Presidential Endorsement Worth $50 Million
According to the New York Times, President-elect Obama’s dedication to his Blackberry may be worth up to $50 million for the Canadian firm Research In Motion. Not bad – you can’t buy the kind of publicity that results from the most loved man in the world pimping your gear.
The new president is famous for his [...]
I Will Never Give Up My Newspaper
I love getting my news online. Being able to flip through articles and search back content is exceedingly useful. So too is the ability to quickly check on the validity of claims made in article online (as evidenced by the news about LiveJournal’s cut to staff – some sources quoted 20 of 27 staffers were [...]
The Facebook Fanatics
Facebook is starting to scare me.
I rarely log in anymore, myself, as the constant bombardment of applications and advertisements in the new layout are distasteful in my view. Despite that, I still don’t like Facebook.
People – why do you want complete strangers, or even friends of your friends that you don’t know, to have access [...]
LiveJournal Down But Not Out
I was surprised but not shocked to learn that LiveJournal has cut back roughly 1/5 of its staffing levels. Although some blogs reported that “20 of 27″ employees were let go, the real number of heads chopped off is somewhere around 12, which works out to 20% of the company’s workforce.
This is a news byte [...]
New York Times Still in the Game
The New York Times finally caved in and sold 2.5 inches of front page ad space to CBS (published in the Jan 05, 2008 edition). For years, the front page has been considered a kind of last bastion against corporate intrusion and the icy grip of advertising.
I don’t see NYT’s move as a signal that [...]
GM Hopes to Improve its Fortunes by Lowering its Lending Standards
In another disgusting development, GM has announced it will be pushing profits by selling financing for its SUVs to buyers whose credit scores would have previously been unacceptable to the company. Whereas before the minimum credit score of 700 was needed to be accepted for financing, the bar has now been lowered to 621 (620 [...]
Trust Has Limits
It’s hard to find good people you can trust. I have always favoured the alternative – put measures in place to prevent people from screwing you over. No one person should be so integral to a business that they can unmake the organization in a single fell swoop.
Let the situation faced by JournalSpace be a [...]
Automakers Get Bailout
This morning the White House announced $13.4 billion in loans to the Big Three automakers in Detroit, with an additional $4 billion handout waiting in the wings for February. In return the automakers will let the government inspect their books and promise not to fly their executives around in fancy jets.
There is a satirical cartoon [...]
The eBay of Pigs
Remember those junky flea markets that used to pop up in small towns on Saturdays, selling everything from sports cards to handmade clothes? There was that toothless old lady with a table of home-made treats; don’t worry, there isn’t any danger of food poisoning here. Remember the guy with the van of electronics? If he [...]
Gas Prices Linked to Temperature
Once again the cold air snaps at our windows; I can’t see the sunlight for all the frost. I wait until now to fill up my furnace’s oil tank because I know that despite all of the hype, despite the mythical speculative buyers, and despite my own sense, fuel costs go down as the temperature [...]
