How To Sell to Americans: Bigger Is Better

So says this Extension piece quoting the Chile Blueberry Committee. Given Starbucks has just enlarged its highend product, I suspect they're right.

Grocers More Dissipated Than Hollywood?

So says Temple Grandin, although her basis of comparison is a bit limited.

Grandin attended the recent Golden Globes awards event in Hollywood and found the movie people well-behaved – a sharp contrast from a grocers’ convention she had been to in the 1970s.
"That was a total drunken orgy,” she said.

  Interesting speech noted by extension.

Why We Need Metrics

From a Federal Computer Week piece on blogging:

"Perhaps it's ironic that many substandard federal blogs slog on forever while one of the best [Navy CIO's] was killed. Drapeau said the weak blogs endure because they do not call attention to themselves.
“Who complains about horrible, obscure movies that they haven't seen?” he asked. “And given that the financial cost of having a bad blog is very low, there's little to stop most bad blogs from persisting.”

Private Company Screws Up; Government Doesn't

Two articles in the NY Times business section:

• Intel screws up a chip, to cost $1 billion.
• bureaucrat at Treasury Department administers the $29 billion TARP (not the $700 billion TARP), cutting costs through good management.

I like to tweak those who dis the government. Seriously, I think the key thing is change. Mr. Miller at Treasury is new blood, who left Goldman to serve the public, which apparently he has done quite well.  While government bureaucracies can become hide-bound, the periodic shakeups which often arise from elections counter that effect.  Meanwhile, theoretically private enterprise is subject to the discipline of the market. A loss of a billion isn't going to be serious for Intel's managers, although it may be for the person who oversaw the chip development. I doubt that competition is that much of a factor here--Intel seems to have had market dominance for many years. Instead, publicity is going to be the disciplinary factor: Intel couldn't really keep the problem hidden.  And that publicity may redound on the stock price.

Sidewalks and Paths in Reston

In Robert Simons' original vision of Reston, walkers and cars would be separated; cars would have streets and roads, and walkers paths which went through the woods, instead of sidewalks paralleling the roads.  That was the way Reston developed for the first 10-15 years, but then it became apparent that walkers preferred to walk by the side of the road, even when it meant walking on grass or in the mud, rather than following the path.  So gradually Reston has added sidewalks to its paths (Colts Neck Road got a sidewalk south of South Lakes Drive just last summer.)

Why the preference? Often the roads are more direct than the paths.  And the roads feel safer because you're visible to all. And we're all used to walking by the roads.

Our recent snow storm showed one virtue of Simons' vision: snowplows inevitably throw the snow from the street onto the sidewalk, creating an almost impassible barrier to cross, and a forbidding prospect to walk along.  Meanwhile Reston Association is able to send a plow (small Cat, I suspect) down the paths and clear them off quite well, yielding to the weight of snow only when trying to break through the snowplowed-barrier.

I Never Cease to be Amazed

Matt Uebel shares a video from 1994 showing the Today Show rather clueless at the Internet and email. That's just 17 years ago, hardly a generation.   Now, today, it seems a player in world politics, as witness Tunisia and Egypt.

Founding Fathers Had Imperfect Foresight

According to Rep. Duncan Hunter,(in a Grist post) when writing the Constitution the founders envisioned automobiles, but not bicycles.

Pigford II Website

Per an FSA notice, the website for Pigford II claims is blackfarmercase.com. 
It has two bolded statements:

: No payments can be made to any claimants under the Settlement until all claims have been determined. That means that it could be 2-3 years before successful claimants receive any payments.  Please be patient.

Please note: You do not need to pay money to any individual, farm advocacy group, or law firm to participate in the Settlement.  

USDA Moves With the Times

USDA gets props for advertising a website vacancy on Govloop.com. 

Powerline Loses Most of Its Common Sense

You can divide the world into two: people who drive you up the wall and people who don't. The Powerline blog is one of the few right wing blogs I follow, just to see what's going on and try to keep from freezing into intellectual ice.  John (Hinderaker) at Powerline drives me up the wall.  One of these years I'll do a compilation of his comments which seem to me to be unwise.  Paul (Mirengoff)[corrected] doesn't drive me up the wall, though usually I disagree with his comments. Scott (Johnson) also doesn't drive me up the wall.  Today Paul announced he was ceasing blogging.  Too bad.

{Updated: apparently Paul ran into trouble at his law firm over his response to the Giffords events. See TPM. ]