I am Cole Cringely
I am an ambitious boy who likes to code Java.
I wonder how to code Mojang applications.
I hear water splashing on the seashore.
I see happiness in the air.
I want superpowers.
I am an ambitious boy who likes to code Java.
I pretend I am flying on the swing.
I feel scared of bridges.
I touch the center of the Earth.
I worry about earthquakes.
I cry when I get insulted.
I am an ambitious boy who likes to code Java.
I understand the meaning of life.
I was with a friend recently who has a pretty exciting Internet startup company. He has raised some money and might raise more, his product is in beta and it’s good. It solves a difficult technical problem many companies are struggling with. We argued a little over the name of the product. Of course I thought my suggested name was better or certainly cleverer, but then he said, “It doesn’t matter because we’ll probably sell the company before the product ever ships. It may never appear at all.”
His company will exit almost before it enters. This is happening a lot lately and we generally think it is a good thing but it’s not.
If, like me, […]
Best Buy is in trouble you know. It’s in the news all the time. I wrote a big column about it myself last year. Same store sales have suffered, corporate employees are being laid off, the big U.S. electronics retailer is pulling out of Europe. Best Buy management is in turmoil. The founder leaves in a huff, then tries and fails to take the company private, and is now making nice-nice with the same management he previously reviled. There’s a new head of stores (I wish him well) who thinks the answer is price matching, better sales training and paying workers to sell more stuff, which sounds like commissions […]
Remember when Bluetooth phone headsets came along and suddenly there were all these people loudly talking to themselves in public? Schizoid behavior became, if not cool, at least somewhat tolerable. Well expect the same experience now that Google Glass is hitting the street, because contrary to nearly any picture you can find of the thing, when you actually use it most of your time is spent looking up and to the right, where the data is. I call it the Google Gaze.
Only time will tell how traffic courts will come to view Google Glass, but having finally tried one I suspect it may end up on that list of things we’re supposed to drive without.
Another suspicion […]
Charles Erwin Wilson, known as “Engine Charlie,” was president of General Motors and later Secretary of Defense under President Dwight Eisenhower. He is broadly — and incorrectly — quoted as having said during his Senate confirmation hearing “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.” His actual quote is more nuanced: “For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”
