $1M for the men and they ran with it.
Posted by Martin at 3:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Moving to Firefox
I am tired of comments not working in IE on MT so I am moving to Firefox. Get Firefox. I am also tired of the spyware holes and security issues and am looking for new features. I hear that Firefox has an interesting RSS implementation and look forward to that. The install was painless, but Firefox didn't import my bookmarks correctly so I gotta edit something to make them grab the URL correctly for the MT poster. Any Firefox experiences out there?
Posted by Martin at 10:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
Adding the MagnaFlow exhaust to Avalanche
Two weeks ago, Steve added the MagnaFlow Performance Exhaust to the Avalanche to top off the tuning. The manufacturer says 9hp and 11fp gain. The really cool part is the sound though. It is a straight through system, but since you still have the cat, there is some muffling and it is not an obnoxious roar. Just a slight noticable throatyness. You can hear the sound here. It is a fully stainless system as well that looks great sticking out the side. So the stock is a 3 inch exhaust. The MagnaFlow bumps it up to a 4 inch.
I didn't notice any real performance difference after the supercharger and the reprogrammer. The biggest difference was the sound. I am going to take it to a dyno next week and see what it is pushing. I am thinking it is over 500hp.
Posted by Martin at 6:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Selling RPGs with SPAM
Wow, this is a ballsy one: Daily Kos :: Terrorist Spam? A Spam message selling all sorts of terrorist weapons. I wonder if anyone is actually stupid enough to go to that site.
Posted by Martin at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Been reading a new blog
On usability. Abandoned Cart. Edo Amin has a keen eye for the little things that drive us all crazy in UIs. He has found things in the Treo, Typepad, AvantGo and many more. He also proposes some solutions and illuminates some of the common programming errors behind how they happen. I have abandoned a shopping cart more than once due to UI problems. Highly entertaining and insightful.
Posted by Martin at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
Can Spam compliant e-mail causes Malicious code attact
The Register is reporting that a CanSpam compliant e-mail is circulating with the obligatory "unsubscribe here" link. But click that link and you launch some malicous code on your machine. Remember that the spammer and virus writer's primary goal is to get you to click on a link. Any link. Even a mis-named link. This is further proof that legal solutions specifying the format of e-mail will not work - they can be gamed. Good thing Cloudmark just raised $11M...
Posted by Martin at 1:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Trying out YouPerform software
I just installed a bundle of Outlook client Utilites from You Software called You Perform. They are marketed as lots of stuff that Microsoft left out. I had used a prior version of the software and it slowed down Outlook so much that I had to remove it.
The first one I am trying is contact duplicate removal. I configured it to move dupes to a separate folder. The first problem I had was that in the dialogue to create a new folder to move the dupe contacts in, the default went into the Inbox. There was an error saying "this is not a contact folder". I had to go up under contacts and create a subfolder. Not a big deal, but a rookie mistake. Why let me create a folder that I can't use? So I started the de-dupe process. This locks up Outlook and gives you only a progress bar. I have 5,700 contacts, would be nice to give me an estimate of how long it will take as you can't use outlook while it runs. That is one gripe I have about most Outlook plugins. If they are going to do real work, they lock up Outlook. Would be nice to have a batch mode you could run later. It took YouPerform 27 minutes to move 401 dupes into my other folder. It did a good job of finding EXACT dupes for ALL the fields specified (I specified first name, last name, company, phone and e-mail). Upon review, there are dupes in name only with different company and e-mail (a common thing) and these were not found. What I would really like is a de-dupe function which is smart enough to figure things like this out and suggest to me remediation steps. You Perform version 1.0 doesn't do this. I find it of little use.
Look for reviews of other utilities as I go.
Posted by Martin at 1:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wow that was fast Sony
Wow, on Tuesday I bitched about Sony's stuborn insistence on ATRAC3 as a codec and the next day they announce support for MP3: Sony to support MP3 | CNET News.com
Posted by Martin at 1:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another fuel storage seller
Thanks Google Ads: Core: Alternative Fuel Storage Systems. These guys seem to have a larger selection of pre-configured storage solutions which include all certified tanks, pumps, etc. And some are VERY large for your commercial uses. 250-24,000 gallon capacity, these guys are serious! Sell alot to the government.
Posted by Martin at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Federal grants for alternative fuel vehicles
Find 'em here. AFDC 2004 Financial Incentives Basically you can get a $4,000 tax credit for your prius. And lots of other stuff if you promote fuels and vehicles in particular verticals like buses, etc. Hundreds of grants. Hey, make your tax money work for you!
Posted by Martin at 12:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What are Washington incentives for alternative fuels?
Look no further: AFDC 2004 Financial Incentives. There are many regulations which set minimum fuel effeciency stadards for state fleet purchasing and move those up each year. Also detailed are the low yearly fees that LNG and CNG vehicles pay instead of fuel taxes. Also detailed are a significant break in sales tax, property tax and B&O tax for those engaged in BioDiesel manufacturing. Now if they could only exempt BioDiesel from fuel taxes like they are CNG and LNG.
Posted by Martin at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More mobile content thoughts
PaidContent.org published more of my missives on mobile content today. paidContent.org's ContentNext Series: Mobile Device As A Content Creator
Posted by Martin at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
USDA awards $22.8M in alternative energy grants
I usually don't encourage start-ups to seek grant funding. It usually comes with too many strings and too much paperwork. But in the area of alternative fuels, in particular those using farm assets, the USDA has a great program. They just announced their most recent round of grants. September 2004 Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Improvement Grants Mostly Anaerobic Digesters (cow crap eaters), but a fairly long list of wind projects as well as a couple of BioDiesel. I don't see too many northwest grants on here...
Posted by Martin at 10:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New Northwest BioDiesel blog
Rob Elam has started a blog about his interest in bring retail biodiesel to the northwest. Keep your eyes on... The Propel Project Blog
Posted by Martin at 10:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
The hidden cost of RSS feeds
eWeek has picked up this story. RSS Comes with Bandwidth Price Tag. My current RSS traffic fits under my monthly bandwidth bill, but it is raising quickly. That is why RSS off-load services like FeedBurner are attractive. As RSS starts to deliver much larger stuff like pictures, music and video, we are going to probably need an overlay network like Akamai for RSS. Don't bet against it.
Posted by Martin at 3:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The hidden cost of RSS feeds
eWeek has picked up this story. RSS Comes with Bandwidth Price Tag. My current RSS traffic fits under my monthly bandwidth bill, but it is raising quickly. That is why RSS off-load services like FeedBurner are attractive. As RSS starts to deliver much larger stuff like pictures, music and video, we are going to probably need an overlay network like Akamai for RSS. Don't bet against it.
Posted by Martin at 3:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A study supports my feeling that retailers will not make money in digital music
Today PaidContent.org published some of my thoughts on "who will make money with digital music". I said the labels will take the lion share and the retailer will be left with negative to zero margins. A study today shows this to be the case:
-- Labels Get Majority in Digital Downloads: The Independent reports that the labels take home the lion's share of the cost of a digital download -- making more money per track than they do with CDs in shops. Apple, with its iTunes, retains just 4 cents from each 99-cent (55p) track sale while "mechanical copyright" holders -- generally the record labels, who own copyright in the song's recording -- take 62 cents or more. Music publishers take the rest -- about 8 cents.
With the online sites, the copyright owners have doubled their share of royalties, even though the marginal cost of manufacturing has fallen to almost zero.
The figures also cast doubt on the viability of the dozens of companies storming into the online music market... [Sep.21: Link] | Music |
Posted by Martin at 3:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Mobile content thoughts
Last week Rafat Ali asked me a couple questions. Today he published my answers. paidContent.org's ContentNext Series: Mobile Device As A Content Creator
Posted by Martin at 3:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Field guide to hybrid car technologies
Green Car Congress: A Short Field Guide to Hybrids. Great intro to the varying degrees of hybrid technologies available. Now what I want is a side by side environmental impact comparisson between different flavors of hybrid and biodiesel.
Posted by Martin at 8:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A cornucopia of green car facts
Thanks Rob Elam for the link to Green Car Congress. Those whacky Brits are way ahead on green cars. The $5 per gallon gas will do that to you. Today is a post about the SECOND BioDiesel production company going public in England. And america has????
Posted by Martin at 8:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Still think the media is fair?
CBS Apologizes, Says They Were Duped. Beware of all news sources. Know from what side they come and be willing to accept their slant. CBS's and Dan Rather's in particular are now patently clear.
Posted by Martin at 7:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thinking of another vacation house
Having a little seller's remorse for selling our beach house in Manzanita Oregon. But it was 4.5 hrs away and really too far for a weekend. But the surf... Ah...
Well, this weekend over dinner a friend told me about Seabrook which is a planned community going up just north of Ocean Shores. 2.5 hrs from Seattle. I generally don't like planned communities, and the surf isn't great there (but it is in Westport), but I am going to take a closer look.
Posted by Martin at 7:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another UK swap service
Download Free Movies Free Movies to Download Movies for Free
Posted by Martin at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2004
The ultimate cell phone headset
I have been looking for a better headset for my Nokia 7230. I now have the Bluetooth Jabra 250 and love the wireless convenience, but am underwhelmed by the noise cancelation. I always have to cup my hand over the mic for anyone to hear me. The wind noise is too great.
Everyone is talking abou the Jawbone which uses three microphones and sits on your jawbone (literally) using the data from it to tell when you are actually talking. The technology was developed by the military. Haven't bought one yet as I am still trying out the ETY.COM headset which the company was kind enough to give me for review. Haven't completed my thoughts yet, but the ETY is $69 and the Jawbone is $149 for starters. If Jawbone would give me one I would do a head to head. For now, though I am quite impressed with the ETY. They can't keep them in stock and the noise cancellation is in both the earpiece and the mic!
Posted by Martin at 8:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
Joining a new distributed computing project
Just joined the Stanford University protein Folding distributed computing grid. I used to do SETI@Home, but have been looking for a new cause to donate my CPU cycles to. And now I have five extra PCs at home running all the time. Thanks to James over at Alternative Energy Blog for pointing out that CPU cycles of a powered up PC that are not used are "wasted resources". No longer.
Posted by Martin at 4:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Time to buy a new ULock
Kryptonite Evolution 2000 U- Lock hacked by a Bic pen - Misc. Gadgets - gadgets.engadget.com This was also just on NPR. Hackers strike again!
Posted by Martin at 4:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Who was at DemoMobile?
Not me. Too expensive to go listen to everyone I already read on-line. But Chris puts together a good show and has a very good list of demonstrators: DEMOmobile 2004 presenters. If you want to know which ones were interesting, or to capture one man's view of the implications, check out David's post on ventureblog.
Posted by Martin at 3:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
More biodiesel links
http://www.fuelwerks.com/co-op.htm
Dr. Dan sells a biodiesel fueling station for $1,800. 250 gallon tank w/pump and 250 gallons of B100. You can get started selling today!
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=34&product%5Fid=12708&cookie%5Ftest=1
You can buy a 300 gallon plastic tank for your home for about $580 here. Then you just need a pump.
http://www.interstateproducts.com/fluid_transfer.htm
more tanks and pumps. They have a handy dandy 28 gallon pump with wheels on it.
http://www.plastictanks.ca/category.php?cat_id=009
A 210 gallon tank for $302. Cool.
http://www.sqbiofuels.com/pumps.html
Ah, here are the pumps. If you want to go cheap and hand-crank you can do that for less than $100. But I would pony up for the electric pump with the normal gas station handle/nozzle on it for $315.
World Energy is the manufacturer of all this biodiesel.
So to set up your own station, you could buy the $1800 package from Dr. Dan ($825 of fuel), or
spend $400-$700 for your own tank and fill it yourself. I would fill it myself.
Posted by Martin at 3:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fox watching the spam henhouse
The Gripe Line Weblog by Ed Foster reports on how the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is "helping" fight the spammers. Aren't most of them members? Does this bother you? Do you think it will be effective? Yea I thought so.
Posted by Martin at 3:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hangover prevention?
Thanks to DailyCandy, I just ordered some Perfect Equation Hangover Prevention Formula (HPF). Now I have been a big believer of a multi-vitamin before bed after a night out (the B12 takes care of most of it) but I have never heard of a "prevention" pill that lasts up to three days. I bet it is just a multivitamin and you take it before you go out drinking and the stuff stays in you. Will let you know how it works as next week is probably a big drinking week.
Posted by Martin at 2:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tivo Home Media Option
Now here is one product that I am VERY glad I was not an early adoptor on. Not only did waiting pay off financially (it is free now instead of an extra charge), the software went through a couple revs and now is actually VERY good. Just installed the PC software, told Windows XP SP2 firewall that is was fine for Tivo to act as a server, drag and dropped two folders into the desktop application and went upstairs to turn on the Tivo. All the while, I am thinking, this can't be this easy. My desktop PC on which I put the Tivo server software is hard-wired into a router. Hanging off that is a Cisco Aeronet 340 wireless access point three floors away from the TV/Tivo. Out the back of the Tivo hangs a USB Wifi card (Netgear) which has been hooked up for some time to download the program guide. I seem to remember though connecting the Tivo WiFi card to the neighbor's open network since the signal from mine was weak and Tivo choked a bit on WEP.
So turning on the Tivo, I expected reconfiguration hell. But no, there on the main menu was a "music and photos" option (thanks Tivo automatic firmware upgrade). Selecting that, the next screen showed me the two folders that I had just shared on my desktop! And of course offered me more media from their "partners". I selected music and played it immediately. Since the Tivo is routed through the stereo amp and Dolby 5.1 5 speaker set up comes out of that, the sound was GREAT! Couldn't find the option to set up playlists, but I am sure there is one on the desktop application (with Moodlogic i see in the promos). Surprised, I clicked over to photos and turned my flat panel into a slide machine with one click! Only nit is that the Tivo doesn't resize the photos to full screen on my 16:9 ratio flat panel. No hicups at all technically. I was totally prepared to write the afternoon off to debugging.
Finally a consumer software application that works across home media and computer devices and didn't need any debugging! Way to go Tivo!
Posted by Martin at 1:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Worst President in History
Most of you have probably already seen this letter to the editor defending Bush's war record against the democrats of history who actually got many more people killed. For my vote, Carter was the worst by far...
Posted by Martin at 1:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DSL closes the gap on Cable in Q2
For some time I have been waiting for the Nasty Baby Bells to get into the broadband act in a serious way. It seems like last quarter they did. In fact they added more subs than cable during the quarter bringing down the ratio of cable/dsl to 1.6:1. Lots of people have picked cable as the winner. I actually prefer DSL due to the higher upload speeds, but the cost of Cable is quite compelling. I don't like sharing my bandwidth either. I guess since the Nasty Babies have driven everyone else out of their networks, they think the coast is clear to start trying to make some money. Funny behavior.
"Providers of DSL added 895,000 subs in the quarter while cable operators added 831,000, LRG said. Cable now accounts for about 17.5 million subs in the country, while DSL boasts a little more than 11.1 million." From the Hollywood Reporter.
Posted by Martin at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Is it a TV or a PC?
the Qosmio E15 AV Notebook PC - Toshiba has a unique feature. With a built in TV tuner you can turn it on as a TV, DVD, or CD player without booting Windows. Now isn't that a revelation? If all you want to do is watch a DVD or TV on your laptop, why boot windows and use that clumsy GUI? GREAT idea! Look for more like this.
If you want to use windows media center to rip from the TV or DVD to the 80gig hard drive that is built in too. Built in PVR. Look for more of that. This is a great portable machine for work and family play. I wonder if the direct DVD player mode eats batteries like playing a DVD under Windows. One of the advantages of dedicated portable DVD players for family travel (besides the $200 price) is that you can get a couple of movies out of a battery. With my laptop I am lucky to get one.
Posted by Martin at 12:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A REAL pickup
Thanks John via Sam for the link to International's new pick-up. Now that could take on my Avalanche. But I think the Avalanche would still be faster! Nothing like driving around a semi. Hey, the turbocharged Diesel could burn BioDiesel!
Posted by Martin at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
The Apprentice 2, Episode 2
The Apprentice 2, Episode 2
Most people thought the young guy would be fired. He knows he is a marked man. Bradford got a get out of jail free ticket, but his team members didn't think he deserved it. They thought they won despite him rather than because of him. I tend to agree. Apex choose Kelly, the military guy as team leader, solid choice. The guys tried for distributors quickly and knew they would get killed by the women on a direct sales on the street deal. Good decision to break the team up into flavor team and sales team (led by Wes). The women had Ivana as project manager, but she comes from the analytical side of Venture capitalists and put people off immediately with diagrams of what price is. I bet she has an MBA rather than real business experience. A common problem. Ivana went for too much velvet glove, group hug decision style. Kelly, the Military man was the polar opposite setting time limits for each discussion topic. I think this task will be like the Trump Water task last year, the one who gets the largest wholesale orders will win. I wonder if they will again measure is gross revenue, not margin. Anyone can make it on gross sales. The key is margin. Here is the water post from last year.
For Mosaic, Wes was head of sales. Got alot of hang ups. Didn't generate any meaningful wholesale leads. Oops, down a couple notches Wes. Interesting ice cream tidbit: 14.5 hours from mixing through flash freezing to get a product. The Dunkin doughnut swat operation, was very cool. Swoop in, take all the doughnuts and leave crying kids behind. Very take charge action. Make a decision and just do it. They had 25 minutes to get the ingredients and made it. The sales team didn't really get many leads, they only did leads to restaurants. They should have expanded the net by calling ice cream retailer stores, small deli's, etc. Wes didn't get any orders, so they decided to go for a direct sales approach. Raj and the other guys on the "sales" team didn't seam to do anything either which was a big mistake. They should have had different sales people going after different customer types. In the end, they went for a "part of sales go to charity" retail strategy, tried and true. Decided on two carts in Times Square. Then the men left all their strategy out in the open on the tables and computers. BIG MISTAKE. Why show your competition your game plan? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Good to get on the street at 7:30am. The food squabble "don't eat all day to save expense money" was silly. Don't eat? Raj being Hypoglycemic? Weird. I like his clarity of vision though "I am right, he is wrong". Raj came up with breakfast ice cream pitch (doughnuts!), good idea. The Leukemia pitch was a good one as well. Raj continued his weirdness and kooky action. Pamela was very weak, she is not energetic at all. This is the second task where she felt it was beneath her. They hired attractive scoopers, VERY good idea! The first team to leverage hiring people, about time! They had a higher cost problem with the ingredients (doughnuts) and the contribution to the charity. The part they forgot about was that the contribution to Leukemia Society might put them below the profits of the other team. So I guess they are being measured on net profit after all expenses, good idea Donald. I guess since the teams had much more control over the COGS and selling expenses than during the water task last year, they moved to Net profits. Good decision. In the end their profit was $2,700 on a higher expense basis.
For Apex. Team havoc. Lots of ideas, lots of writing on the whiteboard with no organization. Utter chaos. Ivana liked to hear herself talk and spent a lot of time, too much time on the ideas for flavor. Didn't have a flavor or any idea of ingredients until the last minute. The CEO had all the ingredients which was very lucky. What if he hadn't? Apex spent the whole time on the flavor and didn't do any sales. Stupid. They went on the phone to do the sales and came up with the idea of hiring temps (Stacey J). The rest of the team was hated it and wondered why she was going behind their back. I liked the bullishness of it. Stacey J may be annoying, but she has balls. None of the other teams ever used leverage (yet). When they got back to the loft, the women read the men's plan and made a plan to compete directly knowing the competition strategy. I don't like Times Square as a place to sell. Have you ever been there? Thousands of people trying to sell you crap. No-one listens to any pitch. Remember the teams trying to rope people into Planet Hollywood last year? The women want to sell to the line waiting for discount tickets, good idea since people are just waiting there, but a very popular strategy. Will be interesting to see if the men try to poach the line. Bradford wanted to sex it up for street sales, the women generally didn't want to play that card which is bad. You need some hook for sales and the women have a built in one. They can choose not to use it (fine), but you need to replace it with something. The location they choose got hijacked by another street vendor with a permit. Ivana backed down immediately, bad move. They spent too much time debating where to move. Did not do good location analysis. Bad planning. The picture of women dressed in business attire in high heals pushing an ice cream cart down the sidewalk of Manhattan caused a few double takes. All that time spent moving around was taken from selling. No-one executed on a distributor strategy, but with only one day it was probably not very realistic. I got to believe that they could have sold to ice cream stores though. What does a tub of premium ice cream sell for? Go to the ice cream stores with a new flavor at the same price as their existing ones. At least one team should have split their sales force into different channels including bulk. Why does every team put all sales efforts in the same channel? Doesn't anyone there have any concept of sales channels? Bradford was the hustler guy. It made a difference. In the end Jennifer convinced some of the restaurant guys to come to their street team. It worked. Finally someone was selling whole tubs. I didn't think they had it in them. It was too little too late though and only netted them $2,472.
The Boardroom. The men hustled better, their gross sales were much much higher. The men even admitted that the red bliss flavor from the Mosaic was better. Mosaic lost because they started selling too late and were disorganized. In the boardroom should be Ivana, Stacey J and I don't know who. Ivana did a very crap job on leadership and organization. Wow, VCs really need better representation on this thing. The lightening and storm clouds leading to commercial were a nice touch. The ads have been hyping "the best boardroom ever", I wonder if they are going to try to use that every week, it is going to get old. I have got to say, I would fire Ivana. And not just because The Donald hates that name. The carts were not selling for three hours and it was an organization problem. The Donald said it would have been ok to use sex to sell. Carolyn pointed out that Mosaic didn't do anything as a selling angle. Apex had better outfits and the Leukemia pitch. Bradford gave up his free pass and it was a STUPID move. The Donald said so. He did a good job so he shouldn't have to be in the Boardroom. The Donald asked everyone who they would fire, that is different this week, usually he only asks a couple people. Most said Stacey J. Two or three, she choose two then the Donald challenges her and she says three and brings in Bradford because he was stupid to give up his exemption. So Stacie J, Jackie, Ivana and Bradford. Humm. Since Bradford gave up his exemption, that changes things. Do I think it makes him more friable than Ivana? Not really because he did it out of confidence. He volunteered to go to the women out of confidence. He may be too cocky, but he was not bad at this task. He was energetic. With half an hour more of selling I bet the women could have won. Ivana could have gotten that out of better organization.
Wow, this is hard. Wow, he choose Bradford. His reasoning was that Bradford's decision was impulsive and stupid and if he was running a company it could have killed it. Even though he was the best one in the room, The Donald believes it is worse to have a loose canon than an disorganized one. I disagree. I would rather have to reign in someone who acts out of confidence than have to micromanage or clean up after someone who can't make a decision and underexecutes.
So I am 1 for 2, batting 500%.
And one of my four choices for finalist has been fired. Kelly did a great job as team leader and has moved up in my book, but not a clear finalist yet.
Pamela, Ivana, or Stacey J should be one of the next to go.
PS. Trump, the game. Surprise, another brand extension. Very good Donald. I bet you will sell a lot at KMart. Too bad the guys who created BurnRate didn't have your brand.
My choices for top finalists are now:
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Kevin - No experience, not very swift.
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacie J. - Too unstable. May be kept for entertainment, but never a finalist.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Posted by Martin at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Watching the Apprentice, Tivoing The Benefactor
Again underwhelmed with Joey this week. The laugh track was totally anoying. Going to stick with The Apprentice this week and watch The Benefactor next week. Mark posted his success factors on his blog. Fairly standard "don't let anything keep you from your goals" textbook management motivational stuff. I know Mark has spent time with Kwami from last year's Apprentice. And Richard Brandson is working on his own show as well. Trump has a much harder nose to his business success. Mark is a cowboy and a technology geek. Brandson is all marketing and not very deep on any business. It will be interesting to see who has a better sense for people.
Posted by Martin at 9:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The universal spam solution critique...
Saw this on on SlashDot again today applied to the FTC idea to put out a bounty on Spammers. Use the checklist for each new idea you hear. Fun AND useful.
Your company advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won’t work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we’ll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don’t care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else’s career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don’t want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don’t think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you’re a stupid company for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I’m going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Posted by Martin at 9:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
General optimism about the election...
Been running the poll on what you all think the effects of the election will be. Seems like there is an even divide between Bush wins and economy goes up and Kerry wins economy goes up. The split reflects the general split in america and doesn't come as a surprise. What is surprising to me is that most people think whoever wins the economy will go up (76%).
What will be the economic effects of the President Election?
Bush wins, economy up 31 %
(22 votes)
Bush wins, economy down 5 %
(4 votes)
Kerry wins, economy up 28 %
(20 votes)
Kerry wins, economy down 4 %
(3 votes)
Whoever wins economy up 17 %
(12 votes)
Whoever wins economy down 11 %
(8 votes)
Total votes 69
I hope you are all right, unfortunately I don't know if I agree.
Optimism is always good and possibly warranted with current indicators all pointing in the right direction, but there are significant clouds on the horizon. Since the beginning of the year the government has been largely at a stand-still on any significant domestic programs. The agenda is dominated by international affairs. Now these particular events do have a significant bearing on our domestic economy (read price of oil and the terrorism "premium" everybody pays in extra security expenses) the prevailing policy on both sides is to put off dealing with any of the economic effects until after the election. After the election, whoever wins, they will be faced with a large number of hard facts.
- The deficit will be north of $450M for some time, even with a growing economy.
- The heroin stimulus of massive military spending, short term tax cuts, and low home interest rates will begin to wear off next year. The hangover is going to hurt.
- The Medicare prescription drug benefit, the largest increase in government entitlements in 40 years, will cost 3-5x what originally was projected and add to government debt while not solving the core problem (drug prices too high and no ability to collectively buy).
- The Telcoms sector, while off life-support, still won't be a driver of the economy again as government regulation, monopolistic practices, and the extortion of the 3G license process keeps a cap on companies ability to roll out broadband.
- Due to lack of real broadband in America, we will continue to fall behind in the technology sector and will probably loose our leadership in the next four years (certainly in some sectors) to the likes of Korea, India and most importantly China.
- The pension liabilities of America's largest industries (Airlines, Auto, etc.) will come home to roost and many bankruptcies will follow. The government will be faced with propping up these industries (the wrong decision) or letting the weak fail (the right decision).
- In the next four years I expect a change in the Palestinian leadership. Regardless of how this happens (peacefully or not), there will be a large number of people who hate it leading to more extremism there and in neighboring countries.
- Neither candidate has a real program to address America's core dependence on foreign oil and all the ramifications to out political and economic system. Without a real plan, we will be at the whim of extremist around the world for an indefinite period of time.
These are only a few of the issues that cause me pause. As a VC, optimism is baked in over the long term. I fundamentally believe that America has what it takes to innovate ourselves out of almost any problem. It just isn't going to be easy any time soon.
Posted by Martin at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2004
New IDC report, Spam Spam and more SPAM
[ eChannelLine Canada ] reports a new IDC report predicts growing SPAM invasion even as more adopt protections. The key message is that the threat will remain out there and grow. Buy protection. Just like Virus and Terrorism. You can never be safe.
Posted by Martin at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MSft Sender ID rejected by IETF
The Register reports that IETF has bounced Msft's Sender ID proposal. The reason is intermingling of Msft patents. The industry standards board is loathe to endorse anything that requires licensing from Microsoft. Msft again shoots itself in the foot. When Sender ID was announced, I predicted this kind of issue with it, msft using anti-spam as an excuse to drive an Exchange upgrade cycle. Now the IETF has let everyone else know. I still wouldn't call it dead though, Msft has a long history of getting its way. But the road won't be easy...
Posted by Martin at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
Bush Campaign releases recommended reading list
From the campaign today. The first two I want to read as they are independent journalistic accounts of the Presidency. And by Democrats!
Bush-Cheney '04 Suggested Reading List
Hundreds of books about President George W. Bush have been published during his Presidency and more will be released before Election Day. Some of these books are fair, accurate portrayals of our President and others border on the absurd. Here are a few of our preferences, what we call our suggested reading list:
A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush
By Ronald Kessler
Independent journalist Ronald Kessler, who voted for Al Gore in 2000 but had a change of heart after getting to know President Bush, went behind the scenes interviewing dozens of White House aides, several Cabinet members and top presidential advisors. He came up with an important conclusion: President Bush has the character to lead our nation at this crucial time. A Matter of Character will be on the New York Times bestseller list for the fourth week on Sept. 19.
Click here to buy!
Plan of Attack
By Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward of Watergate era fame used his exclusive access to the White House, including two interviews with the President and over 75 with administration officials, to provide a detailed account of the two years leading up to the Iraq War. Plan of Attack helps explain why President Bush and his top advisors made the difficult decision to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.
Click here to buy!
Ten Minutes from Normal
By Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes, top advisor and close friend of the President, gives us a keenly insightful look at American politics and America's 43rd President. Hughes's first-hand experience of the deep concern for all Americans that forms the cornerstone of George W. Bush's presidency comes through loud and clear. In a post-9/11 world, Hughes redefines the very notion of what is "normal" as something special and precious, never to be taken for granted in America again.
Click here to buy!
Letters to My Daughters
By Mary Matalin
Mary Matalin, who served as assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, delivers a poignant memoir comprised of letters to her daughters on topics from careers and political convictions to spirituality and personal responsibility. Matalin draws from her unique experiences as a powerful Republican female voice in politics, wife of a powerful Democrat male voice in politics, campaign advisor, daughter and mother.
Click here to buy!
Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane
By John Podhoretz
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, takes specific attacks on President Bush and sets the record straight in this humorous book. Podhoretz writes about how the President has prevailed with the odds stacked against him and risen above the rhetoric, all the while frustrating his critics as they continue to look for ways to discredit him.
Click here to buy!
The Right Man: An Inside Account of the Bush White House
By David Frum
This compelling account of President Bush by a former member of his team, David Frum, gives incredible insight into the President's personality and leadership style. Frum examines how President Bush endured and even thrived when faced with difficult challenges, and The Right Man is a great tool for understanding our great President and his first-term administration.
Click here to buy!
A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush
By David Aikman
David Aikman follows George W. Bush on his spiritual journey from boyhood to the Presidency. In A Man of Faith, Aikman shows how the President's faith inspires his strength and conviction, and has allowed critical decisions to be made with clear, conscious thought. Aikman's look at our President's faith holds much weight given that President Bush is the most spiritual world leader in recent times.
Click here to buy!
Posted by Martin at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
Review of Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley
Just finished
The very watchful among you may have noticed that this book went off my AllConsuming Currently Reading lists last week. I would like a "read" list from AllConsuming. Erik says it is on the to do feature list when he has an extra weekend.
Anyway. The Easy Rawlins murder mystery Little Scarlet, Walter Mosley's latest. You will notice that I tend to read two types of books. I call them "thick" and "thin". Basically ones that make my brain hurt and ones that put it at ease. Little Scarlet and all Walter Mosley in general fall into the second category. Plane and bedtime reading when the brain wants to be entertained and not work too hard. But this is not all trash. Walter Mosley with Easy Rawlins weaves alot of history and social struggle into his books. This one is set in the race riots of Watts in 1967. Easy is enlisted by the white Deputy Director of LAPD to help them solve the apparent murder/rape of a black woman by a (supposed) white man in the middle of the heat of the moment. The national gaurd is out trying to keep order. A black man can't drive or walk down the street in Watts without being stopped. So the Deputy gives Easy a letter telling the police to let him go about his business which pulls him out of many situations. One is when he is getting a ride from his friend Mouse who is driving a load of stollen goods from Watts to a distributor outside. Mosley doesn't mince any words when describing the reversal of fortune of the black men suddenly getting respect from white cops. The black man being oppressed by the white man is in all Mosley's books, but in this one, it is particularly heavy. And the hero Easy gets some good licks in against the man much to his surprise. But of course in the end he is right back where he started, a black man in a white city trying to make a better life for himself and his family.
The three main conflicts in Easy's life (and in all his books) are the white police, fidelity to his girlfriend, and the temptation of the street criminal life (as lived by his antithesis Mouse). He is constantly tempted by other women. In this one, the lilth young Juanda. He resists heroicly and ends up giving her money to go to college instead of sleeping with her. His killer friend Mouse, "the most dangerous man in LA", keeps the threat of death and crime close at all times. Easy is tempted and at times pulled close to the edge just by being around Mouse. He also must fight daily the urge to just kill his foes as Mouse does without compulsion. The police are the constant simbol of blind authority. In Little Scarlet, a white cop extends his hand in sincere friendship to Easy, something he has never had in other books. If you are a frequent reader of Easy Rawlins books, you will see quite a bit of character development in this one. Easy overcomes another set of challenges to his fidelity, his straight legit life, and his conceptions of law and authority. There is material progress along the path of "maybe I will make it in this world afterall".
In mystery category I give Little Scarlet a 8/10. If you are a fan, it is a must read to continue the story. If you are not, it is an enjoyable, entertaining read.
Posted by Martin at 1:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 9, 2004
The Apprentice 2, Episode 1: Girls beat Boyz (again)
No surprise that The Donald pitted the women against the men again. The surprise part was that one from each team had to be sent to the other making them the odd man (or woman) out. Neat trick. The men started by suggesting pulling straws or putting names in the hat. Very Manly suggestions. The women started to talk it out and consider all sorts of very ladylike ways to decide (all involving lots of talk and no decision). But then Bradford did the extremely Manly thing: He "put his balls on the table" and volunteered to go. He thought it was taking the bull by the horns and showing initiative, but I wouldn't have done that. The power bitch of the women Pamela got fed up with all the nice talk and did the same thing on the women's side. She just up and decided she would go. Good initiative and probably the right thing for a woman to do (show a man's initiative).
So the team naming starts. Raj tries to sell "Empire" to the men. They really only consider two or three names before voting quickly on Mosaix. The worst idea I had ever heard. Sounded like a girl team name, or a line of cosmetics or table linen. Raj's skin crawls and that makes me like him. The women have a list of over 20 names (everyone's idea is equal girls). They suggested Empire as well, funny. They chose Apex Corp. A manly name. So the women get a manly name and the men get a girly name. Not a good start BoyZ! When the meet the next day and tell The Donald their names he winces at Mosaix and asks "do you really like that?". The men drop a notch in his book and know they are off to a bad start.
So over to Mattel to create a new toy. I wish I had counted the screen time the Mattel people and their logo got. It was like a 45 minute commercial for how neat their toy creation process is. Someone has got to know how much they paid for the privilege. So the challenge was to create a new toy for boys. I though the men would have a chance since they were all (except Pamela), well BOYZ! But things started out bad when they went for an action figure. And a line of them at that. Action figures are dolls! Boys DON'T like DOLLS! They somehow forgot what they did as kids. Only two had kids. Pamela made some very offensive comments about the focus group kids when behind the glass wall winning her Carolyn's evil eye. She obviously didn't know anything about kids, nor care. But as team leader she should have figured out a way to be good at it rather than showing open scorn for this crappy task. I say again men, DOLLS? What the hell were you thinking?
The women created a motorized transformer car. That utilized parts and themes from an existing toy line at Mattel. Brand and line extension is always better than green field. I bet this was Elizabeth's idea. So the women follow their macho trend and create a manly toy. A car that runs into walls and explodes. That is cool!
Of course the women win and the men loose. Suck'as. So Pamela takes do nothing Rob and whiney punk Andy into the boardroom. There was an interesting option for the team leader. They could choose two or three people to come with them. The idea being more people gives themselves better odds against getting fired. Pamela takes the ballsy move (since she obviously has them) and only brings two. The Donald likes it. He notes Pamela's hard edge and says he can't figure out if she will loose it or not (probably not). He says Andy is a "project". But of course he fires simple minded Rob who didn't have the self awareness to know that not stepping up and waiting to be "delegated" something was not the way to win a CEO position. His whole team was against him. I choose him to go and The Donald agreed with me.
So how is my prediction score:
1 for 1
Batting 1000 so far...
Posted by Martin at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New season of The Apprentice!
Flew down to the Valley tonight to attend the August Capital annual meeting. Had to bail out of the VC confab early to beat it back to the hotel for the premier of The Apprentice 2. And I wasn't disappointed! First a couple observations:
- The Apprentice has become a major money maker for Trump, not just an ego boost (as I suspect it started out as).
- Trump is really exploiting brand tie-ins this year. All the tasks are with major brands. You can bet they are not getting a free ride. Look at the list of vendors this year!
- Trump is really leveraging this one with the commercials for Visa and more to come. He is also not doing those for free.
- I estimate The Donald will make 5-10x more from this year's show and tie-ins than last year's show.
There were small changes in the format:
- Tasks are now mostly with major brands and are more complicated than last year's lemonade (although next week is ice-cream on the street).
- The winning team leader gets a get out of jail free card if his team fails next week. I don't understand the logic behind this change. Maybe they felt they were being too hard on the team leader and not providing enough incentive to be team leader. Last year there were many pitfalls of being leader but no real upside. I guess the get out of jail card is upside. Don't know if it will change contestant motivation though.
- No ugly girls at all. Even more boom in the babes than last year.
- There are more of them. Read more Episodes = more $$$.
The producers also kept some of the winning formula from last year's team selections:
- The cookie loose canon (Sam). This year it is Raj.
- The offensive off kilter black girl (Omarosa). This year it is Stacie J.
- The slightly neurotic anorexic loudmouth (Heidi). This year it is Maria.
- The Frat boy (Bill). This year it is John.
- The good old boy who Really is not very smart (Bowie). This year it is Rob.
So like every year (I hope) I will go out on a limb at the beginning of the season and pick four people who I think will be in the final four. This is very hard after only one show because I didn't get to see many of them in real action. I probably will recalibrate in mid season. But here goes:
My choices for top four finalists are:
Bradford
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Kevin - No experience, not very swift.
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacie J. - Too unstable. May be kept for entertainment, but never a finalist.
Posted by Martin at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Upgraded to MT 3.11
So I just upgraded. The new features claim to be:
1. Dynamic page building
2. Scheduled posting
3. Subcategories
4. Application level callbacks
and a not so well documented one:
- adding a ping to technorati.com as a check-box under pings.
What I am going to use:
The Technorati trackback and some comment subcategories (later this week).
I tried to turn on dynamic archive generation and am getting tons of errors. When you turn it on, it renames your index.html files under each category and date subdirectory to index.html.static. When I click on my archive links I get a "file not found" error. Must have something not configured correctly for static generation. Will poke around the support forums, but for now going back to static generation. It doesn't take that long and I don't rebuild that much so it isn't a big benefit to go to dynamic (although it was ALOT of code).
Posted by Martin at 1:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Finally some humor from Iraq
Got this movie in the mail today.
Funny!
news report from Iraq.wmv
Posted by Martin at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My virus woes in USA Today
Posted by Martin at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
OK, here is the client side work-around for MT comments
I have been posting about comment issues for last couple days. After some messing around, the easiest client side reconfiguration is to change your IE browser to "accept all cookies". Or you can add www.martinandalex.com AND www.nwventurevoice.com to sites that you allow all cookies from. The problem is that the lowest level IE security setting blocks third party cookies and MT issues them. I will still look for a server side solution, but for now, just change your IE settings.
Posted by Martin at 10:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MT 3.1 and IE comment work-around
Movable Type Publishing Platform very friendly support people have suggested the following work-arounds:Unfortunately, it doesn't have too much to do with the way
MT works in this case; it's basically a fundamental issue
about the way IE is treating cookies and domains.
"Leashed" cookies are new to Internet Explorer 6. They're
cookies that Internet Explorer prevents from being used
later, by a third-party site. So when the typekey commenter
cookie is set (for the domain where your mt.cgi script is
installed), IE won't allow that cookie to be used on your
blog site, because it thinks it is a third-party cookie
(different domain).
You can add both sites to your Privacy settings in IE so
that it will permit cookies from both domains to be used
(but your visitors would need to do this also). You might
also be able to set up your MT cgi script where it is
accessible from both of your domains (your host can advise
you on if this is possible and if so, how to do it), so you
can use the same domain name in your templates as your blog
site.
There may be some other workarounds available on the
support forums; these are the two which I have heard about
as potential solutions.
Regards,
Shelley
I don't like the reconfigure IE option because people will have to make special settings to use my site. I will try to find a work-around that can work from the server.
Posted by Martin at 10:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 8, 2004
San Diego creates hub for alternative autos
Regional Transportation Center, San Diego, CA is a $15M public/private project to showcase alternative fuel vehicles. They have a showroom for autos (mostly from sponsor FORD), a service bay, and fueling stations for five different fuels. With a regular gas station costing between $2-$4M this project definitely falls into the "nice to have" category. Strictly for early adoptors. Would like to stop by next time I am down there. Anybody been?
Posted by Martin at 2:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MT comment problems...
So I am still trying to work out why comments don't work. It apparently is an IE problem with handling cookies from a domain different from where MT is installed. Or is it a MT bug? It works fine if you are using Firefox or Netscape (I tried). I hope MT comes out with a fix and doesn't just sluff it off as an IE problem. That is 90% of the browsers out there guys...
Here is the mail that MT support sent me:
Hi, I'm able to log in for commenting with Firefox - are
you using Internet Explorer? I see you have MT installed on
a different domain name than your blog's domain name, and
IE has a problem with the cookies when the domain names are
different, so it may not be recognizing the sign-in because
of this.
Regards,
Shelley
Posted by Martin at 12:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
RNC puts their money where their mouth is with renewable energy
The Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventionsannounced last week that the host committee for the RNC last week would buy enough clean energy credits to cover the expected energy usage at the convention AND all the 50,000 delegates during their stay in NYC. A step in the right direction...
Posted by Martin at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 7, 2004
New Fuel Reformer resource web site
Welcome to the Fuel Reformer Document Repository a new web site funded by US Army and run out of Spokane. Good place to track documents and current state of Hydrogen fuel cell reformer stuff.
Posted by Martin at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
an Inflatable surfboard?
The boyz in San Diego have made one.ULI Boards - Ultra Light Inflatable surfboards, paddleboards, bodyboards
Posted by Martin at 9:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
EasyGlider, a gadget I gotta have
Gizmo reports on a swiss company what has a self powered wheel that can pull you along on a little sled or on your own wheels like skates or a skateboard. Doesn't look like it is available in america yet, but I am going to start looking for a way to buy it.
Posted by Martin at 9:46 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 2, 2004
trying to fix comments
Ok, thanks to readers who wrote saying my new comment feature isn't working! The message people are getting is: The site you're trying to comment on has not signed up for this feature. Please inform the site owner. I am informed and working with TypeKey to see what the problem is. Off for the weekend so it probably won't get fixed till Monday. Sorry...
Posted by Martin at 9:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 1, 2004
Review of Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen
Just finished Skinny Dip. My mom got me started on Carl Hiassen books about 10 years ago. They are all about Florida (where I used to live) and typically deal with some wrong being done to nature in Florida by the hyper growth that has been hoisted upon the state by RVs full of "snowbirds", corrupt politicians, corrupt crackers, and worse. Skinny Dip tackles the issue of the destruction of the Everglades.
Chas, a corrupt incompetent psuedo biologist in the employ of a large farmer who is polluting the swamp with fertilizers, opens the book by killing his wife (throwing her off a cruise ship on their anniversary) out of fear that she will rat him out. Things go bad for Chas from there on in. Hiassen has very colorful bad guys in his books. In this one, the corporate farmer's hired thug Tool has a bullet stuck in the crack of his ass requiring him to steal fentenal patches off old people in nursing homes. Then of course there is the ex-cop turned hermit on an island who finds the girl and saves the day.
I read most of this book on recent plane trips up and down the coast. Perfect travel summer reading. You also come away with an appreciation of how destructive the "peopleization" of Florida is to the natural resources. I grew up some time in Florida. It is being overrun. In the not too distant future I believe it will reach holding capacity in more ways than one. Hiassen does a great job of weaving in the exact effects that large scale corporate farming has on the swamp and the effect that has on the water supply, people, etc. A nice side benefit of the entertainment.
Posted by Martin at 3:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Republican Party Platform
Don't take it filtered through the news media. Read the platform for yourself. I don't agree with all of it, but much more than the Democratic platform. Read the sections on "defeating terrorism." The differences are striking. The Democrats say we can't do anything without the UN or our allies going along (meaning they are abdicating soverignty) and the Republicans are saying we have the right to lead the way and defend ourselves.
The one section in the Democratic platform that I liked was "Achieving Energy Independence". Unfortunately there was only lip service to old ideas. No program. Things like "we should help develop better cars" and "the government should be a leader". This is probably the weakest plank in their plan as far as commitment. I have never heard a Democrat politician talk about it. If they talked about that more and had more specifics, I believe they could go along way.
Another stark contrast you get in reading the two side by side is the underlying energy. The Republicans appear optimistic and confident. The Democrats appear angry and bitter.
Posted by Martin at 2:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A DVD every American should see
If you saw Michael's 911 film, you owe it to yourself to see the other lense on the Iraq war. Kerry On Iraq. I received the DVD and you can even watch it on-line. Kerry is now positioning himself as an anti-war candidate to appease the "base" of the Democrats, but here in his own words (all clips of actual Kerry interviews) he sounds as hawkish as anyone. This guy can't be trusted to tell you the color of his tie!
Posted by Martin at 2:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Review of Whipple Supercharger Systems Programmer for the 2002 Avalanche
A couple months ago, I installed a Whipple Supercharger on my 2002 Chevy Avalanche. For the next month I drove around town with a huge smile on my face and my foot on the gas. Every excuse to break the tires loose was taken. After awhile, the thrill wore of somewhat though and I wanted more. So next step is to reprogram the trucks computer to change the shifting, fuel mixture, and a couple other things. I had to wait for Whipple to come out with a reprogrammer specifically for my Avalanche/supercharger combination. There are lots of reprogrammers on the market, but you really need to get the one which is designed to work with what you have, especially if you have changed anything else. My friend Steve got one of the first specifically for the Whipple on the Avalanche from Street & Performance Electronics. With may reprogrammers you can twiddle with all the settings yourself to tune the thing to run how you like. You can do that with this as well, but they also offer a "performance tune" which has been optimized for the Whipple/Avalanche 5.3 combination. Just use that and you won't run the risk of blowing up your engine. The only other option is the speedometer. The factory setting maxes out at 98MPH, you can keep that or bump up the cut-off to 130MPH or choose "unlimited". You can guess what I chose. Now the only problem is that the needle is stopped by a pin in the speedometer just after 100mph. Time to open the dash and break the pin. I used to have a Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer when I lived in Munich. It didn't have a pin. I drove to work every day at "D". The needle went all the way around and was pointing straight down to the six oclock position to the "D" in the transmition list. Don't know how fast that was, but it could have gone faster.
So how does the reprogrammer work? GREAT! Installation was completely painless. There are two pages of directions only. You just locate the OBD II connector (just under and to the left of your steering column) and connect the cable of your reprogrammer. There are only six steps. Three you don't have to do unless you changed the size of your tires. When you have uploaded the "performance tune" the reprogrammer is now locked to your vehicle VIN and can't be used on another truck. Good software work to get $600 bucks for one small program use. After less than a 5 minute install and 5 minutes to wait, we were ready to drive! The first thing you will notice is that the shift points are WAY better. Much smoother shifting, no more jerking. And less delay when you stomp on it to get the boost. We floored it on a straight away and it pulled like a wild dog all the way up to 120mph without loosing any power. There was a slight knocking sound when we stepped on it though. Sort of like the rattle of a deisel engine. Steve said that was not good and asked if I had a full tank of super 92 octane or above in it. Yup, from Chevron. Chevron and BP make the best super I hear. 76 and Texaco suck. Never buy non-name brand super for your supercharger. The next thing he asked about was the fuel filter. The truck has 40,000 miles on it and I have never changed the fuel filter. That is most likely the problem. When you stomp on it, the boost needs to suck gas very fast, with an old clogged fuel filter it could be starved and cause that rattle. No good. So I have to stay off the gas until I get the new exhaust installed (friday). With new stainless exhaust I will replace the fuel Filter. After that I will put it on a dyno and see how many horsies I am pushing!
Summary: the ProFlash reporgrammer is worth the $$. Much smoother accelleration and some noticable improvement in pick-up lag and overall boost. Can't wait for the exhaust.
Posted by Martin at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Well Mt 3.0 didn't solve my comment SPAM problem
Supposedly TypeKey registration was supposed to solve the comment spam problem. But I have as much or more of it than before! They just get approved accounts I guess. I am tightening up on my allowed comments. I had "enable comments from unregistered users" but that only required a name and a confirmed e-mail address. Easy to fake. I set it that way because I didn't want to have to require people to have a TypeKey account. To have a TypeKey account, you need a blog. The skeptic could view this as an attempted lock-in from Movable Type and a lead generation vehicle. Well, I am changing settings to require registration now and we will see what that does to comments.
Sorry to my regular readers for the hassle.
Posted by Martin at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack