Archive for the ‘oddities’ Category

We know the value of our ticket

Posted: July 27, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
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I was driving today, off to pay the mortgage and my property taxes, and had the radio on listening to Rush, during the 12:30 break the local station has one of those CBS moneyline breaks and they were talking about sports temas and the economy and the idea of dropping ticket prices and there was a quote from someone who was opposed to the idea.

The person said that they thought dropping the ticket prices was a bad idea since it might mislead the customer as to the value of their ticket.

THE VALUE OF THE TICKET? I think that changes in the way things have been done lately might be confusing something.

If I have a ticket to a Red Sox game it has value because I want to go to the damn game. It has no value otherwise.

If I want to sell the ticket it’s only value is the desire of someone else to see that particular game.

Now you might have a special event at a particular game but a game is a game is a game. If you are a fan of a particular starter or say of a team that is visiting the ticket might command a larger price (Read: Sox Yankees), but the idea that you might confuse fans as to the value of the product by dropping the price in this case is just plain foolish.

This woman is NOT Sicilian

Posted: July 6, 2009 by datechguy in oddities, tech
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…via Glenn a story that is very serious but just you just can’t help laughing.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

My Sicilian mother would be shaking her head in disgust, even if you have nothing to hide why tell everyone your business? Then again why do I get the feeling that if this was 1959 instead of 2009 Lady Sawers would be blabbing at a dinner parties instead?

As I’ve said over, over and over again if you put it on the net it isn’t private.

(In fact I think my mother thinks I put up too much on the blog).

Update: Hotair notices via Fausta.

Darwin Award, natural selection, Michael Jackson

Posted: June 30, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
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One could argue the death of Michael Jackson is an example of natural selection in action, that would be a matter of debate, however I think there is no question that the people in this story illustrate Darwin award winners:

Gary Taylor, president and owner of MJJcommunity.com, said he understood the tragedies had mostly taken place outside of the UK but he believed one may have been British.

“I know there has been an increase, I now believe the figure is 12. I believe there may have been one Briton who has taken their life,” he said.

If this report is true than it is idiocy to the nth degree. It’s bad form to speak ill of the dead but I have a hard time feeling sorry for people whose lives are so empty that they can’t live without Michael Jackson.

This is one of the least Catholic posts I’ve written, I confess I’ve always had a bit of a prejudice against people who kill themselves I really should be more charitable but COME ON this is Nelson award territory.

Why the NYT et/al is dying

Posted: June 30, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
Tags: ,

The LA times article on “What if TMZ was wrong” is mostly forgettable but there is one line that says a lot about the MSN.

Jeffrey Seglin is quoted saying the following and it is treated as gospel:

“Few people expect TMZ or Drudge or the National Enquirer to get things right or to report on issues of substance.”

I must confess I’m not an expert on TMZ but DRUDGE? DRUDGE? Few people expect DRUDGE to report on issues of substance of get it right?

This stands in stark contrast to a decade of reporting by Drudge. In addition due to the rise of blogs Drudge is not as often the “first source” for many stories that it covers.

It’s almost a Pauline Kael moment but the MSN has a lot of them.

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