Archive for the ‘Pop Culture’ category

Make Mine a MacBook … x 20

March 6th, 2010

Justin Long may have retired from Apple ad campaigns,  but at least several others want to claim his old role of Mac advocate:

Acrobatic thieves hit N.J. Best Buy avoiding cameras, motion sensors, alarms in daring heist
By Ryan Hutchins/For The Star-Ledger

March 04, 2010, 4:42PM

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — They never touched the floor — that would have set off an alarm.
They didn’t appear on store security cameras. They cut a hole in the roof and came in at a spot where the cameras were obscured by advertising banners.

And they left with some $26,000 in laptop computers, departing the same way they came in — down a 3-inch gas pipe that runs from the roof to the ground outside the store.

Police believe that’s how some brazen bandits managed to swipe 20 Apple notebooks early this morning at a Best Buy on Route 1 in South Brunswick without detection.

“High level of sophistication,” said Detective James Ryan, a police department spokesman. “They never set off any motion sensors. They never touched the floor. They rappelled in and rappelled out.”

Employees discovered the missing laptops, as well as a gaping hole in the ceiling, when they arrived to work around 6:30 this morning.

The thieves left boot prints on the gas pipe, which runs up the side of the building in Monmouth Junction, Ryan said.

On top of the building, they used a saw to cut through several inches of rubber and insulation, then sliced a 3-foot-wide square in the metal roof, he said.

Once inside, the burglars dropped 16 feet to 10-foot-tall racks — avoiding contact with the floor, where motion sensors would have set off an alarm. They snatched the notebooks from the racks, then went back out through the roof.

The effort was daring and unusual, said John Harris, an expert in security who has consulted on thousands of burglaries.

Read the full story here.

Related content:

A Netflix Stream in Hand…

… would be a killer app – and in more ways than one; streaming more than one movie would easily eat up most people’s iPhone minutes package on AT&T without making *any* calls… Today, from TechCrunch, via Hacking Netflix: Rumor: Netflix Streaming Coming To The iPhone by MG Siegler on August 3, 2009 One big story …

And One More Thing…

Steven Jobs, cofounder of Apple, has been labeled many things, from visionary to egomaniac. Often I think he is inspirational too: We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? Innovation is the distinction between a leader and a follower. The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t …

Customer Experience, Part II

A t-shirt popular within the Apple Computer team building v.1 of Quicktime read “Apple: 80 hours a week, and loving it!” So much for work  | life balance. At the same time, I think Steve Jobs gets a lot of things right – including not making decisions for the short term without …

Desperately Seeking 6Sigma.

While not an avid gamer myself, I still think massively multiplayer online role-playing games will continue to help shape pop-culture and our society as a whole – if one of the main manufacturers of game box hardware can improve their hardware failure rate and overall customer experience. A local body shop’s …

Don’t Ignore Price Points OR Intent.

Nokia recently announced this list price for  its upcoming Booklet 3G netbook – which will be a hefty $820. Apparently Nokia has missed the point consumers (and businesses) want netbooks to provide a smaller AND lower-cost alternative to the laptop.   For *less* than that price, I can buy a brand …

Ego, Redux

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right. – …

For Whom The Bell Tolls… or, Another Business Model for $0.00

From Techcrunch, last week: At first this announcement appeared to be a good candidate for “News of the Weird:” Microsoft Officially Retires Soapbox, The Poor Man’s YouTube by Leena Rao on July 21, 2009 Microsoft’s YouTube clone Soapbox is officially shutting its doors, according to reports today. Soapbox, which was launched in 2006 as a hub for downloading …

Tags: south brunswick, boot prints, motion sensors, apple notebooks, monmouth junction, mac advocate
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Walmart vs. Netflix…?

February 23rd, 2010

On Monday Wal-Mart announced it agreed to buy online streaming video service Vudu, which allows customers to select online from 16,000’s licensed films, then view movies instantly on their TVs.

“Combining Vudu’s unique digital technology and service with Walmart’s retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment,” Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart (WMT,Fortune 500), said in a statement.

Vudu is developing hundreds of Internet applications and services that will allow viewers to stream movies to their TVs and Blu-ray disc players, and the video service has already partnered with Internet and media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and the Associated Press, Wal-Mart said.

“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.” – Oscar Wilde

Tags: netflix, vudu, blu ray disc players, retail expertise, wal mart wmt
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Quote of the Week

February 20th, 2010

From “Bones,” Season 1, Episode 18, “The Man with the Bone”:

“Greed is the real curse.”

Tags: curse, episode 18, quote of the week, greed, season 1, bones
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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

February 1st, 2010

“Every man has three characters – that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 – 1890)

“The more things change, the more they are the same.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 – 1890)

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 – 1890)

“We can invent only with memory.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 – 1890)

“Uncertainty is the worst of all evils until the moment when reality makes us regret uncertainty.” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 – 1890)

And, three not by Karr:

The more things change, the more they remain… insane.”  - Michael Fry and T. Lewis, Over the Hedge, 05-09-04

“The squeaking wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.” – Vic Gold
“The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.” – Arthur Koestler (1905 – 1983)
Tags: alphonse karr, memory, jean baptiste, thorns have roses, roses have thorns, evils, uncertainty
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Running Back and Forth Forever Between Grief and High Delight

January 28th, 2010

The author J.D. Salinger died today. These are some of my favorite quotes from his books, and by him:

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

- J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

– J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

I’m not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him.

– J.D.Salinger (1919 – 2010), Seymour:An Introduction

I can’t be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.

– J. D. Salinger (1919 – 2010)

I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

– J. D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), Franny and Zooey Pg. 30

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

– J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.

– J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

“I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

- J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

- J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

I’m not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him.

- J.D.Salinger (1919 – 2010), Seymour:An Introduction

I can’t be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.

- J. D. Salinger (1919 – 2010)

I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

J. D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), Franny and Zooey Pg. 30

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

- J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010), The Catcher in the Rye

The most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.”

– J.D. Salinger (Nine Stories)

Tags: franny and zooey, immature man, catcher in the rye, paranoiac, bunch of flowers, j d salinger
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Moving Pictures, the Netflix Way

January 20th, 2010

Saturday I mailed a dvd  back to Netflix.

Since Monday was a federal holiday, I expected to Netflix to receive the returned DVD on Tuesday, then ship the next dvd in my queue to arrive on Wednesday.

But – no.

Netflix emailed me Monday morning they received the dvd I mailed them on Saturday.

Later that day my updated dvd queue noted the next dvd would ship on Tuesday and arrive on Wednesday.

Instead, it arrived TUESDAY.

Netflix gets a lot of things right – which is in line with its entertainment product offerings – but even better, sometimes its efficiency is magic, too. <G

Related content:

A Netflix Stream in Hand…

… would be a killer app – and in more ways than one; streaming more than one movie would easily eat up most people’s iPhone minutes package on AT&amp;T without making *any* calls… Today, from TechCrunch, via Hacking Netflix: Rumor: Netflix Streaming Coming To The iPhone by MG Siegler on August 3, 2009 One big story …

Comcast Takes on Hulu in the Battle for TV to be Everywhere

Via CNN.com today: Comcast rolled out a Web-based on-demand television and movie service on Tuesday that gives customers access to more than 2,000 hours of television and movies. – more – The service, named Fancast XFINITY TV (formerly TV Everywhere),  is getting mixed reviews on Twitter,  and is in beta, with limited …

Dead Like Me.

I’ve been broadcast/cable tv free for about a month now, with only mild withdrawal symptoms (having really re-run episodes of NCIS makes great white noise for me when I work from home; so now I have to improvise….). Even so – the combination of watching/running Netflix offerings in the background is …

Hello, Roku HD…!

When I still had cable tv, I loved my Tivo, even though I never upgraded my Tivo 2 box the Tivo HD. Why not?  Pricing.  I had a lifetime (of the Tivo 2 box) subscription, so upgrading would have been very expensive for me – first because of Tivo’s high pricing …

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow; or Redundancy, x 2

Last week a “minority” of T-Mobile Sidekick users learned the “Rule of Data Redundancy” the long, slow, hard way – and through no fault of their own. Sidekick users who stored their data locally (on the device) or backed up their data on a PC through a sync still have their …

How the Netflix Prize Was Won…

Not surprisingly <G>, Wired has an interesting follow up story on how the Netflix prize was won – and notes real progress was made in the contest’s goal to improve the Netflix movie recommendation algorithm by 10 percent only after the leaders joined forces with members of some of the also-ran teams. The …

Hulu-baloo.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, with data partly from Comscore, 38 million people watched Hulu at least once in July - a viewership which easily topped Time Warner Cable’s July viewership of 34 million. That same month, only DirecTV (47 million viewers) and Comcast (62 million) pulled larger audiences: While impressive, Hulu.com has a long way to go before reaching the cable companies’ …

Tags: efficiency, product offerings, netflix, federal holiday, queue
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Time Warner Cable shows subscribers how to cut cord

January 7th, 2010

As we are in the worst recession in 70 years, only three things are guaranteed: death, taxes, and a yearly 5% or more increase in cable subscription fees.

So – as a consumer, witnessing the on-g0ing scrimmishes between Broadcast TV providers and premium content (cable) providers is also entertainment.

Although this year’s skirmish between Fox and Time Warner was resolved at the 11th hour, Time Warner’s detailed instructions which show its customers how to watch Fox online, for free, with the suggestion viewers head to the likes of Hulu, Fancast, or any search engine–to find their favorite shows.

Time Warner Cable’s instructions on “How to Connect Your PC to Your TV” can be accessed by clicking on the image at the bottom of this post.

Still, no matter how this resolves, the danger for both sides is that consumers really do take up Time Warner Cable on its offer and start watching Fox stuff on the Web, since Fox definitely wants people keep paying for cable TV since Fox really covets subscription fees from cable TV providers.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams:  Corporations, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Related content:

A Netflix Stream in Hand…

… would be a killer app – and in more ways than one; streaming more than one movie would easily eat up most people’s iPhone minutes package on AT&amp;T without making *any* calls… Today, from TechCrunch, via Hacking Netflix: Rumor: Netflix Streaming Coming To The iPhone by MG Siegler on August 3, 2009 One big story …

Comcast Takes on Hulu in the Battle for TV to be Everywhere

Via CNN.com today: Comcast rolled out a Web-based on-demand television and movie service on Tuesday that gives customers access to more than 2,000 hours of television and movies. – more – The service, named Fancast XFINITY TV (formerly TV Everywhere),  is getting mixed reviews on Twitter,  and is in beta, with limited …

Dead Like Me.

I’ve been broadcast/cable tv free for about a month now, with only mild withdrawal symptoms (having really re-run episodes of NCIS makes great white noise for me when I work from home; so now I have to improvise….). Even so – the combination of watching/running Netflix offerings in the background is …

Hello, Roku HD…!

When I still had cable tv, I loved my Tivo, even though I never upgraded my Tivo 2 box the Tivo HD. Why not?  Pricing.  I had a lifetime (of the Tivo 2 box) subscription, so upgrading would have been very expensive for me – first because of Tivo’s high pricing …

Hulu-baloo, Part 2.

I seem to be thinking mostly in images these days, when not thinking in terms of databases… Related content: Help Wanted: Zookeeper with a Good Attitude. Most job postings are dry.  Really dry.  And – they usually include “must haves” which require skills and/or experience with everything but being able to both plumb AND …

Hulu-baloo.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, with data partly from Comscore, 38 million people watched Hulu at least once in July - a viewership which easily topped Time Warner Cable’s July viewership of 34 million. That same month, only DirecTV (47 million viewers) and Comcast (62 million) pulled larger audiences: While impressive, Hulu.com has a long way to go before reaching the cable companies’ …

For Whom The Bell Tolls… or, Another Business Model for $0.00

From Techcrunch, last week: At first this announcement appeared to be a good candidate for “News of the Weird:” Microsoft Officially Retires Soapbox, The Poor Man’s YouTube by Leena Rao on July 21, 2009 Microsoft’s YouTube clone Soapbox is officially shutting its doors, according to reports today. Soapbox, which was launched in 2006 as a hub for downloading …

Free is Not Always Free.

So – the featured speaker at the July 2009 Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s speaker at this month’s “Author Speaker Breakfast” is Chris Anderson, author of FREE: The Future of a Radical Price: FREE: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson the bestselling author of the The Long Tail In his revolutionary …

Free is Sometimes Free: The Future of a Radical Price

For those not able to make the Seattle Chamber of Commerce breakfast tomorrow, featuring Chris Anderson talking about his book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, his presentation at Wired’s “Disruptive Business Conference” is available online, for free: Related content: Free is Not Always Free. So – the featured speaker at …

Free: The Future of a Radical New Price is now…Free!

Late last month, Chris Anderson released a free downloadable unabridged podcast/audiobook version of his book, Free: The Future of a Radical New Price as zipped mp3 files, and via  iTunes.  It chapter is an individual podcast; all of which are  narrated by Chris. [caption id=”attachment_1506″ align=”aligncenter” width=”162″ caption=”Free: The Future of a Radical …

Tags: apparent disinclination, fancast, broadcast tv, iphone, cnn, techcrunch, cable tv providers, cable providers
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Douglas’ Guide to the 2010 Galaxy

January 6th, 2010
Douglas Adams, that is … and re-reading – and re-thinking – his wit and wisdom is one of my favorite ways to start each new year.

His quotes are in no particular order; and all of them are worth thinking about.  Enjoy!

  • “Anything that happens happens, anything that in happening causes something else to happen causes something else to happen, and anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again. Although not necessarily in chronological order.”
  • “We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
  • “A learning experience is one of those things that say, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”
  • “Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened.”
  • “We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
  • “A learning experience is one of those things that say, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”
  • “Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened.
  • “We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
  • “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
    There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
  • “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
  • “A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
  • “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
  • “You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”
  • “He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. ”
  • “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
  • “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
  • “The impossible often has a kind of integrity the merely improbable lacks.”
  • “Once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”
  • “Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.”
  • “Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”
  • “See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
  • “Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.”
  • “See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
  • “There’s always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it’s with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it’s one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.”
  • “Life is wasted on the living.”
  • “The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.”
  • “The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.”
  • “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
  • “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
Tags: apparent disinclination, douglas adams, learning experience, wit and wisdom, chronological order, ingenuity, endangered species
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Douglas' Guide to the 2010 Galaxy

January 6th, 2010
Douglas Adams, that is … and re-reading – and re-thinking – his wit and wisdom is one of my favorite ways to start each new year.

His quotes are in no particular order; and all of them are worth thinking about.  Enjoy!

  • “Anything that happens happens, anything that in happening causes something else to happen causes something else to happen, and anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again. Although not necessarily in chronological order.”
  • “We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
  • “A learning experience is one of those things that say, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”
  • “Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened.”
  • “We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
  • “A learning experience is one of those things that say, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”
  • “Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened.
  • “We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
  • “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
    There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
  • “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
  • “A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
  • “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
  • “You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”
  • “He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. ”
  • “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
  • “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
  • “The impossible often has a kind of integrity the merely improbable lacks.”
  • “Once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”
  • “Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.”
  • “Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”
  • “See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
  • “Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.”
  • “See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
  • “There’s always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it’s with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it’s one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.”
  • “Life is wasted on the living.”
  • “The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.”
  • “The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.”
  • “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
  • “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”
Tags: ingenuity, wit and wisdom, apparent disinclination, douglas adams, learning experience, chronological order, endangered species
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Craig Marker’s Picture of New Year’s Eve 2010 @ the Seattle Space Needle

January 2nd, 2010

My friend Craig posted a truly wonderful photo of Seattle’s New Year’s Eve 2010:

“May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light.

May good luck pursue you each morning and night.”

-  Traditional Irish Blessing


“May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been

the foresight to know where you’re going

and the insight to know when you’re going too far.”

-  Traditional Irish Blessing

Tags: traditional irish blessing, friend craig, foresight, new year, marker, hindsight, space needle, seattle space needle, pockets
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