In recent reading, I’ve stumbled on a paper by Carlo M. Cipolla. An Italian, Cipolla taught economic history at the University of California at Berkeley.
Plugs
Irreproducible
There was a magazine I read back in the 80s that I enjoyed: The Journal of Irreproducible Results, or JIR. A lot of the nerdy folks at NASA liked it (and there are a lot of nerdy folks at NASA!): it is, according to its tagline, “The Science Humor Magazine”.
The Return of Paul Myers
OK, my old buddy Paul hasn’t gone anywhere, but I’ve talked about him before on this blog, and it’s time I talked about him again. He’s the type of friend that if I make a quick phone call to him (as I did today, to catch up), we end up gabbing for over an hour. Sometimes three.
Curiosity: the Mars Science Laboratory
My writing time this week was interrupted: I only started in the late evening, because I had my satellite TV tuned in to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they were monitoring the landing of the latest rover on Mars, Curiosity (the best-named science craft ever); the mission itself is called the Mars Science Laboratory — accurate, if not as inspiring.
Click Millionaires
YAIBB — Yet Another Internet Business Book — arrived here on Friday, sent to me because it’s YAIBB that mentions me, This is True, and the GOOHF cards.
Looking at its Amazon reviews elicited a chuckle.
My Highest Recommendation
Now and then I mention interesting books I’m reading, or TV shows I’m watching. I’ve found two related TV specials that are so good, I ended up saving them and showing them to my wife, who is also finding them fascinating.
A Glorious Dawn
I’m really taken with a video released on YouTube last week. It’s an Auto-Tune, which is the name given to soundtracks that use the audio plug-in of the same name. Auto-Tune was designed to correct the pitch of vocals, but clever music creators realized they could use it to make spoken word recordings musical. This is a fantastic example of the genre.
How I Beat Spam
…Without Having to Change My email Address
My email address has been around online for many, many years, and it gets a lot of spam — many hundreds per day. For most users, spam far outstrips legitimate mail. It was 1996 that I realized that spam would become a huge problem, which is why I wrote my Spam Primer to educate my readers about it. And sadly I was right: it’s estimated that more than 90 percent of all email transmitted is spam. And how many of them get to my inbox? Lately, I’m averaging less than one a day.
The War on Kids
There will probably be two responses to the first story in this week’s issue: 1) I was too hard on the public library/librarian, and 2) I wasn’t hard enough on her. To be sure, my tagline was judging her based on the standards of the American Library Association.
7 Minutes of Terror
“Seven Minutes of Terror” — that’s what NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I worked for 10 years before leaving to work on True full time, went through yesterday.
Shift Happens
There’s a group of friends I hang out with online, all of us online entrepreneurs. One sent a URL around urging us all to “take 8 minutes to watch the video,” adding “if you care about such things, please consider blogging about it and/or passing it on.” What things? Our kids. Or, more accurately, the education of our kids. The world is a very, very different place than it was when we were kids.
Be Unreasonable
Today I got a copy of the new book Be Unreasonable: the Unconventional Way to Extraordinary Business Results by small business coach Paul Lemberg. In the book, Lemberg uses me and True as an example of starting a business in an “unreasonable” way (in his chapter on “Unreasonable Thinking”).
TV Land
I don’t watch very much TV, so when I do I want something that’s interesting and thought-provoking as well as entertaining. There’s a new show on this year that I really like — and naturally it’s not doing all that well in the ratings. Why?
Why You Need to Vote
Midterm elections are being held in the U.S. on November 7. Midterms, which are called that because they are for open seats in the federal House of Representatives and Senate but not the President, tend to have low voter turnouts. That is a huge mistake.
Identity Theft: Protect Yourself
or, They Really Are Out To Get You
I’ve been warning about spam in True since 1996 — ten long years. My warnings have been summarized in my Spam Primer, which is now on its own site. As I predicted more than 10 years ago, it’s gotten worse — much worse. And the stakes are much higher than just clogging your inbox: your life savings are at risk.
Online Video: Simply Cool
Ever since I saw Tron in 1982, I wondered how long it would be before computer power would allow anyone with talent to become a “real” filmmaker.
What’s on TV?
I get interesting gifts sometimes: an apparent reader (I say “apparent” because the address on the cover letter isn’t on my distribution list) sent me a 1999 calendar: yes, it’s the “Hollywood TVs” calendar! And no, it doesn’t feature television stars: the TV stands for transvestite — the person who sent it to me is …er… Miss March.
International Relief
The first charitable organization plug in TJI was for earthquake relief, after a 7.2 shock hit Kobe, Japan, on January 17, 1995: