January 2014 – JonWestfall.com

January 17, 2014

Your Geek Squad Badge Just Isn’t Worth That Much

When will Geek Squad employees (or ex-employees) learn that their badges are not worth > $100, even if…

They were a deputy counter intelligence (While Double Agent badges are most common, deputy badges come up about once every 2 months)
they have a low number (Unless it’s less than 100, nobody cares)

I’ve seen badges like the one below sit on eBay for months until they finally drop the high start bid. In case you’re wondering, Geek Squad badges go for around $60 on average, although I (and I suspect most serious collectors) have gotten them for $25 or so.

January 12, 2014

Sentiment on Cats Not Influenced by Student Level or Time Of Year

Because I know everyone cares deeply on this issue, I’m happy to report that in a survey of 117 students, slightly less than half (46%) believe that they are “cute and cuddly and I lub them so much” while 53% feel “They’re antisocial and psychotic and I don’t trust them at all”. This difference is not significant (p = .4). Student level (100 versus 300 level class) and time of year (fall versus spring) also do not affect sentiment.

Conclusion: Half the population love little fur balls, fur balls that the other half of the population distrust deeply.

I apologize if this face causes evil flashbacks. But you are on the Internet, what do you expect? — I apologize if this face causes evil flashbacks.
But you are on the Internet, what do you expect?

Oh, if you’re wondering why I have this data – I use Socrative to collect quiz data from my classes and as part of the first day of class stuff, I have them take a demo quiz. I ask the cat question there, just for fun. I analyze it because I’m a big freakin’ geek.

January 11, 2014

Oh, I was on a Podcast Before Christmas

Since we recorded it the day before I left Shreveport, I sorta forgot to mention (widely) that I teamed up with my friend Todd Ogasawara on an episode of his Mobile Views podcast entitled “Life after Windows Phone, Project Sienna, & Credit Card Security“. It was a great conversation, and perhaps the start of a few more. So if you’re bored, and want to hear me ramble on about things (along with Todd speaking much more eloquently), take a listen.