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Rapture Lives?

October 27, 2013 1:42:34.337

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Lost and Found

October 5, 2013 23:51:06.528

This is kind of cool - a da Vinci painting that had been missing for centuries turned up in a private collection:

But a 500-year-old mystery was apparently solved today after a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci was discovered in a Swiss bank vault. The painting, which depicts Isabella d’Este, a Renaissance noblewoman, was found in a private collection of 400 works kept in a Swiss bank by an Italian family who asked not to be identified.

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Unintended Consequences

January 7, 2013 18:53:25.983

I saw this article on what (some) flight attendants think about things, and this stuck out to me:

Our airline used to pay us when we showed up for duty at the airport. That was eons ago. Then we got paid our measly hourly wage when the cabin doors closed. Then it was when the plane's brakes were released. Now we get paid only when the wheels leave the ground ("wheels up" in airline parlance). We don't even get paid when we're taxiing! There can sometimes be hours of delay between the time we show up for work and when we're airborne. Different airlines have different policies, but it's a way for them to save money. So when we greet you at the door, we do that for free. When we serve you your pre-flight drink, we do that for free, too. No wonder our smiles are so fake.

If a flight is late, the airline might have to pay us overtime. If the flight is going to be late anyway, we've been known to delay it even further in order make sure overtime kicks in, which on our airline means up to double the hourly pay. We might find some minor defect in the aircraft or use some other ruse to make up for the money we don't get paid waiting for take off.

This is where many, many big organization policies end up. Some bozo with a spreadsheet has a bright idea about saving money, but the idea that an action might generate a reaction never occurs to him. Everyone ends up less happy, and the bozo gets promoted for "thinking outside the box".

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Phone Malware

January 1, 2013 14:33:25.911

Well, this is a cheery sounding bit of news:

Today Robert Templeman at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, and a few pals at Indiana University reveal an entirely new class of ‘visual malware’ capable of recording and reconstructing a user’s environment in 3D. This then allows the theft of virtual objects such as financial information, data on computer screens and identity-related information.

You download a camera app, but it's actually this thing. Awesome.

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Is it Cutting Edge, or Irritating?

December 24, 2012 19:12:59.476

The Times is crowing about "Snowfall" - a story it took them 6 months (and many people) to put together. Here's the problem - it's mostly irritating. Why?

As I scroll through, trying to read the text, video and photos suddenly appear out of nowhere. Not embedded normally, there's some clever, but mostly irritating, Javascript/HTML 5 involved. The clever embedding takes me right out of the story, and forces me to pay attention to.... trivia.

This isn't a large newsroom showing me potential; it's a large newsroom that's forgotten how to put together a story in a way that engages readers. Oh, and it cost tons of money, too. So not winning....

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The Zucker Dead Zone Expands Towards CNN

December 11, 2012 12:53:15.803

You have to love the moves CNN is making - bringing the man who nearly killed NBC on board. Maybe he can finish the job, and leave CNN with even fewer viewers than it has now. This analysis at PJ Media is pretty good, but this quote from Zucker says it all:

We have to remain true to the journalistic values that are the hallmark of CNN, and also continue to broaden the definition of what news is.

Scanning my cable guide, I notice 3 news channels - which means a halfway competent exec should get 1/3 of that audience without trying very hard. On the other hand, there are hundreds - hundreds - of other channels. And Zucker's big idea is to start competing with them? Here's a hot tip: If I want food news, I'll be looking to the Food channel, not to CNN.

Sit back and get the popcorn, and the last guy watching CNN should turn out the lights.

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Food Service Jobs Going Next?

November 28, 2012 8:51:46.596

At least at the fast food end, it looks like it's possible:

Single-item menus, zero line cooks and almost no wait times, MM’s proposed restaurant would be completely minimalist and tailored to improve guests’ experiences. Capable of pushing out approximately 360 burgers an hour, the machine takes up only 24 square feet, allowing for more spacious seating areas and hopefully more time spent improving the overall dining experience.

The full service restaurant will never go out of style; you're paying for the experience, not just dinner. But at the low end? I expect a lot of those jobs to die the same way factory jobs have.

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News You Can Use

August 22, 2012 9:12:09.000

Maybe that last 18 months of college (way, way back when :) ) was good for me:

But today new research being released at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association reports that college students who binge drink are happier than those who do not.

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Heat Death of a Company

August 15, 2012 9:02:35.774

I've only just seen this story about United's vast incompetence with a child traveling alone - the key part of the story to me is how every single person that the parents talked to tried to push them off. Things like this happened over and over again, after the child in question got stranded in Chicago (no one met her to help her get to ger connection, and believe me - O'Hare can be intimidating to anyone who's not an experienced traveler):

The attendants were busy and could not help her she told us. She told them she had a flight to catch to camp and they told her to wait. She asked three times to use a phone to call us and they told her to wait. When she missed the flight she asked if someone had called camp to make sure they knew and they told her “yes—we will take care of it”. No one did. She was sad and scared and no one helped.

That's a corporate culture problem. There's no easy fix for that, because it represents a break between management and labor that is too wide to bridge over. The only real fix for United here is failure, followed by the parts being swept up by companies that aren't broken. Even then, many of the current employees are going to be problems, because they've been too ingrained in this dead culture...

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Are Car Dealers Aligned with You?

August 14, 2012 9:24:30.092

I agree completely with Mike Masnick on App.Net:

But it's flat out ridiculous to suggest that either one is somehow economically pure or has interests more aligned with users. What amazes me, however, is so many people are repeating Caldwell's assertions as if it's absolutely true, when it's clearly not. App.net may turn out to be a success or it may be a complete flop. I hope it succeeds because I like to see new companies innovate and do new things. But if it succeeds it won't be because it's more pure or more aligned with users. It'll be because it just executes better.

Consider car dealers - they offer a service (cars) for a fee. Have you ever really felt like they were "aligned" with you, the customer, when you went through the "let me check with my manager" dance? This notion that fee based services are somehow more pure than ad based ones is ridiculous, and Caldwell is either incredibly naive or deeply dishonest. I hope it's the former.

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