After months of hype and excitement, tomorrow Dice-K takes the mound. I’m really looking forward to it. Of course, I’m not the only one. Lots of people in Japan are going to be awake at 2AM their time to see his first pitch. Me, I’ll just be at work, trying not to be too distracted.
I got a kick out of this new Nike ad that’s running in Japan. It has all the hype and hope condensed into 30 seconds.
Co-worker Matt pointed me to BallHype, found via TechCrunch.
I do my share of sports watching. But I don’t read/watch much sports reporting. I find it too repetitive. I mean, how many times can one person hear about Terrel Owen’s latest meltdown? Once is plenty. Even sports writers that I enjoy, like Bill Simmons, are a bit hit-or-miss.
BallHype looks like it will help me filter. I’m going to let it show me what is interesting and what isn’t. I get to help shape what is seen as important and what isn’t. Neat twist: I can pick games and get to have my record tracked and matched against others.
I think Web 2.0 mavens look at this and say “boring, it’s been done, look at Digg.” I think everyone else will be a bit confused at first. But this is one of those websites that can jump from the first 50,000 users up to 500,000 and maybe even 50,000,000. They’re combining some of the social website dynamics that have flowered in the last couple years with an audience that has been proven to be loyal and lucrative in other areas. I think it could take off.
If you register, search for ‘dunster‘ and add me as a friend.
This guy in San Francisco is wearing a camera 24×7 as a sort of publicity stunt. I’m reminded of JenniCam – except this is even closer scrutiny with a mobile camera and has audio. And it’s a guy. See for yourself right now. I just watched him get kicked out of the Gap.
You could pay me to do this, but it wouldn’t be cheap.
Via Jason.
Back in the day, you had to know someone to get a chance to read this. As the internet progressed you’d find someone who scanned it and posted it on the web. Nowadays, all you have to do is just click. I think it’s an interesting read. Buffet is such an interesting character, and he’s been so successful for so long – it’s just fascinating. It doesn’t hurt that his writing style is clear and engaging.
School Supt and Comm
budgets
(Catching up on notes; here is 3/21. I got there very late because I was busy at work. No FinCom until April 4. Black text is mostly objective, red text is mostly subjective in nature.)
The committee was discussing the Council on Aging budget when I arrived. They were discussing moving someone out of the transportation budget and onto the main budget. There was a discussion of whether or not there was a means test for the transportation service. The budget was approved. I would have preferred to abstain on this one, but it was a voice vote, and I didn’t feel strongly enough to ask for a hand count.
The Youth Services budget was next. There were several questions about how the budgeting for counselors and the schools were done. The budget was approved. Charlie Foskett chaired the discussion of this article.
Article 28 was discussed (first discussion here). A vote of support failed 2-10, and a recommendation of no action carried by 10-2. The proponents thought this was a good way to manage the school properties. The opponents to the idea believed that the accounting can (and has) been done without requiring a special fund. The special fund removes budgeting flexibility in that it sequesters up to $500,000 a year.
Several articles were voted without significant debate including parades, transfer from tip fee stabilization fund, cemetery reserve fund, overlay reserve, and unencumbered funds (free cash), and a miscellaneous spending article.
(Catching up on notes; here is 3/19. Black text is mostly objective, red text is mostly subjective in nature.)
First we heard from the Human Rights Commission on their requested budget increase. They want to do a training of 20-40 town employees about how to react to a human rights issue, communication protocols, and things like that. They had support from the Town Manager, selectmen, and Superintendent. Their budget was approved 15-2. I voted against this. For this to work, it has to have buy-in from the manager and superintendant. It sounded like everyone thought it would be a nice idea, but no one would put any money from their training budget to support it. To me, that’s a red flag. The event will happen but I’m doubtful that the attendance will be high enough, and of the right people. The HRC needed to get a stronger buy-in from the people who will be trained for me to support this.
Next up was the Historic District Commission looking for a few hundred dollars increase. This passed 16-1 with a suggestion that the board look at charging a filing fee for the larger, more expensive hearings.
The committee then reviewed the current FY08 draft budget. It is $650,000 worse than the draft that we reviewed on 1/30. The biggest change is that anticipated net state aid is $400k less than forecast, and Minuteman came in $225k more than forecast. Many other items changed up and down, but those are the largest. This means that we can’t save money in the stabilization fund, and we have to find $150k to cut. The 5-year plan is back to exactly that – it doesn’t stretch to 6 years.
We approved budgets for relatively small amounts for other committees and commissions.
The Fire Department budget was next. Dan O’Neill pointed out the costs of the departure of two people in the department. One is highly trained in HazMat, and the other runs the EMS recertification program. Replacing them will be difficult and expensive.
The overtime budget is far over again – $200,000 is anticipated. Part of that will be covered by the unused salaries for vacant positions. The source of the remaining $117,000 deficit has not been determined. It appears that the minimum manning requirement cannot be met by the current number of fire fighters. They’ve tried to make it work for three years, and each year has failed by hundreds of thousands of dollars. There needs to be a policy change, either increasing the hiring or modifying minimum manning.
It was noted that there is an opportunity to generate more revenue by running more ambulances and picking up a higher fraction of the medical calls, particularly paramedics.
The budget passed 17-0-1. I abstained. While I agree that a policy change can bring overtime under control, I hesitate to vote for this budget without a more specific plan. Without a change, ’08 will just be a 4th year of large budget overruns.
The Water and Sewer Enterprise fund was next. There were a large number of changes in this budget. The original draft looks like it had a slew of errors. There was discussion about the selectmen’s decision to move future water debt to the water and sewer rate rather than to the general tax. We heard about changes to the capital spending.
One of the warrant articles proposed by Gordon Jamieson was to increase water and sewer transfer to the health insurance budget. The subcommittee looked into the question and agreed. Specifically, the cost of retirees was not included. They bumped the transfer from $400k to $530k.
Once the errors and adjustments were cleared up, there were two big differences: 1) it spends less reserve money and 2) it pays out a lot more into the health insurance budget. That payment to the health insurance budget will help quite a bit with the deficit in the draft budget. The budget was approved.
I got my car inspected yesterday. According to the inspection results that I was handed, my horn is functional, my fuel tank cap works, and my headlights work. Funny thing is, the guy who “inspected” my car never looked at these things, or anything else for that matter. He drove my car into the inspection bay, so I guess he tested the brakes, but that’s it.
Why does the state require car inspections? Nominally, it’s about making sure the roads are safe by keeping dangerous vehicles off the road. What really happened: The inspector got a few bucks. The state got a few bucks. I stood around smelling gas fumes for 15 minutes. And the roads aren’t one whit safer. As the title of the post goes: waste of time and money.
This morning Hewlett Packard announced that it was buying Tabblo.
It’s a pretty interesting acquisition. Tabblo has been been building a business by converting an online experience into a real-world experience; we take your pictures and your words and we put them on paper. HP makes a lot of money in that real world, putting those pictures and words on paper. HP stands to make even more money by doing that more, on more websites, with more partners, in more formats. Tabblo is going to help HP do that. GigaOM covers it well.
If you want to see our very first run at the problem, check out our PhotoCubes. All you need is a printer and scissors. It may be the slickest Tabblo experience yet. Very simple, very easy to get started, and a satisfying, physical result.
At Abuzz, a previous company I worked at, I’d often get a pop-up warning that the printer was out of paper or ink. When I went to the printer I’d find that it had hundreds of pages spilling out of it, all web pages, and had hundreds more in the print queue. When I talked to coworkers about it, they reported similar experiences. We blamed the interns. It became a running joke: “They’re printing out the internet, just in case it crashes.” Here we are, 8 years later, and it’s my corporate mission to be “the print engine for the web.” I am amused.
What does this mean for me personally? A longer commute, for sure. But having met our new bosses today, it looks like it will be an interesting trip as we learn the “HP Way.” This may turn out to be the company that I stick with. Only time will tell.
For those of you who are keeping score at home, this is my 6th time being acquired in less than 10 years. I might as well have titled this post “HP Puts Itself On the Auction Block.” They are a mortal lock to be bought by someone else now that I work for them. Let’s review my email addresses. None of these are corporate name changes; they are all acquisitions or job changes: @planetall.com, @amazon.com, @abuzz.com, @nytimes.com, @eroom.com, @documentum.com, @emc.com, @imlogic.com, @symantec.com, @tabblo.com, and now, @hp.com.
As Kent Brockman might say: “I for one welcome our new corporate overlords.”