29. October 2006 · Comments Off on Audrey on her pillow · Categories: Pictures

Audrey on her pillow

Ok, I am going to try and take one picture a day as per the popular meme. We’ll see how it goes. Starting off the bunch with Audrey on her pillow. Cat pictures = official membership into Legion Of Bloggers.

UPDATE – Daily picture idea lasted all of about five days. For further pictures, please see my flickr account.

19. October 2006 · Comments Off on 60 Minutes report on “No Fly” list · Categories: Linky

Unlikely Terrorists On No Fly List

A CBS 60 Minutes report on the “No Fly” list used in an attempt to screen out terrorists from passengers on airlines. They received a copy of the list from March, 2006 and noted, amongst other things:

  • It’s 540 pages long when printed out
  • It only records name and birth date (although airport screeners aren’t shown birth date, they only see names).
  • Contains many records of terrorists already dead
  • Doesn’t contain the names of many very well known terrorists
  • Doesn’t contain the names of really important, not publicly known terrorists, for fear of security leaks.
  • Contains many names that fit lots and lots of innocent travelers (“Like Gary Smith, John Williams or Robert Johnson.”). Anyone with this name is stopped whenever they try to fly, period.

So we end up with a massive, inaccurate list that hurts vastly more innocent travelers than terrorists. None of the original British suspects who have been charged with trying to blow up commercial planes are on the list.

This is the level of security we’re paying for. It’s a poor idea, mismanaged to the point of uselessness and extravagant costs. This is how the Bush administration consistently runs its so called war on terrorism.

14. October 2006 · Comments Off on Listamatic: one list, many options · Categories: Linky

Listamatic: one list, many options

Can you take a simple list and use different Cascading Style Sheets to create radically different list options? The Listamatic shows the power of CSS when applied to one simple list.

I ended up taking a web design class in addition to my full time MBA roster (re: tactically unwise). However, this puts me gleefully back in the land of CSS. I love CSS, for the thirty minutes it takes to make something beautiful and look at it in FireFox. Then I check it in IE and hate Microsoft, because their crap web browser can’t be bothered to support half the commands, so I have to go rip out all the cool stuff and leave a pile of cludgy hacks.

13. October 2006 · Comments Off on After the apocolypse, how long until human traces vanish? · Categories: Linky

Estimated times for the disapperance of Man’s traces

A nifty picture that shows a projected timeline of how long human traces would last on Earth if all humans suddenly vanished (aka: were eaten by zombies).

29. September 2006 · Comments Off on Failing to Learn and Learning to Fail (Intelligently) · Categories: Business, Linky

Failing to Learn and Learning to Fail (Intelligently): How Great Organizations Put Failure to Work to Improve and Innovate

This paper provides insight into what makes learning from failure so difficult to put into practice – that is, we address the question of why organizations fail to learn from failure. We identify pernicious barriers embedded in both technical and social systems that make collective learning processes unusual in organizations, and present recommendations for what managers can do to overcome these barriers.

29. September 2006 · Comments Off on David Habib · Categories: Business, Linky

David Habib’s Weblog

A weblog by one of AOL’s senior technical directors. Some very interesting thoughts on management in a technology context.

28. September 2006 · Comments Off on Nerd site of the moment · Categories: Linky

apophenia :: making connections where none previously existed

Danah Boyd’s blog full of random thoughts about online communities and other (typically technology oriented) musings.  I need to spend more time here.  Or go do my marketing homework.  Bah.

26. September 2006 · Comments Off on It’s official: I’m a (business!) dork · Categories: Business, Me, Me, Me, Me

A new stepping stone in my quest to become a huge dork: I have business cards. For my MBA program. Ha!

MBA Business Card

Yeah, so I changed a few details, but you get the idea.

PS – Weather update: still no rain and only two cloudy days. A native San Diegoan exclaimed, “it feels like fall!” That was days ago, and today I did note that it was slightly colder. I might wear pants instead of shorts to school tomorrow. Maybe.