So the idiots at Sprint send Joel Splosky an LG Fusic phone to review, thinking he will promote their service. Phone companies, as Joel points out, have a history of bad decisions: And it’s 2006, and I almost can’t believe I’m writing this, because way back in 2000 I wrote almost exactly the same thing …
Author Archives: paulschreiber
Mixing your metaphors
One of my favourite mixed metaphors—which I had somehow internally misattributed to David Johnston—was this one, from University of Waterloo registrar Ken Lavigne: Admissions is a crap shoot, and this year we won in spades This week, Peter Lewis of Fortune may have topped it: Apple is making applesauce out of the old canard that …
Keith Olbermann’s 9/11 commentary
Keith put together an impressive, impassioned commentary on September 11, five years later.
Lessons from interviewing
As part of my job, I perform technical phone interviews (“phone screens”) for our group and a couple others. The basic phone screen is more about breadth then depth, touching on C, Unix, object-oriented programming and some data structures and algorithms over 30 to 45 minutes. During this process, I’ve learned a few things, including: …
MySpace’s math is getting worse
According to Fox Interactive’s new math 1 + 2 – 2 = 2:
Kelley Blue Book used car pricing
When you use the Kelley Blue Book to price your used car, you go through a series of steps: Year, Make, Model, Value Type (Trade-In, Private Party, Retail), Trim and Condition. It’s pretty straightfoward, but there’s one usability blunder that bugged me: This screen is a waste. If there’s only one possible trim, well, just …
Day and Night (Out)
I received this email from the Howie Day mailing list: HOWIE PERFORMING AT ‘NINA’S NIGHT OUT’ Howie will be playing “Nina’s Night Out” sponsored by Mix 94.1, with all proceeds to benefit the Rape Crisis Center. Oh, the irony.
Carbon dioxide worst in 800,000 years
Researchers in Antarctica have analyzed ice cores going back 800,000 years, 150,000 years further than before. The news isn’t good: “Ice cores reveal the Earth’s natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide …
Taken is the new single
When you log in to Friendster, just below the fold is the People section. The first—and default visible—tab is “Local Singles.” Except it isn’t. Update: it gets worse:
One is the new zero
Apparently MySpace is using the the same algorithm as the Diebold voting machines: