Connecting the dots ...
I’ve previously written about and expressed my doubts of a Berkeley Study on how to predict your child’s political leaning in the future. A week later it’s on TV: CBS is making fun of the study, too.
Worth watching just for the cute kids being “interviewed”.
Tags: politics, conservatives, liberals, kids, humor
That’s really funny … details at Zack’s blog 
Other acquisition-related news or rumors:
Tags: Facebook, MySQL, IBM, EMC, Oracle, Miscrosoft, Google, Acquisition, Humor
The Bay Area Rapid Transit is not so rapid today: ABC7 just announced that all BART trains are stopped at stations, due to a computer glitch. The BART spokesman does not know the reason (yet), but he stated they did a software upgrade today, and compared the situation to introducing a new version of Windows – a scary thought. 
Tags: BART, Transit, Traffic, Bay Area, San Franciso, SF Bay Area, computer glitch, windows
The Chodovar Family brewery in Chodova Plana offers beer baths, beer massages and beer cosmetics in what may very well be the world’s first Beer Spa. I wonder if they are using Open Source Beer. 
I can’t wait to see a Wine Spa open in Napa – just make sure you dip in white, not red 
Tags: beer, spa, beer spa, health spa, Napa, wine, wine spa, wine country
Apologies for the somewhat crappy appearance of my blog, but I often use embedded photos from Flickr which appears to be flickering now. 
Tags: flickr
Those were the famous words Ed Sullivan used to launch the Beatles (already hot in the UK) in the US. Here they are, back again: Apple vs. Apple.
“IT IS the ultimate battle of the generations over an image of a half-eaten piece of fruit.” claims the UK’s The Times. The New York Times also reports. Apple Corps, the business arm of the former Beatles and their heirs took Apple Computer to court for the third time.
It is the second, 1991 settlement that bound Apple Computer to steer clear of the music business, for which the Beatles’ company retains the famous trademark. Of course my third point above is a joke, I could not possibly predict the outcome of this lawsuit, but it’s no laughing matter, the least it will do, without considering the outcome is to divide the music fans into two camps. Hardcore Beatles fans might just take their business elsewhere. And if Apple (Steve’s Apple, not Sir Paul’s) has to pay up again … well .. this is the real thing folks, not the bogus rumors about Jobs dumping his stock.
Update (3/27): “ The best part? The case will be heard by (no joke): Mr. Justice Mann.” (via MacUser)
Related posts:
Tags: Apple, itunes, ipod, Beatles, Lawsuit, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Steve Jobs, music
The 43 Wiki prank was just that: a joke and social experiment. Everyone could have their 5 (?) minutes of fame.
33 Wikis, on the other hand is a series worth keeping an eye on: it will be a 33–day series featuring best practices in wiki-based collaboration. You can nominate your own wiki-project in the comments area. (hat tip: Ross Mayfield)
Unrelated, but should anyone wonder, 23 is a photo-sharing service, a’la Flickr, and 23half is a new information discovery service for mobile phones. 
I think I’ll leave 13 alone, but perhaps it’s time to register 53 and 53quarter...
Update (3/27): And now, thanks to Robert Scoble, we know what 72 Degrees are. 
Tags: wiki, wikis, 33 wikis, 43 wiki, 23half, humor, collaboration, productivity
Ironically the same day the San Francisco Chronicle celebrates Apple’s 30th anniversary and devotes an article to “The man behind the Mac” Steve Jobs, The Register’ came out with this headline: “Jobs dumps Apple stock”.
Of course a juicy story like this hits Memeorandum , and here’s the first reaction from Forever Geek: “The question is why? Is Steve seeing something we’re not? Will the Intel-based Macintoshes be flukes? Is Apple’s future as a company bleak? I mean when the chief executive of a company seemingly on the rise sells a huge chunk of company shares, that doesn’t forebode anything good.”
It takes a real analyst, Michael Parekh to actually look up the facts rather than just shooting from the hip: “He (Jobs) did not sell any of his stake in the company. In order to meet his tax obligations on the 10M restricted shares, which vested this month, Jobs elected to net-share settle — essentially allowing Apple to withhold and pay to authorities the portion of the 10M shares that would meet his tax payment requirements”
Read the details on Michael’s blog, but here’s the conclusion: “Therefore, the net-share settlement will have the effect of a share repurchase by the company — essentially Apple reinvesting in itself, which will reduce the number of outstanding Apple shares on the market.”
So Jobs was paying his taxes in a manner that’s actually benefitial to Apple. Now, let’s place all this in the context of the ongoing “Responsible Media vs. Rogue Bloggers” debate: Ironically, it’s the professional media (can The Register be called that?) that did not bother to do any fact-checking (after all that may have ruined a juicy story), and it took a blogger to come out with the truth.
Some readers may also remember the Register vs. Scoble spat last year, when Andrew Orlowski ended up fabricating an email that Scoble never wrote and presented it as real. Apparently, this is a trick of sensationalist media: report first, true or not, never bother to follow up and publish the correction.
Isn’t it time we all dump not Apple, but the Register?
Update (3/26): Since I’ve shown an early Steve Jobs photo, here’s another early pic.. back then BillG was also a “popular hero”. It’s worth clicking on to get to the large image: the computer in the top right is … a Mac! (hat tip: Nick Starr)
Related posts:
Tags: Apple, Jobs, Steve Jobs, Apple Stock, Media, Blogs, Blogging, The Register, Orlowski, Scoble, Gates, Bill Gates, BillG, Mac, Macintosh
Presented with video evidence of Bill O’reilly’s worst 8 moments
If you’re like me, struggling to switch from the QWERTY keyboard of your old Treo … etc, and hate trying to SMS using the T9 input of the smaller cell-phones, you’ll appreciate this service: TeleFlip allows you to send a SMS to any North-American cell-phone by entering the address as phoneno@teleflip.com.
Try it, you’ll love it (well, as long as you’re close to a QWERTY keayboard).
Update (3/25): Google also has a text-to-SMS service but you have to know the carrier, which today, in the age of number portability makes it quite useless.
Tags: teleflip, sms, qwerty, t9, cellular, cellphones, mobile, google
Publisher / Editor of CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars.
I do most of my business blogging there, with occasional asides here. More...
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