Matthew's Weblog

I can never remember how to move a database in MS SQL 2000 from one computer to another. Well, now I can quit looking it up and just use the articles.

There’s a diatribe on Microeconomics that is worth reading… the focus is on how the US is losing its innovation advantage and how that could impact our international competitiveness. Very interesting, and pretty scary.

If we could finally move away from e-commerce being treated as something special, we could finally start treating our data streams as ways to learn better customer service. The key is showing that there is a real benefit to giving up some anonymity, which is substantially harder when customers are very aware of the downside of information being collected.

In an interesting Boston Globe article, finally a way to address the problem that isn’t ‘hide everything in a deeper hole’… nice to see this kind of thinking happening in public view.

From ASK MICK LASALLE, CHRONICLE MOVIE CRITIC comes a wonderful description that fits me as well… just substitute ‘technology’ for ‘movies’ in the question…

Dear Mick LaSalle: Where do you get off setting yourself up as the final authority and unquestioned arbiter of all things pertaining to movies? Your unmitigated arrogance and smarmy self-assuredness make me want to hurl.

Webb Stagner, Healdsburg

Dear Webb Stagner: Wow. You misunderstand me. You’re interpreting as arrogance something that has been arrived at with great humility and only after years of empirical observation. When day after day, month after month, year after year you keep noticing that you tend to be right — when unalterable consistency reveals that your rightness is, in fact, something almost akin to a law of the universe — you can’t help but allude to it every so often. You would, too. It just happens. Moreover, knowing the truth makes you feel an obligation to offer that clear water of insight to thirsting minds everywhere. It’s pretty dry out there, as you know. But certainly what drives the impulse to share the light and the truth is nothing like arrogance. It’s more like an overwhelming generosity and a deep, abiding love for one’s fellow creatures — everywhere on this cockeyed caravan.

I wrote a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger (and my Assembly/Senate members) to hopefully find a simpler, more effective way to promote renewable energy installations. I’m biased towards solar since that’s what I could use, but I think it provides interesting food for thought on many angles.

Please pass it along (with appropriate attribution) to anyone you think would be interested, or write one yourself!