Hoovers Sucks. DnB follows suit

I really don’t like Hoovers right now.  And Dunn and Bradstreet, who acquired them a while back, are not helping any.  A while back, when I used to work for SiMX, I persuaded them to spend several thousand dollars on Hoovers, a lead generation service.  Due to numerous delays with the product launch (I was trying to set up marketing/sales for TextConverter), we blew past the 1 year subscription without ever using the service – a fact clearly visible on their end by the number of records we downloaded.

PatientsLikeMe or Why We Suck?

TED Presentation from PatientsLikeMe.com: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_heywood_the_big_idea_my_brother_inspired.html

Perhaps I am wrong, but, at this point, I feel angry.  Angry at all the people who claim that science and rigor are the only way to go dismissing application of simple ideas like crowdsourcing accepting status quo based on “Oh, it’s never gonna work” giving a tip-of-the-hat to the young and naive.  Yet, how the f*ck is it that, a paper is published in PNAS that suggested a treatment for ALS and it takes some small site to invalidate this information fairly quickly while it takes millions of dollars and years to get the same answer?  Of course there are plenty explanations and many will be reasonable.  But I feel like the PatientsLikeMe approach should be embraced and promoted by everyone from foundations to the private sector to government.  Yet, instead, I can’t get my medical data to flow between various entities due to regulations.

I wonder if preventing consumers from effectively sharing their data is something that could be overturned using legal action…

Product Frustration: Logitec C905 WebCam Installation Made Me Angry

I was installing drivers and software for the C905 Logitech webcam.   When I came to the end, there is one big button: “Restart”.  I am in the middle of stuff, so I don’t want to restart.  Exit button is grayed out.  So I just do Alt-F4 thinking that that will just close it.  And my system just restarts.  Of course, all the stuff that was open was indiscriminately closed.  Why would you do that?  Logitech, that was a bad decision.  Please fix this.

For the record, generally I am happy with the quality that C905 provides.  The software could be a bit better, but it’s a good quality product…  and I’d recommend it if the developers had a little more respect for the customers.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/435/6600&hub=1&cl=us,en

AT&T FAIL: Boston… at MSFT

I am getting progressively more angry with AT&T.  This is now in Boston, at the MSFT building in Cambridge.  I get dropped calls on a regular basis with five bars.  Infuriating.

Contradictions

My mind is thoroughly blown by the fact that nice girls can turn out to be complete, pardon my French, bitches, while badass girls can be the sweetest, nicest, pretty much hopeless romantics.

Boston is starting to get on my nerves…

Getting off at South Station, for the first time I felt physically nauseous at the sight of Boston.  Not immediately, but only after walking into the main hall, hearing sounds of music, and seeing an older couple playing on violins, all smiles.  Something about it felt so artificial, so…  inhuman.  And looking at the faces, at the pale white fat faces that exude intellectual superiority among with a faux-personality manifested in pink hair died half-way.

Yesterday I met with a couple in a pizza shop.  He is a model, she is a painkiller-pill-popping tatooed Asian bartender writer.  Neither stuck me as exactly high-class intelligentsia.  But they felt real.  Here, between cautious sideways glances laden with introspection, I am finding it difficult not to want to smack people that I am walking by.

Perhaps this was all brought on by a fascinating weekend with family.  Perhaps by personal frustration that life stagnates in Boston. Perhaps insecurity manifesting in forced self-aggrandizement, but, whatever the reason, Boston is pissing me off.

Anyway, there are far more interesting subjects to think about than this crap.  Moving right along.