What I Learned This Week For September 4 2020

By Mike Maddaloni on Sunday, September 06, 2020 at 01:39 AM with 0 comments

photo of new handicapped symbol

My lists of learnings is a little shorter this week, and it was due to a different kind of learning – what some are calling “virtual school” or what I call it with many more words and also has some words that my family is hoping I stop saying so much, especially when it comes to attempts at my kids to have a positive classroom experience at home.

5-115-1 – I was on vacation last week with my family, and thinking I was going to have some extended times to read I brought 5 books. Of those I only cracked open one of them, reading just 115 pages. To make matters worse, I picked up another book at a yard sale where we stopped in to look at a kayak for sale. I also learned a little more about kayaks too.

The Trees Are Nervous Again – First there was the rush on toilet paper. Then as I learned last week there is a rush on beer cans. Now there’s a rush on computer printers as families need them for their kids to do their schoolwork at home. This doesn’t surprise me as I have known many people over the years who didn’t have a printer. Where I last lived in Chicago I think only one other family in our block had one, and I was often asked by neighbors to print files for them.

The Emperor’s New PajamasShould you sleep naked? The experts seem to think so.

Money Ball – Fenway Sports Management, the entity that owns the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool Football Club among other sports-related assets, is offering a free online program for people to learn the business of sports. You can sign up for FSM University here. I don’t know if there is a limit on it or if they admit everyone, but in some cases you may be able to earn internship credit. As a Sox and New England sports fan I am intrigued by this.

Define Lifetime – This week I learned of yet another class-action lawsuit, but one that actually makes a lot of sense to me personally. The suit is against satellite radio firm SiriusXM and limitations it puts on its “lifetime” subscription plan. If you have this plan that they no longer offer, you were limited to the number of times you could transfer it to a new radio, such as when you get a new car or if the one you have breaks. Granted you had to pay to transfer each time, but there was a cap they never told people about. I know well about this as I have a lifetime subscription and I have only one more transfer left, and I had to haggle with SiriusXM the last time I went to transfer it as I was also unaware of this limit.

Coming In For A Landing – Do you know what a landing page is? I am sure at least one person reading this is shrugging their shoulders! A landing page is a Web page for a specific purpose, typically lead generation or sales. Rob Hope this week released his book Landing Page Hot Tips. Hope for years has published a Web site and newsletter called One Page Love that is dedicated to landing pages and 1-page Web sites. If you have either of these, or want to learn why you should, you need to get this eBook.

Sign O’ The Modern Times – Several years ago I heard a new design was created for the what is formally called the “International Symbol of Access” or commonly referred to as the handicapped symbol. The familiar blue square with a stick figure sitting upright was redesigned showing the person leaning forward to symbolize motion and mobility. This article talks about the redesign of the logo. However, I have never seen the new symbol in use until just this week, where I noticed it painted on a parking space at a local retail center.

This week I will close with this video of Jerry Lewis singing You’ll Never Walk Alone by Rodgers and Hammerstein. To say this was a staple for me every Labor Day weekend growing up is an understatement. If you don’t know about this song and its meaning with the holiday weekend, contact me. If I get queries about it I may write something about it.


This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.


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