links for 2009-11-11

"Marketers rarely think about choosing customers… like a sailor on shore leave, we're not so picky. Huge mistake."

Can't learn about politics from the internets.

"One of the Nicholasville, Kentucky library employees fired for taking a volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen off an 11-year-old’s hold list (see “Library Employees Fired over LoEG”) had filed a formal challenge to the book before the action that led to their termination, according to an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader."

"Rather, I was surprised at the number of Democrats who have solid pro-choice voting records but who nevertheless voted for Stupak Amendment. And the vast majority of these Democrats voted for, not against, passage of the underlying health care bill."

"I'm making this post because I know the design of this feature will be somewhat controversial. People understandably have expectations of how the retweet function should work. And I want to show some of the thinking that's gone into it. I've been a big proponent of this particular design internally at Twitter, because, while it won't serve every use case, I think it offers something new and powerful."

"The European Commission (EC) has objected to Oracle's proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems, casting doubt on the $7.4bn (£4.4bn) deal."

"As a small business owner, it’s possible to have several projects going on at any given point, and unfortunately, there are many occasions where the one that makes the most noise and fuss is the one that gets the majority of available attention. Time goes by, and the most important things get pushed aside for the most desperate. Getting it all back under control is actually pretty simple. It’s done with a weekly review." I would have to agree.

"Back in August, we wrote about the Hollywood movie studios conspiring to keep new release DVDs away from services like Netflix and Redbox for as many as 30 days after their release. The idea behind this from Hollywood’s perspective is simple: If people can’t rent movies right away, they’ll buy more. Sorry, did I say the idea was “simple”? I meant, “idiotic”."

Don't even bother trying to get a contract it's pointless.

"Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that it is working with airports across the country as well as Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi as a holiday gift now through January 15, 2010. The gift currently includes 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely." Google is so awesome.

"The state legislature had approved a licence plate with a cross in front of a stained glass window and the words "I Believe" written along the top. District Judge Cameron Currie said that the plate violated the First Amendment, which enshrines the separation of church and state."

Screen saver or brain saver.

"So say you're at the airport. You want to rent, I dunno, some movie that wasn't good enough to see in the theater. You just format a spare SD card filled with vacation photos you'd forgotten to back up (it doesn't appear they give you a card, but I could be mistaken), pop it in the machine, select a movie, pay $4 or so, and then have the film loaded on your card, a la ticking time bomb, with DRM." Seriously.

Evolutionists are out to destroy the human race.

"Offensive? Seriously? Those uppity female Senators, always wanting credit for being in Congress and stuff! Hey, I wonder how this Brigadier General feels when he gets called “dude”?" Agreed.

"Thank you again, Webmaster, for reminding me why I should be so proud of the work I do. Without you I couldn’t pay for house, cars, and fine wine. Keep up the good work so I can keep up my fine life!"

"So, why doesn't Twitter and others team to submit the status update to a standards body? This will ensure that we don't see a repeat of what occurred with incompatible instant messaging services."

"To know it's gonna make you angry. Sigh."

"Every day, more than 99 human years are wasted because of uncompressed content. Although support for compression is a standard feature of all modern browsers, there are still many cases in which users of these browsers do not receive compressed content. This wastes bandwidth and slows down users' interactions with web pages." Google takes on both websites that don't compress content and software that removes the Accept-Compressed HTTP header.

"If you're not a programmer, you may be looking at these two images and wondering what the big deal is. That's fine. But I humbly submit that, well, you're not one of us. You don't appreciate what it's like to spend every freaking minute of every freaking day agonizing over the tiniest details of the programs you write. Not because we want to, you understand, but because the world explodes when we don't." Always funny, always interesting.

""That's not what we do," is the backbone of strategy, it determines who you are and where you're going. Except in times of change. Except when opportunities come along. Except when people in the organization forget to ask, "why?""