Month: February 2006

Monday, 20 February 2006

FlySpy – Finally, A Useful Airfare Service?

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on FlySpy – Finally, A Useful Airfare Service?

Jen and I like vacationing in Europe – our heritage pretty much dictates it. We don’t really care when we go. We’ve got a general idea of what we want tickets to cost and are happy to build a vacation around that price.

As Dave points out the “I don’t care when, just how much” traveler has been stuck hunting-and-pecking arbitrary calendar dates on the various travel sites finding something that makes sense.

My experience with Orbitz gave me first-hand knowledge of the volatility of airfare prices. Just like at eBay, you’re not really sure what the final price is until after the transaction.

Hopefully, once FlySpy launches, those days will be over.

Google just gave me this alpha link.

UPDATE 16 May 2006: podcast of my interview with Robert Metcalf

Open House Sat, Feb 25 – 2-4pm and Sun, Feb 26 – 1-3pm

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Open House Sat, Feb 25 – 2-4pm and Sun, Feb 26 – 1-3pm

Just got word there’ll be an Open House at 2701 31st Ave NE, St Anthony, MN from 2-4pm this Saturday, Feb 25th. This one’s open to everyone.

If you want to check the place out, mark your calendars. Especially if you’re looking for a great starter house for you and your dog.

No, we won’t be there.

If you can’t make Saturday, come by Sunday between 1-3pm.

Nine parties came by for the open houses total, with an additional showing on each day. Today (Monday) there’s another showing. There’s a good chance 2 parties are interested. Hope so.

Sunday, 19 February 2006

EdgeIO – Listing First Impressions

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on EdgeIO – Listing First Impressions

I received the preview password to EdgeIO.com today, Mike Arrington‘s new project to aggregate all blog posts using the tag 'listing' at a single site, all organized and such as you’d expect from a classifieds site.

Since I’m trying to sell a house and blogging about it, seemed like a perfect opportunity to test it out.

It’s a slick system. I added ‘listing’ to my WordPress categories, flagged the post with it and a handful of other categories, hit Publish in WordPress, and EdgeIO sucked them right in.

After that, I claimed the post and added a handful more tags and the price. I had more luck with the hidden span claim method than the xml-rpc method.

The most interesting bit – despite having the ZIP Code and address throughout the post, EdgeIO didn’t know the location, until I set my location in my profile. Then like magic it was updated. Good thing my current location and the location of the house is the same.

If you have a preview password, you can check out the EdgeIO listing for the house.

The idea that work I’m doing already (writing to my blogs) can be leveraged in a useful way is very powerful. I can see the same type of aggregating-the-edges system for reviews (music, movie, product).

There’s an undercurrent of concern EdgeIO highlights – multiple silos of tag clouds. The same word in Flickr, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Upcoming.org, 43Things, et. al, bring up very different types of information.

EdgeIO has essentially declared ‘listing’ to have a specific, universal meaning (“something for sale”). If another, existing tag cloud agreed – hell – if all of them agreed on the same meaning, EdgeIO turns invisible. Either becoming the enabling technology behind all the other sites (as NavTech is to mapping) or disappearing altogether.

Welcome to St. Anthony Village, You Have Now Left Minneapolis

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Welcome to St. Anthony Village, You Have Now Left Minneapolis

Let’s say you bought the house we’re selling in St. Anthony Village. If you did, you wouldn’t be a Minneapolitan – you’d be a Villager. St. Anthony Village is it’s own 3-square mile city – St. Anthony, MN to be specific.

Yes, NE is in address and the post office will deliver to a 2701 31st Ave NE Minneapolis, MN address (think of that as a fringe benefit). This is different than NE Mpls in a couple of ways:

Plus, the City Hall/Community Center is just 4 blocks away (coincedently, so is Mpls proper).

We like this city so much, we’re staying Villagers. I suspect this is also why very few houses go on the market in the Village.

Property History & Comments – Another Reason for Real Estate Agents to Blog

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on Property History & Comments – Another Reason for Real Estate Agents to Blog

There’s been a few parties interested in our house, I’m surprised to learn from our agent how unstructured, the agent-to-agent feedback process is. Sounds like the listing agent has to initiate the contact with the showing agent, rather than the showing agent providing it by default.

As a seller, I want to know what prospective buyers are saying about the place – maybe there’s some small improvements that’ll make it more attractive? For the listing agent, the feedback helps refine the house’s marketing and positioning.

Blog comments and trackbacks automate this process, by collecting all the feedback on a given property in a single location – whether it’s written the listing agent’s blog or the showing agents’.

Extending this idea, houses themselves should have an ongoing blog, not only for buying/selling events, but documenting improvements (“when were new windows installed?”).

Jen says, “Oh, like CarFax.com.”

Why Health Coverage Shouldn’t be Tied to Employers

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Why Health Coverage Shouldn’t be Tied to Employers

“Weyco and Scotts Miracle-Gro, based in Marysville, Ohio, are in the vanguard of a growing effort by business to brake soaring medical costs by regulating such unhealthy employee behavior as smoking”

Health coverage as a benefit of employment no longer makes sense – financially for employers or employees. Expecting employers to foot the bill and not expecting them to minimize their expense might be a sign of mental illness.

My problem with employer-sponsored plans is their lack of portability. The instability of employers in the dot-com era meant switching plans and doctors every 18 months when I switched business cards – annoying to say the least.

The three benefits I see of individual sponsored plans are:

  1. a better understanding of where their healthcare dollars are going
  2. more direct control over the services that make sense to them
  3. portability

I don’t see these points conflicting with a national health care plan. To me, healthcare is the same type of problem as roads/highways and defense.

J Wynia has a good write up of choosing an individual healthcare plan.

Malcolm Gladwell takes the healthcare = transportation metaphor one step further.

“…imagine if we had employer-based subways in New York. You could ride the subway if you had a job. But if you lost your job, you would either have to walk or pay a prohibitively expensive subway surcharge. Of course, if you lost your job you would need the subway more than ever, because you couldn’t afford taxis and you would need to travel around looking for work.”

Tasteless Art Affecting the Tastebuds at Holy Land Deli

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Tasteless Art Affecting the Tastebuds at Holy Land Deli

I was introduced to the Doner (Gyro or Kabob) during my time in Germany. The Turkish immigrants brought it with them. Aside from the thinly-sliced lamb, the rest of the ingredients were German; cabbage inside stuffed in a quarter of the circular flatenbrot.

In Minneapolis, there’s only one place to get a good gyro – Holy Land Deli over at 2513 Central Avenue NE. They stuff the pitas to their breaking point as they should. My personal favorite is their lamb kabob with hummus. While you wait, admire their grocery – great selection of olives, teas, and meats you won’t find at Cub or Rainbow.

Via this week’s Sunday Strib, I read Holy Land’s owner Majdi Wadi has banned all products made in Denmark until the Danish government apologizes for something tasteless the Danish free press published months ago.

I’ve seen the cartoons. If you haven’t, just ask some angst-ridden teenager to draw some up for you. Cliché-ridden, cheap, and heavy-handed.

From what I glean from On the Media, the newspapers in the Middle East are controlled by their respective governments. In that environment, putting the blame on a national government makes complete sense. I’m not sure what editorial control the Danish government exerts over the press, but I suspect it’s nil. It’d be convenient if the US Government could simply apologize for Fox News or insipid letters to the editor. But that’s not how things work here in the US or in northern Europe.

I’m not sure what Danish-made products the Holy Land sold, I haven’t purchased anything other than lunch and olive oil from them, and the Strib article didn’t list them by name.

Is that list offensive?

Wadi’s decision to ban Danish-made products would seem better directed if the Danish manufacturers had advertising or in some other way financed the newspaper in question.

Since that’s most likely not the case, the Strib article – just like this post – is an advertisement for the Holy Land Deli (mmmm tasty gyros). Would you like a Carlsberg to wash it down?

Saturday, 18 February 2006

Apple’s Weather Dashboard Widget Won’t Go Below 28F?

by Garrick van Buren 3 Comments on Apple’s Weather Dashboard Widget Won’t Go Below 28F?

As you might have heard, we finally got winter here in the upper Midwest. Not the Christmas-fluffy-white-snow-perfect-for-skiing-and-hot-cocoa-winter, the death-to-all-who-venture-out-of-doors winter.

Both weather.com and accuweather.com say it’s a brisk -2°F (one degree lower since my last post).

Strangely, Apple’s Weather Dashboard Widget tells me it’s a tropical 28°F and snowing. It’s way too cold to snow and hasn’t been 28 for days. Something’s not right.

I should have found Daring Fireball’s Weather Widget Location Validation post earlier. Looks like I’ve been getting Minneapolis, North Carolina’s forecast for months now.

I’m glad someone’s getting a fluffy-white-snow winter.

A Perfect Day for Cicely, Alaska

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on A Perfect Day for Cicely, Alaska

“I have grown really tired of contact sports…you can break an ankle, but can you die?”- Joel Fleischmann

It’s -1°F this Saturday in the Twin Cities (weather.com says ‘feels like -18°F’, Thanks). Fortunately, NetFlix sent over Northern Exposure Season 2, Disc 2 this morning.

This disc contains “All is Vanity”, the episode where Maggie has Joel play her boyfriend in front of her father, Holling ponders circumcision, and a dead John Doe infatuates the town. Wow. Fantastic episode.