Archive for March 2009
#the hubris of the Reserve Price
Before I begin my rant/tangent, let’s get one thing straight: I understand that the point of eBay’s “Reserve Price” is to protect The Seller. I understand that if there’s an “absolute minimum” for which you’re willing to sell an item… Well, that’s great that there’s a way to guarantee that you (as The Seller) will get that absolute minimum.
But here’s another idea: just start the bidding at the absolute minimum.
Many sellers have found that too high a starting price discourages interest in their item, while an attractively low starting price makes them vulnerable to selling at an unsatisfactorily low price. A reserve price helps with this.
Now from the vantage point of The Seller, I can get behind this. Sounds like a great compromise.
But as The Buyer, this system really sucks. When I see an item listed at some price, I’m assuming that The Seller is willing to part with it at that price. It’s obvious that a person wants to garner the highest possible price. It’s an auction. That’s the way this works — arguably even the raison d’être for the auction system. But there’s something a little dishonest about the Reserve Price, especially in the eyes of a casual or “occasional” eBay bidder. It’s confusing to throw in a high bid only to have it look like you’ve been rejected.
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#my New Yorker back-log
For this past Secular Humanist December Holiday, my lovely wife got me a subscription to The New Yorker. It has been quite a delight. A fun, erudite little magazine1 that is as substantive as it is ephemeral, as sexy as it is straight-laced, as secular as it is… Jewish. At any rate: we’re enjoying it2 but I don’t believe either of us were prepared for just how often it comes, just how much reading it funnels into the house. Needless to say, I’ve got a back-log of articles and stories going back almost two months now. The highlight reel:
- “Baby Food” by Jill Lepore (January 19, 2009)
- “The Ponzi State: Florida’s foreclosure disaster” by George Packer (February 9 & 16, 2009)
- “Brother on Sunday” by A. M. Homes (March 2, 2009)
- “Wiggle Room” by David Foster Wallace (March 9, 2009)
…plus that David Sedaris piece in the issue that just arrived. I’ve taken to folding over the covers to expose the pages of these articles, to leaving them conspicuously “out” on the counter. But they go unread for so long. And then the next one arrives and I just barely make it through “Briefly Noted” before… The cycle repeats itself. What have I gotten myself into?
#Linkdump for March 27th
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at A List Apart — though a good read, I thought that it didn't really touch on the importance of doing and experimenting and risk-taking (which is where I thought it was going to go) versus over-thinking and/or over-engineering a solution/design/etc.
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by Ben McGrath (at newyorker.com) — I think this little piece is really special.
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by Gus Mueller (of VoodooPad fame) — color me intrigued!
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Looks pretty cool. The screencast makes it look super-easy to make some sophisticated charts. But if you're going for accuracy… Well, I'll be checking out the beta to see if you can put in real actual data.
#Git with it!
Partly for my own enjoyment and partly to respond to Tweets from two friends of mine, I’d like to write a little bit about my experience with the Git source control manager.
Before we get too far in this process though, let’s get one thing out in the open. I’m probably the least technical developer out there. I’ve used Subversion “lightly” for a simple development project for about two years and CVS at the office for only about the past six months or so. So keep that in mind as we move forward here: my frame of reference is not a terribly technical one and is likely not to answer any burning questions that you may have about branching or anything else that moves into terribly complex terrain.
That said, my thoughts re Git versus Subversion and/or CVS?
LOVE IT.
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#Linkdump for March 26th
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at NYTimes.com (via DF) — like Wired's "jargon watch" only erudite.
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at Cooks Country TV (via Ben) — for "top sirloin butt"
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Hubris?
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via B² — awesome and insightful (if you can deal with the tiny gray-on-black font); good notes to crib from when you queue up The Shining for yet another re-watch.
#Linkdump for March 23rd
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If nothing else, I love the name. Say it with me: “MEGA DROP-DOWN”
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As Twitter user Mikey-san said:
You know who else delivers body parts to enemies? The fucking mafia.
On the other hand, I’m kinda intrigued by this human BBQ idea…
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at GitHub
#Linkdump for March 22nd
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by Paul Roberts (at Mother Jones) — the gist seems to be: re-evaluate your assumptions about what sustainable agriculture means (hint: it involves more than just carbon footprints and whether/not the farm is organic; see also: labor conditions, see also: man-hours of labor) and maybe be prepared to consider a few harsh realities about cost/benefit before you buy another heirloom tomato for $4
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"While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern." Hopefully, that will be jus the start of the education…
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by Clay Shirky (via DF)
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yay! p373!
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a campaign by .net magazine
#Yes. Let’s turn malnutrition into a joke.
I know there are some folks out there that would say "oh, lighten up" about something like this but I thought that this was in such incredibly poor taste. With the epidemic of childhood obesity occurring in the United States, these sorts of "cute jokes" are neither cute nor funny. The makers of this bib should be utterly ashamed of themselves. This is way worse than candy cigarettes.
Original on Flickr.
#Espresso
While banging through the home-stretch of Ortho 1.0, I decided to give MacRabbit’s Espresso editor a try. I’m “between” editors right now — feeling no special love or loyalty to any one text editor — and noting Espresso’s public beta, I decided it was worthy of some exploration.
THE SHORT VERSION: I liked it alright but there was nothing about it that blew me away.
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