I’m sorry, but when did the process of buying an item turn into a question and answer session? Within the last week, as I’ve purchased things, it’s been:

• Borders: “What’s your ZIP Code?”
• Godiva: “May I have your phone number?”
• Radio Shack: “Can I have your ZIP Code?

And let’s not forget the blue-shirted brigands at Best Buy, who not only ask you your phone number, they then use that information to drill down amongst the members of the household to find your name — all whilst three of them tag-team you, trying to convince you to buy the stupid extended warranty at a full 16% of the purchase price! (Oh, how I loathe Best Buy. Stay far away from them. Use Amazon. Use Froogle. Use… anything else.)

I realize this isn’t a particularly original gripe, just as I realize that the questions will probably fade away as we all start using plastic and become eminently more traceable. I just wish that the shopping experience could start to suck a little less — or, better, that I’d learn I probably don’t need to buy it in the first place.

Well, I had a variety of scenarios in my head as to how the meeting would go, and it turned out to match none of them.

I’ll update this post when I have definitive word (in about 6 hours). For now, I’m off to the Apple Store to look at shiny things.

Update [7:22p EDT]: Just heard. They passed. Chief concern: liquidity. They said they think I’m smart and the idea could make money, but they don’t think they could flip the company and get a bidding war started. Fair enough. I’m actually relieved, for reasons I may cover later. For now, I’m hungry.

The Wi-Fi here is free. That’s good. All hotels should have free broadband. Those who don’t should be mocked and ostracized, like those who would charge for cable.

Oh, and they should put hot chocolate in the rooms. Not everybody drinks tea and coffee.

That’s all for now. Wish me luck.

Last night, I spent some time flying over the city of Chicago, then a few moments later I hovered over Manhattan for a bit.

No, I haven’t gotten heavy into the hallucinogens: I was admiring Google Maps, now enhanced with zoomable satellite images (via Keyhole.) Enter an address, flip to satellite mode, and (if the city is big enough to warrant it) zoom in, drag the image around, and just have some fun. Makes TerraServer seem sadly outdated.

The fact that you can sit in your chair and recreate every bad spy movie you’ve ever seen, for free, is great fun.

I wouldn’t recommend using it for actual surveillance work, however, as the images have been, ahem, altered. Take this cropped view of the Casa Blanca:

Note the oddly flat, uniform color on the roof of the two buildings, particularly the amateur edges. There’s something up there that the government has decided we shouldn’t see. Missiles, maybe? Snipers? Freaky-cool satellite dishes? Perhaps (shudder) a hot tub?

Who knows. Guess we’ll have to hold out for Yahoo! UAV…

…you’re a salesperson’s nightmare when you have a fat folder stuffed with glossy brochures from all the major manufacturers, you’ve contacted every dealer within a 30 mile radius, downloaded and studied the PDF manuals for the products, responded to quotes with pointed comments on what the Internet vendors offer, and had nearly every one of your questions met with a “Well, I’m not sure if you can even do that…”

…you’re a nerd when you bring in your laptop, plug in and immediately enable a packet sniffer, quickly reverse-engineer the product’s protocol, then discuss in detail how you’re going to re-implement some of the features provided by the manufacturer in your own custom application, which, naturally, will slice, dice, whiten your teeth, freshen your breath…

…you’re a coward when another salesperson notices you’re vertically gifted and asks you if you only date tall girls, and you instantly reflect that you’re in a town of 4,400 and even though everyone’s nice and you don’t want to lie, it’s just easier to avoid the whole team pink thing and parry by mentioning how your mother jokes about all her kids marrying short people…

…you don’t have enough to do when all of the above is for buying a photocopier.

I have a few domain names with GoDaddy.com (terrible site, terrible commercials, but cheap as hell) so I’m on their mailing list. On Wednesday, I received a message with an inflammatory subject: “Federal Agency Nixes Your Right to Privacy.” Seems they’re in a huff because someone recommended against allowing “private registrations” for .us domains. Y-a-w-n.

I’d be more impressed with their indignation were it not for three facts:

1. This applies only to .us domains, and it seems to me a fair requirement that they be able to verify said users are actually in the U.S.,
2. GoDaddy makes a bundle on private registrations, so big surprise they think everyone should have them, and
3. At the bottom of this message urging me to visit their electronic petition, they include this note:
   You are receiving this email [...] because our records indicate you are a Go Daddy customer. If you feel you have received this email in error, please notify us at 14455 N. Hayden Rd, Ste. 219, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

It’s that last that really steams me. It’s bad enough that they’re spamming me to say they want to protect my privacy — then they say if I want them to stop, I should write this completely online-based company a letter. Please.

So I’m watching that show I hate to admit I watch, and suddenly there’s this big fish:

Which instantly reminds me of Wally, the crazy fish from Hastings Reef:

And that makes me think: 1) damn, that’s right, I’m actually a certified SCUBA diver now, and 2) that seems like forever ago! Did it even really happen?

By way of Gizmodo’s Shuffle Swimsuit Models for Charity article, I have learned of the “iPose” competition for, of all things, tsunami relief.

Now, I wouldn’t dare make generalizations about greeks, or undergrads, or even the fine academic traditions of Arizona universities. (I’m sure they’re wonderful.) I’m even willing to look past this weird fetishization of iPods shuffle.

Still, one small piece of advice: if your likeness is going to be placed on the Web for votes (see girls, guys) perhaps you might first want to make sure you don’t have any, um, unfortunate wetness in the crotch region:

Awhile ago, I mentioned reading an article by Paul Graham called “How to Start a Startup.” After publishing the article a few weeks ago, Mr. Graham and others started a group to provide early-stage seed money to people who might want to create startups of their own. The initiative is called the Summer Founders Program, and for its inaugural summer the group received 223 applicants for 6-10 slots. (The announcements page helpfully notes “This means the SFP’s acceptance rate will be slightly lower than Harvard Medical School’s, so please don’t be discouraged if your proposal isn’t accepted.”)

The team of B-don and myself was one of those applicants, and I was thrilled to learn an hour ago that we’ve advanced to the next stage. This means that our chances have improved from 1 in 25 to even money. It also means I get a ticket to Boston for the interview process next weekend. I love Boston, so I’m trying to focus on the fact that a trip is reward enough (“It’s an honor just to be nominated.”) And it is, really, because the application process has really helped me to crystallize my thinking.

If we make the cut, it means a summer in Cambridge trying to turn the proposal into a product. If we don’t, well, I’m still pretty pleased we tried.

I figured I might see some creativity in response to my subject lines post, and I was not disappointed. Jesse opted for a subject of read this! there are words in it., and brother Jeff had fun with [eom].

But the lovely Cath deserves a special prize, because she just sent me a message where the entire text — all 1,884 characters — was in the subject line.

I didn’t even know you could do that.

Wow, I don’t know about today. I’m in this weird mood, a combination of amped-up/fidgety and just totally emotionally drained; I’m waiting on a few heavy e-mails, pondering a few worries.

It’s one of my “press pause” days, when I wish I could just press pause on the world and chill out a bit. That’s not how it works, of course, so I just gotta play through.

I kinda think that this is the perfect frame of mind to work out. Get up a good sweat, get your mind off things. If only I wasn’t such a lazy bastard…

1. Could there possibly be a more annoying way to write “opportunity” than this:

I keep wanting to say “op-por-tehyoonity.” (From here.)

2. Who exactly is downloading these AIM icons:
     

It’s one thing to love the show, but are you going to pimp it?

3. Could I be any more obviously lazy than to put up filler for a day just to avoid breaking my string?

A company called, oddly, “Serious Magic” wants to start a new trend: video blogging, or, in the rather painful neologism they have conceived, “Vlogging.” (I’m not even sure how to pronounce that.)

All it takes, according to the serious magicians, is the purchase of their “Vlog It!” product and you’ll be faux-newscasting like a champ. Why, just listen to this ringing endorsement from the WashPost: “…generates a personal video that looks much like a regular TV newscast or documentary.” Actually, that’s what the Post said in a photo caption, a fact you’ll have to resort to Google to learn. (The magicians don’t link to the article.)

Anyway, let me just take a stand (even without being able to watch the demo video, as it’s not Linux-friendly) and say I oppose this trend. Blogging is supposed to be for those of us can dole out the bon mots, carefully crafting quips and witticisms for you, the adoring public. The interweb was our refuge from the cruel world where the pretty people rule. Now they’re going to come roaring into this last bastion.

I think my African American friend on the company’s home page knows what I’m talking about:

(cropped version; full screenshot which also reveals my rampant addiction to tabs)

Seriously, what is this dude doing? At first I thought he looked pissed, which I thought was an odd choice for a happy-fun-buy-stuff page. Then I realized he was actually sad, nay, mournful at the prospect of blogging overrun by visual tyranny. “Please,” he seems to silently plead, “get me out of here!”

I hear you, friend. I hear you.

(Not like we didn’t know that.) I was poking around Travelocity today, looking up some fares, and I was dumped into a page I hadn’t seen before. One of the links was called something like “Search by budget”, and it brought me to this Dream Maps page.

It’s pretty slick. You choose your home airport, specify your max budget, and it shows you destinations. It even allows international segments using the link alongs the top. Almost exactly what I wanted! Now if they can just de-clutter the display a little bit. Maybe talk to the guys who made Google Maps…

I’ve been pondering an article by Paul Graham called “How to Start a Startup” (courtesy the Slashdorks.) There’s plenty in there that’s got me thinking, and maybe we’ll discuss that another time. For now, let me focus on one bit:

There are plenty of other areas that are just as backward as search was before Google. I can think of several heuristics for generating ideas for startups, but most reduce to this: look at something people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t suck.

For example, dating sites currently suck far worse than search did before Google. They all use the same simple-minded model. They seem to have approached the problem by thinking about how to do database matches instead of how dating works in the real world. An undergrad could build something better as a class project. And yet there’s a lot of money at stake. Online dating is a valuable business now, and it might be worth a hundred times as much if it worked.

This got me thinking. First, how valuable is online dating, anyway? The answer shocked me: according to Hoovers, industry leader Match.com collected $185m in 2003, for 48% growth. That, friends, is a truckload of money. Consider my interest piqued.

So am I ready to launch my new super-dating site to get my piece of the pie? Well, no. Maybe I need to hire an undergrad, but damned if I know how to better approximate “how dating works in the real world.” Yes, I can see his point about how the focus seems to be on databases: I am a (blah) seeking a (blah) for (blah) within (blah) miles of (blah) ZIP Code is lame. But on the other hand you have things like eHarmony, which (supposedly) does all sorts of fancy slicing and dicing of your questionnaire to find your match(es).

Obviously these seem more analagous to store locators and online job applications than actual, you know, dating, but damned if I can think of a better approach. Have to ruminate on that one when I have a free moment. (Feel free to jump in on the comments if you’ve got a thought.)

Update [Mon 03:45]: Okay, I randomly remembered a friend’s story of how one of his friends was using the “social network” services such as Friendster to meet people for casual sex. That’s not really dating, but maybe it’s prelude. Or not. Anyway, it fascinates me. I wonder about the specific mechanics. Do you e-mail somebody and say “Hey, you know Todd, I know Todd, let’s fuck?”

I suppose it’s more complicated.

Also as it happens I’ve been sorting through various stuff on my hard drive, and in the “random stuff that amuses me” category I found this:

Now of course I hate any banner ad that uses fake pulldowns and submit buttons to incite you to click. But this one did work, because I had to follow through and see if you could actually choose “I am a Man / Looking for a Man” on the site itself. Alas, you cannot.

Not to worry, though. Church doesn’t want you? Site operator FriendFinder Network, Inc. still wants to serve you, whether you’re Indian, Korean, Filipino, or just good old-fashioned horny. In fact, the same servers that bring you BigChurch provide this, which limits your “I am seeking” choices in a very different way…