I had every intention of finishing this newsletter off last night, until I came across The Blue Brothers on tv. It’s one of those movies that I’ll always stop scrolling for, along with Ferris Bueller, Jaws, Miracle, and Field of Dreams, to name a few. Hadn’t seen it in a year or so, and ended up watching the entire thing.
Anyhow, running a little late this afternoon as I just got in from playing a round of golf to benefit our friends at Hattie Larlham. This was their 40th annual Golf Classic (the event has raised over $2M over the years) and Mary Horoszko knocked it out of the park as she usually does when planning their events. Thanks to former Ashton team member Pete Bunevich, as well as Cam Salhany and Josh Martin of The Garland Companies for picking up my slack on the course (Josh even noted that he regularly reads my email. That makes three people!). Driver was doing its job today, but nothing else was working!
Now that I’m back at it to end the week, scroll on down for sticker marketing, airline date, fried fair foods, and more. Enjoy!
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Intel Stickers
If you’ve ever paid any attention to your laptop or PC, there’s a good chance it has (and that you’ve noticed) an Intel Inside sticker on it. And there’s a reason for that. Intel was told they couldn’t trademark “386” so they came up with a co-op marketing campaign and set 3% of the budget aside for it, figuring that PC manufacturers would jump on board. They did, and the rest is history.
Spirit Airlines
Spirit Airlines is no longer, but its data will live on. Google acquired hundreds of millions of emails, Teams chats, and more for the low, low price of $10 million. But why? To train their large language model for AI. Interesting.
ChatGPT for Teens
If you don’t want your teenagers using ChatGPT to figure out the recipe for ricin, build explosive devices in your garage, or cheat on their homework, ChatGPT for Teens is for you (or for your teens)!
Technical Debt
We talk a lot about ‘technical debt’- what happens when you don’t keep on top of replacing and upgrading aging hardware and infrastructure on a regular cadence. This article is directed at company boards, but really applies to any business, and it touches on the variety of issues that arise when you ignore your technology. Like a new roof on your house or a new driveway, it’s not flashy, and there’s nothing to enjoy about it, but it just has to be done. And, as the author notes, “It’s an investment that’s only visible when it’s not made.”
Fried Foods
It’s that time of year again, when enterprising food vendors at various state fairs ask themselves “Can I fry that?” Included on the list of fried state fair food this year are beer, Kool-Aid, pho, butter (not new), ranch dressing, and bubble gum (among other things). Any of those jump out at you? I’m kind of curious about the deep fried beer…
Zombie Filler
Ahhh, the irony. People with too little fat (in many cases, thanks to Ozempic and others) are now being injected with fat from cadavers. This one jumped out at me as there was a time back in 2008 and 2009 that I was selling facial fillers (trying to sell, anyway) with hyaluronic acid to cosmetic surgeons. Evidently people nowadays would prefer to look more ‘normal’ so they’re using donated fat. I wonder if they’d take a donation from a living person???
I’ve heard some great minor league sports nicknames (The Macon Whoopee, Albuquerque Isotopes, and Richmond Flying Squirrels (I bought one of their hats a few years back thanks to the occasional flying squirrel that finds its way into our cottage in the Ontario woods) come immediately to mind, but until this week, I’d never heard of the Amarillo Sod Poodles AA baseball team (“Sod Poodle” being a local nickname for a prairie dog). Thanks to a dust devil that hit their diamond, they’ve now made the big leagues of Thoughts From My Inbox!
That’s all for this week.
Have a great weekend!
Abbey