sin non city...

The recent release of Sim City, in a design driven by paranoid digital rights management and a resulting need to force traffic through centralized sites, has fallen on its face spectacularly. Here is one of many articles outlining the headaches Electronic Arts has pawned off onto paying customers.

This prompts me to share part of the reason I have deliberately not played an EA game since the year 2005.

Hush! We were never here…

When I read articles like this, they bring me to a simple conclusion. We need to evolve our institutions, education and morality at a much faster pace.

We are entering an era where time and the ability to prove someone was ever present are becoming uncertainties. Without careful consideration of what technologies individuals have a right to use in their own defense, we will face astounding challenges of predation.

Brother, can you spare a Yuan?

I’ve seen this argument a lot lately. We’re in a pretty bad spot when even the apologists for debt and the security of the dollar are basing their case on the technicality of, "well, people need the dollar because people use the dollar.” Or worse, “in a world of bad alternatives, the dollar is the best one." It really doesn't take a lot for that to change.

He I, He I... Oh

Sometimes friends and associates give me grief for over-using the first person during discussions. I am aware it sometimes comes off as egotistical, but there is a more central reason for it. The practice stems from my viewpoint on the world.

"I" seems, to me, more honest and based on personal experience.

"You" or "they" is more often judgmental, a degree removed, and likely to be wrong.

What is satisfaction? Invite your customers to spy on you.

In the news recently. A couple who wanted to have their wedding at a ritzy five-star hotel found out in a not-so-pleasant way... it isn't going to happen. The hotel's wedding planner sent an email to her boss and accidentally cc'd the couple saying, "I know this probably doesn't sound very nice, but I am trying to put this wedding off as I don't think they are the type of people that we would want to have at Stoke Park."

I will avoid debating the rights of a private establishment to refuse service to whomever they choose. I'll also ignore the fact the bride in question is adult glamour model Pauline Bailey.

There’s another customer service lesson here besides remembering to watch the cc line in those emails. The lesson is: think positively about your customers and pretend like they’re eavesdropping on everything you say about them.