I'm going to be traveling through Wales, Italy, and Solvenia for about a month before I get back home to Chicago. I might be able to post something up from an Internet cafe some time, but you never know...
Archive for June, 2003
Seth Godin: Author, Agent of Change has written a book about marketing... or maybe it's about making products that market themselves... or maybe it's just about some interesting products. Here are the ones that I liked, and thought I would share:
- Zappos, the Amazon.com of shoes
- Chefn, cheesy TV products that people actually like
- FirstClassFlyer, for people who fly a lot
- Veer, stock graphics and photos that look good
- Firebox, toys and stuff like that
If you want more about the author, you can read this article and see some sample chapters from the book.
Nate, this one is for you: How To Make A Telemarketer Cry (or, Suing Bozos for Fun & Profit)
My diabolical scheme worked like a charm. On the Saturday before the hearing my phone rang, and when I picked up it was ARS asking for me. Instead of being obnoxious and accusatory, he was surprisingly sheepish and apologetic. He explained that his secretary had misprogrammed the dialer, causing it to dial out too early in the morning. (Naturally, I pointed out to him that placing unsolicited pre-recorded calls to a residence is illegal at all times of day.) Most importantly, though, he asked if we couldn't just settle the case by having him pay me $500.
Gnutella News - Cd Baby reports on itunes meeting re: indy music and says that indy record labels get the same deal as the big players. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure, but it seems promising. I wonder if and when they will get around to offering a chance for anybody to upload thier own music (or maybe that would swamp the service) - it is possible that record labels could pop up as 'fronts' for artists without regular contracts, giving everybody access to the new sales channel.
I'm stealing The Cellphones We Ought to Have straight from SvN but i think this is a really really good idea - for any phone:
"Please hold" message -- When a cellphone rings, you usually have two options: Answer it or send it to voicemail. But there should be a third button that answers the call but plays a message like this: "Please hold while the owner of this phone tries to find a place where answering your call won't annoy everyone else in the room."
An article titled Eye on the Tiger for clothing trends makes it clear that paying athletes big money to wear clothes is probably quite effective.
When Tiger Woods wakes up this morning, he will not have to think twice about his outfit. It was picked out for him a year and a half ago, just like the clothes he will be wearing Friday through Sunday at the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields.
It is all part of the marketing strategy for Nike Golf, which scripts Woods' clothes for the majors and then ships the merchandise to stores around the country a couple weeks after each major. Woods' popularity and the television exposure generated by the tournaments combine to increase sales of the selected items.
A good article about the future of digital media and how Microsoft is participating in that struggle. My comments? I can't imagine that digital media can can have archiving restricted forever. I don't know where I read it or saw it, but someone said "if you have access to all of the streaming media (movies, music, etc) that you could ever want - why would you try to archive it? That would be like taping radio-on-demand. Wired 11.07: Bill Gates, Entertainment God
This is how Whiting is showing movies these days. His projection room is evidence that Microsoft's digital media strategy goes beyond the small screen. The Guild 45th belongs to Landmark Theatres - an indie-centric chain that signed a deal with Microsoft in April to roll out Media 9 players in its theaters nationwide. Whiting's the first on board and couldn't be happier about it. He says Media 9 could decrease distribution costs and eventually eliminate the need for expensive film. At that point, he says, his theater can focus on what it does best. "This opens up a lot of small indie films," he says. "Do you know how many of the 48 films at Cannes last year got distribution? Eight. Now we can do a Best of Cannes run, a series of one-night showings - and offer the kinds of things we're good at running."
This article is really interesting: Wired 11.01: The Unreal Estate Boom
But of course there was more to it than that. In addition to the four hours of clicking, Stolle had had to come up with the money for the deed. To get the money, he had to sell his old house. To get that house in the first place, he had to spend hours crafting virtual swords and plate mail to sell to a steady clientele of about three dozen fellow players. To attract and keep that clientele, he had to bring Nils Hansen's blacksmithing skills up to Grandmaster. To reach that level, Stolle spent six months doing nothing but smithing: He clicked on hillsides to mine ore, headed to a forge to click the ore into ingots, clicked again to turn the ingots into weapons and armor, and then headed back to the hills to start all over again, each time raising Nils' skill level some tiny fraction of a percentage point, inching him closer to the distant goal of 100 points and the illustrious title of Grandmaster Blacksmith.
Take a moment now to pause, step back, and consider just what was going on here: Every day, month after month, a man was coming home from a full day of bone-jarringly repetitive work with hammer and nails to put in a full night of finger-numbingly repetitive work with "hammer" and "anvil" - and paying $9.95 per month for the privilege. Ask Stolle to make sense of this, and he has a ready answer: "Well, it's not work if you enjoy it." Which, of course, begs the question: Why would anyone enjoy it? But people do. And that's a curious thing.
The person who wrote this piece decided to try making a living on buying/selling virtual goods, and you can read more about it on his personal website.
There is a real site on The Matrix that has papers by somewhat reputable philosophers. This interests me because I like to see 'fun' or 'contemporary' philosophy that might appeal to more people.
An interesting aside to the Eldred legal stuff - the overzealous extension of copyright laws has real world implications, and there are ways to preserve rare books. Robots digitizing libraries / New technology helps turn books into images.
Inside the room, a Swiss-designed robot about the size of a sport utility vehicle was rapidly turning the pages of an old book and scanning the text. The machine can turn the pages of both small and large books as well as bound newspaper volumes, and it can scan at speeds of more than 1,000 pages an hour.Occasionally the robot will stumble, turning more than a single page. When that happens, the machine will pause briefly and send out a puff of compressed air to separate the sticking pages.
I have been really struggling lately with the idea of law school. On one hand, I think that going to school again would be a good idea. I think that a liberal arts degree from Lawrence University (which just dropped to 50 on the top tier liberal arts schools) isn't going to get me "very far". But I'm having trouble with that idea. Where am I trying to go? That is a question that I need to answer before I figure out how to get there, right? But I need to get some post-graduate degree... I think.
On the other hand, I read things like Advice for the Lawlorn that make me second guess myself for even considering law school. I mean, who wants to work 70 hours a week - with no weekends free? To me, working hard in school is one thing, but never having time to rest or have fun (or at least free time) sounds a bit scary. Still, I am reading about it because - I admit it - law school sounds interesting. challenging. maybe rewarding. So I read this or that on the same site mentioned above and think maybe I could do it. I actally like working hard, and wouldn't mind doing it for 7-10 years before slowing down.
And yes, yet... I'll just keep reading what Kaplan has to say on the subject, or what pre-law I should have done and so on. And I know they all say that your GPA and LAST score aren't all they use to judge you, but then LSAC, the official law school admission service gives you this LSAT/GPA Range Finder that lists your chances of getting into schools based on... guess what. Then there are more like that, so you read what the ABA (American Bar Association) has to say on the subject. And so you end up thinking about spending $1000 on a test prep course so that you can boost your chances of getting into the position of going $100,000 in debt - I don't know if 'yikes' really captures the feeling. At the end of the day, maybe you wish you hadn't gone to school in the first place, and now your getting ready to dive right back in. What to do... what to do...
Popular in the UK. I don't know why. A bit helpful, though. Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.
Tricked Out Big Rigs. Never thought of it, and I can't believe it is real. Maybe it isn't real, but still...
