19
Jun 01

think diff’rent

with apologies to Apple Computer, and Columbia Pictures (or whoever owns Diff’rent Strokes these days):

Think Diff'rent


15
Jun 01

minirant

i had a thought today.. .what if there was a site that you could submit a URL and email address, and a search engine would read through all the plain text on the site, following all the links that remain onsite, checking against a standard spellchecking dictionary, and email all the resulting misspellings and questionable words to the email address.

and wouldn’t it be great if it were free, sponsored by ads.

and, heck, while it was going through the site, since it had to read through every word anyway, it could do a really thorough indexing of the site for a search engine.

nobody would have the processing power or the gumption to do all that in a single pass, would they? well, maybe google….


15
Jun 01

minirant

i think i have come to the conclusion that i am allergic to antihistamines.


09
Jun 01

minirant

never ever ever buy anything, ever, from CompUSA. ever.

i’ve tried. i can’t do it.

i have my line of credit, i have my ID, i know what i want, and i know the SKU numbers. but i still can’t seem to make a purchase for more than a silly cable without incurring the wrath of CrapUSA.

it’s like i have an entry in their customer database that’s flagged and underlined, with a note attached that says “Screw this guy, and good.”


08
Jun 01

minirant

okay, let’s say you’re visa. or mastercard. the credit card people. and you want to entice your existing customers (like me) into getting another card for some odd reason.

so you send out a mailing annoucing some premium customer club, complete with benefits and bla bla woof woof. just like any other credit card promotion someone like me (or any other schmoe on their mailing list) gets.

except this includes a check. woo.

a check for a whopping $3.25. three bucks and a quarter. what kind of incentive to open a new account is that?

and to top it off, by cashing the check, hardly worth the ink it’s printed with and the stamp used to send it (and when cashing it, you’re supposed to put your existing credit card number on the back), you’re signed up for the new card with, get this, a lower credit limit and a higher interest rate than the one you already have. sign me up!

okay, marketing geniuses. am i missing something here?