Category Archives: Wondering - Page 16

Four Letter Word

Posted by on February 13, 2014 No comments

Porn.  There, I said it.

It’s a weird thing, really.  Porn has been around probably forever, although mostly as a subculture.  It had a brief heyday in the 70’s where it was shown in legitimate movie theaters, then got buried until the Internet revival.  But the porn of today is nothing like the porn of yesteryear.  Porn has always been viewed by some as disgusting.  However, the modern flavor would make even an old-time connoisseur say it’s disgusting.  Hence its name: gonzo porn.

But I’m not going to delve into specifics of all that.  My interest is more in how the term is viewed and used.  For example, at a recent corporate meeting that included the entire building staff of obviously mixed company, someone was joking about putting up an online video about the new product we were launching.  Another person joked with him and asked why he didn’t have it done already.  The first person responded that he only did porn.  Awkward chuckles and silence.  The thought for him to even suggest a joke like that must mean it’s mainstream, although not readily accepted.

However, take a bunch of people who are geeking out over some new highly hyped product, like a new-model Corvette.  You would have no blowback from saying that an online photo gallery or demo video of the car was like “car porn.”  In this case, “porn” is used as a term for anything that is meant to stimulate, arouse, and excite.  And somehow, that is not dirty.

I originally got thinking about this post from a forum post made by an acquaintance about how a friend of his decided to become a porn actress.  She jumped into the business completely and has quite a catalog built in a short period of time.  Now, the forum this was posted on is male-dominated, so the responses were generally what you’d expect – pretty debased.  So then, as you would also expect, the question became, when would this guy get to have sex with her?  After all, she must like sex to do it for a living, and he’s a guy (apparently the only real requirement here), so when is it going to happen?  And if it doesn’t happen, well, that must mean the guy is beyond the lowest form of loser, to not even be able to have sex with a porn actress who is also a personal friend.

So here’s another odd standard.  The woman in the porn business is awesome on-screen, but worthless in-person.  I’ve definitely grown out of the “anything that moves” stage, so I’m probably just looking at this from an old-person’s viewpoint.  In fact, I’m looking at it from an intolerant, high-tolerance viewpoint, i.e. I have no problem that she does porn, but I take issue to people objectifying her.

What a problem to have.  A person meets someone and states he’s a doctor.  In response, he gets “Oh?  I have this problem, can you help me with it real quick?”  This woman meets someone and states she’s an “adult entertainer” and, in response, gets “Oh? I have this problem, can you help me with it real quick?”  Geez, I do computer stuff for a living and usually I don’t mind looking at someone’s computer problems, but it’s clearly still my choice whether to do it.

Some people even like to watch me work on their computers.  Voyeuristic weirdos.

A Small Light Bulb Moment

Posted by on February 10, 2014 No comments

Add to the list of soon-to-be-obsolete things: automotive high-beams.

A little over-dramatic, sure, but give it some consideration.  When is the last time you got to use your high beams?  Ok, that’s a loaded question.  Some people would say “all the time!” and some would say “never!”  It depends on how populated your area is.

I was driving home one evening and I was able to use my car’s high beams for the entirety of one span of roadway.  I never saw another car.  And that made me think back to my previous living location where you’d never get a chance to use your high beams because there were cars on every road at every hour of day.

As we become more overcrowded in this world, our high beam usage is going to become diminished, possibly to the point of being irrelevant.  Then again, we’ll probably have self-driving cars by then and we’ll all be shuttled around in cars having nothing more than marker lights on them.

I Guess I Won’t Bother

Posted by on January 29, 2014 No comments

One of my new fun things to do is find the source of images that are used in Facebook ads.  Copy the image URL, paste it into Google image search and see what comes up.

I had this ad:

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And I found the same picture used on Twitter, so I was like, I should let her know her Twitter profile picture is being used for a dating ad on FB.

This was the start of “her” Twitter feed:

image

The same post, over and over.

image

And over and over.  I gave up after I got back to posts from 2010.  I guess that face was made for spam.  Poor girl.

You Matter

Posted by on January 14, 2014 No comments

Yesterday, I was driving home and nearing an intersection.  I saw an emergency vehicle approaching on the cross street with its lights on.  I stopped at the intersection, although my light was green.  I certainly could have made it through before the emergency vehicle, but when you see lights flashing, you stop.  That’s the proper thing to do.  The emergency vehicle safely went through the intersection and everyone got on with their drive.

Afterwards, I thought, I might have just saved someone’s life because I waited.  From there, my thoughts went further out.  The restaurant I was at for lunch was really empty, so I tipped a couple bucks more than usual.  I might have just helped someone finally pay off a nagging bill.  The hostess was happy to see me that day, so I gave her a pleasant smile.  Maybe that will convince her to make that needed change in her horrible relationship.  I waited an extra second or two at a green light.  Maybe that slowed traffic down a little and prevented an accident somewhere.

The point is, everything you do has an effect.  It may be positive, it may be negative, most likely it’s both.  You may not know the effects you have with every little choice you make in the day, but that is how everything works together.

Everything you do has an effect on everything else.  You are the most important person in the entire universe.  Without you, things would be… different.  Now go out there and don’t fuck this up.

Doing It Way Wrong

Posted by on November 20, 2013 No comments

http://www.ibtimes.com/kleargearcom-woman-hit-3500-fine-bad-credit-score-after-writing-negative-review-online-retailer

This story caught my attention, so I had to do a little looking into it.  I’m no uber-sleuth, but I can put some things together. I can put together enough to make some conclusions.

My first thought when going to KG’s site was, oh, they’re ripping off ThinkGeek.  Then I saw the copyright date of 2001, and thought, maybe they were first.  Turns out they’re not, ThinkGeek’s copyright goes back to 1999.  But in the course of figuring that out, I found that KG’s internet domain was first registered in 2004.  I’m not sure you can copyright a domain name before it’s even registered.  Scam flag #1.

Looking at the next level: the address.  A reputable company will display its address prominently to provide credibility.  However, the address is a Michigan address and there is no corporate record in Michigan for their company – no DBA record either.  Looking further, the address is simply a mail drop, not a physical location.  Scam flag #2.

So where is this company?  The BBB website says that KG’s legal department had an address in San Antonio, TX.  No corporate records found in Texas for them either.  A quick search in LinkedIn shows three members, the CEO and the CMO of KG (Rob Key) and a freelance writer who contracted with KG.  The CEO and CMO are both in Michigan.  Hmmm.  Rob Key also might have an address in San Antonio, TX according to internet searches.

So let’s just assume that’s a dead end.  The biggest red flag is their help page, which basically spells out how you’re going to do business with them.  in short, it’s the most unfriendly terms possible.  There isn’t any way to check the status of your order.  I couldn’t even find a login to check your profile.  When you have so many other options out there, why would you even buy from this site?

I’ve seen this business approach before.  It was in my Finally Fast review.  Companies like this need to die a quick death because they are doing no one any service.  The unfortunate thing is that the owners live on and create a brand new entity just like the last one.

Prime Season

Posted by on October 31, 2013 No comments

A little while ago I was shopping on Amazon’s website and the product I found had two sellers from which to buy.  One seller was cheaper, but wasn’t eligible for Amazon Prime’s free shipping.  The other seller was Amazon itself – so, free shipping – but the price was more expensive.  If I had to pay shipping, the cheaper vendor would have won out.

This got me thinking about a couple of things.  First, I had a little bit of pity for the seller who wasn’t Prime, but he probably gets business from non-Prime members, so that’s ok.  The other thing I thought of more carefully is the Amazon Prime membership itself.

Let’s forget the other benefits of Prime like the free streaming videos.  Let’s just say that when you buy a Prime membership, you are paying shipping costs in advance.  That is, you put $80 in a shipping escrow account and you use it up throughout the year as you buy Prime-eligible products.  How long will it take to use up that $80?  Maybe 10 purchases, give or take a few? 

Now, what if all the products you were buying with free shipping were a little more expensive than other sellers, but still cheaper than whatever it would cost with shipping from those other vendors?  Even if it was just a couple of dollars, it’s still cheaper, right?  A bag of gummy bears for $8 with free shipping or the same bag for $6 plus $4 shipping.  It’s $2 more on the product, but $2 less after shipping is considered.

But… you’ve paid for shipping in advance, remember?  You are chipping away at your escrow account slower than you might have thought, because you’re contributing a little bit towards shipping by paying a slightly higher price.  So, while you may think you’re getting an awesome deal by purchasing Prime, it’s not that awesome.  It can still be very good, though.  That 10-purchase, break-even point we estimated earlier could easily double.

The more important part is that Prime incentivizes you to buy from Amazon and not from other sellers – even other sellers on Amazon.  This means the profit from the sale of the item stays with Amazon.  And if Amazon is lucky, you won’t use so much free shipping as to burn through your escrow.

To summarize:  You pay more for a product from Amazon than from another seller.  The additional profit for Amazon goes to offset the cost of the “free” shipping.  You are also paying for some of that shipping from your purchase of Prime.

This is like a wet dream for number-crunchers: to come up with the perfect balance of item pricing that undercuts the competition by the smallest amount and still convinces the buyer to choose Amazon.  Can you imagine the computing power that is likely devoted to this formula every single day?

Shades of Taxes

Posted by on October 16, 2013 No comments

I recently watched a video on the dangers of “socialism.”  It was an animation and was intended to be humorous while delivering its message.  The illustration given was a classroom where it was announced that everyone would get the same grade, averaged from all the tests.  After the first test, everyone got a B, the next test, everyone got a D, the last test, everyone got an F.  This is how socialism works, apparently.

The problem with the illustration is that the subjects are of two distinct personalities: selfish and lazy, which is how anti-socialism people view the world.  You are either selfish and in it for yourself only, which is why you are a capitalist, or you are lazy and don’t want to do anything, which is why socialism is so great for you.

The world is so full of absolutes right now, it’s disgusting.  You are either Left or Right, Pro or Con.  And that designation, aside from having no variance, also has no subsets.  There will always be those that will fight for a cause and those that don’t care about it.  There will always be people who care about doing a good job and those who don’t see the point in it.

Here’s an anti-socialist viewpoint: why have garbage cans on the street?  Eventually everyone’s going to just throw their trash on the ground, because there’s no gain in using the garbage can.  All the effort of trying to keep the streets clean is wasted on those that don’t care, so why bother.  I mean, either you’re 100% for litter control, in which case you’d handle all of your trash needs yourself and have no need for government-subsidized garbage can entitlements, or you’re not, in which case the ground is your garbage can.

Flippant as it is, it exposes the hypocrisy of anti-socialists.  If it’s something they support, good, otherwise, fuck off.  These people want life to be a’la carte.  They want to pick and choose every single piece of their life experience.  So why not?

Yes, why not?  Everyone bitches and moans about their tax dollars going to pay for something that they hate.  So why not let them choose?  Why not?  I think we have enough diversity in America that everything would be funded as it’s needed.  You’d have your rich, educated types diverting their tax money to education programs, earth and hippie types allocating for environmental causes, farmers propping up agriculture subsidies, rednecks and bulletheads giving all their tax dollars to defense.  Despite all the stereotypes, it would all work out.  And you’d have normal people allocating some here and some there, balancing things even further.

So all this stuff about Congress budgeting and allocating and taxing and robbing people to pay Paul, it all goes away.  Each year, the income tax forms are collected and everyone has contributed a flat tax of 10%, 12%, 15%, whatever.  Everyone has indicated on their tax form whether they want their taxes spread equally or according to the category assignments provided.  You will actually have a tangible value assigned to the service, instead of “These people insist their service needs more funding.”

On Community

Posted by on September 26, 2013 No comments

The big, huge, #1, all-important “thing” right now in online business is “community”.  No matter who you listen to, you will hear that you have to build a community with your customers.  There’s one case where I feel this business dream was present long before it became a “thing” and just as the concept of “community” was gaining traction, they went and blew it all away.  That business is Woot.

Woot has had spectacular growth in its relatively short life.  It started as a deal-a-day website, offering one different product every day until it was sold out.  We’ll call that Woot 1.0.  Then there was the idea that Woot could offer more than one product a day, in multiple  specific categories.  Thus became Woot 2.0.  Then there was the idea that Woot could offer many products in each category for periods longer than a day.  This ushered in Woot 3.0, where it continues today.

Back in the 1.0 days, there was a very active community in the product forums.  You could discuss a product all day.  When 2.0 came along, this community became diluted.  And if it wasn’t diluted, it was stressed in that the members had to participate even more.  They didn’t have to, of course, but they wanted to because the brand was fun and all their friends were there.  When 3.0 landed, there was simply no way to keep up with the sheer amount of products begging for discussion.  And it showed.  Products would go days without any discussion on them.  Maybe due to lack of interest, maybe due to people not finding them or maybe not even bothering to look for them.

This change, while certainly increasing the bottom line of the Woot company – because stuff did still sell – created an environment totally different from past versions.  Imagine walking into a room and there’s a product on a display stand in the middle.  Also in the room are 50 friendly (sometimes sarcastic) people chatting.  All of these people have an opinion about this displayed product and you can listen to them talk about it or you can directly ask anyone about it.  Now, imagine a room with 20 products on display.  Still 50 people, but some are huddled around one or another product.  Your source of feedback is lessened and the credibility of the products and your business suffer.

So that’s the business aspect in favor of remaining small.  You have a group of loyal followers and they’re going to support your choice of product (or limited products) because that’s what you offer.  You’ve made the work easy for them to help support because your product offerings are limited.  As much as it pains me to make the comparison, look at Apple.  They have, what, like 5 products?  Anyone can help you to some degree on those.  On the other end of that comparison, just as painfully, look at Microsoft.  Such a massive selection, it’s so difficult to find any assistance with some obscure product like Small Business Accounting.

But getting back to “community” in Woot, you have to look back to the 1.0 days to find where that community really shined: the Woot-off.  Because you had one site, but the products constantly refreshed after being sold out, you’d have people discussing products all day.  And if the products were slow sellers, the people would stick around and chat about anything else.  It was normal for people to admit their work productivity dropping to zero because of involvement in the Woot-off.  Today, in the current 3.0 incarnation, there is a Woot-off happening on five different sites.  How are you going to possibly keep up on conversations on five different sites?  Why would you want to?  And the effect is very obvious.  Products now turn over much, much more slowly during a Woot-off.

So you have a brand community that is stretched too thin over too diverse a product base.  Could it be made any worse?  Sure.  These changes I described are also creating a strong sense of community apathy.  No one really cares anymore because there’s just too much.  I see some people becoming specialists in one category or another,  and bravo to them.  But you have to wonder if there’s any benefit to being a lone expert.  Where are your peers?  If you leave, then what happens?

There’s another change in Woot that is feeding this apathy – actually two changes.  The first change is the “no dead air” policy Woot seems to have adopted.  If a product sells out too quickly, another product is posted in its place.  This goes against the old policy of “you snooze, you lose”.  Yeah, you still lose out on the earlier offering, but there’s still something for you to buy, so no hurries.  The other change is the recurring items.  When you see Gunnar glasses sold for a week on one site, then sold for the next week on another site, then sold in a woot-off, then back again afterwards.  Or if you see another product on a side sale also appearing in a Woot-off, or like what just happened – a product comes back a second time in a Woot-off, what are you supposed to think?  There’s no shortage of supply, there’s no exclusivity, there’s nothing special about the sale at all.  You are cheapening your offerings.  Call it the Starbucks effect; or the Best Buy effect.  When it’s always available, the desire to have it drops.

So in conclusion, just when other companies are discovering how to rally their customer base and make strong advocates for their brand, Woot has figured out how to lose one of the most valuable company assets it could ever have.  If you’ve lived through Woot 1.0 and 2.0, you can see what you need to do with your business (and what not to do).  If you came in with Woot 3.0, you can only read history of what it was like.

Professing Love For One Of Society’s Downfalls

Posted by on September 25, 2013 No comments

I love Dasani.  That’s all.

No, there’s more.  Duh.  There’s a long-standing argument about bottled water.  People are always saying, “why are you paying for water?  You have it in your sink!”  The answer is simple.  That water sucks.  That’s all.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand the concept of bottled water.  I mean, I guess it might be strange if I lived somewhere back up north where I had clear mountain streams at my disposal.  I will forever remember the time I was in a training camp in the Poconos and I happened to drink some water from the sink.  It was amazing!  Smooth and clear.  Not like this limestone and calcium-ridden stuff we have here.  We even bottle this crap as Zephyr Hills bottled water.  It’s called natural spring water, and that’s what you get.  Lots of minerals for a “great” taste.

But Dasani, that’s the real great stuff.  So first, they filter out everything, then they add in certain minerals to give it taste.  Just like the minerals that are in the ground everywhere you go.  If I could find the place that had Dasani-like water from the ground, I’d be in heaven.  You can try different bottled water and it really does taste different between brands.  Aquafina’s good in a pinch, and Fiji is pretty good, too.

So the argument is that some people think other people drink bottled water because those people think their tap water is unhealthy.  That’s not true and I know it.  I’ll drink my tap water without any fear.  I just don’t like the taste.

Responsive and Slow

Posted by on June 13, 2013 No comments

A recent discussion with a co-worker resulted in the phrase “responsive, and slow.”  This came about from using Microsoft Office 2013.  Office 2013 is some kind of a pinnacle of where software development seems to be going, and it seems that’s just a bit too far.

For years now, asynchronous programming has been shoved down developers’ throats.  “It must be done this way! It’s how you achieve a responsive UI!”  Seems like desktop applications have always had background work being done.  The original idea was to do processing in the background, so you could cancel the work if you needed to and so you could display a progress bar.  This is fine. 

Then there’s the case of background loading tasks.  Lets say a dropdown list needs filled, so the dropdown list is disabled while the data is being loaded in the background.  Meanwhile, you have your mouse hovering over it waiting for it to finish and become enabled.  Now we’re starting to see the effects of async programming. 

Now, take everything and make it load async.  Your application opens and nothing is there, then things start magically appearing all over the place as they finish loading.  This is how Office 2013 feels, although that’s not literally what happens.  The best example is marking emails read in Outlook and there is a significant delay in updating the unread message count.

As long as I’m griping about Office 2013, I find the new Lync 2013 client to be ridiculous.  I keep my conversation windows on the left side of my monitor, which Lync is great about remembering.  The problem is, the new message notification shows up in the lower right of the screen, so I have to click there, then the chat window does a wicked-smooth slide all the way across my screen to where I keep them, then it does a fade in.  So, in addition to having to move my mouse the full width of my screen, I have to wait for the animations to finish.

But anyway, back to asynchronous coding.  It’s all supposed to be in the name of responsiveness, so the UI doesn’t get blocked by anything.  The problem is, maybe the UI isn’t ready for use yet!  Have you seen a UI with 20 “loading…” placeholders all over?  if you haven’t yet, you will soon.  T-Mobile’s account management section does it.   This is stupid.  How can computers be so fast and yet so slow?