Supercomputing 2010’s keynote was Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma (and its numerous follow-ons), whose research, studying the demise of companies over time, is utterly fascinating (to me) and I can’t believe I hadn’t read before. He has studied the demise of companies over time — think Digital Equipment Corporation (cut up into […]
Disruptive technologies Read More »
Toaster [twitter]: “Hope you enjoy standing outside in the rain while the Bellevue fire department shakes its head disapprovingly of your charred mess!” #EpicToastFail [3 seconds ago] “Dude, it’s looking medium well.” [2 minutes ago] NotMyJob: @Toaster is looking very dark now. [4 minutes ago] “Your toast is ready!” [5 minutes ago] Espresso machine [Facebook]:
If our company kitchen appliances had network access… Read More »
Mister Peabody, set the Wayback Machine to three years ago, pick a spot during a really long product release cycle. Partly out of boredom, but mostly to mess with development manager at the time, I had asked one of the developers to swap out the splash screen. The product logo was thus modified: Official Battle-ready!
Today is a good day to PLOT! Read More »
A webinar is essentially conference call combined with a PowerPoint presentation. Of the dozens I receive a month, few meet my rigid criteria: educational content, straightforward delivery. It’s usually easy to tell from the email if it’s likely going to be some kind of lame marketing presentation. Speaking of which, here’s an invitation I received
Mission Criticaler Read More »
In April of ought six, I pondered two options for saving for my kids’ college: the 529-plan I have and Washingon State’s 529 program, Guaranteed Education Tuition (“GET“). At the time, I concluded my existing 529 would have a better expected return because the expected returns over my relatively short investment horizon (10 years) would
Get versus 529 redux Read More »
Nose-bleed tickets to see the Mariners vs. Padres: $0.00 (won in a drawing) Parking, food, beverages and garlic fries: $43.25 Feel the garlic oozing from every pore! Answering my daughter’s questions on the dropped third-strike rule and baseball’s obsession with tracking the success of left-handed hitters facing right-handed pitchers during night games in June: priceless.
Take me out to the ballgame Read More »
Judging from the number of email solicitations from complete strangers to “schedule an appointment” I’ve been receiving, my business email address is ensconced in some marketing database. Below is an example that struck me as How Not To Do This Sort Of Thing. Snarky comments are inline in [red]. Subject: Would like to connect with
Buzzword bullet shotgun Read More »
When I last signed up for a new cell phone service, I opted for the “family plan” that provided two lines with a shared pool of up to 400 minutes per month. At $600/year, this was cheaper than having two separate plans with the theoretical estimated use of the second line. While reviewing my cell