Joys of Twitter

Curious about Twitter? The Wall Street Journal ran a nice article on the service the other day. People use Twitter for lots of things, from personal to professional to promotional. The article is also frank with the downfalls of Twitter, particularly the fact that if people don't use it then it's not really serving its purpose.

Do you Twitter? You know I do - you can see my most recent tweets over on the right. Several readers of the blog do, and several more - particularly dear friends of mine - are signed up but neglectful.

Make Twitter valuable for you - find two or three people who you care about knowing what they're up to and who would be interested in knowing what you're doing. Sign them up. Most importantly, register your phone with Twitter and get the alerts for your five favorite people on your phone. Send tweets from your phone. That funny thing that happened to you on the subway or at Subway will likely be appreciated by someone else - but if you don't tweet it now you'll probably forget it by the time you're back at your computer.

The Obamercial

I didn't sit down and watch the infomercial last night, but my friend Charles did and had some pretty interesting thoughts.

I continue to be surprised at how relatively cheap it was for Obama to buy up all that ad time. At around $1 million a pop for the 30-minute spot, that comes to $33,333 a minute or $16,667 for every thirty seconds. For the 2007-2008 TV season, a 30-second ad on CBS cost $97,000 during the 8:00 hour, and that's at the low-end of prime-time pricing.

I'm sure there are blog posts or articles out there that can somehow justify the rock-bottom rate that the campaign received, but it sure seems odd to me. CBS for one said they would offer a comparable deal to McCain should he be so inclined, though with sweeps starting tonight I find it tough to believe everyone would be so generous unless compelled by law.

Though I for one wouldn't want to sit through thirty minutes of McCain, either. I did that for the convention speech and that was enough for me.

Baseball - and still asleep at a decent hour

Are you excited about tonight's three-and-a-half inning showdown with the World Series on the line tonight? I am. Exciting baseball that should end early enough to get to bed at a reasonable time.

Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated sums it up nicely:

For all the criticism of the weather, TV ratings and this strange World Series -- we've played 4 1/2 games over seven days and still there hasn't been one lead change -- baseball wound up with one of the most exciting nights it ever has seen: a 3 1/2-inning game with the world championship on the line. It is baseball's version of overtime, the shootout or penalty kicks. It is baseball for people who don't have time for baseball. It is baseball for the attention-challenged.

Fox should be working overtime to promote this game. It is an unprecedented situation with the urgency you never get from baseball. It can guarantee viewers that the game, if not the entire World Series, will be decided in the late innings -- without asking anyone to invest the time of watching the first two-thirds of the game. And there's yet another bright side to what people thought was a mess: Kids can watch the end of the game on a school night (assuming no rain delays or extra innings). The first suspended game in World Series history is not bad at all for baseball.

Read his whole article. Lots of good thoughts, particularly the point at the end about new stadium construction (I'm sure there's a company or two that would be willing to sponsor the domes on stadiums - the AllState Retractable Dome putting fans in good hands, etc.).

An open letter to Microsoft on occasion of its new ads

Dear Microsoft,

I have always enjoyed your products. You revolutionized computing, and I thank you for that. You created a superior product and we all bought it. And you continue to innovate, or, and the very least - and you shouldn't apologize for this - bring the best innovations of others to the masses. Good for you.

But now you've brought us this new ad campaign where we can apparently broadcast ourselves saying that "I'm a PC and we like broccoli" or "I'm a PC and I appreciate ugly dogs" or whatever. Now I realize that, by using a PC, I must be a loser. That saddens me.

I always thought Mac users were a bunch of weirdos. Now I realize that it is my fellow PC users that are the weirdos. Mac users are like that hip dude in the commercial that you are now trying to make apologies for.

And I'm the pathetic fat guy.

I feel lost and alone. Thanks Microsoft. Maybe I'll just wait for Google to make an operating system.

Lots of love,
A Microsoft loser

I'll know Tuesday if I should buy stocks

My friend Ania twittered recently that she bought her first stock. I thought, Good for her. I also got a little jealous because I hadn't done that yet (except for the ol' 401k). Given the bargain price of so many stocks, it's an enticing time to start investing. My plan has been to see where I sit at the end of the year and consider investing a bit of money in a few carefully selected stocks.

A thought occurred to me today, though, that says I'll probably know if I want to invest after the election on Tuesday. Barack Obama joked at one of the debates, in response to John McCain noting that Obama plans to raise capital gains tax, that no one was going to have capital gains this year. Cute, and true. For people who bought high, they probably won't have capital gains for a while. But for those of buying now, capital gains are going to come quickly if the stock market begins to rebound.

So should I put my money into a stock market when I know that, if I want to pull it out in a few years, I'm going to get hit with the government taking an even bigger portion than they already do? And for those who make more than $250,000 a year, the ones who would have to pay whatever the new top rate is (possibly as high as 28%, versus 15% now) and actually have the money to invest, won't this create either a disincentive for investment or a disincentive to trade?

By the way, if those realizing gains are not actively trading but instead sit on their gains to wait for a more favorable tax climate, the government isn't going to get the tax revenue anyway. And then you have to wonder where an Obama administration will go looking for funds...

The fastest way to food

I encourage you to read this post that has it all: hunger, obstacles, and the innovation that conquered them - and then the government that took it all away.

Union overreach

The proposed new contract for police in Peabody, MA, adds a demand that Sept. 11 become a paid holiday for police officers. The police officers in Peabody were, of course, not involved or effected by the attacks directly until voluntarily helping in the recovery effort afterward, but no matter.

Once President-anointed Obama comes to power along with his Parliament and passed card check, expect to see a lot more of this. Once secret-ballot union elects disappear and right-to-work starts to slip away, expect to see more states like Michigan and fewer enjoying the prosperity they enjoy now.

Effort

Being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort.

That's the best line from a really wonderful and challenging post from Seth Godin the other day. Read the whole thing.

Did the combustion engine need subsidies?

A thought occurred to me during the constant discussion of energy in last night's debate, which prompted a tweet but is something I've continued to ponder: did the new industry forming around the internal combustion engine receive subsidies in the late 1800s-early 1900s?

Politicians want to throw so much money at growing "green" industries now to stop the evils of climate change but also to reduce our dependence on foreign energy (the Right's common argument) and to create thousands, nay, millions!, of "green jobs" (the Left's common argument). But couldn't compelling, and in some cases similar, arguments have been made one hundred years ago?

Versus walking, a car sure was tough to beat. Cover great distances in no time! And against horses? Horses are heavy polluters, dropping their business in the road or wherever they please. They smell and can be temperamental. Plus you have to feed them them corn and other important foodstuffs, and why would you want to put precious food in your mode of transport? (oh, wait, we don't care about that anymore? Well never mind.)

But the car! Great distances in no time flat, runs on abundant oil (more food for people!), and a car can probably hold more than one or two people. Plus the number of jobs that would be created by this growth industry is remarkable! Why wouldn't the government want to put its stamp on this wonderful new idea?

And yet, amazingly enough, my guess is the government restrained itself, and Henry Ford probably forgot to ask for free money. But I don't know that for certain, and I'd sure be interested to see. Does anyone have a spare intern they can put on finding this out?

Toilet news for a Friday

"One of the cleanest things in the bathrooms we find are the toilet seats," Gerba said. "I'd put my fanny on it any time -- unless it's wet; then you'd want to wipe it first."

Still prefer to know where the cleanest toilets are outside of your home or office? The market came up with a solution to that, too. It's in the article.