2008 January

It may be a reflection of the harsh economic times. eBay is falling in step with Starbucks and giving the customer some financial incentive:
“SAN FRANCISCO - EBay Inc. said Tuesday it will cut by up to 50 per cent the fees it charges sellers to list their goods online, in an effort to boost [...]

One of the advantages of a cell phone used to be that the owner of the phone controlled the exposure of the number. This provided added privacy and prevented intrusions such as telemarketing calls. This cell phone privacy may be gone:
“SAN FRANCISCO (NEWS CHANNEL) — Think your cell phone number is private? Think [...]

There is another data breach at an educational institution. Penn State has a security breach involving alumni data:
“A university laptop containing past students’ archived information and Social Security numbers was stolen from a faculty member while traveling earlier this month, potentially exposing 677 alumni who graduated between 1999 and 2004 to identity theft.”
link: [...]

The Willow Kinloch incident is controversial in Canada and especially in her home province of British Columbia. The following is part of the surveillance video. - I would like to say that this is not pleasant viewing. Please avoid viewing this if you do not want to be upset. I [...]

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?‘ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night’.”
Charles M. Schulz
[tag]charles m. schulz, quote, worry[/tag]

The video is disturbing. - No, it is more than disturbing. It is gut-wrenching and nauseating. - The surveillance video show a fifteen year old girl, Willow Kinloch, pushed against a jail cell wall, forced to the ground and handcuffed. Then her feet are tied and she is tethered [...]

Maria Sharapova added to her tennis resume with a championship at the Australian Open. It was a 7-5 and 6-3 win over Ana Ivanovic.
As both players had some difficulties with their first serves, it was Maria Sharapova who had an early break in the first set. She followed that with some [...]

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
[tag]aristotle, quote, excellence[/tag]

It is a marketing department’s dream come true. The finals of the women’s Australia Open could not be scripted better in terms of promotion. The championship match features two beautiful, athletic women at one of tennis’ greatest venues.
Maria Sharapova is already a household name. She is well known to male teenage adolescents [...]

It is bad when a business antagonizes customers. It may be worse when a charity angers its supporters. The One Laptop Per Child programs seems as though it has a public relations nightmare on its hands:
‘…”It was for a good cause and also I really wanted a cool geeky toy for myself,” Ruggiero [...]