Scientific American: Einstein's Hot Time
Good thing they stopped this guy. Never was a more credible threat identified.
I'm linking to this one again especially since the RIAA is claiming that online music downloads cause people to buy less.
The RIAA was hacked yesterday. I do not condone this sort of illegal behavior and I am not snickering right now as I write this. "Recording Industry Association of America"
New York, San Francisco finalists for U.S. bid to 2012 Olympics
I walked by the Apple Store in downtown Palo Alto on Friday night thinking I might stroll in to take a look at the new OS 10 dubbed "Jaguar". Well, at 10:00p.m. there was a line that circled around the entire block...yes, I mean outside the store and around three corners! You gotta hand it to Apple--they elicit an emotional response from users unlike any other brand I can think of. I mean Sony and Tide are both strong brands but I just can't see people lining up for hours to take a look at the hot new camcorder or the new fresher smelling laundry detergent. Apple - Retail - Jaguar Launch Event
My buddy from Boston, Bruce Grover is a singer and song-writer from Boston. I haven't talked to him in forever. Bruce is cool. Bruce will be real famous one day...and it can't happen to a more decent guy.
As I mentioned, I was in Dallas last week at Wal-Mart's Holiday Show. 15,000 store managers, district managers, divisional managers, as well as the executive brass descended on Dallas to get excited about $59 DVD players and George Forman Jr. Grills. I was reintroduced to a concept called Retailtainment as I walked the floor (imagine a few airplane hangars [only bigger] next to each other stuffed to the rim with product. I did a couple of searches on the word 'retailtainment' and one of the better descriptions can be found here. Did you know there was a Mr. Lauder? Are his eyebrows painted on?
A few music clips courtesy of Dennis:
Dustygroove. A cool collection of rare funk and deep soul. If I had a turntable already, I'd be dropping some change here. I'm about to order some Blue Note remix complilations and will report on them diligently, I promise. All in the name of academic excellence of course.
Eighteenth Street Lounge Music. Thievery Corporation has been a favorite of mine since Sean introduced me to them. They have a few bands on their label now that I'm thinking of sampling assuming the quality is comparable to Thievery.
33rpm. They've got the High Fidelity Lounge series here which Gil turned me onto originally. Haven't had much of a chance to dig in much more than that yet.
I'm really starting to dislike the RIAA more and more. A New Tactic in the Download War.
All musicians are rich aren't they? The Problem With Music.
I'm gonna add John Patrick's Weblog to my link list on the left. Don't worry, I'm still in the process of going through and cleaning up old links or those that are not updated enough to warrant a perma-link. I should develop somthing like Jerry has on his blog which tells me automatically who's updated when.
$7 billion seems like an awful lot to pay for yellow pages...but what do I know.
Oh yeah, I'm back from Dallas...tired, reading through tons of e-mails. I'll post more poop throughout the day.
I'm headed to Dallas for the week so things are gonna be a bit quiet here until Friday. If Blogger Pro was working as promised, I'd post from my Blackberry. Aren't you supposed to get better service when you pay for something? In the meantime, have fun thinking about using an iPhone made by Apple. [As with all NYTimes links, this one requires registration. Do it, it's free.]
Stages in my life are broken up by musical movements. Childhood was Bread, America, Seals and Crofts, Stevie Wonder, and The Doobie Brothers--thank [blame] my older sister for those. Adolescence was Michael Jackson at the Motown 25 doing the moonwalk for the first time, one silver glove on all the while. Balancing the pop cheese was earnest cheese in the form of U2's Joshua Tree album and tour. The tail end of high school saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, Ziggy Marley and the re-discovery of Led Zeppelin and The Police (bet you'd never read those two in the same sentence before). Then came college...and along came the Manchester scene which, along with Sean's mustard yellow hooded shirt, was represented by bands such as Joy Division, new Order, the Happy Mondays, Charlatans UK, and The Stone Roses. Quinn wants to go see a new flick called 24 Hour Party People this weekend. The movie chronicles the meteoric rise of Manchester as temporary cultural Mecca. We can't see it this weekend cuz we're trying to move into our house before next year but I'm looking forward to it.
I'm a big In-N-Out burger fan. When I worked at Vicinity Corp. they opened one up around the corner and we headed there lots for a protein infusion. I had noticed that they printed Biblical references on their paper materials too but it sounds like they're not trying to change the world...except to make it a little greasier. The Secret Behind a Burger Cult
The HisTory of Michael Jackson's face
My parents have a ton of mint growing in their backyard. Some would argue that it is a weed because it takes over plants nearby it over time. Well, with my newly found knowledge I will commence rubbing the mint.
Memories...like the corners of my RAM.
This remains one of the funniest moments, top ten at least, in movie history.
Receiving heavy rotation in my car at the moment: DJ Krush. Buy some.
For the geeky among us comes this short article indicating Google's continued status in the developer community. The following statement sums it up well: "...Google's really about the application of large-scale computing to solve real important problems."
I'm not a big fan of mixing business too much into the mix here on this Blog but when it comes to watching out for my readers it's a different story. So we launched a new mattress business this week. In talking with the buyer he informed me that most people ar egetting ripped off when they go into a mattress store. Did you know that unless you negotiate way down, you may be paying a 50%+ markup on the mattress' wholesale price? Lesson learned, negotiate always when it comes to buying a new mattress...or buy from us.
My recently married friend and former roommate Craig hails from Stockton, California. It was during our years in college that a billboard popped up to do its best at stemming the tide of bad press stigmatizing the Northern Californian town with a disproportionate number of guns per capita. The slogan was written next to a guy smiling and it read: "Stockton is Great... Take a look." Taking stock of Stockton
So some people are concerned that thecosts for high-speed access are going up (strangely this is one the best ways for telecoms to remain solvent). I personally don't feel like $50/month is too much for me to spend when I can read every major newspaper online for free, download pirated songs to my hearts content, and watch Leonard Nimoy singing weird Hobbit songs.
We had an International Day at work last week and Rawhide, the band made up of a few co-workers, was asked to perform a few songs while people grazed the food selections. The Brazilian tunes went pretty well except that the echo on our main floor made it hard to hear the rhythm. I've made one of our selections available to you here.
Whaddya know, Google's "top-lawyer" is a friend. Kulpreet Rana was caught between religion and commerce.
"To take people from the music world and give them the same kind of credibility and weight that you give me, Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker -- that's like an aberration to me; you just can't do that," says Jackson, who, like Freeman and friends, was a theater actor before he began making movies. "It's not my job to lend credibility to so-and-so rapper who's just coming into the business.
I saw Samuel Jackson interviewed on some morning show today and he made a comment similar to the one above. My respect for Mr. Jackson just shot way up (this coming from a big hip-hop fan). Rappers as movie stars are bankable at the box office, but not everyone's buying.
A special link for my DDR addicted friend Mark.
"Somehow it got in the wrong pile". If you ever thought that politicians were anything more than figureheads, signing whatever their cronies tell them to without inquiring what it is they're actually signing then read this.
The New York Times ran a font-page article today on Bentonville, Arkansas and its shift from rural heartland to one of the nation's fastest growing boomtowns. My work takes me to Bentonville at least once a month and I can say that the changes taking place are swift. It reminds me of the traveling I used to do to Berlin in my last job. The skyline was dotted with cranes as far as they eye could see. My friend and co-worker Sean and I stayed in the posh new Grand Hyatt built at Potsdamer Platz. Yes the same Potsdamer Platz that the Berlin wall used to run through. The times they are a changin' my friends.
George Bush took a trip to France. George Bush said the following:
"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur."
Entrepreneur is a French word...from France...where George Bush made the comment...in France. I'm going to lunch. Across the Pond, Bush Gets Quayled.
Not enough for ya? then read the Complete Bushisms. (Full disclosure: I'm non-partisan though to be able to vote I have to be registered as an Independent. That's all.)
HBS Working Knowledge generally has well-written articles on business management. This one is another well-done article on the topic of globalization and for whom it is really a boon. China is used as a case study in ways it can improve the condition of a countries poorest. Balanced as it is, however, the article goes on to ask the question of "At what cost?".
Would you pay $180/ year to download an unlimited # of songs? Pressplay's new deal.
BLOGGER - How to create a BlogThis! bookmarklet
Cool. Innovative and hard to find baby products @ Baby Abby. And speaking of baby products, as we prepare to enter a new house, with doors and stuff, I'm thinking a lot about ways Luc can get himself into trouble. Getting fingers pinched in doors is a good one. Aha.
Cool. Innovative and hard to find baby products. Baby Abby.
This happens to me all the time. I'm at a club, a woman notices me and sends an SMS text message to two friends, and she tells two friends, and she tells two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. Next thing you know there's a swarm of women around me, hounding me. My friend Christina has witnessed this first hand which explains why she felt compelled to send me this link I'm sure.
This happens to me all the time. I'm at a club, a woman notices me and sends an SMS text message to two friends, and she tells two friends, and she tells two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. Next thing you know there's a swarm of women around me, hounding me. My friend Christina has witnessed this first hand which explains why she felt compelled to send me this link I'm sure.
That's a little more like it. Crooked execs (like former WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan) in handcuffs. Sure, most of this is being done to make the public feel secure so that they'll dive back into the market since we can now "trust" all of our beloved execs. But still, I like this picture.
