Archive for category Potpourri
Can you spot the phony headline?
Posted by Bill McCollam in Can you spot the phony headline, Potpourri on April 12th, 2009
Something a little different today. The following is a list of headlines that interested me recently. About half of them are authentic and half are simply my imagination. Go through them and click on Authentic or Not so Much. If the headline is authentic - there will be a link to the headline. Take a point for each correct guess. Use the comment to note your score.
Oh, and one last point… just because a headline is authentic - that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true.
- Somolia patriarch’s CIA connection
Allegations are emerging that Samaal Samaale, an influential elder in the largest tribe implicated in recent piracy outrages, was a key CIA contact in the early eighties. Authentic or Not so Much. - Paris liberation made ‘whites only’
Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a “whites only” victory. Authentic or Not so Much
- Player assaulted over plagiarism of Second Life avatar
Popular Second Life game has spawned a nasty outbreak of violence at recent convention in Monterey. Authentic or Not so Much - Study shows grooming at red lights a bigger danger than cell phones.
Put away the cosmetics. Researchers at the University of Manchester have demonstrated that preening drivers are actually much more preoccupied than those that chat while driving. Authentic or Not so Much - COBOL code almost all gone at 50th anniversary.
According to David Stephenson, the UK manager for the software provider Micro Focus, “only about 7% to 8% of UK plc business transactions are still based on Cobol”. Authentic or Not so much - New rare orangutan find in Borneo
A hitherto unknown population of orangutans numbering perhaps 1-2,000 has been found on the island of Borneo, conservation researchers say. Authentic or Not so Much. - Ever Heard Of A Four-Eared Feline?
Unlike the cruel and unusual punishment of the cat o’nine tails, this cute cat o’ four ears is nothing to be afraid of. Authentic or Not so Much. - Sesame Street to lay off the letters Q, X, Z, J, and the semicolon
In yet another troubling sign of the flailing economy, iconic television children’s show Sesame Street has announced layoffs, which the show’s producers say will affect 20% of its staff. However, the cuts don’t stop there. Authentic or Not so Much - Chinese Bias for Baby Boys Creates a Gap of 32 Million
A British Medical Journal paper says that males under 20 outnumber young females by 32 million, largely because of sex-selective abortion. Authentic or Not so Much - Google quietly announces acquisition of Zipcar
Citing a need a greater need for open, on-demand mobility, the Mountain View search giant announced in their blog the acquisition of Zipcar. Does this signal a new direction for Google? Authentic or Not so Much
Twitter economics
Posted by Bill McCollam in Economics, Marketing/Psychology, Potpourri on April 6th, 2009
Twitter is the latest big thing in social media and the digerati are all trying to figure out how to turn some of this popularity into money. Well - I can see the shape of it - if not the exact mechanics. But let’s level set first.
Twitter is a platform. It’s provides a way to transmit itty-bitty posts (<140 characters). That minimalist aspect is an important part of its character. But I think it’s the publish/subscribe model that’s really interesting. Basically you register, then tell them a bit about yourself. They you go looking for people that you care to follow. You can look for friends or you can look for people with interesting characteristics or common interests. You subscribe to (”follow”) them and maybe they follow you back. Then you er…. talk about stuff.
So far so good?
Okay. Now one more thing before we get to economics… All these ways of finding out who to follow and have them follow you - assume some kind of latent context. In other words - you have to know something about who you want to connect to before you connect to them. I can search for my pal Harry, or I can import all my contacts, or I can go looking for people that write about personal finance.
Now, here’s the good part. There’s also a convention called hashtags. This simply means ‘tagging’ your post with a code prefixed with a #. So I could create a tweet like, “brrr, sure is cold on this flight - wish the attendant would turn up the heat on flight #ac905″. Anyone can subscribe to a hashtag. So if, for instance, the flight crew were monitoring #ac905 - then they’d be able to fix the heat, or make an announcement, or ignore it. Here’s a whole database of tags.
So how to make money? I think of it as situational arbitrage. (Yeah, that’ll catch on…). Think of a situation where you want to exchange something of micro-value - but it’s just too inconvenient or socially awkward to actually do anything about it. I’ve talked about these situations before… you’re leaving a parking lot with 2 hours left on your ticket, or you’re getting tired at the driving range with half a jumbo bucket, or you’re at a supermarket with an unused coupon, or you want to get rid of an extra two tickets. What if everybody subscribed to twitter (and soon everyone will be walking around with devices able to), and there was a known convention around hashtags. So, when you go to the supermarket - you scan #Loblaw27 and see whose needs coupons, or #parkinglot3456 to see who needs an unexpired ticket.
There’s stuff to be filled in for sure…
- It’d be great if there was a micro-exchange function built into twitter so we could easily transfer a few bucks between tweeters.
- We need good way to make the context known. Short of just knowing that #flight number is the convention for airlines, how would we communicate that? I suppose the host location could put up big signs (This is #LOBLAW27 - but what’s in it for them?). What about a GPS mashup? What if we could simply open up a channel to anyone within a few hundred feet?
If you could figure these aspects out (and a way to skim a small value-add surcharge for the service) you’d have the thing licked.
Natasha Richardson: no lessons here
Posted by Bill McCollam in Potpourri on March 19th, 2009
Sometimes really bad things happen and they simply don’t have a point. Natasha Richardson takes a reportedly mild fall on a bunny hill, initially feels fine, then reports a crushing headache an hour later, and eventually succumbs to coma and dies a couple of days later. The autopsy rules an accidental death caused by a clot from a ruptured artery. “This is a very treatable condition if you’re aware of what the problem is and the patient is quickly transferred to a hospital,” said Dr. Keith Siller of New York University Langone Medical Center.
Certainly a tragedy but don’t look for rhyme or reason. The blogs and discussion forums are full of dubious wisdom;
- beware the ice under the snow,
- never ski without a helmet,
- never ski, never let your kids ski,
- don’t ski in foreign countries,
- be sure to get a CT if you bump your head,
- don’t bump your head, and on and on.
All pointless - just like Natasha’s death. Just a random, statistical outlier. I pity people that allow their lives to be diminished (or worse, their children’s lives) because of some deep meaning they take from this.
I’m not saying that wearing a helmet isn’t a good idea. And if this makes someone a little more careful on the slopes - fine. But don’t wrap yourself in a ball of cotton. Your chances of dying from a fall on a bunny hill haven’t changed since last week. They’re still microscopically tiny.
Geocaching: Fun, frugal and good for you
Posted by Bill McCollam in Potpourri on March 16th, 2009
So what if I told you I had found an activity that you and your best friend could do together that was fun, frugal and was good for you? Oh, and it is good for the environment and ‘green’. And best of all (from my perspective) - it involves playing with gadgets. No silly - it’s geocaching!
Lyndsey and I got into this last spring and we had a blast. Basically you take your GPS (less than $15o where I shop), fire up the browser and check out www.geocaching.com. Sign up (it’s free), pick a silly nick (we’re longpulleyrose - don’t ask…), find a cache near you, jot down the coordinates, pack a lunch and head out for an adventure!
Here’s how it works… (and this may sound a little goofy). Other grownups have gathered together certain trinkets from around their house. And they’ve put these trinkets in a weather-proof container (these range in size from film cannisters, to tupperware, to ammo boxes). Then these other grownups have gone outdoors to some remote public place, trekked around for a while until they find a likely hiding spot (like a dead tree trunk or a hole in a fence post). Then they carefully note the GPS coordinates and hide their container. All the while making sure no civilians (muggles) are in the neighbourhood. Oh, and they include a little log book in the container too. Then these folks come home, and post the coordinates in the web site. Often with clever little clues.
Sometime thereafter, intrepid adventurers (yours truly comes to mind) kick up their browsers, find the coordinates to the nearby caches and go hunting. When, (if) they find the cache, the idea is to open it up, log the find, swap one of the trinkets for one of your own, and keep score on the website. God’s truth - some people have logged >2,000 caches found! I think we’re at 25 or so.
We’ve mostly stuck to nearby caches - and you wouldn’t believe how many wonderful places I’ve discovered within 10 miles of our house - that I didn’t even know existed. And this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Our GPS will usually get us to within 10 feet or so (barring tree canopies) - but some of the trails are challenging and even when you’re near - these can be very, very tricky to find.
Lyndsey and I can be a little competitive - so for a while we were keeping seperate scores of finds. But that got to be too much bookkeeping (after I lost 4 times in a row) - so now its a team event.
So go out and enjoy (and if you do signup - be sure and pm us at longpulleyrose).
Achilla Orru and his thumb piano
Posted by Bill McCollam in Potpourri on March 7th, 2009
I met some interesting people this week.
I attended the New Pioneers awards ceremony last Thursday at the Royal York. My company sponsored some of the awards and we had a table. It was a long day and I got to the awards session a little cranky and really really hoping the ceremonies would be fairly quick. Registration and the pre-ceremony reception didn’t bode well. Very long line-ups and all the signs of an event run by folks for whom event management is a part-time job; messy queues, no people traffic control, and lotsa speeches from the politicos.
So, as sponsors, we hosted one of the award recipients at our table. And this soon changed my attitude about the evening. Let me back up…
The event was put on by an outfit called Skills for Change. This group helps new immigrants and refugees get training (job skills, language etc…) and find employment in Canada. It’s non-profit and they seem to be making a difference. These are real people who seem to care tremendously about what they do.
The award recipient at our table was named Achilla Orru. He was a musician originally from Uganda. He was blind. Achilla is a small man, about 35 years old and was dressed in a suit. He didn’t look like he was used to wearing suits. He was smiling when I met him, and I soon realized that Achilla is always smiling. He lost his sight in Uganda when he was 6. At about the same time he discovered a talent for music and specifically for an ancient instrument called the lokembe (or ‘thumb piano’).
Achilla invited us all to his next performance. Here’s a sample of his music. He’s a nice man and listening to him will make you feel better. It did for me. I’ll pass along any concert information I get.
Signature move (TBD)
Posted by Bill McCollam in Marketing/Psychology, Potpourri on February 22nd, 2009
I don’t really have a signature move. But I’d like one.
Many of us remember the Michael Jackson moonwalk, Fonzie’s thumbs up, John Wayne’s swagger/hitch, the Ali shuffle and Carol Burnett’s ear tug. I heard recently that Denzel Washington has a move that he’s actually had added to his movie contracts. Apparently, early in his career, Denzel was admired for his very distinctive walk (especially as seen from the rear). So, in order to capitalize on this walk - he and his agent try to write it into every movie he does. The last scene in all his movies, if this is true, must be of Denzel walking away from the camera.
I’m not sure if this is true in all or most of his movies. I’ll hunt down a few of his 49 films and investigate (stay tuned). But it is an interesting story. If you could have a signature move, some unique mannerism that would forever remind people of you - what would it be?