Daniel Jones

Austin Coupons

2008-05-13T00:58:00Z

The Austin Coupons page on RateAustin is finally on the first page of Google search results. The top links are SEO crap sites, so it shouldn't be too hard to get in the top 5.

Tarantula

2008-02-15T04:21:00Z

Tarantula
Originally uploaded by wirelessjones

Look what I found lurking near the garage door.

OpenID

2008-02-03T19:39:44Z

According to Yahoo!, RateAustin now has over 300 million potential users. So does every other OpenID site, but it's still cool. I have seen a steady increase in traffic after adding OpenID 2.0 support to handle Yahoo! users. It's so much easier for a new user to log in without forcing them to verify an email address.

I really like how OpenID lets me remove the email verification step that is required to minimize crap posts on a community site. With OpenID, you get the same barrier to entry without wasting more end user time. I was not pleased to see that after a successful OpenID verification to log into Plaxo, they still wanted me to verify my email address. I am much more likely to actually try out a site if they don't require email address verification.

austinjones @ 2007-12-06T09:50:00

2007-12-06T15:57:19Z

321-CALL-LOG looks like a good way to archive important phone calls. An even better consumer protection device would be a credit card that requires the receiving party to agree to the customers terms of service before accepting payment. I should not have to call a person and wait on hold for 20 minutes to cancel a subscription that I set up in 3 minutes online.

RateAustin

2007-07-12T06:29:48Z

RateAustin.com is really starting to take off. I am getting more inquiries about running promotions and site traffic is continuing to rise. Just about every small business that I talk to is very positive about the site. It is also promising to see LJ and AOL users logging in via OpenID.

Crappy Coupons

2004-07-03T02:04:53Z

Get off of junk mail lists: http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/

Books I have read recently

2003-08-06T15:58:02Z

Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser.
Fast Food Nation by the aforementioned.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Reefer Madness is a collection of three essays about ganga, migrant workers, and the porn industry - three very large results of our free market economy. Free for whom is the question that Schlosser poses... Fast Food Nation is a great book to read if you need a good reason to become a vegetarian. One interesting tidbit you learn is that the fast food industry does not receive the lowest grade of meat availabe - that is reserved for the prison system and the school lunch program. Grade F circus meat anyone? Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place in a future time when everyone is online via brain implants, you can back up your brain, more importantly recover your brain backup after death, and everyone has a public karma score called Whuffie. Your whuffie rises and falls based on how others perceive you, and your effect on others' whuffie also rises and falls based on your whuffie. Fun for the geek and non-geek alike!

austinjones @ 2003-05-02T15:02:00

2003-05-02T20:03:19Z

What do you get with a bunny, digital camera, and too much free time?

Answer

LOL

2003-03-15T08:04:54Z

Beverly, a woman who has experienced some problems with irresponsible dog owners in Austin parks, expressed her dissatisfaction with the situation in the austin.general newsgroup. Some people agreed that there is a problem, and others urged her to lighten up about the situation and go to parks without dogs. One of her posts includes some ideas for signs that would alert park goers to the dangerous nature of Austin parks:

...People swim in those waters, maybe a sign ought to be posted stating the condition of the water from the dog feces runoff. As I see it, those that think Bull Creek is a DOG PARK would like to see signs that state "Enter park at your own risk....Dogs at large", or "Swim at your own risk, dog feces contamination in water", or even "Park your car, let your dogs loose...this is a DOG PARK....(we recommend you staying in your car, this place smells, and dog fights occur frequently".

Segway Texas Edition

2002-11-18T19:41:08Z

The Mullis Diet

2002-09-10T11:26:39Z

The Unconventional Genius of Dr. Kary Banks Mullis

After all these thousands of years, we still don't know how to eat?

Well, I think we do. My eating habits are like my exercise habits. Whenever I'm hungry, I eat--whatever I'm hungry for. I don't care what it's made out of, I really don't. I know the general rules of biochemistry, but I don't apply them in my eating habits because I figure my mouth knows better. And I exercise when I want to do something fun that requires my body. I'd never sit in a room with weights because I wouldn't think that would be fun. These people who sit on indoor bicycles--they ought to make the bicycle at least generate electricity.

That whole obsession with foods reflects the fact that most people don't know much biochemistry, and therefore they don't have any way of assessing the validity of somebody's five or 10 major food groups. The government spent millions of dollars to redefine the food groups, and now they have the food triangle--that whole weird thing.

My five major food groups are grease, sugar, salt, chocolate and alcohol. So a good power-breakfast is a chocolate donut and a margarita, or if I'm in a hurry, a Reese's peanut butter cup and a shot of tequila.

And you thought you were nervous when checking exam grades online...

2002-08-12T08:00:21Z

State of Texas Scheduled Executions

Scheduled Execution	Link	Last Name	First Name	TDCJ Number	Date of Birth	Race	Date Received	County
~~08/13/2002~~	~~Offender Information~~	~~Davis~~	~~Brian~~	~~999036~~	~~08/28/1968~~	~~White~~	~~07/17/1992~~	~~Harris~~
Offender Davis received a stay and will not be executed on 8/13.

What would you like to eat for your final meal?

Wendy's Commitment To Health

2002-08-10T08:10:10Z

Amazon Marketplace

2002-06-24T20:01:55Z

Have you ever noticed the "buy used" link when you search for something on Amazon? It takes about 5 minutes to set up an Amazon Marketplace account that basically turns you into an online merchant. They have a subscription service for $40/month that allows you to do batch uploads of merchandise, or you can add each item one-by-one. It only takes about 30 seconds to add an item, at which point it shows up under the "buy used" link on Amazon product listings. If you anticipate selling a lot of items, go with the subscription service. Without it, I ended up paying a whopping 25% in fees to Amazon! The only catch with the subscription service is that you are stuck with the first month's charge if nothing sells. Amazon's fees are exhorbitant, but it is virtually impossible to match their exposure. If you have a lot of CD's that are just collecting dust, check Amazon to see how many are offered for sale used. Some items actually have people waiting for them, and others are offered for almost nothing. A good example of a CD that is basically worthless is Boyz II Men's 1994 release "II", with a sticker price of $18.98 on Amazon.com. There are 152 sellers ready with prices starting at $0.49, which comes out to roughly 3% of the new price. Amazon has effectively turned their new CD listings database into ads for their used marketplace listings. It would be interesting to see how much income they receive from a used vs. new sale.

LOL

2002-05-17T07:53:38Z

I thought L. Ron Hubbard was dead, but apparently I was mistaken. Update: I guess that someone didn't like this journal...

License Plates

2002-05-17T03:24:30Z

We only get 6 characters for our license plates here in Texas, so coming up with a creative personlized plate can be difficult. The best I have seen so far was a hispanic guy driving a Lexus SUV emblazoned with "LEX MEX". The censors missed a funny one I saw today: "S ANN M". The Smoking Gun has lists of banned licence plates as well as other humorous tidbits.

I forgot...

2002-05-15T20:30:47Z

The garbage disposal needed replacing, and last night seemed like as good a time as any. Everything was going smoothly enough until I needed to shorten the tube that connects the disposal to the drain line. I couldn't find my hack saw to save my life. I looked in the tool box, outside storage, everywhere. It was getting late, so I gave up for the evening and went to sleep. As soon as I woke up this morning, I remembered that the saw was in the trunk of my car. Why couldn't I remember that last night? Maybe I will know the answer after reading The Seven Sins of Memory, {How the Mind Forgets and Remembers} by Daniel L. Schacter. It just happened to arrive today.

Profiling

2002-05-10T03:41:45Z

I subscribed to Wired about 6 months ago with one of those 10 issues for $10 cards. I used "Wired" for my middle name just in case they decided to do some snail mail spamming. So far, I have received advertisements from Honda, the MIT Tech Review, and the CATO Institute. I agree that I am highly intelligent and philosophical, but their profiling is way off with the Honda ads.

Patent Fiascos

2002-05-08T07:17:12Z

Maybe we can learn something from our forefathers:

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand.

To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc.

This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants.

-Benjamin Franklin

Back to School

2002-04-25T23:38:46Z

I finally decided to enroll in the Climbing 101 class offered at Austin Rock Gym. The first class day just happened to be yesterday, the same day I enrolled. The class was about what I expected. We went over the basics of footwork, belaying, and holds. The instructor is a nice guy, and everyone had a pretty good time. One girl was way too nervous, but she seemed to get over it by the end of the night. I did have a little bit of a scare during my first easy climb. I was the first to go up the wall, and made it up with no problem. When I grabbed the last hold at the top of the wall, it actually rotated about 30 degress clockwise. The instructor told me that this doesn't happen too often...

austinjones @ 2002-04-18T15:50:00

2002-04-18T20:42:34Z

I finally finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson! I started it in 2000, but didn't get very far due to a great job at a sure thing software company. They are out of business. Cryptonomicon has two primary interleaving storylines that merge as time goes on. One is set in WWII, and the other in the present day. The book has everything that a techie could dream of: computers, crypto, people obsessed about computers, computer security, all kinds of survaillence, war, women (in moderation), gold, and data havens just to name a few. Stephenson has incredible imagination and writes with such detail that attempting to reproduce anything similar on tv or the movies would either be astronomically expensive or a butchering of the story. I think I will read Snow Crash at some point...

austinjones @ 2002-04-18T01:43:00

2002-04-18T06:35:25Z

I am thinking about taking an intro climbing class at the Austin Rock Gym. I was one of the first people to climb on the pseudo rock wall at UT Austin, but I haven't climbed in years. I just noticed that all of my posts are within 6 minutes of each other. I usually visit LJ when I am too tired to do anything else. Can anyone guess what time I have been going to sleep lately?

austinjones @ 2002-03-22T01:49:00

2002-03-22T07:43:18Z

If you're thinking about joining the church of scientology, read this.

austinjones @ 2002-03-19T01:45:00

2002-03-19T07:44:24Z

"I'm proud to be a conservative, and proud to be a republican."
-As seen on a pick-up truck in Austin, Texas.

Other than the summer, allergens, and the above, Austin is a great place to live.