Where Word Processors Fall Short
The inability to lay out the multiple pages of one document as you would on a desk. The current generation of word processors, quite frankly, sucks at enabling this. Why?
Because when storage was scarce, deleting useless stuff was an important function. (Particularly when the storage medium was paper, where deleting was a real pain in the ass.) So the workflow design was rigid.
But now, when storage is plentiful and errors don’t mean as much, apps should be coded on a backbone of ‘open processes.’ That is, concurrent storage/retrieval of multiple revisions.
For example, as I write something, I may have multiple takes on it. Different paragraphs that don’t yet make a coherent piece. Using a vertical interface is a roadblock. Instead, I open multiple documents and write different takes in each. Then I can see them all on the screen and take a look at what needs to be pulled from where to create a final document.
Y’know, like index cards of the past.
ViralHeat Heads Towards Social Buying
Human Intent’s algorithm uses sentiment, language and predictive analysis to identify updates where social media users are, for instance, complaining about their current product or checking for feedback about a new brand, thus indicating they are in a process of making a purchasing decision.
Need to automate this:
Businesses have to simply set up keyword searches and the software connects them to their potential clients’ social updates, where their sales reps can respond to them. The data can also be mined and exported to Salesforce and Excel and viewed on Viralheat’s dashboard.
Along the lines I described here.
>$1M Strategically Defaulting
No moral qualms (though that garbage is pushed on the lower tiers with some gusto).
“I haven’t made a payment in two years,” he says. “It was business decision. It was an easy decision. I have a property worth six or 700,000 less than when I bought it. I was making payments of 10,000 a month.”
Means:
One in seven homeowners with loans over $1 million are seriously delinquent compared to one in 12 with mortgages below $1 million.
Easier to resell the cheap assets:
The more you owe, it seems, the better off you may be. Darren Thomas continues to live in his home because banks are often slower to foreclose on million-dollar homes.
“Banks are less willing to take those homes back because they are harder to move on the market, harder to sell and much more of an up-keep,” says You Walk Away Real Estate’s Chad Ruyle. “These properties come with maintenance costs.”
$69 Open Source iTouch-like Device
Why not build your own touch-screen device, with your own apps, all on open source hardware and using open source tools? OK, it can’t play MP3s, but it does have a 320×240 TFT color display with resistive touch screen, an Atmega32u4 8-bit microcontroller, lithium polymer battery charger, backlight control, micro-SD slot, and a triple-axis accelerometer. Yeah, this is the next big thing and for those of us who like to DIY, you can do a lot of cool stuff with this dev board.
Non-Profit Model Amongst NFL Corruption
Didn’t learn that the Green Bay Packers are a non-profit entity until this article.
Good parts:
In 1923, the Packers were just another hardscrabble team on the brink of bankruptcy. Rather than fold they decided to sell shares to the community, with fans each throwing down a couple of dollars to keep the team afloat. That humble frozen seed has since blossomed into a situation wherein more than a hundred thousand stockholders own more than four million shares of a perennial playoff contender. Those holding Packers stock are limited to no more than two hundred thousand shares, keeping any individual from gaining control over the club.
Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium. Not only has home field been sold out for two decades, but during snowstorms, the team routinely puts out calls for volunteers to help shovel and is never disappointed by the response.
Lame part:
Shareholders receive no dividend check and no free tickets to Lambeau Field. They don’t even get a foam cheesehead. All they get is a piece of paper that says they are part-owners of the Green Bay Packers. They don’t even get a green and gold frame for display purposes.
Why? Because the owners aren’t seeing any return whatsoever. But…
Being an N.F.L. owner is like having a license to print money. Television contracts alone run in the billions, with the 2006-2011 contracts valued at approximately $3 billion annually, $800 million more than the previous contracts.
Futhermore:
It’s a beautiful story but it’s one that the N.F.L. and Commissioner Roger Goodell take great pains both to hide and make sure no other locality replicates. It’s actually written in the N.F.L. bylaws that no team can be a non-profit, community owned entity. The late N.F.L. commissioner Pete Rozelle had it written into the league’s constitution in 1960. Article V, Section 4—otherwise known as the Green Bay Rule—states that “charitable organizations and/or corporations not organized for profit and not now a member of the league may not hold membership in the National Football League.”
All at the public’s expense:
In addition, N.F.L. teams have received $6 billion in public funds to build the current crop of stadiums. In other words, the public is already shouldering a great deal of the cost and debt for N.F.L. franchises. But these public dollars, through some sort of magic alchemy, morph into private profits that often flow away from the communities that ponied up the dough. In the United States, we socialize the debt of sports and privatize the profits.