Another Appendage of Childhood Fades Into History

Ouch. Somewhere deep down inside, my 7 year-old self is beside himself.  KB Toys is no more.

RIM Enjoys A Mirage Of Market Share Gains

If you're taken aback by the recent IDC report showing major gains for RIM in the US smartphone market, rest assured that Q3 will paint a very different picture. Most major news outlets are running with a story this morning citing the recent IDC report that shows RIM capturing over 50 percent of the US smartphone market. This report is based on Q2 sales figures. What today's news reports aren't being clear about is the fact that Apple essentially spent Q2 without a product on the market as they had completely sold out their channels ahead of the iPhone 3G launch. RIM should enjoy this temporary reprieve as the eye of the storm passes over them.

The Macintosh Genesis of PowerPoint

Did you ever wonder how PowerPoint got it's start? Here's a hint - as with most of Microsoft's most successful products, it wasn't cooked up in Redmond.

Check out this MindJet Connections interview with Bob Gaskins, the father of PowerPoint. It's an interesting read.

Music Labels Look To Luddite Kid Rock For Answer To It's Apple Problem

Kid Rock is selling music without the internets.

Note to Bob - if it's not on iTunes, it's surely going to be on Limewire. If the labels are looking at this as a way to push people back towards the physical sale, they're sorely mistaken. Although, that should come to us as no surprise.

First of all, the average Kid Rock listener is most likely going to be a Wal Mart shopper who's not so much into the digital music market to begin with. While these are good numbers for a non-digital release, they need to consider the audience. Furthermore, we've all grown accustomed to the convenience of being able to purchase our music on impulse in the comfort of our homes. You simply can't just take that away. Doing so will most likely just push people back towards file sharing and the tech is a lot more robust now than it was in 2000.

Part of the reason why iTunes worked was because many of us were already feeding from the binary music trough. iTunes was attractive to those of us with a conscious about stealing music. Also, most of us now use an mp3 player as our primary music source. Does Bob or his label honestly think that we're going to carry our fat, lazy American asses out to retail to buy CDs that we're going to have to bring home and rip?

I think the answer is going to be a resounding no for the majority of artists out there that unlike Kid Rock, don't have a solid luddite, white-trash fan base.

Microsoft is now a panhandler

Okay, so I knew it was out there but had never seen direct evidence of it before.



The clearest evidence I've seen yet that proves Microsoft has no taste. None whatsoever.

Apple MacBook Update Rumors Are Kinda Lame

Seth Weintraub at Computerworld has posted some rumored details of Apple's forthcoming portable refresh.

Please pass the Nodoze. Maybe if they could replace the entire keyboard with a glass surface that would morph into whatever input device required. Garageband? You get a mixing board. iPhoto? you get a standard keyboard with a set of photo editing controls - sliders, dials, etc.

If this is simply a glass trackpad with some of the same lame gestures that appear on MBA, I'll pass. Wake me up when the real revolution comes to town. Seriously, is this Apple's idea of next-gen tech that their competitors simply can't compete with?

Anything less than direct manipulation of objects on the screen is gimmicky at best. When are we going to move beyond detached and remote pointing devices and into a computing experience that lives up to the promise of iPhone OS?

How To Put iPhone Into Recovery Mode

If you reach the point where your iPhone will no longer get past the start screen, as mine did this morning, you have a powerful option.  Put your iPhone into recovery mode.  Here's what you do:

1.  Hold down home and sleep buttons until you see the phone power down.

2.  As soon as it powers down, let go of the sleep button but continue to hold the home button for a couple of seconds.

3.  Once you have verified that it is completely powered down, hold down the home button while connecting to your computer.

After a couple of seconds, you will see the iTunes logo and USB cable appear on your phone.  iTunes will prompt you to restore the phone.  From there, you should be golden.  Hope it works out!

Google Gears Updated For FireFox 3.0.1

Many thanks to Basil Hashem for pointing out to me that Gears has already been updated for FF 3.0.1 compatibility. He's got some more great info on his blog detailing extensions and FF versions.

Firefox 3.0.1 Breaks Google Gears

I almost pulled the trigger on this and was thankful that I was informed of the following ahead of time:

I've come to rely heavily upon Google Docs offline so this would have been fairly ugly for me, at least on this laptop.

Starbucks Misses Me, Lures Me Back With Vivanno

So I had pretty much broken my unhealthy Starbucks relationship. I haven't had a caffeinated beverage in over a month now and my wallet is smiling a bit more as well. So much for that. Starbucks is now selling high protein smoothies in a product they're calling Vivanno. I haven't tried Vivanno yet so I can't say much about it other than I like the name. I do know that I'll be trying this one first:

Orange Mango Banana Blend with Matcha Green Tea powder (250 calories, 16g protein, 5g fiber, 2g fat, 45% daily value of Vitamin C)

Microsoft In A Gunfight...They've Brought Toy Guns

Microsoft groupie Mary-Jo Foley has a post on her "All About Microsoft" blog asking if the empire should strike back against Apple's marketing campaign. Personally, I don't think Microsoft is in the position to "strike back". Any sort of lashing out they do will be perceived by an already leery public that they're just being big, bad bully Microsoft. Honestly, I don't believe that Microsoft is even capable of countering Apple's campaign given that they simply don't have a compelling consumer product to build it around. At the end of the day, their biggest hindrance is that they can offer no objects of lust. Apple's product line is jam-packed with sexy.

Microsoft is a software company, writing mainly business applications. While software can be sexy, Office is not. Windows is not. We're not talking about gaming consoles or mp3 players so this campaign has to be about their computing experience. Without using venom against their competitors while placing focus on their product, what's their story going to be? Windows One Care is the way to go? Live! is amazingly amazing? You're gonna love the gadget bar in Vista? Our start menu is shiny? There are thousands and thousands of programs...and viruses...written for Windows Vista?

Just Say Shazam For World Peace

So I settled an argument today using my iPhone. Up for debate was the culprit behind a sticky sweet pop song that only Belinda Carlisle and the Cavity Creeps would be proud of. Just as things started to get heated, out pops mah iPhone with it's newfound powers of Shazam. I simply told Shazam to take a listen and within seconds we were able to finger the offender - Kelly Clarkson singing "Behind These Hazel Eyes". Boom. My iPhone is now a musical know-it-all. For free.

MobileMe: Squash One Bug And 3 More Creep In

So I'm now able to get to my mail via web. We're making some progress. Unfortunately, I'm not able to use my contacts in mail. I'm really thankful that I'm still in my trial period. Here's hoping that they continue to shake out the issues in the coming weeks.

Taco Redux Casserole

So tonight I got all crafty and decided to actually do something with the leftover taco parts. Here's how the story goes:


Mixed leftover taco meat with more browned ground beef.
Added some cilantro and salsa seasoning.
Made 3 cups of Jasmine rice.
In a casserole dish, I filled the bottom with a layer of rice.
I topped the rice with a layer of crushed taco shells.
I topped the taco shells with a layer of Mexican shredded cheddar cheese.
I topped the cheese with leftover pico de gallo.
I topped the pico de gallo with another layer of cheese.
I topped it all off with the meat and another layer of cheese.
Baked it in the oven at 380 for 25 minutes.
Served it on a bed of lettuce, topped with sour cream.

Subtle New iTunes Feature?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it would appear that one of my biggest peeves with iTunes has been corrected in 7.7. Previously, if I were using album or coverflow views and I clicked to browse mode (formerly known as the eye of Mordor), I would be switched to a 2 pane view with the browse nav in the top pane and a flat list view on the bottom. Now it seems to honor the view you were using:

The Sideline Perspective

Today is the first major Apple release that didn't have me running for the Apple store. I have to say that for once, I'm totally okay with it. The iPocalypse aside, I was quite content to spend last night with my "new" iPhone. The 2.0 software + AppStore was all that I imagined it to be and more. I spent a good part of last night feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, ripping through present after present with the attention span of a gnat.

My favorite so far? It's a close tie between the new Twitter app, MIM and the lightsaber.

"Game Changing" New iPhone Game Coming

Amazing new iPhone game coming next week. This by itself is more exciting to me than the new hardware or any enhancements to the software. I mean you actually reach in and build bridges and walkways for your characters with your friggin fingers. It's called Rolando and it's developed by Handcircus.

Duh: Intel disappointed with Apple over iPhone chip choice

Forbes says that Intel is "disappointed" with Apple over it's iPhone chip choice. Well duh. Apple is great at learning for growth in areas that are somewhat foreign to them. This is Apple's MO. Work really closely with a company in an industry that they don't have experience in. Turn around in a couple of years and apply what they've learned coupled with their own engineering smarts to do it themselves even better.

Remember the ROKR project with Motorola? Fact finding mission for Apple.

Heck, remember the PARC visits? The rest is Macintosh history.

Apple has it's own really, really small, low-powered chip design IP now in PA Semi. My guess is that they've learned quite a bit about the ins and outs of the silicon business over the past 3 years in working with Intel to design groundbreaking board and chip configurations. Just take a peek at the MacBook Air for reference.

Diversinet Offers Secure Vertical Mobile Banking Solution

I met and had lunch today with Lars Graf from Diversinet, a California based company specializing in mobile platform security. He demonstrated for me an amazing product named MobiSecure, part of a platform offering truly secure, mobile financial management including payments, OTP generation and even a digital safe deposit box. The downloadable application uses a locally encrypted data store and talks to a server via an encrypted channel. MobiSecure is available on just about all mobile platforms, including RIM and Symbian.

MobiSecure moves beyond mobile banking and into a comprehensive platform that allows you to manage your most personal data across multiple devices leveraging patented security technology that is licensed by RSA today. Beyond your mobile phone, you can access your data from any PC using a USB token that doesn't require driver installation. Diversinet is working towards Google health integration.

Lars showed me how he could send and receive funds using a variety of accounts and currency using an incredibly simple UI. Exchange rates were calculated for cross-currency transactions. He was also able to show me his passport information and his medical records, including his allergies and current prescriptions.

MobiSecure is brandable, allowing FIs to offer it as a fee-based service that allows customers to securely manage critical financial and personal information wherever they are. For FIs seeking to realize the real cradle-to-grave customer relationship, MobiSecure provides a valuable tool that helps to bring more of the customer under their umbrella.

Learn more at www.diversinet.com.

First Notes From the Mobile Commerce Summit

The pre-conference workshop "Mobile Marketing: How Financial Institutions Can Deploy the Newest Marketing Channel" just wrapped up. It was fairly interesting in that it focused not on the state of mobile as a marketing channel today but instead focused more on the coming mobile ecosystem that is expected to reach maturity in 2010 - 2011 time frame. Essentially in the next two years we are going to see mobile commerce explode in a big way and the FI is a central player in this. When you think about it, if done properly, the bank owns the customer relationship given that they are present at every point of sale. More on this later. Here are some general talking points from today:

• 53% of all US banks plan to offer mobile in the next 12-24 months.
• 70% of all call center call volume will be via mobile.
• 40% of gen Y feel that having a mobile option dictates their choice of cards and accounts.
• The Air Force is effectively leveraging mobile capabilities as a recruiting tool.

McCain Baits Obama Into Wearing Flip-Flops

Wow this was smart. McCain essentially baited Obama into rejecting public funding, painting himself as a flip-flopper in a major way. McCain has essentially been laying low all of these months while Obama duked it out with Billary. All the while, McCain knew that he could raise some serious cash once he started to get into it. Obama was lulled into thinking that his "grassroots" fundraising revolution had put him far ahead of the game. Now he's left on equal financial footing with McCain and with the mark of a hypocrite on his record. This is gonna be fun to watch.

Read the story here.

Lotus Notes 8.5 Calendaring Works Well With Others

When canceling an appointment in my Notes calendar today, I noticed this nifty option:




I've always felt that Notes calendaring worked well with other standards-based calendaring systems. While I'm not quite sure yet how this feature functions, I think it's a great detail and somewhat reassuring from an interface perspective. Kudos to the Lotus user experience team.

Apple Inc. Is About To Redefine Mobility

On Monday, June 9, all eyes in the tech world will be focused on Steve Jobs as he addresses the WWDC crowd. As usual, the rumor mill is running at a fevered pitch with impossible predictions and fantastic expectations. I should be conditioned by now to prepare for a let-down given that it's almost always too good to be true. With the exception of last year's Macworld iPhone announcement, Apple almost always seems to underwhelm by delivering great but seemingly restrained products. After all, Apple has carefully crafted the reputation as the world's greatest innovator. Why wouldn't we expect them to change the world on an annual basis?

I have a hunch that this time Apple will deliver in ways that most of us didn't see coming. While we've all been obsessed with the iPhone, Apple has been thinking much bigger. Well not that much bigger, maybe a couple of inches across and slightly thicker. You see, this is the way they do things there in Cupertino. They give us products that completely captivate and amaze to the point where Apple is able to work behind the cover of distraction to cook up something even more enthralling than before. They had us so focused on the iPod's evolution as a media player that our wildest iPod + phone fantasies didn't envision the convergence device that was finally introduced to us as the iPhone.

This time Apple will introduce the world to a product that it never thought that it wanted. The Ultra Mobile PC has been around for years and Bill Gates has been ready to change the world with it in just about every interview he's given since 2003. The problem with the UMPC isn't only that it runs a clunky version of Windows or that nobody has ever figured out a way to market it or that it's never been presented in a sexy form factor. The problem is really that it's a concept that was ahead of it's time. Like the mp3 player before it, the consumer market hadn't really yet gotten it's head around the concept of digital media and nobody had given them a cohesive approach to managing it. In stepped Apple with it's iTunes software and service and suddenly the mp3 player is a common household item. On Monday, I fully expect Apple to show the world what it really wants in mobile computing.

The world wants a device that it doesn't have to unfold and lay on a table or our laps. The world wants a device that it can use standing up or sitting down. The world wants a device that allows us to do all of the things that we typically do while mobile - consume media, IM, check email, surf the web, create documents and not much else. The laptop is really overkill for what most of us need in a portable computer and it's not all that convenient to use either. Imagine a device that you can whip out of your backpack, purse or man-purse at a moment's notice and begin using with the same level of effort that it takes to engage your iPhone. Imagine a device that allows us to interact with our digital objects in a tactile manner. The iPhone has taken us there in a small way. It has changed the way we navigate on a handheld device. This new device will change things in a much larger way.

Not only will Apple deliver to the world this device that it doesn't yet know it wants, but it will package and market it in a way that will leave us all wondering why it's taken so long to get here. Like the iPod and iPhone, this new device will be integrated with software both on the desktop and in the cloud that will make our digital lives more seamless than we ever imagined.

Of course I've always been accused of being a dreamer and I won't shy away from those allegations. Monday could very well come and go and all I'll be looking at when Steve leaves the stage is a new iPhone with faster internet and hundreds of 3rd party applications. In fact, I'm almost certain that will be the case. However, in the event that the dreamer in me was right, don't say I didn't tell you about it first. Afterall, Apple patented this over 3 years ago.

IBM Moving Into Mobile Payments Using RFID

IBM has partnered with a Taiwanese firm to build an Expeditor-based framework for a "wallet phone" system. A sign of great things to come in mobile banking or as my friend Mister Falcon put it "The mark of the beast"?

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/cs/LMCM-7EPJYK?OpenDocument&Site=corp&cty=en_us#

...Microsoft would wake up and smell it's brand rotting.

The NY Times has a pretty good piece on the current state of affairs for MisterSoftee. They basically point out Microsoft's futility in it's attempt to maintain it's status as tech industry leader now that the PC era is waaaay back in the rearview mirror and we're smack-dab in the middle of the internet era. I think that they start to point out some obvious reasons for the inevitability of Microsoft's fall. If you consider this article along with all of the other evidence that has mounted in recent years, you begin to see a larger theme: Microsoft can't innovate. This is a company that essentially built it's breathtaking success upon some amazing business saavy and sheer corporate market brutality. They successfully leveraged some incredibly opportunistic deals and partnerships to hoist a commoditized computing experience upon a doe-eyed market that was still just super-psyched about being able to drag files into the trash. The problem we have for them now is that both the enterprise and the consumer PC markets aren't the impressionable, uninformed pushovers that they were in the 90's. People aren't just looking for a computing experience but they're looking for the best computing experience and they demand convenience. I'll write more on this later but I think you can guess where we're going with this. Anyway, enjoy the article.

I also wanted to point out for my fellow Lotus fans that the article uses the IBM + Lotus acquisition as an example to show how the merge and aquire strategy doesn't always pan out. Lotus was an exciting, innovative software company that has arguably rotted on the vine under IBM's wing.

...my company used Google's hosted enterprise apps.

Ed Brill has a piece discussing Microsoft's recent boast that it expects a very large number of it's current Exchange base to shift to a hosted Exchange service. Ed's rightfully taking issue with the fact that Microsoft seems so incredibly sure that they'll be welcoming throngs of disaffected IBM Lotus Domino users to the service. While he seems to almost dismiss cloud-based enterprise services, both Microsoft and IBM would be wise to eye Google's enterprise apps. If I were running a rather large enterprise right now...or even a smaller one, I'm about 99.9% certain that I would be paying $50/user to Google right now for Google apps in the cloud. Not only would we be getting a world-class browser-based email experience with POP and IMAP support but we'd be getting 24/7 support, super security and compliance via postini that includes archiving, encryption, content policy management, robust spam prevention, private versions of all of Google's apps, a robust standards-based calendaring service and much, much more.

Google Apps for the enterprise.

Google Enterprise App security

Lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Mmmm.

Okay so I'm starting the "Lemonade Diet" today and figured that this would be a great place to go with all of my thoughts along the way. Just so you know, it's not a reduction diet but a "detox" or a cleanse. It's actually a variation of the Master Cleanse. I definitely don't need to do this to lose weight as I currently weight in at 177. This is more of an attempt to hit reset on the overall physiological state of my body and mind in hopes that I can start over again with modified eating habits. They say that if you can make it past day three, you'll feel amazing. I'll definitely let you know. I tried this once before and didn't get too far. I've developed quite the caffeine habit in recent years and several days into it had an extraordinary headache.

Okay so here's the skinny:

For at least 10 days, drink around 10 servings/day of the following:
2 Tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice NOT BOTTLED JUICE!! (approx. 1/2 lemon),
2 Tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) organic Grade B maple syrup,
1/10 Teaspoon or more cayenne pepper (hot red pepper), and
1 Cup (8 fluid ounces) purified or spring water, NOT fluoridated water.

Some people apparently do this for up to 40 days, which is absolutely insane. Just so know know, my doctor is in on this and has given it his blessing. He has friends that do it 4 times a year and swear by it.

IBM and Forterra Unify Lotus Tools and Virtual Worlds

This is a nice introduction to "Babel Bridge", a project to integrate Lotus unified telephony environment with the virtual environment.  

Adobe Is Holding Up the Cloud-Based Audio Workstation?

This is probably one of the most retarded movements I've yet seen in the intertubes. Pleading with Adobe to bring the DAW into the cloud? Create a free, cloud-based alternative to Garageband? WTF? Creative pros and hobbyists alike who work with the digital medium require stability first and foremost for their creative process to flow. This is one of the main reasons why Mac is so incredibly prevalent in the recording industry. Why in God's name would any self-respecting musician wish to go from his stable, powerful Mac to some web-based flash app in the cloud somewhere to compose his musical ideas? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for collaboration and digital distribution but this concept is whacky as fuck. Not that I don't see this coming sometime waaaay in the future when bandwidth becomes a commodity and we're all working on gigabit connections but it's just not feasible right now. Also, why on earth would anyone expect Adobe to be the one that brings this into the realm of possibility? Sure, they do some amazing things with Flash video but their audio software is the suck.

Anywho, humor the freetards here.

Exploring Coda - A Tutorial I Built Using ScreenSteps

I built this tutorial using ScreenSteps, a wonderful documentation builder on my Mac.  You can also view this lesson at my ScreenSteps Live page.

Exploring Coda

Site Management

Site Management - if you were building multiple sites, you could manage all of them from this view.

Site Management Detailed

Here is where you actually manage the basics of the site - connectivity, etc.

Edit Mode

One-click access to all of your code. Browse to the left and edit in the main frame.

Instant Preview

Simply click back and forth between code and preview to see your changes instantly.

CSS Editor

You can build each of your CSS styles using this simple builder and get a preview of each style immediately. This tool basically references all styles that are shown on the doc that is currently being edited - HTML or CSS. The style navigator even shows you color and text changes as they will appear on your page.

More CSS

Terminal

Built-in SSH terminal.

Books

Built-in reference library. Amazing.

Books Detailed

Drill down into a book to find all of the elements that you may want to work with.

Pick an element and fully explore the usage complete with examples. Note the crumbtrail nav on the bottom. Nice touch.

Manage Assets

Browse and manage all of your site's assets.

Use the function browser to find each of the javascript functions that are contained within your page or js library.

Programming language hints as you type.

Page Element Browser

Click on each page element to browse and select each one within the page.

Clips

A HUD browser of all relevant clippings to paste directly into your page. Think of this as your clipboard that you can actually manage. Core Animation used here - when you click on the i button, the pane actually flips over to reveal more info about that particular clip.

...more politicians could actually be leaders too.

I'm not pushing any politics here, just pointing out the kind of words that attract me to a candidate. This was McCain's response to a question today about how his environmental stance might anger GOP rank and file:

When it comes to making his fellow GOP colleagues "mad in the past," McCain said his job is to "do what I know is best for this nation, particularly where our environment is concerned."

Regardless of political party, I love a maverick. Even when i disagree with the candidate's position, nothing excites me more than to see a person stand by their principles regardless of anyone's opinion. I think more than anything else, I look for decisiveness in a leader and the courage to make tough decisions in the face of potential failure.

...we had more game-changers like Apple in the world.

A post over at Small Surfaces pretty much sums up the feeling that most mobile web developers have had since the iPhone was announced in Feb. 2007.  Why bother developing for those crappy, crippled mobile browsers that nobody uses to begin with?  The PC didn't really take off until consumers were given a GUI.  Mobile web was basically ignored until consumers were given a true, desktop-class web browser in their pocket and now you're seeing crazy numbers like 25% of it's suddenly expanding mobile banking users at Bank of America are using iPhone.  The bank has said that the iPhone is forcing the bank to rapidly adapt it's mobile banking strategy to accommodate what was once a small, relatively stagnant group of customers.  Russell Beattie, the man behind Mowser: the mobile browser laments:

Now the question you might be asking is why not stick with it a little longer? Get a contract or something and tough it out since it's "only" been a year, and many companies have had to struggle for a lot longer than that before taking off. Beyond the fact that I'm irretrievably in debt, the general answer is that I don't actually believe in the "Mobile Web" anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I'm talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn't happened, and now I'm sure it isn't going to.

In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I'm tired of wasting my time.

Read more here.

...organizational silos were a thing of the past.

Frogblog has a great piece on Org Chart 2.0 that essentially predicts an end to the losely federated enterprise organizations and a new era of integration and shared purpose that traverses corporate boundaries.

The strain is showing on the traditional silo’d organizational structure. I believe we will soon see the emergence of new companies formed in this environment and they will look quite different than what we have seen for the last decades. For these companies, thinking systemically and about user experience will be as natural as breathing. They will treat complex systems as inherent to their structure and creators of value, rather than as headaches to be avoided and territories to be fought over by silo’d clans.

Read more here.

...more people would share their looney Zune experiences.

Oh this is a good read for anyone that's ever wondered why the Zune sits collecting dust on most Wal-Mart and Toys R Us shelves.  This is my favorite excerpt but it gets so much better...

In the software itself, there are way too many menu options--without the Zune plugged in, there's a two-line menu with five separate options: Collection, Device, Marketplace, Social, and Disc on the top line, and then Music, Playlists, Videos, Pictures, Podcasts on the second line. Plug the device in, and there's one more menu option once you click Device (Status).

Check out the rest here.

Lotus Notes For Mac: Should It Look & Feel Like Mac?

IBM is asking if Mac users want their Lotus Notes client for Mac to actually look and feel like a Mac application. Weigh in for yourselves.

read more | digg story

Rockin' Your Roadtrip

My good comrade Mister Falcon has posted a fun read about a song that gets him going while he's going.  He's provoked me now to dig through my iTunes library and find some great driving tunes.  I'll post my playlist here when compiled.  

Mister Falcon says:

Why does Superchunk rock so hard after all of this time? I am not talking about post "Foolish" Superchunk. I am talking about rockin' out, good times Superchunk. I'm talking about the seminal Slack Motherfucker. I'm talking about Precision Auto. I'm talking about Tower. Always good for a pick-me-up while driving to work, or otherwise.

Read on for some more thought-provoking indie rock drag racing down memory lane.

True Innovation

A japanese grocer has solved a problem that found them without enough room for all of their watermelons. What did the farmers do to move more inventory? Why the created square watermelons of course. This is a prime example of completely disconnecting yourself from convention and coming up with a new and better was to do things. Innovation, folks. Enjoy.



This from Financial Hack:

“Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. That is how I would assume the vast majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them.

Read on to get some great points about this story.

and we're back...

I decided last night to completely start from scratch.  My thoughts had been reduced to a trickle due to some nagging life issues that I'm slowly but surely dealing with.  Hopefully as I put them behind me, I can once again begin to offer up my unfiltered thoughts on tech pop culture.