It’s the triple “A” business model: AJAX, Adsense and Arrogance.

The “Triple A” Business Model | Ajaxian

Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency’s top official in New York.

“As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,” Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting.

No Money for Email at the FBI | Gadgetopia

The founder of an enterprise IM startup recounted this anecdote: "While deploying our IM software at a hedge fund, I noticed the admins using AIM, and suggested to an admin that the new intra-office IM system for the traders would be helpful to the admins as well." Her response: "Will my boss be able to see what I've written?"

The answer was yes, of course. One of the reasons the firm bought the app was to improve knowledge retention. The lesson here is that employees are averse to the vision of a manager peering over their shoulder when they're alone at the keyboard. If they know that it's merely possible, they will curtail their efforts, per the philosophy The Less Said the Better.

The PC, for all its deserved reputation as unmanageable, is a personal sandbox in which an employee doesn't feel constrained and watched. She is free to play with ideas and drafts, and chooses what to circulate to colleagues. That freedom is a boon to productivity.

Web 2.5 : The Always-On-You Web: Web 2.5: Privacy Promotes Productivity

You may have missed this over the weekend: The Saturday WSJ reports that "More than $2 trillion of U.S. mortgage debt, or about a quarter of all mortgage loans outstanding, comes up for interest-rate resets in 2006 and 2007, estimates Moody's Economy.com, a research firm in West Chester, Pa."

Let's repeat that number: Over the next 20 months, more than two trillion dollars worth of adjustable rate mortgages will reset at higher interest rates.

The Big Picture: Coming Soon: Mortgage Payment Resets

Welcome to killer sudoku online. Your online source of killer sudokus.

There are three puzzles on this page: two killer sudoku puzzles and one “greater than” sudoku puzzle. You can play any of them online or print them out to play offline. Older puzzles are in the archives. Generally, the weekly puzzles are harder than the daily puzzle. Have Fun!

Apparently my CMU CS professor boss is was enough of a Killer Sudoku user that he made his own online site. I never suspected he knew javascript... but it is a pretty nice site.

Welcome to Killer Sudoku Online

Lee Gomes, a WSJ reporter recently undertook a moonlighting writing gig for peanuts, just to see how the process worked.

Topics ranged from positive comments on colloidal silver to how bird flu mutates so that it can be passed from human to human.

After turning down the first article Lee wrote the second and then was asked to write more on the same topic, but given other full articles from other sites, and asked to slightly modify and plagiarize them.

We Right Contents for Cheap | Threadwatch.org

Something extremely weird is going on over on Digg.com. Today for the third time in a short period, a story got promoted to the front page where a blogger raises a baseless rumour about Google buying Sun. And as is explained further down, it appears that this is the result of a coordinated effort to fool Digg into promoting the story.

The blog author has no sources, zero credibility and most importantly his reasoning is completely erratic.

Silicon Valley Sleuth: Scoop: Digg is used for Sun stock manipulation

AUSTIN, Texas--It's almost two in the morning and I'm standing in the middle of Austin's Sixth Street, hoping that I'm not going to get hit by a car.

On the other hand, I am hoping--as are 15 or so other people standing nearby--that one of the cars that keep rushing by will crush the tricked-out Roomba robot vacuum cleaner that Make Magazine associate editor Phillip Torrone and Eyebeam R&D fellow Limor Fried are sending back and forth across the street and through traffic.

This is Roomba Frogger, a modern, geek version of the famous 1981 video game "Frogger," in which players had to get a frog across a street without it getting crushed by a car or truck.

[print version] Roomba takes Frogger to the asphalt jungle | CNET News.com

Google's 10-K is out today. There are several interesting notes in there

Nice walkthrough.

Mr Wave Theory

dmv wrote:

Restaurant owners understand the power of the press -- and go to extreme efforts to ensure that influential customers have a wonderful experience. This isn't rocket science -- it's good business!

Why is it that online businesses don't do the same? They should! One of the first things we did after we launched Half.com was create a VIP list, containing the email addresses of all influential reporters, competitors, potential acquirers, analysts, and investors. (Bloggers didn't exist back then - but they would qualify as well). We then had our system alert us whenever a VIP created an account, purchased an item or listed one for sale. When a VIP purchased a CD we'd have someone from our customer service group telephone the seller to confirm that it shipped promptly. When a VIP listed an item for sale, we'd monitor it to see if it sold. And if a (hypothetical) reporter listed a (hypothetical) book for sake, and it didn't sell quickly, a relative of a (hypothetical) Half.com employee in Oklahoma might (hypothetically) purchase the item...Resulting in a (hypothetical) story in the New York Times.

This actually sounds like a reasonable business: VIP lists. As an entrepreneur, I don't have the time to know who all the A-lists are, the reviewers, etc. I don't have the information network to know what Mossberg's email aliases are. Maybe I pass you my subscriber list, and you send back a report of all the known actors, $5 (automate it). If I want realtime, that's a different price; if I want daily, I pay daily. If I'm just curious periodically, I just submit periodically. Easy.

Also, on the subject of VIP treatment:

My uncle is a very prominent food critic in Boston. He writes under a pseudonym, and his appearances on TV are with disguises. He makes reservations under the names of the guests he's bringing with him to dinner. But, that said, he "outs" himself in all of his cookbooks. And it isn't a particularly well-guarded secret; he's not even all that subtle in-restaurant. He can tell who the good maitre'd are, because when he's at a public function they seek him out to ID him -- and he considers them good at what they do. It is surprising that more don't. I believe he's only been thrown out of a restaurant once, and that was when a chef recognized him (as someone who had panned his last...)

From this, I think that even if a VIP/reviewer detected that their quality of service was being ramped up, this would not be a bad thing. As an information technology company, any example of exploiting the information stream in a productive way seems like a win. It means you are more customer focused, and it reflects a higher service sophistication level.

RE: Redeye VC: VIP Treatment