News You Can Bruise for 2000 August 3

Thu Aug 03 2000 06:24: Science and Technology Daily and Arts and Letters Daily are not above writing eye-catching summaries of the articles they link to, summaries which have only a passing resemblance to the content of the articles.

So when I saw "Licking your wounds may soon take on a whole new meaning. It could even be a pleasant and tasty experience!" on Sci Tech Daily, I thought "There is no way the actual article says anything like that." Think again, Leonard. That is a verbatim quote of the actual article, which discusses potential uses of honey as an antibacterial agent. This usage of honey has the blessing of Aristotle, who as we know is always on the cutting edge of medical science.

Be that as it may, I don't think that licking one's honey-covered wounds would be either tasty or medically advisable.

Thu Aug 03 2000 07:52: Mark has a cameo in this summary of the VA Linux Printing Summit, where agreement was reached between the superpowers to halt construction of orbital laser printers.

Thu Aug 03 2000 10:30: It's not difficult to infer the licensing terms of software packages from their name and their Freshmeat description.

Thu Aug 03 2000 10:41: With the sales department sitting behind me, I am privy to all sorts of industry dirt.

Thu Aug 03 2000 10:55: You know what cracks me up? If you go to a map site and get a map, there will be options to show on the map locations of, eg. Dennys restaurants or Honda dealerships. "Yes, I'm planning a trip from Pittsburgh to Chicago and I want to know the location of every Honda dealership along the way." I don't get it. Companies pay to make this an option for users of the map service. Why?

Thu Aug 03 2000 11:36: In my attempts to get Susanna a laptop, I have discovered another popular business model, where you set up an e-commerce site which falsely implies that the item your customer wants is in stock and/or that you will actually be able to sell the items in your catalog when someone orders them. The idea is to prevent your customers from buying what they want to buy, and to annoy them so that they wouldn't buy from you even if you had what they wanted.

Again, I'm not sure where the money is in this model, but the people who run these businesses must be pretty happy with it.