31Mar
Currently cars are used as a tool for:
- commuting/work
- shopping
- recreation (vacation, Sunday drive, visiting friends)
These are some factors (you can add some of your own) that determine our enjoyment of the time spent in the automobile:
- Beauty of scenery (city, suburban multi-lanes, rural, highway)
- Time stuck in traffic (waiting at lights or in slow/congested traffic)
- Joy brought by the final destination/activity
Using the above scale, try assigning each factor a scale of -3 to 3, where positive 3 is the best score and negative 3 is the worst. For each journey in your vehicle you can assign a score to these three areas.
Examples:
- Driving into the city for a concert/baseball game through thick traffic is usually worth it.
- (destination: 3, traffic: -2, scenery: 1)
- For one year of my life I commuted an hour (each way) through San Francisco traffic across the Bay Bridge to get to work. I vowed to never again commute in this way. Given the equation this one was a negative for me every day, so I needed to change it.
- (destination: 0, traffic: -2, scenery: 1)
- I go hiking in my spare time, almost always a positive driving experience.
- (destination: 3, traffic: 3, scenery: 3).
A journey in an automobile should be an overall positive or zero sum experience. Road rage comes from journeys that are clearly in the negative territory. If you have consistent trips that dip into the negative territory, consider changing one of the three factors. It may save your life.
31Mar
The second "new" Twitter home page in just a few months adds top tweets that update every few seconds. It also highlights a random sampling of suggested sources. Hover over them to see a profile summary and their latest tweet. Trending topics scroll across the top of the page. Hovering over some of these trends will show a description explaining why the keyword is (or has recently been) popular.
Here's a 17 second tour via paidContent:
31Mar
Last minute talks with Universal that would have the world's largest label group license EMI's vast catalog for as much as $300 million over the next 5 years have resumed in the last 24 hours according to a variety of sources. Completion of the deal could mean the shut down of virtually all of EMI's U.S. operations and hundreds of layoffs.
Wednesday is the deadline for EMI to submit numbers and a plan to lender CitiGroup showing solvency and that it has a plan to move forward. If the music company fails the test, Citi could take over in an attempt to protect its $2.5 billion position.
It is less clear if Sony is still in the bidding game and spokespersons from all parties involved refused to comment.
MORE JOB CUTS: RealNetworks cut another 4% of staff. (paidContent) LiveNation is also in the midst of post-merger layoffs that could effect 500 jobs.
