Author Archives: Josh

Naming Conventions

The cool thing about starting a new company, or having a child, or even a new project, is that you get to name it.

I fell onto Wikipedia’s list of laws, and found Diana Goodman’s Law, which says that in online discussions between women, eventually someone is accused of not having kids. Goodman is truly horrified by some of the names handed out to kids.

Unlike children’s names, with company names pretty much doesn’t matter what you call them. I’ve got one friend who named his company after a psychedelic drug, another who chose his hobby for a basis and a third after a Futurama character. Others pick some lame set of initials and add ‘consultants’ or whatever on the end. Myself, I went for truth-in-advertising: Intellectual Mercenaries. I was toying around Fictitious Deduction for a while, but rejected it as being a little dangerous in the accounts receivable department.

You’re not going to see truth-in-advertising in Project naming, no project Keeping Up With The Competition, or Dragging This Pile of Bones Kicking and Screaming into The 1990s. Acronyms seem to be very popular, even if a lot of the time the acronym becomes rather forced. Microsoft and Chip companies seem to like US Cities, perhaps because it doesn’t give anything away.

Project naming needs some flair. I suggest Pokemon Characters. I was going to suggest another Japanese franchise, but realised someone’s already gone down that path (sometimes my brain can’t keep up with my imagination).

What memorable namings have you seen (in any of the above categories)?

What is on your USB memory stick?

Some people responded to the question, What is on your USB memory stick?

Best response: IF_FOUND_RETURN_TO.txt or REWARD_IF_FOUND.txt
Interesting: heavily encrypted financial data / keys
Interesting: run anywhere Firefox

My memory stick is also my MP3 player, so it’s mainly songs. Plus an old version of a website I was putting together, plus some miscellaneous crap like resume/CV. I think I’ll put the reward thingy on it.

So, what have you got on your memory stick?

www-australia.info – what kind of domain name is that?

I found this ad for an amazing site when doing a google search:

 
      Sponsored Links
Photos Of Australia
Find out everything you need to
about this amazing destination!
www-australia.info

Someone has just paid money so that I’d click on that link, and see that site. Look at the photos along the bottom. First, there’s a left-hand-drive vehicle, then a naff sunshade and beachchairs at sunset, followed by a grey road with a yellow centreline driving through a conifer forrest, and finally some people skiing past a maple or something. Search the entire continent, you’re not going to find any of that stuff.

I don’t know if it’s covered in ads, perhaps it is (my ad blocking works really well, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to some dodgy site with IE).

Somebody: Please explain what the hell is going on here? I’d especially love an economist to explain what the heck that site is about – rational decision making my shiny metal butt.

Update: This is a Made For Adsense site. Still doesn’t make sense, but whatever. They too shall pass.

Wireless Skate Speedometer – a solution looking for a problem?

Finally, a Wireless Skate Speedometer, so now you can know how fast you’re skating. As an added bonus, it’s water resistant at up to 30ft/10m, for when you accidentally skate into a swimming pool.

You have to turn it on and off, because the batteries will only last 300hrs. I can’t imagine that would be hard to do, given where the wheel is – on the bottom of your shoe. And heaven help you if you forget, two weeks later your speedo will be knackered.

Of course, the wheels and bearings wear out, but they thought of that. Just buy your wheels and bearings from them! An electronics company! They’ll also sell you a battery kit, I guess because it uses special batteries or something. Or perhaps because they know you’re going to forget to turn the darn thing off.

They’ve got a big write-up on their site about how pushbikes have the wheel in contact with the ground all the time, but skates don’t, so their computer has to do all sorts of tricks to figure out the right answer. Perhaps hooking up a GPS might have been a better idea?

And of course, you have to consider the privacy implications or wireless transmission of personal data like your velocity…

Where are the aliens?

Coffee drinkers are easier to persuade.

Fermi’s Paradox is explained by aliens getting adicited to computer gaming.

Strom reckons he knows how to make money with a website: ads! Plus a little other stuff.

An Irishman has a rather good summery of how to negotiate an intial salary.

Cross-platform rounded corners without images, extra markup nor CSS. The holy grail of web-design dweebs.