Thursday, August 07, 2014
Vanity wind
Half-listening to radio while working, I thought I heard something about "Hurricane Excel" hitting Hawaii.
I thought: Aha! NWS has finally figured out how to make a profit by selling negative product placements! Obviously some competing software firm has paid big bucks to name this year's #5 storm Excel. I sympathize, since I've been wrestling with the stupid interface of Excel. Wonder who the competing company is, so I can buy their spreadsheet?
Later I read the news on the web. It's Iselle, not Excel. Aw. Too bad. NWS didn't get smart after all.
You could organize it the way some states do for vanity license plates, with an auction process, a hefty non-refundable deposit, and a premium on the first 10 storms, which are the most likely to firm up. If your name makes landfall, you pay extra to have all the media bemoaning death and destruction under the name of your competitor or enemy.
¶ 4:52 PM 
