Bitchin' Dave’s Blog: Bitchin Dave's Newsletter

October 3rd, 2023

Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

One thing that currently drives me crazy is reward points. Companies a few years ago wanted to reward customer loyalty, and thus offered programs to delight and excite their customers. And the rewards were pretty generous, with freebies and assorted offers to their loyal customers.

This came at a cost. As the customers accumulated points, they were a liability of sorts; customers could redeem these points at any time, and they counted against the bottom line in some way. A few people I worked with and I created a solution and patented it, but unfortunately it never went anywhere; the ability to exchange these points seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I digress. Companies in the meantime took a different approach and decided to stop rewarding overall loyalty and instead decided to reward consistent spend (which is a very different thing). Gone were the freebies and many promotions. The number of points required for things went up, and they now have somewhat arbitrary (and often unknown) expiration dates.

I suppose that all goes along with the notion of lack of customer service. Why try and get anyone to do business with you at all?

The company Firefly has been working with the US Military to create a "rapid response" launch program.

They started 2 years ago with a go for launch, and were able to turn around and liftoff within 21 days.

Around 2 months ago, they were able to get from the go to actual launch within 24 hours.

Unfortunately, the launch was not successful, so there are still kinks to iron out. But you have to love the sense of purpose.

Finally, a week or so ago, they did launch, but there are new concerns about the launch process, the cost, etc. But those things may work themselves out.

The pace is staggering, but considering current technology and having rockets literally at the ready, it makes some amount of sense.

You can read more here:

ARSTechinca

I remember being in school in the 1970s and hearing about advancements in Science. We saw plenty of films on topics that ran the gamut.

One particular subject was about cloud seeding to provide rain and "control the weather." Films we saw were like this one:

Cloud Seeding (1968)

And here we are in 2023, and there are climate conditions that are impacting everything. And so what's old is new again, and they are talking about cloud seeding in Utah at ski resorts.

Cloud seeding in Utah

I am a bit skeptical of their claims (3% - 10% more snow compared to ... what?) and their methods (atomize something and heat it ... how exactly?), but I am willing to see what happens. It appears to be mostly environmentally harmless activity. And of course there has been 60 years of research into it. So maybe it will help in some way.

But then again, maybe this magic rock will cause more snow to fall this year!

ESPN, being one of the first neworks to produce content that people wanted to see, made a deal with every cable provider to be included in a "base cable package" for $4 per subscriber.

It was nearly twice the amount that any other network charged and a huge windfall for ESPN.

Disney purchased ESPN years ago, knowing this was a generous revenue stream. But then came the idea people going without traditional cable TV and going to streaming services.

Disney is trying to figure out how to reposition themselves for profitability. For ESPN, one idea is to allow people to subscribe to a streaming ESPN service.

Their proposed price point? $23. I can't decide if that's good business or just greed.

Vox has an interesting take on Facebook account hacks.

They suggest that these unending hacks are sometimes an attempt extort money from users, or take any payment methods stored.

But more often, these account takeovers are to used to establish some "legitimacy" for crypto scams. The hacked users have longer tenure, more history, and some personal info that the hackers use to set up accounts to move money.

And of course to solicit others to try and get rich too.

Who knew there was a whole black market for stolen Meta/Facebook accounts?

One Little Spark …

… for your imagination

Voting rights are something worth talking about. A few years after the civil war, formerly enslaved citizens were granted the right to vote by the 15th amendment. But voting proved to be no simple task, and they needed a little help.

Congress created something called the "Jim Crow laws" as a means to ensure that these newly created citizens be offered the same opportunities as the white citizens always had.

It helped to a degree to have these laws, and they led us directly to the civil rights movement over 100 years later. And then after 150 years, the Supreme Court decided we didn't need these laws anymore, and eviscerated them.

But as you may notice today, voting rights for blacks are still lacking and always under assault. As exhibit "A" just looking at the voting maps that the state of Alabama has been trying to draw which severely under-represent the black population. (more on that topic here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-supreme-court-will-let-alabamas-congressional-map-be-redrawn-to-better-represent-black-voters)

But who was Jim Crow? A quick summary is that Jim Crow was a character created by a white man with black face who performed as a stereotypical (as defined by the whites of the time) black man. Its absurd and very, very racist.

You can read more about the history in these links:

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/what.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws