krup's shared items in Google Reader

Thuggo and Sluggo Posted: 02 Jul 2007 06:57 AM CDT July 2, 2007      As someone who spends a fair amount of time in airports, I marvel at the way my fellow citizens present themselves in public. I see middle-aged women who appear to have left home in their pajamas. But it's the costume and demeanor of American young men especially that raises interesting questions about who we have become.      The fashion and body language of male youth in 2007 comes from three sources: prison, the nursery, and the pimpmobile. It's an old story now that many conventions of gangster fashion come out of the jail experience, where they take away your belt and shoelaces so you won't hang yourself. Apparently, at some point in US history, they stopped giving the belts and shoelaces back on release, and it became stylish to wear your trousers falling down below the top of your underpants (or butt crack as the case may be). Jail being a kind of accreditation device these days, the message may be: I passed the entrance exam.      Less obvious is the contribution of the nursery. Pants that are ambiguously neither long or short, worn with XX-large T shirts, tend to make grown men look like babies. Babies have short legs and large torsos compared to grown men. They also make big awkward gestures and touch their sex organs a lot. Add a sideways hat and unlaced sneakers and you have the complete kindergarten rig. Why a 20-year-old male would want to look five years old is another interesting question, but it may have a lot to do with the developmental failures of boys raised in households without fathers. They simply don't know how to be men. They only know how to behave like five year old boys. They even give themselves nursery school nicknames. But they are men, and what could be more menacing than the paradox of a child bent on homicide.      Tattoos used to be pretty much the sole fashion statement of merchant seamen or people who have served in the armed forces (or people who live in jungles). Now they are common among career girls. The tattooed guys I see down at the gym are ordinary young men who work in cubicles. Tattoos on sailors used to celebrate places they had been or people they had loved. The tattoos I see now are meant to convey fierce and barbaric statements of superhuman power: look at me, I'm a Power Ranger! It's understandable that someone who spends most of his waking hours in a cubicle wearing a telephone headset in order to swindle old people out of their savings might fantasize about rising above all that. But the tragic thing, of course, is that getting tattooed is not quite the same as accomplishing something with your life. In the end, you're just another loser with a grandiose and ridiculous tattoo.      The pimp connection is too obvious to belabor -- meant to mock normal executive attire while signifying an existence of total leisure and the enjoyment of unearned riches. The trouble is that the worship of unearned riches -- based on the belief that it truly is possible to get something for nothing -- has now become normal at all levels in American life. Everybody from the lowest whoremonger on Hollywood Boulevard to the Wall Street hedge fund managers believes in unearned riches plucked from "suckers." The catch is that men who live by this code almost always come to a bad end. They get their throats cut with razors, or go to prison, or manage to lose all their unearned riches (and the investments of many strangers, too).      The portrait of the young American male in 2007, therefore, is of an impotent, infantalized being lost in grandiose fantasies of power and importance. It's a picture of men without real confidence, and no idea how to achieve it, who wish to project a transcendently ferocious image complete with odds-and-ends of manner taken from comic books and movies based on comic books, in order to be taken seriously.      The rest of the world must tremble to contemplate the picture we present. The Nazi soldiers of 1944 were glamour boys compared to the riff-raff that American young men have become. As for those who actually do make it into the army, you wonder how they appear to the locals overseas -- they're probably taken seriously as exactly what the present themselves to be: manifestly evil beings who really need to be blown up. Back home, I look around at the thugs and sluggos at my gym, and I'm ashamed to be a citizen of the same country they live in.

You are subscribed to email updates from krup's shared items in Google Reader To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: krup's shared items in Google Reader, c/o FeedBurner, 549 W Randolph, Chicago IL USA 60661

krup's shared items in Google Reader

DIY: Make a laptop sleeve with a FedEx envelope Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:40 AM CDT DIY site Instructables posts a tutorial on making a laptop sleeve from FedEx envelopes: I was looking for a strong and waterproof material to make my own sleeve from and remembered that FedEx and the US Postal Service both use Tyvek (or similar) material for their envelopes. My sleeve fits a MacBook, but the design is easily adaptable for other sized laptops. The project requires 3-4 envelopes, some felt and some sewing, and the result is a pretty good camouflage for your lappie as well. Thanks, Annie! Laptop Sleeve from a FedEx Envelope [instructables]

Crapware: Posted: 22 Jun 2007 09:13 AM CDT Preinstalled crapware on new Dell PCs just became optional. CNET News blog reports that Dell now offers a "no software preinstalled" option for consumers. Even better would be if this was opt IN instead of OUT.

Google Apps: Add live Google data to Google Spreadsheets Posted: 22 Jun 2007 04:00 PM CDT The Webware weblog highlights 5 things you didn't know about Google Docs and Spreadsheets, most notably that you can insert live lookups in Google Spreadsheets via Google search and Google Finance. Using two special formulas, users can create cells that will update constantly with data or information gleaned from Web searches or Google's finance service. This works for things such as stock symbols, sports statistics, or any other piece of information you want to source and keep up to date automatically For example, you can insert the current price of Google stock in a spreadsheet by entering =GoogleFinance("GOOG"; "price"), or check out the number of internet users in Paraguay with =GoogleLookup("Paraguay"; "internet users"). Very cool. 5 things you probably didn't know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets [Webware]

Democracy Now! - Tuesday, June 05, 2007 Posted: 05 Jun 2007 09:00 AM CDT Headlines for June 5, 2007; John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption" This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

You are subscribed to email updates from krup's shared items in Google Reader To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: krup's shared items in Google Reader, c/o FeedBurner, 549 W Randolph, Chicago IL USA 60661

krup's shared items in Google Reader

• Movie Downloads: iTunes v. The Rest

  Posted: 15 Oct 2006 10:22 PM CDT

  We started testing the various movie download services earlier this summer when rumors of Apple's new movie download store first heated up. We're now regular customers of three of the services. Michael Arrington is an iTunes junkie because he likes having movies and music videos on his iPod, Nik Cubrilovic likes Movielink and I'm hooked on Guba's very low prices. For those of you considering ditching the Netflix account or the weekly trip to Blockbuster and downloading movies instead, one of these might be just what you're looking for.

  If you are a Mac user, the choice is easy. Only iTunes will work on your platform. If you are on a PC you can try any of the services below, which include CinemaNow, Movielink, Guba, Amazon Unbox and iTunes. Note, however, that you'll be forced to use Internet Explorer to download these movies unless you use iTunes or Amazon Unbox.

  DRM is a big part of all of these products. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before agreeing. At least for Amazon Unbox, the terms are somewhat draconian. DRM will keep many users away who'd like the ability to burn movies to DVD, transfer to other computers, etc. These users will simply purchase and rip DVDs directly (removing DRM), or use bittorent to acquire movies.

  More on each below.

  Guba

  Since branching out from their Usenet product through a deal to sell Waner Bros. movies in June and Sony movies in July, GUBA has mainly been competing on price and referral fees for recommending more users to the site. GUBA also features user-generated and usenet videos for free alongside premium movies users can buy or rent. Usenet movies can be downloaded in iPod and PSP formats as well.

  CinemaNow

  CinemaNow's most recent claim to fame has been their release of "Too Fast Too Furious" online at the same time as the DVD release, an industry first. They also have a Burn-to-DVD feature that allows you to burn a DVD playable on almost any DVD player for select titles. CinemaNow provides movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Like most of the others, CinemaNow requires users to have a Windows PC and use Internet Explorer.

  MovieLink

  Formed out of a joint venture between major movie studios, Movielink has by far the largest catalog of new release and library titles. Their major partners include MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sundance Channel, BBC, and National Geographic. While not as consistently low priced as GUBA, if you look closely enough you can find various discounts for military personnel, college students, and mystery rentals. We go to Movielink first when looking for a movie because they have the deepest catalog.

  Amazon Unbox

  We covered Amazon Unbox pre-launch and post-launch. After its initial launch, Ubox received wide criticism, most notably from BoinBoing about its user-unfriendly license agreements. Unbox has by far the best meta-data on movies and TV shows, incorporating plot summaries, release information, production stills, and consumer ratings. Unbox sells from 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.

  Apple iTunes

  As expected, iTunes launched their movie download service back in September. It features Disney movies and managed over one million dollars in sales during its first week. iTunes 7 has been criticized for the buggy 7.0 release corrected with 7.0.1, but nothing seems to be stopping the iTunes juggernaut. Our guess is that Apple will successfully bring on additional studios in the near future.

  Summary

  Look for studios to ink multiple deals with a number of services, and for there to be little difference in offerings or pricing over the medium term. Walmart and others will also be launching their own services, possibly with in-store DVD burning kiosks as well. As download services become more popular, the large DVD retailers, particularly Walmart and Target, will continue to push for lower wholesale DVD prices as well. Hopefully, competition from these various services and products will ultimately push consumer prices down.

  The following chart sets forth additional comparison information about the services:

  

  Our recommendations: If you are on a Mac, your only choice is iTunes. For Windows users, Movielink has the deepest catalog, and Guba has the best pricing (they are actually taking a loss on sales). CinemaNow has an outrageously priced burn-to-DVD product that may be attractive to some users (although simply buying the DVD seems to make a lot more sense).

  Additional notes: All services except iTunes had rental agreements allowing users to rent a movie for 24hrs from pressing play or 30 days, whichever comes first. The number of movies in catalogs were taken either from company numbers or number of movies accessible on the site (these numbers fluctuate). The top 10 movie rentals drawn from IMDB data were: "The Sentinel", "Take the Lead", "Poseidon", "Friends with Money", "RV", "Inside Man", "Akeelah and the Bee", "Scary Movie 4", "Silent Hill", and "Just My Luck".

  When trying out the services, I found the $0.99 rental from GUBA to be the best choice. It was cheap enough that I didn't mind spending the time downloading a movie and deleting it after I was finished. Renting from the other services just didn't seem a fair deal at $2.99 or $3.99 with Blockbuster down the street and Netflix in my mailbox. I can't believe that most of these services expect me to pay the DVD price for a movie that hogs my hard drive, comes with a highly restrictive license, and sucks up my bandwidth for 1-2 hours of downloading. However, in the long run I choose iTunes as the service to watch. Their catalog is a lot smaller than the other services, but they offer the most value with their digital movies by easily integrating with my iPod and granting me more licenses. For now, I think I'll continue using DVDs to archive my favorite movies, but rent digital versions of the ones I just want to see once. What I'd really like to see in this category is a digital Netflix service that automatically rents, downloads, and deletes movies from my computer for a flat monthly fee.

  Amazon, Amazon Unbox, cinemanow, Guba, iTunes, movielink

  Tags: apple, movies, download, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0

  

  

  

• The Stars Align for The Venice Project

  Posted: 14 Oct 2006 02:34 AM CDT

  The timing couldn't be better for Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis to launch their new TV-based startup, The Venice Project.

  Rumors of the new startup first emerged in late July in Business Week, Business 2.0 and GigaOm. This week, more details emerged on Janus Friis' blog where he says:

  It's simple, really — we are trying to bring together the best of TV with the best of the Internet. We think TV is one of the most powerful, engaging mass medias of all time. People love TV, but they also hate TV. They love the (sometimes…) amazing storytelling, the richness, the quality itself. But they hate the linearness, the lack of choice, the lack of basic things like being able to search. And wholly missing is everything that we are now accustomed to from the Internet: tagging, recommendations, choice, and so on… TV is 507 channels and nothing on and we want to help change that!

  While the above taken alone describes little more than YouTube, the earlier business week article above gives a few more hints: P2P distribution technology based on the same technology behind Kazaa and Skype, deals with television networks, time shifted TV over the Internet.

  The time is right for this. Consumer demand is there and the networks seem ready to take the step. Apple has secured rights to over 220 television shows and sells them on iTunes. YouTube's market valuation has been set at $1.65 billion by Google, showing the value of simple show clips on the web. And the networks have shown that they are open to trying new distribution options through the Internet. If Niklas and Janus have been successful in securing rights to network shows, we're about to be introduced to something which is very likely to result in me cancelling my cable television subscription once and for all.

  TheVeniceProject

  Tags: tv, video, onlinetv, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0

  

  

  

Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner

You are subscribed to email updates from krup's shared items in Google Reader
To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.

Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of krup's shared items in Google Reader in a feed reader.

If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: krup's shared items in Google Reader, c/o FeedBurner, 549 W Randolph, Chicago IL USA 60661

Palm and Google Collaborate on Maps for Treo Smartphones - Treo and PalmOS news

Palm and Google Collaborate on Maps for Treo Smartphones - Treo and PalmOS news

Thank You baby Jesus!
I have spent hours downloading java and futzing w/kmaps and another gmaps midlet hack.
This makes the 700P a no-brainer.

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Wireless Report :: Music Calling, Courtesy of Yahoo

It has finally arrived- over 1 year after I described this exact scenario to the PM of Yahoo Launch who dismissed the idea out of hand. What an unbelievable jackass.

Lending Standards Plumb New Lows :: KarmaBanque :: what goes around, comes around

Bubble bubble toil and trouble.
This is the sort of anecdote from the front lines that cuts right to it.
When masses of people get rich quick- alarm bells should ring.

Yield curves signal possibility of a global recession :: KarmaBanque :: what goes around, comes around

The case for precious metals

Slice: America's Favorite Pizza Weblog!: Una Pizza Napoletana: This Is Hardcore

Goin to this pizza joint in NYC this wknd and I can't hardly wait.
This guy clearly has got religion.

Morse code trumps SMS in head-to-head speed texting combat - Engadget - www.engadget.com /

This is pretty fascinating.
I wonder if anybody is doing morse code w/2 buttons (long/short)?
Presumably that would be even faster.
I would love to see a cell phone w/1 button for morse code.
I bet kids would eat it up if given the oppty.

Agile Methodologies - xcelerate.org

great resource on agile development from the makers of version1 software