On SF Cabbie Stereotypes

This has got to be a new category on this blog; if I’m spending 40 bucks a week on cabs, I may as well as write about WTF these guys talk about. Angry cabbie, loquacious cabbie, porno cabbie, gearhead cabbie. Its all coming.

Sprint Customer Service sucks beyond belief

I thought I was going to be more productive with a mobile broadband card. I gutted my previous provider - cingular - in favor of Sprint, which supposedly has better data service.

Wrong answer! I’ve spent three hours this weekend trying to get this goddamn thing activated, to no avail.

Dear Fast Company: you guys are officially morons in my book

I don’t remember the last time I read such a puff piece about any company. Don’t get me wrong - I really like NIng’s product, I use it personally and professionally and I have a lot of respect for their team.

But the piece that was created around “viral expansion loops” with Ning as its centerpiece is, in one word: retarded. Where is the questioning of the revenue model? Where is the fact that Facebook CPMs are as low as 10 cents? Where is the diverse set of opinions from power users of the Ning system?

Congratulations to Ning on their hefty round and the heftier valuation! But I almost think that the Fast Company piece and their association with it is a negative.

Here is Rafat Ali’s pointed critique (bonus points for the great title): http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-fc-omg-like-totally-ning/

Wag of the finger to Yelp: Reviews aren’t exposed via RSS

[So I copied Steven Colbert in the title; sue me]

Okay, I’ve started to use Yelp pretty regularly to navigate my move up to the city. I’ve always been impressed by the strength of the community in San Francisco and just how many diverse points of view make their way into reviews of almost every spot out there. The Yelp Talk feature is most excellent - both times I’ve left questions, I’ve gotten north of 10 responses. Within an hour! Now that’s an engaged, passionate community.

Here is what’s bullshit: my reviews (or anyone else’s, for that matter) aren’t available via RSS. Why? Why can’t I, if I choose to, follow a friend’s reviews on Google Reader? Why can’t I send a feed of my own reviews to friends or link that feed to my main line blog feed?

In one word: pageviews? And that’s why Nick Carr says that “It’s worth remembering that the business model of Web 2.0 social networks is the sharecropping model“. For a site whose very existence relies upon users contributing content, shouldn’t it try to let that content free in some limited form?

Did I miss something here?

Fun factoid you didn’t know: ATM out of network charges

Read this in Fortune magazine this evening while busting my hump at the gym: every year, banks make 4 billion dollars in revenue from the annoying-as-hell $1.50 ATM charge thats applied and grudgingly accepted while we find ourselves out of network.

A good Kansas photo

Going to the Giants game, peeps!

With a Saint Louis fan, no less! Giants play Cardinals at 115PST, I’ll be there ignoring the sport of baseball and drinking beers while staring out onto the water. Yeah!

Good thing Giants games aren’t like Raider games, my friends would get killed. That would be no fun.

On the Scrubs Season Seven Premiere

In two words: it stank. That was NOT funny, Bill Lawrence. Come on!

On why Kosmix is da bomb for commute monkeys

This is not a shameless plug for the good folks that fund my expensive Star Wars costume habit (that was a joke, you nerds). This is an acknowledgment of my kickass ultra cheap commute thanks to Kosmix.

As you know, I recently moved up from my little hovel in Palo Alto to, well, a little hovel up in San Francisco. I live close to the Caltrain station on 4th and King as well as 280. I’ve been desperately trying to figure out how best to commute 45 minutes one way and not whine about it. Also note that my job implicitly requires me to show up at work 4-5 days a week. No cushy work from home action for me.

So you do the math: 80 miles a day, 5 days a week, at a bone-crushing 4.08 per gallon and 20 miles per gallon. I’ll save you the time - its in the 350 dollar neighborhood. That doesn’t even include weekend driving, wear and tear and the hidden costs of road rage (serious).

So how kickass is it that Kosmix pays for 50% of my Caltrain tickets *and* pre-taxes that bad boy to give me an additional saving?

Add that stuff up: 48 dollars for a 10 ride from Caltrain, out of which Big K paid for half. 96 bucks a month, minus tax benefits Add to that the sixty bucks I ponied up for a laptop wireless card and you’re looking at a 140 dollar per month outlay.

I could buy a goddamn iPhone every two months! How sweet is that?

On Caltrain, suicides and 3G phone cards

This has got to be one of the oddest mornings in a while.

I woke up at 640am - highly unusual for me - to be able to catch the 759 baby bullet from SF to Mountain View. I got ready ahead of time and took a leisurely walk down to the Muni stop outside my apartment - also an unusual circumstance given that I’m usually hauling ass down the street like a Kenyan at the Olympics.

I got on the train five minutes ahead of time and tested out - for the first time - my brand new 3G wireless card, which by the way works like a champ.

I made it all the way to Menlo Park before the train came to a screeching halt. Why? Because someone had just committed suicide. Yes, its true. And I’m liveblogging this on the train right outside Menlo Park.

While a human death is absolutely nothing to trivialize, God bless the Internet. I’m getting stuff done while I wait.