Jul 12 2010

Barefoot Bandit Captured

The “barefoot bandit” was finally captured after 2 years of thumbing his nose at authorities.

http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2010/100712bandit.html

This is a 19 year old kid who escaped from a halfway house, and went on a burglarizing, stealing rampage for 2 years. It’s amazing he was able to elude police for all that time. Also, he seemed to really enjoy the notoriety as he’d leave clues (like chalk drawn footprints on the floor) when he broke in to some place. The guy is obviously pretty disturbed, and seemed almost like he wanted to be caught.

The thing that is most disturbing to me is that he has a “cult following” on Facebook, numbering in the thousands. These Mensa candidates post things like “Free the bandit”, and so forth. Um… Why? The guy is a criminal. If anybody else did any one of his crimes, we’d all say “sure, lock him up” without hesitation. How is this guy any different? It’s incredible to me that a fairly large segment of our society is willing to root for this loser, and propose that he should be allowed to do the things he does without penalty. There’s apparently a lot of brain-damage going around.

Jul 8 2010

The latest in sanitizer marketing madness

Here’s the latest in the sanitizer marketing series: Lysol’s “no touch” soap dispenser.

Yay! Another product nobody needs! Now they claim that soap dispensers have germs all over the pump handle. Oh nooooo! Now we’ve got to sanitize the sanitizer products! Whatever will we do – life on this planet is doomed for sure. As PT Barnum once said, and is sadly so true: “There’s a sucker born every minute”

Jul 6 2010

Store hours

It never ceases to amaze me how dumb retail business owners can be. If you choose to be in the retail business, then I’d think that you would want to maximize your profits by being open when people are likely to come into your store and give you money. After all, isn’t that the point of having the business in the first place? Apparently, this logic is lost on many retail business owners.

Know your clientèle: In this day and age, especially with our depressed economy, more couples are both working, and there are less “stay-at-home-spouse” scenarios. Retail hasn’t caught on to this fact. What is the point of having your store open Monday through Friday 9am-6pm, when nobody will come in and spend money because they are all at work?  Saturday seems like a prime shopping day, and Sunday ought to be also, except a lot of stores are closed, or have short hours.  This makes no sense.  If you want to maximize profits, be OPEN when people can shop.  As store employees need time off too, then close 1 or 2 days during the week instead.  Many Chinese food restaurants are closed on Monday for just this reason.  Smart cookies!  The one exception to this would be stores that cater exclusively to retirees. Obviously, these people can shop any time, so if that is your client base, then keeping “regular office hours” is fine.

Pay attention:  This weekend, I was in Lake Arrowhead village around 9am.  It seemed that only one restaurant was paying attention and noticed the long weekend.  As you might expect, there was a huge line of hungry people waiting to eat breakfast.  How fantastic for that restaurant, and you can bet they made a bundle.  What about the other restaurants?  They apparently were sticking with their normal weekday schedule, and didn’t bother to open until 11am.  Talk about “a day late and a dollar short”!  It makes good business sense to look at the calendar once in a while and ask yourself  if adjustments are necessary to maximize potential profits.

I have mentioned this to a couple of retail owners I personally know, and usually the reaction is “well I want to take the weekend off too, you know”.  OK, good for you, then you need to choose a line of work that doesn’t require you to be available when other people are not working.  Retail clearly is not a good choice for you, unless you don’t really want to succeed.

What affect does this have in the long run?  Personally, I find that rather than hunt around for somebody who is open when I’m not at work, I tend these days to just order things on-line.  The more inconvenient it becomes to utilize stores in person, the harder it’s going to be for them to survive as I see this trend becoming widespread.  People want convenience, and will vote with their wallets.

Jul 2 2010

Two inane things today

#1 – While waiting on hold for an HP audio conference, the recorded message says “you will hear some silence while you wait”. Really? As silence is the absence of sound, how can you hear it?

#2 – Audible has this recorded at the end of each part of a multi-part audiobook: “the file has been broken into multiple parts in order to make the download faster”. Just how would that make it faster? You still have to transfer the same number of bytes. That’s the same logic that says if you cut a pizza into more pieces, you get more.

Jul 1 2010

Kids in restaurants

My wife and I enjoy eating out occasionally (with our current economy, very occasionally). We don’t have kids, so maybe we’re just in the “grumpy old fart” category. Being seated near a family with unruly or loud kids is really irritating, and reflects badly on the parents. I thank my parents for teaching me manners when I was a child. I was not allowed to run around in a restaurant; I was required to remain seated with the rest of the family. It wasn’t a terrible hardship, and somehow I managed to survive. My sister and I were also not allowed to stand / bounce on the seats, throw things, squeal, yell, or otherwise make a nuisance of ourselves. Again, against all odds we survived.

Another thing I have noticed which also reflects badly on parents (not that they seem to care) is after the family has departed, the booth/table frequently looks like a war zone. There are food particles and trash all over the floor, all over the seats, and all over the table. You have to wonder what their house looks like – probably a garbage dump. The waitresses & busboys are not there to do major renovations to each dining area when the pigs (sorry, patrons) leave. If your kids still haven’t learned to put the food in their mouths instead of all over the place, leave them at home. Sheesh! Have some class, people.

Jun 30 2010

Diagnostics

Saw this today and thought it was classic:

Part of diagnostics is spending time figuring out not only what the problem is, but also sorting through what it isn’t.

Jun 28 2010

Java – it must be caffeine free

A lot of folks look at Sun’s “Java” engine as a most wonderful, empowering tool. I, however, shudder each time that little red coffee cup appears on my screen. Why do I react that way? It’s because in my experience, Java is problematic. There are tons of versions, none of which really are compatible with each other. Some products built on the platform require version X, and others version Y. Heaven help the poor soul who needs to run both of those products on the same box. A lot of web apps are java based. I go to fire up a web app, see the “coffee cup of death”, and my heart sinks, knowing that I have a 50% chance of achieving my goals, and a 50% chance of being frustrated for an hour or more while I troubleshoot this pathetic excuse for an engine. Some of the time, it just won’t work no matter what I do. I roundly curse the Java geeks, and find another way to achieve my goal.

So c’mon folks, let’s either put some caffeine into Java (Sun? Hello?), or quit using the stupid thing. Please! If more developers turned their back on the platform, it would probably get more attention by Sun. As tons and tons of people persist in using it, Sun has limited incentive to get this right.