Old School

After all these years, someone finally asked me a question.

We were so spoiled at Virgin. (In a good way.) The poor schmucks working at most publicly held game publishing companies have nowhere near the freedom we had as a privately held company owned by a billionaire (Richard Branson). To be sure, the company was run with strict financial controls, which I liked quite a bit.

I used to present these incredibly detailed budget plans to Robert Deveraux, who was in charge of the Virgin publishing section of the Virgin Group, and which included us. He'd generally approve them in 24 hours. He once said I was the best manager in the Virgin Group. People asked me why he approved my requests - sometimes for significant sums of money - so quickly. My answer was of course that I presented well thought out plans... which was true.

I learned about budgeting from my wife. Without years of practice tracking our cash outlays, generally down to the penny, I would not have had the experience to produce such detailed budget plans. On a trip to Walt Disney World around 1990, I kept track of every penny. I showed my spreadsheet to David Bishop, who wanted to know how much it would cost to go to Walt Disney World, and who saw that I had noted the price of a two-pack of Tums for $0.27. The funny thing is that I thought there was nothing special about that level of detail!

Ah, the good old days ...

Cheap shot?

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Online Survey

The small number of votes is proof positive that hardly anyone visits here. Or at least people that do visit don't do online polls.

Satire is an interesting thing. For instance, this golf poll is only funny within a certain context.

Another example is a posting I made of a partial listing of books by Michael Waite on teaching Christian values to children. Why would anyone take offense at some free advertising? And yet someone did. I find that strange. Mostly likely, that list, when presented in a different context, is hilarious beyond belief.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites

I always thought a flash-heavy web site was a bit of a waste of effort. It just slows a person down. First the download takes time, second just figuring out how to navigate the site takes time, and finally, ... sometimes getting Flash installed takes time.

Light Sabre

I continue to rethink the nature of this site. Most likely I will fork off (that's Unix talk) several sister-sites. I am getting pissed enough I might even start writing about politics!

In the meantime, this is a great Star Wars fan video:

Your Father's Light Sabre

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Pandora

Check out this radio station I created:

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh15928173

or this one that Andrew Berg created:

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh12424850


Both were created with Pandora, the worldest greatest internet radio station.

Pandora uses the database from the Music Genome Project to find music that you will like!

Interestingly, I'd been thinking recently about the tune "Green Onions" by Booker T and the M.G.s, and wondering where I would find more music like that.

Andrew told me about Pandora, so I created a station based on that one tune, and then dug listening to similar music for an hour!

I used to do this sort of thing with Music Match Radio, which tries to do the same thing, but not as well, and plus it costs a little $$ to get decent quality.

The music quality at Pandora, by the way, is excellent.

And the UI, built entirely in a web browser, is excellent.

And the accessability is excellent - it's so easy to get started.

Two big "thumbs up"* for Pandora.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

*I think "Two big thumbs up" might be a registered trademark of Roger Ebert.