Random Bytes...by Ross Rader

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Tuesday, July 29

[04:49PM EDT] Doc notes that the Pentagon is pulling their plans to build a futures market based on terror and other world events. My guess? It doesn't matter what the Pentagon does now, I suspect that they were just trying to seed a future market with ideas about a futures market. I'm willing to bet that there are two smart guys in a college dorm somewhere that already have half of their first generation code to do exactly what the Pentagon describes - and somehow, they will make a fortune doing it. C (1) | T (25) | #

[07:10AM EDT] The Treo 90 that I bought back in May to replace the Toshiba e740 that I got last year "fell down, go boom". Not sure what caused it, but it will give me the chance to experience Handspring's customer service and repair policies. I just filled out the online forms necessary to create an RMA, so we'll see what happens. T + 2 minutes and counting.

As a benchmark, I had to return the Toshiba for warranty work twice. Each time, I had the unit back in my hands, fully functional, within 10 tens (not business days, regular ones).

I'll let you know how things work out. In the meantime, if I'm late for an appointment, you know why. C | T (66) | #

[06:53AM EDT] Subject: [product name] Support News

Body: "...the result of nearly 2 years of development based on feedback from [our] users. Amongst its features are:

...IRC chat."

--

Okay, this isn't really spam, but I didn't really want it, so I'll count it for the purposes of "spam 'o the day" but I won't report it to a black list ;)

The point is, you and I both know that no user said to these guys "Hey! Put IRC chat right into the application, that would be sooo useful!" Nope, this is a developer that did exactly what he wanted and then counted himself as a user after the fact to justify his effort.

Why didn't they just say so? "Hey, we think IRC is cool enough to build it into our app so that you can tell us what you think about it."

Anyways.... C | T (15) | #