Feb 22, 2013

How a Group of Volunteers Beat Microsoft

In the early 1990s Microsoft had a great idea: create a digital encyclopedia to be distributed on CD-ROM and online. There would be hundreds of well-paid employees working on this important project. It looked and sounded like a great idea at a time when people still connected to the internet via dial-up modems and the thought of having the information of twenty of more heavy books (think Encyclopaedia Britannica) on one CD was truly revolutionary. But less than twenty years later, in October of 2009, Microsoft pulled the plug on MSN Encarta. What had happened?


Feb 18, 2013

Special Deal

Everybody likes a good deal, right? What about 100 deals? Sounds too good to be true? It's not. The Book Depository, my favorite place to get new reading material, is starting a special campaign this Thursday: 100 different books on offer during a time period of 25 hours, starting at noon (GMT) and ending on Friday at 1 p.m. Every 15 minutes a new book will be on offer. Sounds like something you could enjoy taking part in? Just click on the banner below and find out everything you need to know about this special offer!


Feb 14, 2013

When Cash Hurts

Dan Ariely on the "Pain of Paying". Very interesting and practical video. Some of the highlights include:

  • What's more painful? Cash or credit card? Prepayment or paying after the event?
  • How to increase the pain of paying (and when that might make sense)
  • How to decrease the pain of paying (and when that might make sense)
  • Method and timing of payment matters more than you think
  • What's an ideal gift?
  • And the interesting case of America Online (AOL) and its modem users

Source: danariely.com

Feb 7, 2013

Are You Homeless?

Something I recently read...
     The first thing you notice when you're homeless is how long the nights are. It's hard to realize that a night can be so long; but in time you get used to it. You don't really sleep, especially in the beginning, because you wake up every fifteen minutes worried someone will come upon you. Your imagination runs wild with what terrible things would happen if you fell asleep and let that happen.
     The world at night when you're without shelter feels like the Twilight Zone, another dimension, another planet, where the normal laws of time and space don't apply. When the sun comes up, you're so happy knowing that soon people are going to be out and you'll be back in the world again, on terra firm, although you're tired and worried about how fast night comes again.
     Before you know it, you're seeing the shops close down, lights diminishing down streets, cars becoming fewer and fewer; on residential blocks you enviously watch working mothers and fathers pulling into driveways, arriving home to their families; and you stand outside talking to them in your head, saying, Don't go inside, not yet, stay out a little longer!
     Your hearing changes as the general noise of the workaday world goes silent and other sounds become more pronounced. A car engine sputtering. Tires squealing around turns. Even sounds that are far away: distant trains, speeding cars, gunshots, police and ambulance sirens.