Coming soon…and it mentions yours truly!
July 2nd, 2009
- The World According to Twitter, by David Pogue
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From the archives: At my window, watching the world go around…
July 1st, 2009
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Doesn’t Google like America?
June 6th, 2009
It’s June 6th, 2009. That’s 65 years after June 6th, 1944 – a day that’s recognized by many who learned American history (and lived it), as D-Day. I’ll let you look up Wikipedia for the details if you aren’t already familiar with the importance of the day, or you could click below to visit the well-made dedication by the US Army.
Today is also the 25th anniversary of a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov. It was created on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow. He derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix “tetra- (all of the game’s pieces (known as Tetrominoes) contain four segments) and tennis, Pajitnov’s favorite sport. (Data courtesy: Wikipedia, of course)
As you may have guessed already, the game was / is the hugely popular (with a certain set) Tetris.
Here’s the curious part: Google – the hugely popular US-born company who routinely changes the only graphic on the front page of it’s hugely popular search function, to commemorate various things – chose Tetris over D-Day.
Naturally, I wondered – does anyone else care? On checking with the new kid on the search block, Bing – here’s what I saw:
Click the thumbnail for the larger version. If I recall my history right, Bing.Com changed it’s search background to Normandy, and added in several mouse-over call-outs for important locations. Alternatively, if you’re reading this on June 6th – head over to Bing.Com
So, let’s see that together:
Again, click that thumbnail for a stacked view of Bing versus Google on D-Day. One honors D-Day, the other commemorates Tetris. If either was ever running for a political post, I’m sure this would come up!
A final look at Wikipedia for information about the logos on the Google front page, also called “Google Doodles” indicated this:
“Google was criticized in 2007 for not featuring versions of the Google logo for American patriotic holidays such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day. That year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day.”
So, it isn’t the first time Google is doing this. Is it still an honest mistake?
(Yeah, I know – I’m probably “sliding off” Google search results after this! Adios, world!)
Posted in Sujeetism | 2 Comments »
Found under the hood of the new Kindle: Sprint PCS?!
March 16th, 2009
Last week, as I gave the Kindle a very close look – the wireless connectivity indicator at the top caught my eye, immediately raising the questions: Who is the carrier? Is it free? and the sort..
After some digging, it turned out that the answers were: Sprint PCS, and yes – it’s free.
As a Sprint user and (in the interest of full disclosure) stock-holder, Amazon’s choice of Sprint’s EVDO service for the Kindle WhisperNet subscription-delivery service; is certainly cause celebre. However, I wonder about:
- AT&T makes some very tall claims about their coverage. Why didn’t Amazon go with AT&T?
- The choice of a CDMA telecommunications chip effectively throws a huge wrench into the works from an international use perspective. Going the GSM route could’ve allowed Kindle users to insert location-specific SIM cards and continue getting their subscriptions even outside the US.
- CDMA was developed with telecommunications security in mind. While the security guy in me appreciates the use of CDMA in the Kindle, it also makes me wonder if there’s any sensitive information being exchanged over the air that I don’t know of..yet.
- Sprint’s foray into WiMax is certainly promising, and CDMA’s progress into the 4G space has been tremendously encouraging. Considering that a Kindle is possibly a purchase that people will hold on to for a (long) while, should we look at Amazon’s choice as a indicator of things to come?
- There’s no co-branding. The Kindle does not say “Powered by Sprint” anywhere along it’s external casing. Sprint’s not usually one to be a silent partner. Why the exception?
The Gadgets Lab over at Wired has an article about this that sheds a bit more light (and credibility) on the information about Sprint PCS. I’ve included their WhisperNet coverage map below for all y’all who want to know how well Sprint PCS EVDO treats Kindle subscriptions..
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Charity 2.0
March 14th, 2009
If that screenshot made you squint, here’s the transcript:
I tweeted: “This economic downturn is a good time for non-profit organizations to think about taking (interest-earning) loans versus donations.”
And BuzzHarrisDRC asked: “..Hi Sujeet. Why do you recommend interest-earning loans over donations? I’m curious.”
While I love Twitter for keeping me succinct, there are some times when one must revert to the blog for a long ramble. While my response to his tweet was:
“..The short answer would be: Investments forge relationships. Micro-loans would create “active donors” to benefit the cause.”
..I figured I owed him a better answer. So, Buzz – this one’s for you; and thanks for bringing on the thought process!
Call them micro-donations, call them small-value donations, or call them change under the seat – there’s a reason that you stopped to hand it over to the homeless person, to the donations’ box at the hospital, or to the visibly down-and-out person in front of you in line at McDonald’s. That reason is: You cared. You cared enough to do what you could at that moment, within your means, to alleviate the conditions of someone who wasn’t quite as fortunate.
As Obama once mentioned, his donations were largely small-value donations. He got $5, $10 and $20 a lot more, and a lot before, the celebrity endorsements (he eventually went on to raise half a billion, they say); and it’s that foundation that may have been the biggest driving force to history being made on November 4, 2008.
And then there’s the recession economic downturn. Is saying “recession” really all that bad as it’s made out to be? It is the proverbial elephant in the room that’s stomping on a lot of jobs, isn’t it? I recall that it wasn’t too long ago when California was known as one of the world’s largest economies, and now we’ve got a really, really large budget problem to smooth out that peak from the not-so-distant past.
Hard times mean really cold winters for the less fortunate, and while charity organizations need money to do all their great work, too – they’re really good at stretching the dollar. So much so that I wonder if we could invest in charitable organizations for the proverbial win-win situation. Here’s how:
Instead of donations, charities could accept micro-loans. I imagine this could be $100 and over, and would have a reasonable rate of interest with a caveat favoring the charity. The caveat would be: If the charity does not anticipate being able to return the principal along with the expected interest, it could return the money within 6 months as is. If the charity kept the money past 6 months, then it would be obligated to return the principal with the expected interest to the lender. Or, it could negotiate a recursive loan with the lender to say that – “Well, can we keep it for another year? We’ll compound the interest if you agree.”
- The donors would care about getting a return on their investment, and would thus start paying clos(er) attention to that charitable organization. This attention could spur word-of-mouth publicity for that charitable organization, thereby creating more donors / lenders. Effectively, this would be like buying stock; but without the part of “buying a part of the company”. To ensure that your stock did well, you would socialize the company and/or use it’s products as much as you could – and you would get your investment back at the end of the year along with interest.
- The charity would then have a higher fiduciary responsibility to the society it operates in. The increased attention and regular churn of transactions, both inbound and outbound, could help to ensure that its accounts stayed in proper order.
- These charities would have to get creative about monetizing the duration of these loans to their benefit. They could work on investing in the right people, in the right projects and in the right places. Effectively, since these charities would have to “show you the money” within a year, they’d have to work at it.
In any case, the charity would have a larger, if not temporary, operating budget to empower it’s affiliates with. Something like Kiva, but better.
The disadvantages could be:
- If the proposed 6-month exit clause was exercised, then the lender would lose half-a-year’s worth of interest on the principal. However, considering that we’re talking about relatively small amounts (the “micro” part of micro-loans), perhaps it wouldn’t be such a huge loss.
- The larger charities would offer a lower risk to lenders, and thus could lead to the large getting larger, and the smaller ones not getting any interest at all; if you’ll pardon the pun.
That’s that. What do you think?
Update: March 16, 2009
My good friend and wine expert, Jennifer Stinnett; offered an entire post towards the roundtable. Here are a few snippets:
- Donations are tax write-offs … how would a loan to a charity that also provides interest (thus income) provide a tax break?
- Are we really that greedy of a society that we need to now figure out ways to create income off of charitable donations?
- What happened to the “GIVE” part of our lives… do we now have to give but ONLY if we get back?
- Lastly, isn’t this what got us (partly) into this current mess to begin with????
I am all for charities… and all for giving …. but I have a hard time with the concept of making money off of my donation (which really isn’t a donation is it?).
I give to give without the expectation to receive back. I know that life / karma… whatever you choose to believe in will ultimately shine down on me if I keep this thought process first. So with that said, I give to give, period.
Click here for the full text of her response on her site.
Fair point, Jennifer. I guess what got me started along the micro-loans route was that this economic downturn would have us being tightwads, and that’s never good for charities who continue to support those who are facing much harder times. One way to continue charitable contributions during hard economic times is to make that contribution a win-win situation for both parties. Factoring in their strengths in the area of stretching dollars and making the most of what they have, one would wonder if charitable organizations may offer a risk profile comparable to most banks today.
So, on one side of the table; we have giving to charity; and on the other – there’s hard economic times for donors. If it isn’t micro-loans, it has to be something else – I’d hate to see charities start closing their doors to the unfortunate.
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The Bay Trail: Still closed
March 7th, 2009
Yeah, still closed. Still waiting for “a few signatures“. Still making people with perfectly good bikes and perfectly good motivation waste perfectly good gasoline.
Fingers crossed for the Earth Day gate opening..
Posted in Shutterbug, Sujeetism | No Comments »
Are Sprint, Verizon and AT&T having their cake and eating yours, too?
February 7th, 2009
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Cellular phone service started with the sole purpose of providing users with portable telephony. The calendar pages have flipped a lot since the times of the Motorola DynaTAC and the sleeker version that Gordon Gecko used from the Hamptons; but the basic premise remains unchanged to this day.
Translated, the cellphone company provides a reliable wireless infrastructure to support your telephony needs.
Considering that the freely available aerial imagery on Google Maps often leads to various interesting observations of life’s minutiae, and that GPS, WAAS and EGNOS have pretty much pervaded every radio-transparent object on our planet; it’s getting harder to cut the cellphone company any slack for having zones with bad coverage. Especially the ones outdoors.
Then there’s the more-bars-than-you swagger amongst cellphone companies, each trying to look bigger and better than the other in order to get, and keep you as a paying customer. AT&T seems to sink a reasonably large quantity of ad spending into the “More bars in more places” theme; and Verizon’s got the badly-named “Can you hear me now?” alongwith the somewhat disturbing visual of having a crowd following you closely at all times. They’re all trying to tell you that they’ve got the best coverage and that they will, thus, be able to provide you with the most reliable means of portable telephony.
At the risk of oversimplification; a high number of dead cellphone reception zones = a low number of paying customers.
So, it would be in the cellphone company’s best interests to iron out all those dead zones and to keep their customers talking, accessing the Internet and generally burning those overpriced minutes on all their plans as much as possible. Sounds easy, but I imagine it isn’t. I also think that they sink a fair amount of operational rigor into identifying areas that need (better) reception, and spots that they could erect Node B public antennae on. That’s “cellphone tower” to those who don’t do telecom lingo. (Just my little way of showing off some research. Y’know how it goes..)
Freeways are amongst the first ones to be bordered by cellphone towers. It’s the most logical choice. Freeways have people on the move, and nothing says portable telephony like making a call from your car. That’s the easy part. Densely-populated urban settings like office buildings and residential complexes offer many more challenges to the percolation of radio waves, and thus create lesser-than-optimal service coverage zones. For example, the metal girders in the construction of most reasonably tall buildings create a rudimentary Faraday Cage that gets in the way of radio signals. This is exacerbated by walls and fake ceilings that conceal a lot of wiring, etc. The icing on the cake is the presence of a high amount of devices that cause a noticeable disturbance in the radio spectrum. Older computer monitors were notorious for this.
All in all, office buildings have the tendency to have a large amount of paying customers who usually get on their cellphone a lot. This crowd also has the potential to have a rather loud voice in their industry, and when a cellphone service gets a bad rep by one office crowd – that ‘feedback’ tends to make the rounds very quickly. Ditto for other demographics like users in residential and academic settings. If ticking off the business crowd is in the top ten of What Not To Do on the cellphone company’s list, then ticking off a college crowd is quite possibly in the top five.
So much for refining the problem statement. How can this be fixed? The quick answer is – “Extend the reach of your coverage and iron out dead spots“. While that was traditionally easier said than done because of the NIMBY mindset by most residential customers and the systemic problem of radio wave propagation being less than optimal inside buildings, time and technology have evolved to the point where miniaturized versions of those big public cellphone towers are available as easy remedies.
Call ‘em “femtocells“, “picocells” or “microcells” – they’re effectively smaller versions of the cellphone tower; dedicated to locations that are challenges for the existing cellphone infrastructure to serve. Their size and cost make them affordable and aesthetic enough to be integrated into office, home and school decor; and handing them out to whoever will put them up should be the right thing for cellphone companies to do, but..
Sprint has it’s femtocell, called AirRave. Verizon does ditto under the Wireless Network Extender moniker. AT&T’s recently joined the party with it’s “3G MicroCell” (which would give the impression that it serves a larger area than a femtocell, but the jury’s still out on that theory), and while pricing information is still unavailable – it does seem that there will be some coming out eventually.
I don’t get it – why is the customer paying the cellphone company to do what the cellphone company should be doing in order to retain the customer? Especially in an age where wireless Skype handsets are available for less than the cost of a good cellphone handset, and when citywide wireless network grids could soon make it equivalent to a cellphone?
Lemme run that one more time: A wireless Skype handset can use a citywide wireless network in order to make calls for free (to other Skype users), and for about 10 times less the amount of money for traditional phone calls. The same handset will work equally reliably both indoors and outdoors, because wireless routers are near-omnipresent inside homes, offices and schools..in most cities that have citywide wireless network grids.
The average wireless router vendor sells wireless networking equipment in the $50 range. Cellphone companies are selling their reception-extending equipment in the $250 range, and it usually comes with a subscription charge. If cellphone companies were to give their devices away for (near-)free, then they could offer increasing reliablity to a growing tribe of customers as well as offer home users a reason to switch away from their existing Internet service providers (via cellphone data plans).
And yet, they don’t. They make the customer pay..and it isn’t as if they’re taking a loss on those overpriced talktime and data plans, either.
The world was surprised when Exxon Mobil made $45 Billion in profits. I wonder if cellphone companies will surprise us similarly sometime soon.
In case you were wondering – yes, a sequel to Wall Street is being planned. And yes, Michael Douglas may star in it, too.
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