We decided to pop some popcorn for Halloween, so I broke out our harvest gold hot air popcorn popper from the 1980s. The kids had never seen such a device and were fascinated by the popcorn popping and coming out the shoot. Next time they complain about being bored, I’m breaking out the Popcorn Pumper again.
I’m a self-identifying English language usage curmudgeon. But I tell you, misuse of apostrophes has become so rampant, it hardly even gets a rise out of me any longer. In just a few minutes of news scanning this morning, I ran across two incidents:
Google envisions a world in which all content is free; and of course, it controls the portal through which Internet user’s access that content.
Web store fails to monitor it’s own reviews board.
I just can’t get outraged any longer. It just makes me sad and tired.
A little juvenile humor for the middle of the week (click on image for larger version):
Our office manager usually keeps individually wrapped wintergreen Life Savers in the candy dish on the reception desk. But last week, she put out a Halloween bucket filled with chocolate. As I was eating more of the chocolate than I should have, I realized that they chocolates all had ‘Fun Size’ on the package. This got me thinking about the marketing team at Mars sitting around discussing this new product.
Marketing drone #1: OK, we’ve got this new product: bags of small mixed chocolates. How do we market them? We can’t market them on using our usual parameters: an increase in something–size, flavor, etc.
Marketing drone #2: I know! How about ‘Fun size!’ It’s devoid of any actual meaning, but it conveys excitement for a product that really has nothing going for it except that you can bag them up.
Kyle Lake, pastor at Universtiy Baptist Church in Waco, was electrocuted while performing a baptism yesterday. According to the AP story:
The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was stepping into the baptistery as he reached out for the microphone, which produced an electric shock . . . Water in a baptistery usually reaches above the waist, said Byron Weathersbee, interim university chaplain at Baylor University.
Just wanted to point out that author Sarah Bird (or at least someone who claimed to be her) left a comment on my review of The Yokota Officers Club. Ms. Bird was in town this past weekend for the Texas Book Festival. I wish I had met her.
From my Monday morning commute:
NOTE: Jesus seemed to be a courteous driver. As you can see, he uses his turn signals.
I did not know this: the standard unit of inductance is the henry.
Colleagues have noted lately that the software job market seems to be picking up. I’ve certainly seen an increase in the number of cold calls from recruiters, which would tend to support this observation. The next question is: are we entering another software boom?
Over at VentureBlog, investor David Hornik addresses another aspect of this issue:
Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed an increasing sense of unease in the venture community about the trend in Web 2.0 company creation and financing events. While no one is officially willing to peg it Bubble 2.0 for fear of missing the next great opportunity, I’ve been having lots of conversations with venture investors about this nagging feeling that we’ve been here before. . . So why am I now getting this increasingly uneasy feeling? I was chatting with a veteran of Bubble 1.0 recently and I think he hit on the thing that makes those of us who’ve seen this movie before most nervous. He pointed out that there are a large number of “companies” being created again for the express purpose of being acquired. I certainly have seen it.
. . .
If companies are indeed again being built for acquisition rather than independence, venture investors are in for a rude re-awakening (that will be precipitated by a very loud popping sound). While a few companies being built for acquisition will be acquired, the vast majority will ultimately run out of money and be shut down (particularly as each new Web 2.0 idea doesn’t just spawn one company but three or four). So when I hear large numbers of companies pitching themselves as excellent acquisition candidates before they’ve even gotten out of the gate I can’t help but think to myself that we are in the heart of Bubble 2.0. Sadly, only one thing follows Bubble 2.0 and that is Bust 2.0.
A new software bubble might be good for my job and compensation prospects in the short term, but I’d take a steady, healthy industry any day over another crazy boom and bust cycle.
I hold the now somewhat old-fashioned belief that wealthier people should be subject to higher tax rates. It is nice to know that Warren Buffet agrees with me:
I wouldn’t support it. We have, in my view, a taxation system that’s much too flat already. If you look at the payroll tax—which is over 12% now, and that applies on the first $80,000 or $90,000 of income—Bill and I pay practically none of that in relation to our income. For the people that work for us, their tax rate in many cases is the same or even higher than my own, since the rate on capital gains and dividends was cut to 15%. What has gone on in this country in recent years is a huge benefit to the very rich and not that much relief to people down below. Frankly, I think that Bill and I should have a higher tax rate on the income we get. We pay less than half the rate that I was paying 25 years ago when I was making a lot less money. They have really taken care of the rich.
(Via Rafe Colburn)
