John Gardner - On Life and Everything Else (Page 8)

Why Music is not the Product

Over at Techdirt there's a good article about the re-education of the music industry. The prevailing notion was that consumers were "purchasing" music, when in reality they weren't.

Business

Which Kind of Pizza are You Making?

At the end of the day, you can make a pizza so cheaply and quickly that no one would dare eat it. That doesn’t prove there’s no market for pizza, only that there’s no market for shit pizza. Which are you making? ~ Des TraynorThe tech industry really

Business

Another Great Customer Service Story

Customer service, this is how it's done. http://t.co/o4gfYpc6 — Noel Tock (@noeltock) January 25, 2012

Politics

Only in Warwick

Only in Warwick would the city require the School Dept to acquire multiple building permits to do work on buildings the city owns.

Politics

Obama by the Numbers

An interesting look at the promises of the Obama presidency

Politics

Insider Trading

With the recent surfacing of alleged insider trading going on in Washington, I thought this would be a good opportunity to write a post about insider trading laws in general and their effect on the stock market. Insider trading is defined as the trading of a corporations stock by people

Sports

Oh Joe!

Stating he'd retire at the end of the season, Joe Paterno apparently thought he could exit the stage on his own terms. It would seem the board of trustees didn't think that was soon enough, when they fired him and the University President yesterday. Talk about a terrible way to

Economics

Why there are Gas Lines

There's a lot of talk regarding price gouging and gas lines in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and I think it's a topic that really should get more exposure and explanation as to why. I was planning on doing a post talking about how government intervention causes these shortages and

Politics

Dissecting the New Declaration of Independents

Claiming to represent the "99%", Salon.com drafted up it's own version of a demand list, in an effort to "begin to make the richest nation on the planet fair for those of us who can’t afford a congressman." That's a very loaded statement, and I'd like to dissect

Business

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The life and legacy of Steve Jobs is a very popular topic right now, especially given the recent release of his biography. The Huffington Post had leaked bits and pieces of the book prior to its general availability, and one that got a decent amount of play was the interview

Business

Trying to Remain Profitable is Sad?

While he's not the first person to talk about it, Ethan over at One Project Closer laments about Lowe's recent announcement that they'll be shuttering 20 stores and laying off nearly 2000 people. Sadly, this move is driven by a need to increase profitability and nothing more.Why is that

Politics

A Cure for Unemployment

Here's Jesse Jackson Jr claiming he has a fix for our unemployment problem. A fix so simple we should have thought about its years ago -- have the government hire the 15M unemployed people! Mind = Blown, right? JJJ makes it sound so easy -- for just $600B (at $40k per

Business

Multi-Tasking is Why Nothing Gets Done

Multi-tasking is complete garbage. Multi-tasking does to your productivity what binge drinking does to your ability to drive, yet job applicants and even employers somehow view that as a desirable trait. Pick up a résumé and 99 out of 100 times multi-tasking will be listed as a positive attribute. It

Politics

Assassinating US Citizens

September 30th, 2011 marks a new low in our country's history, for it marks the 1st time our President acted as judge, jury and executioner in green-lighting the assassination of a US Citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. That in of itself is bad enough, but to hear the President pat himself on

Politics

Uncomfortable = Cyber Stalking?

A 15yr old boy from Barrington, RI meets a 16yr old girl at summer school. They start talking through Facebook and when the girl became "uncomfortable" with the inappropriate content of the messages, she got the cops involved. After an investigation, this boy is now facing charges of cyber stalking.

Reviews

Book Review: Up from the Projects

I’ve been a fan of Walter Williams for a quite a while. His weekly columns are written in a very engaging, down-to-earth fashion, cutting through the fluff to get right to the heart of the matter. When I saw a copy of his book on my grandparent’s table,

Politics

Repeating the Same Mistakes

When it comes to specific proposals, President Obama repeats the same kinds of things that have marked his past policies -- more government spending for the benefit of his political allies, the construction unions and the teachers' unions, and "thousands of transportation projects." The fundamental fallacy in all of this

Business

Business Models in a Digital Age

I guess there’s a saying out there that in every generation there’s at least 1 major technological advance which tosses an industry’s business model on its head. I think for the generation of people that grew up around the ascension of the Internet, that’s the qualifying

Politics

What a Prediction

In August 2009, e-mail exchanges between Energy Department staff members pointed out that a credit-rating agency predicted that the project would run out of cash in September 2011. Solyndra shut its doors on the final day of August. ~ Joe Stephens and Carol LeonnigSo a credit rating agency was able to

Politics

The Folly of Buying American

I know "Buy American" is all the rage right now -- support your local economy buy purchasing things "Made in America". It sounds great, especially when our economy is down and we constantly read about all these companies moving jobs overseas. The problem is trade isolationism doesn’t work across

Business

Bogus Piracy Statistics

Say what you will about the moral or immoral nature of "piracy", but when the MPAA releases things which they call "statistics", they're really making themselves look foolish. MPAA has reported record revenues for 3 or 4 years straight now, with 3 films this year topping the $1 billion mark

Politics

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished?

By now you’ve probably heard about the lawsuit the Federal Housing Agency has brought against 17 banks for allegedly selling fraudulently valued mortgages to investors during the housing boom. The lawsuit specifically targets mortgage-backed securities bought by Fannie May and Freddie Mac, two government sponsored entities (GSE), who are

Economics

Greater Earthquake Damage Would be Better

In response to the Virginia-based earthquake that rattled up the east coast on Tuesday, 8/23, we have a Nobel Prize winning economist claiming that we’d have more economic growth if the earthquake had been bigger and had broken more stuff. Despite that statement making me uncomfortable, perhaps there's

Business

How to Floor Your Customers

I recently wrote about how to completely screw up PR in this era of social media. This is the polar opposite of that story. It is everything exemplary customer service should be, and what above and beyond was created to describe. Companies take note -- this is how you take

Politics

Government and Compassion

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. ~ Penn JilletteHonestly,