Category: Good Product
Rendezvous with Virgin Galactic White Knight
The pilot of a Virgin America flight facilitates a wing to wing encounter with the Virgin Galactic White Knight and creates a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle for the passengers. I always thought that Branson’s Virgin companies were cool. This tops it off.
It’s not every day that you get to fly next to a spaceship!
The Surprise Under the Watering Can
I went to Home Depot to buy a couple of watering cans for the potted plants front and back. The old ones had both disintegrated in the sun over the years and literally crumbled.
I found this one. It cost less than five dollars and is made out of crude but solid plastic. When I looked for markings or indicators of how much water it holds, I turned it over.
It was to my delight and surprise that I found this label on the bottom:
I would have sworn this was made in China. It never even occurred to me that it could be made in the USA.
We can still make cheap stuff efficiently here in the U.S. And it didn’t have to cross the Pacific to get here. Let’s do more of this.
JD3 – Monster
Jeremy Dixon is a software designer come monster truck builder. This is a perfect example of somebody who seems to be making a living out of following his passion, rather than “selling out” to life. I am not much into cars, but I have to say, this would be a fun thing to drive around from time to time, especially when going on hiking trips. I think I could skip the hiking with this thing. Check out his site at JD3.com.
Happy 30th Birthday, Macintosh
It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years. 1984 was not at all like 1984. And I remember it like yesterday. The Apple 1984 Superbowl Ad.
Cookie Butter – A Truly Addicting Product
Introducing Speculoos Cookie Butter, a deliciously unusual spread reminiscent of gingerbread and made with crushed biscuits. You can get it at Trader Joes, but I hear it’s almost impossible to get and therefore very expensive. A colleague at work gave it to me. Thanks!
Now I am addicted. Move over Nutella and designer-peanut-butter. Take one spoon of Cookie Butter, and be forever a slave.
Try it!
Something this delicious must be very, very bad for you. I dare not read the ingredients and nutrition facts.
Taking a spoonful of this mean product is what life is all about. It does not get any better than this.
Positive Talk about the Affordable Care Act
Today I attended a national government information technology conference. One of the sessions was a panel of directors in charge of implementing the websites and call centers for the exchanges which went live on October 1. The topic of the session was ACA – Open Enrollment Week One. The IT directors of three states shared their experiences and their challenges, getting the websites up and running on time and ready for the onslaught of the public.
We all know it didn’t go smoothly. We know some websites were down or crashed and some phone lines didn’t get answered. But we all know too that the exchanges were open for business and throngs of people lined up to find coverage.
When the audience asked about what the most rewarding part of their jobs was, one of the directors said that he kept hearing how grateful many customers were that they finally were able to sign up for coverage. They had been denied coverage in the past either for pre-existing conditions, or because the premiums were more than they could afford. All of a sudden the doors were open and they could sign up. Even though coverage would not even start until January, they were already ecstatic that it was coming – they just had to wait a few months.
Estimates are that there are 48 million Americans uninsured. I believe that some of these people really do not want insurance, but I also believe that those are the minority. The vast majority of those 48 million are eager and excited to be able to join the ranks of those of us who don’t even know what it’s like not to have insurance – like myself.
New Perks at the Hampton Inn
I have never seen one of these before today.
The Hampton Inns installed new perks for us road warriors.
Mercedes Time Travel
This is not a Mercedes commercial, but a movie made by students. It’s in German, but you don’t need to know the language. Pay particular attention to the shape in which the boy lies on the ground in the closing scene: a swastika.
Masterful.
In the Early Days of FedEx
I recently read that in the early days of FedEx, during the late 1970s, executives in Manhattan corporate offices discovered that employees were using FedEx to deliver documents between floors of their buildings because it was faster and more reliable than the interoffice mail.
Imagine, a package gets picked up by the FedEx man on the 20th floor, he takes it down to the street to his truck, drives it to the airport, where it gets flown to Memphis that night, just to turn around to New York in the early morning, where it gets driven back to the building, and delivered to the 19th floor.
Overnight! The magic!
iPad Salesman
If you understand German, you get the Spiel. Even if you don’t understand German, you’ll love this.
Automatic Teller Machines – The Perfect Product
The first time I used an automatic teller machine (ATM) was in November 1977. I stuck in my card and got $40 quick cash. $40 in 1977 bought four full tanks of gas, or two nice dinners out for two, with wine.
I remember hearing the wheels turn as it fed the two bills out the chute, wondering how it did that.
In 1986 I interviewed with Fujitsu in their division that builds ATMs. That’s when I saw for the first time the inner workings of a cash feeding mechanism. I was fascinated by all the bands, pulleys and flywheels, spinning rapidly and somehow counting banknotes accurately before feeding them out. I was amazed that it ever worked.
35 years have gone by since my first use of the ATM, almost 13,000 days. Getting cash once every two weeks, which is probably right for me, would mean I have used an ATM 500 times in my life. Usually I get $200 nowadays, and I always take out the bills, hold them up so the camera can see me, and I count them.
Never once have I not received the right amount. It is always right. Always. I have never met anyone that said that an ATM had cheated them out of money. Very occasionally they are out-of-order, and they don’t accept my card. So if they have trouble giving me money, they “know” it and shut themselves down.
Of all products I have ever used, the ATM is the only one that has never failed me.
Why don’t we build everything like ATMs?
Toyota Prius Commercial
Fill up the tank in Bishop, California.
Head south on Hwy 395 toward San Diego.
Set the cruise control on 68 miles per hour.
Let it roll.
Arrive in San Diego 337 miles later with a gas mileage of 54.6 mpg and the tank still half-full.
Cool car!