GlobaLocal

August Bootstrap B2B: Beyond Cost-Plus: Pricing Your Products on Markets Old & New

2010-08-14T10:56:00.001-07:00

This month's B2B Subgroup meeting will be led by Christopher Hastings.Other than adding up their own costs and adding a % margin on top of that, most businesses have little knowledge of how to price their products. We are going to look at a few of the best tricks and tips for developing your pricing model for your business. Whether you are trying to build a SAS subscription model or running a

July Bootstrap B2B: "Smarketing"

2010-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Fernando Labastida will lead this month's Bootstrap B2B meeting.Topic: "Smarketing: How to market an international company in the US on a shoestring"When: Monday, July 26, 2010 7:00 PMWhere: Business Success CenterChase Bank Tower 7600 Burnet Rd.Austin, TX 78757933-1983By use of white papers, case studies, press releases, blogging and social media, small international companies can implement the

Valerie's first drive

2010-04-25T09:26:00.001-07:00

Prickly Pear

2010-04-25T09:25:00.001-07:00

Notes from Prague

2010-03-16T11:12:00.001-07:00

Found a notebook with some notes from my visit to Prague a couple of years ago that I'm not sure I ever transcribed anywhere. I don't know if this really has any value, but I don't feel like just throwing it away...So far most of the old hangouts in Prague that I've gone back to have been disappointing. Radost at noon on a Sunday would have had a line out the door in the old days. Zvonařka is

Ike water line, Galveston

2010-01-11T12:52:00.001-08:00

Hurricane Ike water line, Galveston

Starting to like the Business Roundtable

2009-11-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to like the Business Roundtable. Last month the CEOs' club published a report demanding action on climate change and promoting renewable energy; today they came out in favor of healthcare reform. Of course they still represent the corporate interest — the energy report also promotes nuclear power and "clean coal", and the healthcare report is decidedly lukewarm about the public

Converting work into conversation

2009-08-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

I love this:If I come right down to it, the reason why I'm not productive (in the "task finishing" sense) is that I prefer conversing with people about their interests over working in isolation. As a freelancer, this is a real problem. The way I push through is by constructing scenarios in which I'm drawing conclusions from the work that can later be turned into a new product, blog post, or

To the moon!

2009-07-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

Forty years ago today this nation launched a rocket that sent a man to the freakin' moon! That's the country I want to live in again. We sent a few more guys, and kept it up for about 3½ years. But then we quit, and we haven't accomplished anything that remotely compares since.Great photos from the moonshot at The Big Picture.

NYT: Obama Unveils High-Speed Rail Plan

2009-04-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Obama Unveils High-Speed Rail Plan - NYTimes.com: "Obama Unveils High-Speed Rail Plan"Bill Holloway would have loved this. The plan includes a Texas-Oklahoma stretch.

Sense of urgency... not!

2009-03-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Not to reopen old controversies, but if Dubya can get hustled into the White House on the most dubious Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott, why is it March and Al Franken still can't take his Senate seat?

Bailout for bloggers

2009-02-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

Someone had to do it: Leigh Caldwell makes the case for a stimulus package for bloggers.

The last of the Mac productivity hack blogs?

2009-01-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

Today I discovered John Chandler's Creativityist blog and quickly added it to my Google Reader subscriptions. The whole field of "life hacks" and "productivity tricks" has taken some abuse of late, even from the great Merlin Mann, who practically invented the genre. No one else seems to be writing much about nifty information and task management software and the cleverest ways to use them any

English supremacists lose one in Nashville

2009-01-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

The more time I spend in the post-Bush era, the better I like it. Congratulations Nashville!

Slovenakia, a leading export market

2008-07-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

I notice that ZPA Nová Paka, a.s., purveyor of fine meters and control systems, lists Slovenakia (scroll down) as an "export territory". I wonder what currency they bill their Slovenak customers in.

Coffeemaker

2008-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

Bought a little one-cup coffee maker today and I'm now sipping my first cup of coffee from it. One by one you acquire these little assets that make life more livable. I should have done this weeks ago, but I still think it will pay for itself before I leave Europe.

5 Poor Excuses For Not Learning a Foreign Language

2008-07-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

Steve Kaufmann at PickTheBrain has a post demolishing "5 Poor Excuses For Not Learning a Foreign Language". There are more than just a few countries where practically everyone knows two or more languages. In the United States, outside the Latino community, it's unusual to know even one foreign language. How many life-enriching (not to mention pocketbook-enriching) opportunities are we passing up

Photos from Rügen

2008-06-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Rügen is a Baltic Sea island belonging to Germany that I visited last Saturday.JaromarsburgSite of the last major Slavic pagan temple. The ridge behind the tower is all that remains of the temple fortifications. Wikipedia has more on the Rujani, the Slavic inhabitants of Rügen from the 7th to the 13th century.SvantovitA modern interpretation of the four-faced Slavic deity Svantovit.View of the

Berlin photos, June 2008

2008-06-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

ReichstagThe Reichstag, home of the German parliament.S-BahnThe S-Bahn (commuter rail) station near my hotel.Soviet tankA tank at the Soviet war memorial. I can still remember when the memorial was guarded by a bunch of not-to-be-messed-with Soviet troops. Back then this guy would have ended up skewered on a bayonet.HauptbahnhofInside the main passenger rail terminal. This building fascinates me,

Serbia June 2008

2008-06-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

FamilyA few photos from our stay with my wife's family. My daughter Valerie is on the front left; my wife Tanja is in the back in front of the little white truck. The rest are Tanja's parents and brother and his family.From caveThe view from the mouth of a large cave in the Serbian mountains.View from ZlatiborView from a stop on the Šargan Eight narrow-guage railway on the mountain Zlatibor.More

Berlin June 1, 2008

2008-06-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent more time searching for wifi hotspots than anything else. Hotspot, by the way, is accurate in more ways than one -- we're in the middle of a heat wave, practically nothing is air-conditioned, and the signal is usually not strong enough to sit outside.The upshot is that I haven't been able to find anything near my "hotel" (more on that below) except one slightly pricey restaurant

London May 2008

2008-06-01T10:30:00.001-07:00

TouristsA few photos from our recent visit to London. Here's my wife Tanja and daughter Valerie taking pictures at the Tower.TowerBridgeThe Tower Bridge.CrepisteA young lady making crepes at a booth near Parliament.We mostly did the tourist thing in London. More later on Prague and Berlin -- I seem to be spending most of my time here searching for WiFi hotspots....More London photos here.

Top lobbyist reveals views on democracy

2008-04-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Paul Miller, former president of the American League of Lobbyists, tells the Austin American-Statesman what his ilk really thinks of democracy:"I don't think the way you advocate is to put everything online and say, 'All right American people, weigh in on that,' because then what's next?" Miller asked. "Are we going to let the American people decide our defense policy, our trade policy, our

Homogen(e)ous

2007-11-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

It seems homogenous and homogeneous are actually two different words with distinct meanings. Who knew?

Oxymoron?

2007-10-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, but somehow I can't quite take Blog Action Day seriously. "What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?" Prob'ly nothing. I do hope y'all prove me wrong.

Where's Janez?

2007-09-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

Der Spiegel reports on the mysterious absence of Janez Drnovšek, president of Slovenia (not to be confused with that other place), who has not been seen in public since July. Presidential spokesman Ivo Vajgl explained the unexpected cancellation of a meeting between Mr. Drnovšek and Italian prime minister Romano Prodi scheduled for this Monday by saying the president was enjoying his vacation and

Democracy = racism?

2007-09-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Der Spiegel is covering a report from the Swiss Federal Commission Against Racism that condemns Switzerland's naturalization process as racist, largely because some individual citizenship applications are subject to popular vote in the applicant's municipality. The procedure fails to protect applicants' privacy and can expose them to racial discrimination, according to the report.Switzerland's

Capitalism good or evil?

2007-08-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Economist Blog is running a series of posts by guest blogger Chris Coyne on "the link between capitalism and democracy":To reiterate the connection between capitalism and democracy, free markets tend to foster democracy because private property, which is central to any notion of capitalism, produces a sphere of autonomy that grants each individual certain liberties. Private property disperses

Paradiggums

2007-07-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know where this is going, but it occurs to me that perhaps it's time to move beyond the buyer-seller paradigm in business and instead consider a model in which all parties are partners in a shared venture....

Texas and Bosnia

2007-02-08T06:04:00.000-08:00

Doug Muir writes:I’ve known a lot of Bosnians. They’re lovely people. But their politicians are, by and large, the scum of the earth. Nowhere, not even in Serbia -- not even in Texas -- is there such a baffling contrast between likable, easy-going ordinary people and the venal, mean-spirited asstards they choose to lead them. It’s a disturbing mystery.

The end is near for dotcom bust memorial

2007-02-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

Austin's own unintended monument to the dotcom meltdown, the skeleton of the never-finished Intel building at fifth and San Antonio, abandoned in 2001, is finally scheduled for demolition this month. About time!

Another voice

2006-12-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

Dogbert weighs in on the electronic voting debate.

Indirect

2006-12-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

CNN is carrying a wire service story about villagers in Indonesia who killed a crocodile and found human body parts inside:When the villagers got over the shock of finding human body parts inside its abdomen -- together with skull fragments, strands of hair and a pair of shorts -- they cut the beast into pieces and divided up the meat. So assuming they did the obvious thing with the meat they

Common Ground saves Christmas

2006-11-30T07:45:00.000-08:00

Common Ground Relief Legal Defense reports:Thanks to all who took part in our last action. Hundreds of e-mails from folks around the world in support of the Woodlands residents went directly to the Johnson Properties Group, LLC. The results of Tuesdays court hearing can be claimed as a partial victory. Grassroots public support played a huge role in the negotiating of an agreement that

Stop NOLA evictions

2006-11-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

Common Ground is campaigning to block a "holiday eviction" of 100 families from apartment units it has been rehabilitating in New Orleans:As you may know, Common Ground has been managing the Woodlands apartment complex for the past five months, with the intent to purchase the property to create cooperative housing, small business cooperatives, social programs and human services offices, all while

After the earthquake

2006-11-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Karl Rove's dreaded 72-hour election-stealing conspiracy ended up looking more comical (annoy-a-thon robo-calls purporting to be from the other candidate) than sinister this time around. Are the faults of electronic voting machines finally starting to get enough attention that the villains are afraid to monkey with them? Or was Ohio never really stolen in 2004 after all? I still haven't seen a

Thoughts on the definitive GTD app

2006-10-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've used David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity methodology, with various personal tweaks, for several years now, but I keep wavering between digital and paper implementations. There are some fairly good GTD management apps out there for the Mac -- I've been looking in particular at EasyTask from Orionbelt.com LLC, Ghost Action from Ghost Park Software, and Kinkless GTD (kGTD) from

A chicken on every disk

2006-10-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

The Inquirer (no, not that Enquirer) reports that Vista, the name of Microsoft's much-anticipated upcoming Windows upgrade, means "chicken" or "frumpy woman" in Latvian. "The poor sales person rings up and talks about 101 things you can do with a chicken and they think he or she is flogging a cookbook. Of course if they think he or she is talking about a frumpy woman then they are likely to think

Washer of evil

2006-08-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin points out a new triumph of German engineering: the Axxis washer.

Slovenakia Watch again

2006-08-20T23:38:00.000-07:00

Michael Manske, from the one with an 'n', offers "The Ultimate Guide to the Mix-up". Remember, slovenka is a female Slovene in Slovene, but a female Slovak in Slovak. Got it?

Participatory Democracy

2006-06-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll be at the Green Party of Texas state convention proposing an amendment to the party bylaws to change the wording of the state version of one of the Ten Key Values. Specifically, I'd like to change to formulation Grassroots Democracy to Participatory Democracy.First, the phrase "Grassroots Democracy" doesn't really carry all that much meaning. Second, I believe "Participatory

A blog strategy

2006-05-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not getting much out of this blog because I haven't developed a strategy. I should create categories, or maybe separate blogs, for business, personal, political and maybe technical content. I should define goals for each category and devise posting roadmaps in pursuit of those goals. And I should develop a promotion strategy to try to attract a few readers....

Blogging with Flock

2006-04-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

Just testing to see if this works. Flock is a browser with a built-in blogging interface, among many other nifty features. More later!

Farm-fresh onions

2006-04-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo! Tanja picked up our first fresh vegetable basket of the season from Hairston Creek Farm today. Onions, carrots, beets, spinach, chard, endive, plus a dozen free-range eggs -- all organic of course. Yum!

Vision

2006-02-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy· 15-year limit set for switch to renewable energy· Biofuels favoured over further nuclear powerIf the United States were still a world leader, we would have been the first to take up this challenge. This country had vision once. Now the only thing we do really well is break things....

Infamy

2006-01-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

January 30, 2006 will go down in history as a dark day for our democracy and a milestone in the far right's campaign to render our Constitution an empty shell. Today 18 - eighteen! - Democratic Senators voted with the Republicans to block a filibuster against confirmation of ideologue judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, virtually assuring the Bush regime a compliant rubber-stamp court as

Living will

2006-01-30T08:35:00.000-08:00

This has been making the e-mail rounds:Living Will Form I,__________________________, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pinhead politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it or lawyers/doctors interested in simply running up the bills. If a

The Open-Source Cultural Agenda

2006-01-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

Douglas Rushkoff suggests three pillars of the "deeper cultural agenda" of the open-source movement:The systems by which we live are inventions and conventions.The codes underlying those systems can be learned and rewritten.This process best takes place collaboratively.Sounds like an outline of participatory democracy to me.(Tip o' the keyboard to Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog.)

Don't be evil

2006-01-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

An open letter to Google:Don't be evil!We don't want Google to censor search engine results. Not in China and nowhere else in the world.

Welcome aboard, Molly!

2006-01-25T07:24:00.000-08:00

In her January 22 column, Molly Ivins writes:You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely. [...] Do not sit there cowering and

Green/Libertarian health care model

2006-01-20T11:08:00.000-08:00

Esteban offers a potential hybrid Green/Libertarian health care model that I find more appealing, and truer to the Green Key Values, than the official Green Party position.First, we change national health care to municipal health care. There's not much of a case to be made that bureaucrats thousands of miles away could administer health care better than local folks. Indeed, that's Greens'

R.I.P. Jim Fortier

2005-12-28T05:06:00.000-08:00

A great man in the small world of FileMaker database development has "passed on to the happy database in the sky (lets hope it has a few more features than FMI has been able to provide)".The Fortier family would like everybody to visit Jim's personal Web site and read about his experience during his illness.

Chimneys and roofs

2005-12-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

New Orleanian-in-exile Ray offers a post-Katrina version of A Night Before Christmas (which in true blogger style he seems to have found at third- or fourth-hand).Nothing was hung by the chimneys with careSince chimneys and roofs were no longer there....

Tom Waits

2005-12-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Saw the headline "Tom Waits is dead" and was ready to be all saddened, but it turns out it's just some lady's cat.

It's a cellphone! No, it's a PC!

2005-12-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

Between the Mac Mini and the iPod, I was really expecting Apple to be first with something like this:DualCor Technologies next month will unveil the cPC, a full-fledged handheld Windows XP computer that also comes with a built-in smart phone that runs Windows Mobile 5.0. The cPC is 6.5 inches long, 3.3 inches wide, 1.2 inches thick and has a 5-inch diagonal screen. It will be aimed at sales

Washington Post on Malik Rahim

2005-12-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post has a generally positive profile of Common Ground founder Malik Rahim:For a Former Panther, Solidarity After the Storm"Rahim, a Green Party candidate for City Council in 2002, is the nucleus of Common Ground Collective, a grass-roots recovery effort of volunteers parachuting into the city from points across the nation. Rahim's late mother's home, which survived the storms

Deutsch für alle!

2005-12-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

German for everyone: "Apple's misstep recalled a meeting with Compaq some years back when an engineering manager suggested a money-saving shortcut to localizing laptops for Germany. Rather than translate the documentation and otherwise adapt the product to German market needs, he suggested bundling a 'Learning English' CD with each new laptop sent to Germany. [... T]here was some enthusiasm

Washington Post: Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal

2005-12-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan. The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said

More photos from New Orleans

2005-11-30T08:20:00.000-08:00

Some photos from the Thank You Feast at Common Ground last Thursday:Common Ground sign at the 9th Ward Distribution CenterVolunteers and local residents in the food lineMembers of Playback Theatre (I should probably do a post about them...)The Green Team. Clockwise from left: Common Ground founder Malik Rahim, two California Greens whose names I neglected to write down, me, Joy Glatz of Dallas

Remains of early mixed-race homestead found in eastern Travis County

2005-11-29T05:46:00.000-08:00

An interesting bit of local history:Webbers Prairie, Travis County, Texas: "Webber's Prairie is a little known jewel in Travis Co., east of Austin, Texas. Our purpose in creating this web site is to raise public awareness of its unique history and of the imminent danger of losing this vital contribution to the early settlement of Texas by a mixed race family."

Common Ground

2005-11-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

There are whole districts in New Orleans that have hardly been touched in the three months since Katrina and the flood. There's still no power, and for miles in all directions there are yards full of debris and houses full of toxic mold and ruined furniture and people's jumbled belongings. It's mind-boggling. A few residents of these places are trying to return, but the houses are uninhabitable

Going to New Orleans

2005-11-18T06:56:00.000-08:00

I may have to suspend the daily blog post experiment for a week. I'm going to New Orleans to take part in the Common Ground Road Trip for Relief project along with some other Texas Greens, and I don't know whether I'll have Internet access. If I do, I'll post from there; if not, I'll report when I get back."The folks at Common Ground invite you to join an estimated 300 volunteers from around the

Green Paradigm Reading List

2005-11-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

Steve Welzer offers over 500 titles in his "Green Paradigm Reading List", from Edward Abbey to Michael Zwerin. If this is just the sample, I'm not sure I want to see the whole list!

Following instructions

2005-11-17T06:55:00.000-08:00

When I receive solicitations from freelance translators seeking work, I respond asking them to "send your résumé/CV and a brief sample of your work INTO your native or dominant language, with original, enclosed in a StuffIt or Zip archive, using your last name as the filename." I find that only about 15% of respondents actually follow the instructions. It seems like such a simple thing, but

Mid-month stocktaking

2005-11-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

Halfway through my "post every (week-) day" experiment seems a good time to draw some preliminary conclusions. First, I am capable of pumping out some verbiage every day; whether it serves any purpose to expose it to public view remains an open question. Second, the exercise does make me aware that there are certain topics that I can and should be writing about. But third, the commitment to

Anagram

2005-11-15T10:18:00.000-08:00

Michael Grant -> Lethargic ManFits today.

Why I'm not a Democrat

2005-11-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Message to Democrat Apologists | Green Commons: "While there's absolutely no doubt that this president put his thumb on the scales in order to make certain the case for war prevailed, it's equally true that Democrats joined the warbeat out of sheer corwardice because, historically, few elected federal officials have ever survived by opposing a sitting president's call for war. You people placed

Translation Quality -- Subjectivity and Hard Numbers

2005-11-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

"Quality" is a much-abused word. In the language services industry, most quality assurance or quality control systems seem to be based on models from the manufacturing world and to depend heavily on strictly defined procedures and checklists. While these systems are good at isolating and preventing "errors" (in meaning, grammar, spelling, etc.), a translation can be "error-free" and still be of

Geek headline of the day

2005-11-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Japanese robot lost in asteroid mission - Nov 13, 2005

Ethical dilemma

2005-11-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

A good client asks me to do a job I have ethical qualms about. The ethical issue is not related to anything illegal or universally condemned--it's an issue on which honest people may differ but that I feel strongly about. But as I said, it's a good client....

Economic sustainability at the community level

2005-11-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

This is what the key value of community-based economics is all about. Within the natural limits of the ecology, we have an obligation to keep entropy at bay and meet human needs. To do so, we seek to build thriving communities on the basis of successful rooted, human-scale businesses. A community is unsustainable without a functioning economic base.....

Torture Scooter first

2005-11-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

"Here's an idea, and I can't believe I'm the first to come up with this modest proposal, but why doesn't the U.S. government just go ahead and torture Lewis "Scooter" Libby? And not just for that ridiculous name."If Cheney's for torture, why not use it on Scooter?(Don't forget Bugmenot for the registration.)

Texas institutes free love for everyone

2005-11-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | TOP STORIES | Prop 2 passes statewide, Travis County an exception Gay fellow Texans, you are now officially second-class citizens. But meanwhile, according to the ballot language, neither the state nor any political subdivision thereof may create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to the union of one man and one woman. Free love for everyone!

More feelers on economic sustainability

2005-11-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

On the organizational level, entities that generate their own resource flows have enormous advantages over those that depend on volunteer time and donation revenues. To be effective, an organization must first of all assure its own survival. Next, it must deploy resources in the pursuit of its aims. It helps to be able to pay people for their time--rare is the volunteer activist who can outlast a

Economic sustainability

2005-11-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

Sustainability, whether on the personal, organizational, political, or global level, has to include an economic dimension.On a personal level, the problem of poverty hasn't been solved until a family controls its own source of income. Dependency may be a step up from indigency, but in the long run it's not only politically unsustainable, but fosters weak people and weak communities.....

Green ideas sleeping furiously

2005-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

During a period of "conservative" ascendancy, progressives generally and Greens specifically often fall into a trap of continually responding to the other side's initiatives instead of developing constructive ideas of our own. Ever since Dubya took office, how much of our time and energy has gone into desperate attempts to block the latest outrage to emanate from the White House or the Republican

Celebrating the new minivan...

2005-11-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

... that our Bosnian-Croatian friends just bought...... with a bottle of Jack Daniels...

La Michoacana

2005-11-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Had breakfast tacos this morning at La Michoacana, one of a chain of Mexican-American "meat markets"--really grocery stores with a large butcher counter--with locations around Texas. Walking into one is like being in another country--the signage is almost all in Spanish, the staff speak little English, and the products on the shelves seem to be mostly imported, or maybe just specially packaged

An Experiment

2005-11-01T06:32:00.000-08:00

As an experiment, I will (try to) write at least a few lines on this blog every day (or maybe just every weekday) during November. We'll see whether I produce anything worth reading, or if it somehow helps me manage my own thought processes better. Such as they are. Today I'm off the hook because the experiment itself furnishes topic enough for those few lines. Tomorrow I'll actually have to come

Couldn't have said it better myself

2005-09-13T19:31:00.000-07:00

Guests in our community

2005-09-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't abandoned the blog, just either too busy or haven't had much to say lately. Hey, I never promised I'd post every day, or even every month.Right now I want to take a moment to welcome the many guests arriving in Austin and Central Texas from New Orleans and other areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Guests, and not "refugees," is what we want you to feel like during your stay here.

Separated at birth?

2005-07-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

Kennewick ManPatrick StewartThanks to Michael O. for the heads-up.

European Hate Graph

2005-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

What Europeans really think of each other (Another tip o' the keyboard to Carniola)

Slovenakia Watch no. 5477

2005-06-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Slovenia, Slovakia "The tiny republic of Slovenia got a bit of a shock last week when the Bush war budget listed the nation as one of the beneficiaries of grants allocated to "coalition of the willing" – prompting hundreds of Slovenians to take to the streets. Prime minister Anton Rop promptly protested: "We are a part of no such coalition. We are a part of a coalition for

Geek Love Poem T-shirt

2005-06-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hunger for power

2005-06-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

I was elected to the State Executive Committee of the Green Party of Texas this weekend. My unstoppable march to absolute power has begun. Tomorrow the world!

Apple Dashboard a harbinger of things to come?

2005-05-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

An anonymous commenter had an interesting thought after reading David Every's musings on Dashboard: "Maybe Dashboard is going to be part of an environment where a smaller OS can only run Dashboard widgets? Looks to me as if this Dashboard is the UI for some new class of device, and MacOSX is the testbed." Hmmmm....

The Emerging Green Majority

2005-04-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

UNDERNEWS: THE BIGGEST MEDIA SIN: "WHICH AMERICAN political party best reflects the views of a majority of citizens on the Iraq war, environmental issues, health care, campaign financing, population growth, genetically modified foods, and marijuana use? The answer, based on various polls, is the Green Party."

Texas to ban gay marriage

2005-04-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Texas state House of Representatives voted 101-29 to approve a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in the state. The measure must still be approved by the Senate before being put to the voters.

Billmon on politics and bloggery

2005-03-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

Whiskey Bar: My Back Pages: "It’s not, mind you, that I’ve changed my mind about the efficacy of blogging -- or the truth. I still think they’re both politically futile. The empire no doubt will continue mashing its way forward – until financial treads come off somewhere down the road. American democracy will continue to vegetate in the chronic ward, occasionally moaning or drooling or wetting

Hiring

2005-03-21T16:07:00.000-08:00

I might as well start getting this out there: some time this summer I hope to hire my first employee since returning to the United States in 1997. By then I should be out of the home office and into some more respectable digs. I'll be looking for someone willing to do grunt work at first, but with twice the intelligence and ambition and self-discipline of his/her boss. I want to hire someone to

Jack

2005-03-11T06:31:00.000-08:00

(Reportedly from Samsung Electronics:)Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?" Operator: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about". Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?"(Thanks to Paz!)

Arial Drones

2005-03-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

t r u t h o u t || A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence: "just because 1,502 American soldiers have been killed looking for the 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,00 lbs.) of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, arial drones to spray the aforementioned stuff"

Saint Businessman

2005-02-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

Saint Businessman: Robert A. Sirico Forbes November 15,1999 "What do you think of when you picture a 'saint'? Someone like Francis of Assisi, perhaps, who gave up his worldly goods. Or a Mother Teresa, making her life's work the rescue of India's outcasts. One type that does not come to mind is an entrepreneur. But think about this for a moment: Is there any law that says a saint cannot hold a

Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward: No Nukes Are Good Nukes

2005-02-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

No Nukes Are Good Nukes Joel Makower demolishes the love-letter to nuclear power published in the latest Wired (which was a pretty darn cool magazine ten years ago): "Wind, biomass, and other renewables are “capital- and land-intensive, and solar is not yet remotely cost-competitive,” claim the authors, while nuclear power is -- well, not quite “too cheap to meter,” a hollow promise the

R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson

2005-02-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

MSNBC - Writer Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide : "Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff’s officials said. He was 67." Now when we need him more than ever.

Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility

2005-02-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility"As architects, we are responsible for one of the most expensive parts of the prison system, the construction of new prison buildings. Almost all of us would rather be using our professional skills to design positive social institutions such as universities or playgrounds, but these institutions lack funding because of spending on prisons.

About bloody time!

2005-02-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

Quark Gives First Look at XPress 7 Quark discovers Unicode, promises to enter 21st century.

Little Green Men

2005-02-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars: "What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth." (Thanks to L.S. Russel!)

Managing with Aloha

2005-02-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

Values of Managing with Aloha: A native Hawai'ian take on business (and life) values. 1: Aloha. Aloha is a value, one of unconditional love. It is the outpouring and receiving of the spirit. 2: Ho'ohana. Working with intent and with purpose. 3: 'Imi ola. To seek life. Our purpose in life is to seek its highest form. 4: Ho'omau. Perseverance. To continue, to perpetuate. Never give up. 5: