Conan O’Brien may not last much longer as Tonight Show host, but he has my support. Even if he loses his job, Conan will be a winner. Say, can Conan collect unemployment? Now there would […]
Category: Culture
Stuck in Newark Airport
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQeG1kaddsw] I agree 100 percent. “Maybe there is hope for our ever-increasingly isolated and anti-social (no, Facebook is making us less social) society after all”, nmook.
American Apparel Displays What?
I am a sucker for good marketing, often stopping to gawk at store display windows. Marketing displays, especially store windows, are art forms. The best combine things that seemingly go oddly together.
It’s Not the Myth, But the Fight Over the Man
Oh my, Decoding Steve Jobs: Trust the Art, Not the Artist” is shit hitting the fan. Today, for some strange reason. Steve has got to be one of the most controversial chief executives of modern times. Beloved by the Mac faithful, praised by Wall Street analysts and cursed by many others, he is Mr. Love Him or Hate Him.
Iran and the Internet Democracy
This week’s turmoil on the streets of Tehran is but a metaphor for another turmoil: How the Internet is tearing down monopolies of power and empowering individuals and smaller groups. The Internet is the new democracy, which can be seen from pictures and videos coming from protests in Iran.
The Iranian protests are capturing the world’s attention in part because of fairly new tools that make it easy for most anyone to be a broadcaster, a real-time journalist. These tools punctuate change sweeping through the news industry and destabilizing others.
Why Apple Succeeds, and Always Will
Simply put: Apple doesn’t play by the rules. It reinvents them.
The March 11, 2009, The New Yorker magazine features story, “How David Beats Goliath.” Writer Malcolm Gladwell could easily have written about Apple; his examples are 12-year-old girls basketball and T.E. Lawrence.
'Simply Bigoted'
Children like to think they are less bigoted than their parents, for example. In fact, they are simply bigoted about different things: fatties, smokers and people who drive Humvees, rather than blacks or homosexuals. Lexington
Language Old Is New Again
I may not here omite how, notwithstand all their great paines and industrie, and the great hops of a large cropp, the Lord seemed to blast, and take away the same, and to threaten further and more sore famine unto them, by a great drought which continued from the 3. weeke in May, till about the midle of July, without any raine, and with great heat (for the most parte), insomuch as the come begane to wither away, though it was set with fishe, the moysture wherof helped it much. Yet at length it begane to languish sore, and some of the drier grounds were partched like withered hay, part wherof was never recovered.
Google Attention Deficit Disorder
Nicolas Carr asks: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?.” My experience is the same as his, and more. My writing concentration has changed, too. Blogging is more difficult than, say, three years ago. There is too […]
It’s Not Alaska, It’s an Adventure
Jean McDermott cracks me up. She’s got a wry, dry sense of humor. Maybe the humorless can’t survive Alaskan winters.
Today, Jean posted a picture of her freezer and, separately, commented on the weather: “A couple days ago we got 10 inches of snow in one night. People up here walked around just beaming. Finally! The bumps in the ski, snowmachine, mushing and skijore trails would finally be smoothed out. No more skidding around on dirt! Not only that, but it has warmed up to a positively balmy 20° ABOVE so everyone is having a bit of a respite from having to put on so much bleeding gear every time one goes outside!
Environmental Question
I hear a whole lot of ruckus about global warming and carbon emissions spewed into the air. I have a question for the environmentalists—some of them extremists—pointing fingers of accusation: How much worse off is the planet because of you and your political maneuvering that ended US adoption of fission reactors in the 1970s?
Environmentalist FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about radioactive waste disposal was a major factor halting nuclear power plant construction in the United States. Meanwhile, many electrical facilities resorted to coal and, gasp, oil—fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide when burned.
In My Dreams, 33.8 Hours
New Labor Department jobs report is out. Average work week is 33.8 hours. Geez, I easily work twice that some weeks, and never fewer than 50. What a life to work only 34—or even 40 […]