My buddy Kembrew just wrote a great article for this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, discussing how universities are taking on the structure and methodologies of corporations. And of course he manages to involve a couple pranks in the story. Check it out. (I have no idea why it’s in the careers section, or what that means).
Monthly Archive for January, 2007Page 2 of 2
I perfectly executed a joke on Coté, and he followed it up with a perfect cultural reference.
johnjosephbachir: i just bought from skype a year of unlimited calling, from any phone or network
bushwald: BAAM!
bushwald: How much was it?
johnjosephbachir: $150
johnjosephbachir: pretty good huh?
bushwald: $19.95 and you get a phone shaped like a foot ball?
bushwald: That does sound good.
johnjosephbachir: JUST KIDDING
bushwald: Did you cancel your other phone lines?
johnjosephbachir: IT WAS FIFTEEN DOLLARS
bushwald: Plus the Swim suit edition?
Today I was taking a cab home from an event, and I paid with a $20 bill. I got my change back, got out of the cab, and was 15 feet away when I heard “Sir! Sir!, you gave me too much!”. I turned around and saw the cab driver holding up 2 $20 bills. I thanked him extensively and took the extra bill.
While walking home I was wavering between “darn, I should have given him a couple more bucks in tip as thanks” and “honesty shouldn’t be repaid with money– he did what he felt was right and I will do the same in the future”. I remember in the book Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the main character (Laura’s husband as a boy, I forget his name) found someone’s wallet with the equivalent of thousands of dollars in it, and the guy gave him enough money as thanks to buy — if I remember correctly — 2 oxen.
I just bought a season pass to season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get it before, but I went ahead and bought the 90-minute (with no commercials) first episode for $2 (which, btw, was totally mind-blowing, heart-wrenching, intense, and awesome).
As I was buying the season pass, I was thinking “man, it sure would be nice if Apple detected that I already purchased the first episode, and refunded my money.” But it wasn’t a big deal, I knew mine was a rare case and probably not worth their time to develop that feature.
But as soon as I put the season in my cart, this message pops up:
It detected my redundant purchase, nice! However, I soon realized that this was merely a warning message, and not an offer to get a refund.
Come on Apple. The season-pass customers are the best thing that could ever happen to you. Why not give us first-class service and make us feel great about buying several season passes? I am thankful for the ability to catch up on a current season, and watch with no commercials, both of which are very valuable to me, but it is still something I would only do for a show I absolutely loved. Why not make my experience truly amazing, improve customer service and encoding quality (there have been a lot of complaints about the BSG season 3 video quality– but of course, there is NO way to give feedback, and we have NO hope that the episodes will be re-encoded), and hell, maybe tweak the price a little bit. If Netflix can physically mail me ~15 hours of content for $18 a month, you can certainly transfer ~15 hours of content to me over wires for the same price. How about half that? Come on, make me cancel Netflix, pleeeeeease?
I love the new French Press I got for christmas. It is well-designed, handsome, and makes great coffee.
However, the coffee preparation process is a little elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the sounds, smells, textures, and movements of a good domestic task. But at times I’d just plain like to get to my coffee sooner. Here is the current process:
- Put water into water filter pitcher if there isn’t enough already (there usually isn’t).
- Wait for water to filter. During this time I can put coffee in the french press, if it’s clean (it usually is).
- Measure desired amount of water in measuring container.
- Pour water into kettle and place it on the stove.
- Wait for water to boil.
- Wait a couple minutes for water to cool down a little (the documentation says “hot, not boiling”).
- Pour water into french press and insert lid/plunger assembly.
- Wait 5-10 minutes.
- Pour into mug. Delicious!
Anyone have any tips for optimizing the process?
I just finished watching Battlestar Galactica seasons 1 and 2 via Netflix. The show is currently in the middle of season 3, so if I want to keep watching via netflix I will have to wait a while. Season 2 was released on DVD in 2 batches (season “2.0″, and season “2.5″). If season 3 is released in the same way, then I’ll only have a couple months to wait, which is fine. But if not, I’ll have to wait a looong time before I can get my BSG on again, and I’m not willing to do that.
Googling around, I couldn’t even find any season 3 DVD rumors, so I’m pretty much concluding that it won’t be split up into 2 DVD sets like season 2 was.
I guess I’ll itunes it ($35). It’s cheaper than actually buying the DVDs, but of course so much more expensive than watching via Netflix. But if it was the old days (pre ~2004), I wouldn’t even have the option of quickly and easily catching up on a current season of a television show. So i guess I won’t complain.
Susan Crawford, a law professor at Cardozo Law School, usually writes sharp, insightful commentary on IP law. But today, she blogged a hilarious story about her New Year’s Eve experience. Check it out.
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