everyday letdowns and mostly back-of-the-envelope solutions

Half-Assed Dynamic Pricing

Wendy’s Would Have Failed Anyway

A short while ago, Wendy’s had a bit of a “brand” issue when it revealed that it was considering testing out dynamic pricing. After significant backlash at the notion of introducing surge pricing (same practice, worse name)…

Pat Canny

May 12

Three Disney World Tips for Family Trips

Reduce your stress, maybe a little bit

Disney World is expensive and exhausting for most families. This cannot be entirely avoided. Despite this, here are a few tips based on lessons learned from a recent family trip with my…

Pat Canny

May 9

Partially Automated Officiating in the NFL

The Sky Judge is just a start.

Fan whining about “blown” calls in NFL games is nothing new, and it will never completely go away.

Pat Canny

May 2

Customized Burgers Cooked by Robots

Medium Well Please, HAL

You may have heard of burger grilling robots (perhaps from the piece on CBS from back in January). They’re said to save restaurants money on labor (which has been hard to come by since the pandemic started). These…

Pat Canny

Apr 25

The Best Goal in Hockey

Let’s create some magic on ice.

I have played in, refereed, and watched probably thousands of hockey games in my life. I’ve seen some goofy goals and some brilliant goals.

Pat Canny

Apr 21

Why I Most Likely Will Not Continue Using Gemini Advanced After the Trial Period

The Workspace integration is not quite there yet.

About three months after canceling my ChatGPT Plus subscription, I decided to throw my hat back in the paid LLM ring…

Pat Canny

Apr 19

Names for the Utah NHL Team

Utah Golden Eagles is the top contender.

Let’s come up with some names for the NHL team relocating from Arizona to Utah.

I will accept a modest fee if one is chosen, of course. Free tickets for when they play in Boston would be…

Pat Canny

Apr 18

Why Disney and Universal Won’t Invest in MCO

The airport is just a conduit.

A combination of work and personal travel will result in me traveling through Orlando International Airport three times in the first half of 2024. As of this writing, I’ve made the first of those…

Pat Canny

Apr 11

Experiencing the World of Hyatt via an Unforgiving UX

They don’t make it easy for new customers.

I recently stayed at a Hyatt property on a business trip (note: this post was written in mid-January). I had zero status with Hyatt before booking, and was unfamiliar…

Pat Canny

Apr 4

Windows Keyboard Shortcut for Copying and Pasting Multiple Items

A new AI Button, Microsoft?! Why hasn’t CTRL+C gotten any better?

In my career, I have experienced something like this hundreds of times: