First off, I'm back from Austin. I believe the coverage is going to appear on the site tomorrow and Thursday. I need to forward my notes and pictures to Drew, and the ball will start rolling on that.


Second, I found a really excellent list here on lifehacker. Basically they have a weekly "hive five" segment where they posit a question like "what's the best FTP software", then people nominate entries and vote on 'em. They then post the top-5 vote getters. This week they posted a "best of" retrospective of stuff from the past several weeks. So if you're looking for some best-of-breed software that's (mostly) free, look no further.


Third, I find that the most galling part of the economic near-meltdown of the past week isn't that I'm ultimately being billed several thousand dollars to fix bad (and sometimes criminal) decisions made by people who won't end up paying a nickel. The most galling part is that I'm apparently expected to feel grateful to the people raiding my wallet for their belated foresight in avoiding the crash.

In times like these, I like to analogize. And my favorite business to analogize is McDonald's because their business model is simple (they exchange food for money) and they're ubiquitous. Here's the best, albeit still convoluted, analogy I can come up with.

While sitting in McDonald's today, the manager approached me, telling me that his friend two tables over dropped his meal on the floor, and that I won't be allowed to leave the restaurant until I pay to replace his meal along with a tip to cover the cost of cleanup. Pointing out that I had nothing to do with the accident avails me nothing, and I'm informed that if I don't pay for the meal that they'll call the police and have me arrested for disorderly conduct. Weighing the circumstances, I pull out my wallet and pay for the meal and the tip. The meal is replaced. The tip ends up going to the friend to cover the mental anguish he experienced when he dropped his meal.

The situation now resolved, I make a hasty exit from the restaurant. As I exit, the manager shouts "hey, don't I get a 'thank you' for solving the problem?".

I reply with a two-word phrase that's similar to 'thank you' but starts with a different word.

The only place where the analogy falls apart is that I'd clearly never do business with that McDonald's (or maybe any other) again, which isn't exactly an option I have available to me regarding the US economy.

I guess that's the downfall of analogies. They simplify the model, but they're rarely perfect.