Disclaimer: I actually dreamt this blog entry. The concept and the act of writing it. It was weird. Gas is coming back down! Neat. The cheapest gas I ever find is at Safeway. I paid $2.81 last week and it’s $2.60 this week. Wow, that’s such a remarkable difference. So? We look at gas prices move up and down and we feel like we’re beating “the man” if we go find the cheapest gas station n the metro area. But think about it. For simplicity sake, 20 cents saved on a 10-gallon tank means I paid two dollars less to fill up my car. Hooray! Wait, two bucks? And this is an extreme example; I doubt you’ll find better savings more than occasionally. So why do we still comparison-shop for gas? Spending the time and energy driving to the cheaper station now seems irrational. Economically speaking, if my time is worth $15/hour and I spend more than an extra three minutes going to a cheaper station I just cost myself more than I saved. Hmm, thank goodness Safeway is just across the street…
Amazon and iTunes Change Nothing
Many conversations with my Dad prompt some interesting thought and topical discussion so I figured I’d elaborate and share my thoughts here. He emailed me earlier this week pointing to the new Amazon service, Unbox. Additionally, he linked to the iTunes movie store. Does this mean the end of Blockbuster?
Nope, this hardly changes anything.
Internet Realism
I’d like to quickly talk about the idealization going on with the internet. These last few days (or maybe a week or two?) away from my own website have helped me realize something oh-so important…
The internet is only important if you make it important.
Selling Cars
Hi Ford, take note: Jeep has done an infinately better job of marketing to students. This Facebook group is so simple. Nicely done.
Google Office
Um, hi everyone. I’ve been using these ‘hosted applications’ for months now. My life revolves around hosted GMail and Calendar for devinreams.com. So, why are we all getting excited over this? Oh, right, becase it’s Google. Slow news day I guess.
Mac Screenshots
I thought it was so cool to learn that I could simply take screenshots by pressing Command, Shift 3. Even better was Command, Shift 4 which allowed me to pick the section of the screen to save. But, what I didn’t realize, was the fact that these images are compressed in a super crazy Apple way. I can open them (they’re just a PNG) and see them. Then I even copy/paste them into a PowerPoint. But, and here’s the kicker, when you try to open that PowerPoint in Windows it basically says these pictures are compressed and can’t be shown. Neat. I have to go re-take 27 screenshots for a presentation on Tuesday. Neat.
BarCampDenver
I spent a few hours at the first BarCampDenver today. It was nice to sit down and have a conversation, include the term ‘WordPress’ and not be the only one to understand what the hell it is. But seriously, it was fun and interesting and I got to chat with some cool folks (ones I had only seen and heard about online). I look forward to future geek events around town…
MacBook and Hard Cover Case
You may not have noticed but I recently bought myself a toy. Brace yourself: it was a black Macbook. I know, right? Who would’ve guessed? My friends all snickered. The others that had already “converted” let out their sighs of relief (aka “finally!”).
Airline news
Howto: Tidy up your power cable
So, if you don’t know already: I’m pretty clever. Not really but I sometimes impress myself with my ability to put two and two together. Remember that time I made an infrared receiver for my keyboard? I took another binder clip, taped it to the back of my desk, put my MacBook power cable through it and tada, no annoying power cable on the desk (nor falling behind it). Click here for the pictures. I know, I know, pretty clever eh?