The Journey Begins! (via Munching to Mend)
My awesome sister Maggie has started a blog about her new diet, which she is undertaking because she has the gene for reactive arthritis. It sounds like a good diet – lots of fruit and veggies, lean meats, and no processed carbs. So, in other words, foods we all should be eating anyways.
Maggie’s blog looks good, and it inspired me to come back to WordPress after a brief stint at Posterous. I’ll write some more about why I think WordPress is the best long-term solution for my wandering bloglust. But for now, here’s Maggie’s post – I hope you enjoy it.
via Munching to Mend
Good on ya, FitBit
A few months ago I ordered me up a FitBit, one of the coolest new tech doodads, a thingy that you slip in your pocket to monitor all of the calories you burn throughout the day, as well as your sleep, what you eat, and all kinds of other stuff. Thought it sounded cool. And so, apparently, did a ton of other people. And this thing has been hampered by major delays. This is what my dad calls a “high class problem.” And it is one that would be frustrating if it weren’t for the tremendous outreach from the company, in emails like the one I’m copying below. This is a start-up that seems honest, humble, and, most importantly, genuinely happy for my business. As one of my English friends would say: “Good on ya, FitBit!”
Makes me look forward to checking mine out as soon as they’re able to ship it. Maybe I’ll even let you know what I think of it. ************************** Dear Kevin, We are writing to inform you of an update with the status of your Fitbit order. We now expect to ship your order by May 31st at the latest. We know how frustrating the changing ship date can be and we work hard to provide accurate shipping estimates up front. We continue to receive Fitbit shipments from our factory every week, and we ship them out to customers as soon as we receive them. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you, and will continue to work hard to get this item to you as soon as possible. You will receive another email when your order is ready to ship. We’ll ask you to reconfirm your order at that time, and you will also be able to update or change your credit card information. If you need to update your order you can do so on the order status page. We will not charge your credit card until we ship your order. If you have any further questions you can contact orders@fitbit.com at any time for resolution. We appreciate your patience and hope to serve you in a more timely fashion in the future. Sincerely, The Fitbit TeamTomorrow could change my life
I haven’t really told anyone this yet. But tomorrow is an important day for me. A few months ago, on a whim, I signed up for the lottery for the ING NYC Marathon. This is crazy. Sure, its not TOTALLY crazy: I’ve run a half marathon in my life, and I can run 5-8 miles without much difficulty. But I’m not a runner, by any stretch of the imagination. People look and me, and they see a guy more at home in a sports bar than a sports gym. So its in the lottery god’s hands. If I “win,” I have about seven months to get myself into marathon shape (which would probably involve losing 20lbs or so). If I don’t, well, we’ll see. After all, there are other fall marathons…
UPDATE: Didn’t make it. Exploring some charity options. Hmm… stay tuned.
The Big Picture » Blog Archive » Amazon Apologizes to Michael Lewis Over Kindle Flap
Amazon’s super useful crowd sourced reviews was a great innovation. From their own selfish perspective, AMZN should be more protective of that. They should consider how Yahoo allowed their comment streams (for just about every property) to become polluted with touts and spam and trolls and haters to the point where it is no longer useful. Then Bezos might want to notice the long slider in YHOO’s stock price over the same period. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Great to see the eminent Barry Ritholz take issue with Amazon’s review system trashing Michael Lewis’s new book, which I wrote about the other day. My main concern is Ritholz’s main point excerpted above: Amazon’s crowd-sourced review system is, to me, the main competitive advantage for shopping at Amazon. If the reviews get polluted by trolls, spammers, or idiots, I will find Amazon a lot less useful, and I will look for other places to shop online.
Amazon’s review system is broken
Like many others, after watching last night’s “60 Minutes,” I was excited to order Michael Lewis’s new book on the financial crisis: “The Big Short.” When I went on Amazon today to place order, however, I was bummed to find that it had received an average of 2 1/2 stars. Is the book really that bad?
Well, no. Lots of people are going on the website to give the book a one-star review because it isn’t available for Kindle. Now, this bums me out. The Amazon reviews are among the most helpful pieces of information for me when buying a product. Reading Amazon reviews often makes up about 95% of the product research I conduct before making purchase decisions. If the Amazon review system is going to be invaded by hordes of Kindle-wielding rabblerousers, it will become far less helpful to me.
At the same time, I can see why Amazon doesn’t want to prevent people from writing reviews simply because they haven’t purchased the book. I see that Amazon recently launched a “verified review” system to prove that a reviewer did, in fact, buy the book from Amazon (and aren’t just an angry Kindle owner looking for blood). It probably makes sense for Amazon to publish a separate review area for the “verified reviews,” so I don’t have to waste my time wading through the one-star “why isn’t this on Kindle” crap. But it’s a tough call.
I guess when everyone gets an iPad in a few months, they won’t need books on Kindles anyway, right?
PS: The publisher won: I bought the dang book in hardcover.
Theodore H. Frank: I am not afraid of my Toyota Prius
It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for the recall than lives will be saved from going through the safety theater demanded by the Department of Transportation.
