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Instead of zinging friends and family with emails suggesting they read such and such, look at what have you, and the like, imagine having one central repository where items of interest could be marked, perhaps even given context, and in the process save people from the incessant pelting of little notes. It's worth a try.
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How annoying is it that Amazon audits its associates program to prevent you from selling stuff to your friends and family? I was thinking of signing up before next Christmas, and then pocketing 2 or 3% of peoples' Amazon expenditures, but apparently Amazon has figured this out, and it's a no-no according to their services agreement. Nuts.
posted by Ran Barton @
1:44 AM
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28.5.03  |
Safire's Great Media Gulp at link
posted by Ran Barton @
12:47 AM
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24.5.03 |
When this guy says Serious Lego, he's so not kidding. Whoa
posted by Ran Barton @
1:16 AM
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22.5.03 |
Thinking of buying a Segway? Rent one
Friday, May 16, 2003 Posted: 12:26 PM EDT (1626 GMT)
SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- Want to ride a Segway Human Transporter, the new self-balancing electric scooter that went on sale in March, but can't bring yourself to shell out $5,000?
Then you can rent one, if you go to Spokane, Washington state's second-largest city, and meet with Larry Lambeth, who started renting the scooter to the public last Saturday.
"The response has been incredible," said Lambeth, a long-time entrepreneur who bought 10 Segway Human Transporters with a partner and started his company, Fun Transport, which aims to rent them out to people looking for easy, cheap transportation.
Hoping for national launch
Lambeth is hoping that he can take his business nationwide, with help from Dean Kamen, the scooter's inventor, but so far Lambeth said he has no deal with Segway, which Kamen founded.
Lambeth, a longtime entrepreneur, is also betting that the scooter won't be banned from Spokane's sidewalks, such as in San Francisco.
Kamen envisioned Segway as a transportation device that could eliminate the need to use gas-guzzling automobiles for short trips and an alternative to bikes, inline skates and skateboards.
Others are also jumping onto the rental idea, with entrepreneurs in Seattle and Vancouver starting Segway rental businesses.
Segway Human Transporters are available only through Amazon.com Inc.'s online store, and buyers are required to take a training course from Segway before they start riding on the machine. Amazon hasn't disclosed how many Segways have been ordered or sold, but said it was among the top-selling items on its Web site.
Pay for a test drive
Rentals cost as much as $20 for each 30-minute increment, for up to 90 minutes "so that users will come back before the battery runs out," Lambeth said, adding that users are asked to waive any liability claims if they are in an accident.
Users can also pay $5 for a test drive, or "pre-glide" as Lambeth calls it.
Users will also get a two-way radio for their spin on the Segway to call for help if they don't have a cell phone.
And forget about renting one of the expensive machines and scooting off with Larry Lambeth's investment.
"We put GPS (global positioning satellite) units on them so we could track their location," Lambeth said, "but its hidden within the machine so don't bother looking for it."
posted by Ran Barton @
1:43 PM
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21.5.03 |
Big Hot Blurry Painterly Nudes!
"When the German photographer Thomas Ruff started looking at Internet pornography about four years ago, it was for research purposes only." Right. And he only read it for the articles... nice work if you can get it, though.
posted by Ran Barton @
12:31 AM
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19.5.03 |
Friedman points out another reason not to be in Baghdad
"There are no police in my neighborhood, no judge -- I can kill you right now and no one will say a thing," Hasanian Muallah, an engineer, said to me. link
posted by Ran Barton @
12:22 AM
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The Saudi House of Cards
A provocative column about dissent in Saudi Arabia and the future of the House of Saud. Is the CIA helping to undermine the current government? How did they wind up with as many geezers in line for the number one spot as China and the Soviet Union before Gorbachev? link
posted by Ran Barton @
12:13 AM
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What happens when you mix a BMW with Microsoft Windows?
Found at Macintouch, from Reuters, via Yahoo!:
Official Trapped in Car After Computer Fails
Mon May 12, 9:43 AM ET
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Security guards smashed their way into an official limousine with sledgehammers on Monday to rescue Thailand's finance minister after his car's computer failed.
Suchart Jaovisidha and his driver were trapped inside the BMW for more than 10 minutes before guards broke a window. All doors and windows had locked automatically when the computer crashed, and the air-conditioning stopped, officials said.
"We could hardly breathe for over 10 minutes," Suchart told reporters. "It took my guard a long time to realize that we really wanted the window smashed so that we could crawl out. It was a harrowing experience." So, whose software powers the BMW 7-series nervous system? A press release indicates that Suchart can thank Microsft Windows CE for his ten minutes of Bavarian captivity. For more information on Microsoft Windows CE for Automotive: link
posted by Ran Barton @
11:44 AM
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14.5.03 |
Reading today's news, I think there should be little doubt that President Bush will go down in history as the most pro-Israel president of all time.
No, no - not this President Bush. I'm talking about his father, George Herbert Walker Bush. From Friedman's column this Sunday
posted by Ran Barton @
11:30 AM
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13.5.03 |
Following a link from Orin Kerr, you can have your trust in the New York Times, such as it may be, clobbered by reading Off Target, an alarming account by the Washington City Paper of Times writer Jayson Blair's years of countless fabrications, errors, and shoddy journalism. A final bout with plagiarism has ended his employment at the Times, but that paper now has five reporters and three editors combing through Blair's reporting while at the paper. It's also worth noting that one reason Times Executive Editor Howell Raines gives for not firing Blair sooner is the protection afforded to him by the paper's writers' guild. No one should be able to use a guild or a union or any other shield to shelter them from the consequences of such poor judgment.
P.S. One of the most entertaining snippets in the article occurs when the irked Washington Post writers realize that Blair is close to being fired. "It is impossible to understate the weird kind of train-wreck glee that is pervading this room, now that everyone smells blood in the water..." noted a Post writer.
posted by Ran Barton @
12:26 PM
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8.5.03 |
Apple announced a new eMac, which includes the long-awaited-by-Mac-geeks new keyboard, and the same ol' still-driving-Mac-geeks-crazy one-button mouse. Still, Apple rumor sites abound with links to an Apple patent application covering a mouse with a buil-in dial that could serve as a jog shuttle or a scroll wheel. Pretty cool.
posted by Ran Barton @
7:12 AM
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7.5.03 |
BlogWorkz test...
posted by Ran Barton @
10:21 PM
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5.5.03 |
I keep thinking about Commander John "Loose" Lussier, Executive Officer for VS-35, and the pilot for President Bush's Mayday S-3 flight to the USS Abraham Lincoln. While I know Cdr. Lussier is a highly trained naval aviator, confident of his skills, his plane, and his ship, it seems to me that piloting the first United States president to the first ever Presidential arrested landing must be high pressure. Maybe not as high pressure as bingo fuel in foul weather at night with system failure, but not a landing to take lightly.
posted by Ran Barton @
4:01 PM
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Returned to reading John Lewis Gaddis's book Landscape of History.
posted by Ran Barton @
7:15 AM
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2.5.03 |
I finished McPherson's Crossroads of Freedom on the way to work today. While there were some points early on where his quotations seemed to overlap mightily with the readings from Ken Burns's PBS series, once McPherson's narrative hit its stride, it's a very readable book. I lingered over it to make it last, but it would take a more dedicated reader no time, and it constructs an excellent view, from many perspectives, of the action at Antietem, or Sharpsburg if you rather.
posted by Ran Barton @
12:40 PM
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1.5.03 |
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