The spam is funny!

I just got a spam inviting me to engage in unprotected sax.

Online v. Big Box

Last night I brought my mother-in-law to Best Buy.  We had two goals in mind: a laptop for her and a cable modem for me.  We came well-prepared: a friend had researched Windows laptops for us (I know nothing about PCs and Windows, so I was happy to let him do that) and I had done a bunch of poking around looking for details on cable modems and figuring out which ones worked best.

On the laptop end of things, our friend recommended a Dell or a HP laptop.  They were relatively well spec'd: 250GB hard drive, some random Intel Core Duo 2 CPU, 4GB memory, 17" display, etc.  Online it came to about $570, with no tax or shipping charges.  In Best Buy, it was closer to $700, plus tax.

On the cable modem end, Amazon would sell me a Motorola cable modem for $46, with no tax.  Because I'm an Amazon Prime customer, I get free two-day shipping.  Otherwise it would just free regular shipping.  In Best Buy, it was closer to $70, plus tax.

Best Buy is no mom-and-pop store: I feel no particular loyalty to them because I don't feel like I'm supporting a local business.  The exact same can be said for Amazon, the only difference being that they have no physical presence in my neighborhood.  On those merits alone, why on earth would I ever want to go to Best Buy to get stuff like this?  About the only reason I can think of is "I need a PC in an emergency," but I've never felt this way about electronics.  How is Best Buy surviving?  Circuit City died a death, and Best Buy said they might open new stores in some of their old branches.  At the time I assumed this was because they were doing something right and that Circuit City wasn't, but I see no evidence of that.  The store was pretty empty: compared to an Apple store, it was like a morgue.  I noticed the same thing about our local Sony store (just down the road from our local bustling Apple store.)

I wonder how these businesses are surviving?

Gmail question

Why does Gmail put this at the top of my inbox?

Update: now it says this.

NASA and the ESA

This week Science magazine had an article about future cooperation between NASA and the ESA on missions to Mars. I'd just like to remind those nice folks at the ESA that NASA engineers were carpenters in a previous life and so are more accustomed to working Imperial units rather than the Metric units in use in the rest of the universe. Something to keep in mind when you're designing parts that need to fit together, etc. It would suck to have a repeat of the whole Mars Climate Orbiter lithobreaking incident.

A play in one act

Scene: a house in the suburbs. G is in the kitchen. K & R are in the family room, watching TV.

G: Shouting above the TV noise. Are these moon sprogs done?

K: What?

R: I think she asked "are these moon sprogs done?"

K: Oh. Yes, they are.

R: What?

K: Yes, they're done.

R: Moon sprogs?

K: Yes.

R: I said "moon sprogs".

K: Yes. They're done.

R: I have no idea what you think I just said.

Nothing To Worry About

Peter Bjorn and John's "Nothing To Worry About. Amazing.