myStrangerFace A place for Canadians.

GlennFleishman

website

Bio

Tech reporter Freelancer Entrepreneur Father of two Home owner Believer in humanity Writer of annoyingly… more »

TMI

Production or Devel
Elliott Bay or Amazon
Vampire or Zombie
What's your favorite Charles Mudede post?: That one with the picture of a building with incomprehensible Marxist allusions
Presse or Pichet

Refresh

May 9

GlennFleishman commented on Your Dog Sucks.

Such a big peeve; thanks for sharing, Dan.

It's part of the displacement of personal responsibility, this time in dog form. People smoke, and they flick their butts, and the instant it leaves their finger, no longer their problem. People leave their small children in a store and go get coffee; it's the store's problem suddenly.

I was at a playground a couple of years ago, one with sand. There's a giant sign that says "no animals permitted" and we are in a leashed area, in any case (in Seattle). A big, friendly dog is loping all over the place. It doesn't appear to belong to anyone. I look around and finally figure out the owners. My two small children are with me.

"Is that your dog?" I ask. The woman looks at me, exasperated. "Yes." "Can you please take your dog out of the playground?" She rolls her eyes and leashes the dog nearby. It starts wailing.

I am somehow the bad guy, not her. Explain that to me. I felt bad for the dog.

Apr 24

GlennFleishman commented on What I'm Using Instead of Google Reader.

@3: Google said July 1st. Possible they will push it back further.

Apr 24

GlennFleishman commented on What I'm Using Instead of Google Reader.

I'm an ancient NetNewsReader user (Mac software developed by a Seattle guy, Brent Simmons), and the current owners have pledged to have a solution in place before Google Reader goes into the inky deeps.

Apr 16

GlennFleishman commented on Predictable Trolls Are Predictable.

@8 is right. They make announcements and typically don't show up. With high-profile defections and effective strategies to block their ability to disrupt events, it seems that they are mostly issuing press releases. There's a running narrative that perhaps the entire goal of the organization was to sue police departments, cities, and counter-protesters to make money. I don't know if it's fully plausible given the stories that people (including relatives of the founder) who have left the group have said. But they're not really worth the attention now unless they do show up, which seems rare.

Apr 13

GlennFleishman commented on Power Outages All Over Town.

Lightning strike at U District substation, according to Sea Light twitter post and photo!

https://twitter.com/SEACityLight/status/…

Apr 10

GlennFleishman commented on Bad News for Microsoft.

@23: " IDC also says that Mac sales were down 7.5%. Did Windows 8 kill Mac sales too?"

Sometimes follow links if you're going to dispute an item. IDC says that tablets are clearly cannibalizing PC sales, including Apple's, but that more generally (since Apple has a very tiny worldwide marketshare for computers and only 10% in the US), Windows 8 failed to bump sales at all.

"Lenovo's sales were constant year-over-year. Why isn't the story "Why is Lenovo doing amazing while everyone else is flailing toward failure"?"

It's less bad rather than amazing. Holding at 0% year over year growth isn't a feasible business strategy. The drop in sales industrywide was so huge, Lenovo not losing sales isn't much of a story.

Apr 1

GlennFleishman commented on Apps Are the New Dot.Com.

Amusing that no commenters are talking about Lyft itself. I find its business model terrifying. Average people put themselves out as taxi drivers for a "suggested donation" to avoid the scrutiny of public utility commissions and taxi commissions. Yes, there is feedback and ratings and all that crap. But, sweet jesus.

The Uber model originally relied on licensed livery drivers. It was a replacement for calling a town car, more or less, and using a mileage rate instead of a per-hour fee. UberX, however, is just like Lyft.

Do people really want to have random people, unregulated and unlicensed, drive them around town?

Feb 28

GlennFleishman commented on Lindy West Blows Up My Interwebs Again.

@2: "People like West": Yes, all women are wrong about unspecified things, Trollie McTrollinstuff. Thank you!

Jan 22

GlennFleishman commented on Inflation Is Good!.

If wages kept pace with inflation, then a little inflation is good for people who owe money. Mortgages are worth less and less in current dollars as long as inflation was low when you got the mortgage and higher when you're paying it off. Inflation (as long as it as translates into interest rates on CDs, bonds, and savings accounts) also means older people invested in cash, such as from the sale of a house, can avoid tapping capital to pay bills.

We're used to some extreme swings of inflation in the U.S. and remember the Carter-era super-high inflation (for a modern developed nation). Inflation harms those who have income that's not inflation-pegged, which is true for some pensions and other benefits, or for whom cost-of-living increases in payouts don't match actual inflation and costs of living!