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Showing posts from April, 2008

Rounding Error

Dear Members and Constituents, On this the bicentennial week of existence for the Friday Donut Club I was thinking about the strange fascination we seem to have with round numbers. Sure, when it comes to tracking time we buck the trend --days have 24 hours, weeks have 7 days, years 365 or 366 days. But once you get to the multiples of years, it's the round numbers we tend to pay particular attention to --and the more zeroes, the better. No one seems to be making a big deal about this being the Colorado's 132nd year of statehood, although I must say I'm surprised not to have heard much buzz surrounding this being the Sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of Denver's foundation by William Larimer -perhaps it's not round enough. Let's face it, we gravitate towards numbers that end in zeroes. Financial statements are presented in millions of dollars, music is grouped into the decade it was released... and even tips at restaurants tend to round-up to the next dollar (...

Donuts 2.0?

Dear Members and Constituents, When club member Monisha sent me a URL about Flickr hosting a Day-of-the-Donut ( http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/04/15/day-of-the-donut/ ), it got me thinking about the whole web 2.0 movement. Things like blogging (our blog is an example http://donuts.gonzal3z.com/ ); folksonomy ( http://del.icio.us/ -why when Yahoo bought the domain they didn't re-purpose it to be a donut site); social networking and others. It occurs to me this loose association of applications can be grouped together only because they empower the common man to publish content and interact on the Internet. Then I thought about how donuts empower the common man to be more productive and generally more contented. Why not a donut 2.0? I'll tell you why: you don't mess with perfection! Speaking of perfection we have a perfect set of four dozen LaMar's donuts courtesy of Bill Long, so let your taste buds interact with the delicious flavor of the donut (and you may even get a ...

Billboard top 10

Dear Members and Constituents, I think you've all seen the billboard which sits twelve feet or so from my office (yes the one where the Friday Donut Club has placed an unauthorized announcement). As I understand it, the intent of the billboard is to promote a fun workplace by providing product information (Come again?). While challenging, I think the concept can be made to work. In order to do my small part, I am proposing.... ...the top 10 things that could go on the new billboard: 10. Collocation, location, location: Advice for a challenging market from Level 3's real estate experts 9. Keeping our revenue stream Regular with dark fiber 8. The wacky wireless weekly: From technology to devices, this segment has a lot to talk about, I'm sure some fun facts can be found 7. Long-haul long shots: Unlikely events in the long haul transport network and how they were handled 6. CNS-CNS : Core Network Services-Curious and Novel Snippets 5. Vox populi: Wholesale voice services spea...

Oops! the O's were omitted

[Kim Carroll posted] Sending on behalf of JP – clearly I could never come up with a creative email like this :-) Dear Members and Constituents, When in the human event Path citizens must sever the regimental chains which have tied them with inhabitants living elsewhere and assume their place amid the earthly rulers, being justified by the laws given by Nature and by the Supreme Being, if they respect mankind's views, they must declare the causes which make them act this way. We believe these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal, that their Maker has given them certain unalienable Rights, that amid these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit… Look familiar? It should (well, sort of). It is the beginning of the declaration of independence, paraphrased to remove all letter "O"s in order to make a point: you can live without this circular letter, however, it's very difficult. I think the same principle can be extended to all things circular, wheels (how wo...