Category: General

I’m sitting here on a smoggy Sunday afternoon, 33 stories up in a hotel in Taipei, Taiwan. Thanks to the busy travel season I’m here two full days before I normally would be. I contemplate the mound of work I should be doing as well as the plethora of crummy television on in Asia.

One thing that I am reminded of is how poorly Amercians are perceived outside the US. Bush has basically burned bridges the world over, and the general public will be paying for this long after he’s gone. It’s really, really sad, actually.

In the meantime I think I’ll find something more productive to do. Like breathing in some toxic local air, maybe.

There has been some news of late (here and here) where it looks like DirecTV and Tivo may be on the outs. This matters a great deal to me because I love my Tivo, and it is a strong reason for having DirecTV.

But, that aside, Tivo’s very livelyhood rests on the ability to keep subscribers (and thus revenue) flowing to the company. So why does this matter? Well, DirecTV = 1 million Tivo subscribers. Tivo on its own has only 500K subscribers. I think you can see why it would be bad for DirecTV to leave Tivo in the cold.

I hope that Tivo wakes up and understands that their business policies (read: high pricing) are what is killing deals between themselves and would be subscriber magnets like cable companies. It is only a short time before they are rendered irrelevant by the coming freight train called Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. Do they really want to fight their friends too?

It’s hard to believe that I would be tempted by the potential goodness of new, unreleased and untested products (really!) but two have caught my eye recently, and I don’t know how I can live without them.

Motorola V600 GSM camera flip phone
Apple Airport Express WiFi G + audio extender

Now, go find and discuss. I’ll just wait here until someone gives me one of them.

I received an email last night from a guy who has his email address posted on another site I manage. He was concerned that there weren’t safeguards on the email addresses and that they could be picked up by spammers. Good point.

In fact, as I look through several sites I find this to be a common problem: it is hard to be both open and informationally available while also being closed off from ill doers. As I search for the solution, if there is one, I suppose I’ll err on providing less information for the sake of better privacy.

It makes me wonder where the balance point is online. Isn’t being on a public network an admission of no privacy by proxy?

As I sit here in my hotel room at 11:51pm I now realize how little there actually is to do out in the midwest. I am in Lincoln, NE and there is two things I’ve seen to do (and confirmed with a local): drink and tip cows.

Let it be known that I have verified these facts first hand, or at least the drinking part. Now I recall why I left this region in the first place 🙂

I had one of those good days today where I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have friends. I had breakfast with one (and her daughter) that I hadn’t seen in a while. I chatted with a couple online for a few hours. And I spent more than hour on the phone with a third. The day pretty much zipped by. Talking and chatting with these folks does make time spent home alone less singular.

Now if only I could have squeezed some more work into the day, I would be caught up for Monday morning.

I’ve made it back from two weeks abroad. I have a cold of some kind that won’t go away and I’ve spent many hours getting DSL to work again. When you think of being on the road for so long you never assume that there will be so much cleanup at the end. Alas, that’s what today is for, I think.

Tonight (or this morning) I pack for what is sure to be some kind of interesting adventure. One week of fun filled customer visits in smog filled Taiwan. Then a follow up vacation in Thailand with virtually no planning on my part. I’m on the verge of complete panic, but I’m keeping it together.

If I get time to chronicle things a bit I’ll post stuff up while on the road. Otherwise, I’ll chat with you (or this log) in March.

I’m out in OK for the weekend for a grandmother’s 80th birthday. For once I chose not to fly AA and I made it here without fear of being denied access to the plane or without waiting for hours in the terminal.

My tradeoff for this trip is that it begins another month of air travel to all kinds of places. And I’m getting over a cold of sorts which has left me with virtually no voice. So I guess I can only type my complaints for now. Joy to you.

A friend invited me to yet another social network, this one called Orkut. So far as I can tell, its a more down to earth Friendster. Time will tell if this becomes another Google juggernaut (the guy who did the site works for Google.

I wonder if these sites really work. Thus far I have a good community on the business minded LinkedIn site, but have only connected with a few folks on there. Will Orkut find me love? I dunno, but I’m willing to bet it will find me some additional inbox spam.