That bloody photo again.....

I knew it was popular.

But someone liked it enough to feature it in a museum guide published by the city of Frankfurt.

Correction.

Someone liked it enough to STEAL IT and feature it in a museum guide published by the city of Frankfurt.

A mere 350,000 print run. 

Mrs jb just HAPPENED to pick up the guide at the excellent Portikus and just HAPPENED to open it at the page for the Schirn museum.

"That's your picture" she said.

And that's what I told the folk at the city's Department of Culture and the Schirn museum.

They're trying to track down the culprit.

So I know whom to sue....

Watch this space....

So what it's to be in the future?

Playing pocket planets...?

For a mere $450

The Trace of Time clock

Engadget has a shout-out about the ideal clock (wipes itself clean...YES!!) to get rid of those bloody "To Do" lists that spouses so enjoy.

"Haven't you cleaned out the roof guttering yet? It's on your To-Do list you know"

Now all you have to do is to get her to write in on the clock and say "Well, I CERTAINLY can't see on the list, so I've either done it or you didn't tell me about it in the first place"

Unless she uses an indelible marker, of course.

Didn't think about that....

I am fuel. You are friends.

"I’ve just walked in from stretching out on the lawn alongside my house, where I finished rapidly devouring of all 400 pages of Nick Hornby’s massively enjoyable new book Juliet, Naked. My skin is warm from the beginnings of a sunburn, and my insides are glowing from the focused joy I understood in these pages."

Not my words..

Heather Browne's

Words fail me....

We liberals can mock all we want, but don't forget that 60 million Americans thought that this airhead Sarah Palin was qualified to run for the second-highest office in the land.

With a high probability of succeeding McCain - either at the ballot box or stepping into his vacated shoes.

Nick Smith gets it wrong

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is New Zealand's no-fault personal injury cover for all New Zealand residents and visitors to New Zealand.

If some one hurts you (or you hurt yourself), you're entitled to compensation.

Open to immense abuse, of course - I trapped a nerve in my back when I was back on holiday once and the doctor put it down as an "ACC".

"Cheaper for you that way" he said, even though I had a travel insurance policy that covered it. I think I even got 150 Paracetamols included....

Given that it's a bloody expensive scheme, the money has to come from somewhere.

It's deducted from your salary with your tax if you're an employee, you're billed directly if you're self-employed and if you drive a car, part of your registration fee goes into the ACC fund.

Which is fair enough - if you drive a car, you carry a greater risk of injury.

The new ACC Minister, Dr Nick Smith, wants to tweak the model a bit further.

If you're not driving a vehicle that has a 5-star safety rating (side airbags and electronic stability control being prerequisites i.e a new car), you'll pay a higher registration fee.

This is a bit like trying to change a spark plug through the exhaust pipe, Nick.

Having higher efficiency airbags will certainly contribute to injury prevention.

Prerequisite: having an accident.

The prime cause of accidents (which result in the injuries that ACC addresses) is still going to be the driver:car:(drink) combination.

Now, insurance companies tend to be pretty good at assessing risk.

So while they're whacking the 20 year old driver of a (new-ish) tuned-to-within-inches-of-its life Honda Civic for an insurance premium that reflects the (not inconsiderable) risk of his/her wrapping themself around a tree or taking out a pedestrian/cyclist/other driver, why not surcharge the premium for ACC purposes and have the insurance companies pay it directly into the fund?

By all means charge me the 60 year old driver of a 1996 Honda CRV a higher ACC component of the registration fee for the higher risk of injuries by NOT having side airbags, but AT LEAST factor the lower risk of having an accident in the first place into the equation and the resulting tendential irrelevance of having (or not having) side airbags.

Back to the drawing board, Nick...

On yer bike, Seth

Seth Godin's a really clued-up guy, but sometimes his pearls of wisdom are a bit........BFO-ish?.

His post "What to do with special requests" is a case in point. 

"Let the customer decide" is his argument.

A bike shop is swamped with work - a tuneup takes a week and costs $39.

Someone needs it done in 3 days.

Do you turn him down or do you do him a favour, but charge him a premium for being a preferred customer?

You get the drift... obviously the latter.

Nothing new, though.

That's what Fedex/UPS/DHL based their original business model on (never noticed that there's a premium for overnight shipping?) and it's what we used to do with overnight translations. It's also at the core of ANY revenue management concept.

In fact, it's what any business will do with a scarce commodity - in this case, resources and time.

It actually believe it's frequently referred to as "Supply and Demand"...