The weird and the wacky this week

If that alliterative headline didn't catch your eye, I don't know what's wrong with you. In any case, here are my picks for the weirdest and most surprising headlines of the past week (or so):

Fact, not fiction, rules the brain (except for gamers). A new study shows that in general, the human brain places more importance on real people than on fictional ones, according to PhysOrg.com. Thus, we know that Cinderella isn't as real as George Bush, who in turn is not as real to us as our mother. (Their example.) However, the article states that: "personal relevance is not unequivocally related to what is real, since some individuals may experience personal relevance in certain fictional realms, such as in religion or chronic computer gaming. For instance, for a chronic gamer, a World of Warcraft character could yield greater activation in the amPFC and PCC [reality-oriented regions of the brain] than a real person of low personal relevance would." (Emphasis added--and gamers, please do take heed.)

Totally tubular. From Boing Boing--Audiophiles, and folks who want to risk electrocuting themselves can follow the steps laid out at Instructables.com on how to build their very own stereo tube amp from spare parts. The post starts out with this tantalizing line: "Ever wanted to build a highly dangerous, inefficient, and essentially obsolete piece of electronics?" Oh, well, in that case, what are we waiting for?

Terminator beware. And speaking of tubes, contributor Brandon Keim reports in Wired on the development of carbon nanotubes--structures that are incredibly strong, lightweight and flexible. These tubes can be used for everything from artificial limbs with "smart" muscles to solar cells. Perhaps the Governator can make use of them to save future generations of the world from the high cost of electricity.

Robofish to the rescue. As long as we're on the subject of '80s sci fi movie references, there's a new robocop on the block, and this one is sniffing out pollution. According to Britain's Daily Mail, schools of robotic fish may be released into the Thames to pick up signs of pollution. Reports the Mail: "Each fish ... will be packed with pollution sensors that can electronically 'sniff' harmful chemicals in the water." The robofish will travel in schools and alert each other via wifi when pollution is detected. (Thanks @bcaulfield for that tip.) Let's just hope no one decides to tempt them with a PCB-packed fly and cook them up for dinner.

Snow men behaving badly. Finally, two separate snow-bites-man-related stories caught our attention this past week. First, take a look at this series of videos depicting grown men riding around in the snow on retooled on children's toy cars--and clearly having the time of their lives. (Thanks @davegraham for tweeting that tip.) And in a second, related story, a Canadian man was ordered to tear down his backyard snow fort because it posed a fire hazard. (From NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me quiz.) Talk about having WAY too much fun.

And speaking of which, shouldn't you be getting back to work?

A similar version of this post appeared on my client blog, OnlineStorageOptimization.com

Game Break!

Life in tech can be tough, and for the bright minds within it, a mini-vacation from reality can be good therapy. Today's post will take a look at some of the more intriguing and futuristic distractions available right now. That way, you can at least read about the idea of having fun, even if you don't have time to have any.

Virtual gunplay. First up, the newest from LEGO - "Augmented Reality" glasses enhance game play with computer generated images allows kids to shoot each other's real toys, releasing aggression and maybe giving the toymaker a leg up on the encroaching competition posted by Nintendo, et al. Thanks Gizmodo for that tip.

Bruce Wayne Yourself. What looks to be the first truly great Batman video game is due out in June--or May 31 for the XBox collector's edition. The preview alone for "Batman: Arkham Asylum" could make you reserve a copy for yourself, and this review would probably clinch it. (Thanks @Storagezilla for the heads up on this one.)

Fun with a Mac Mini. Call this a project rather than pure entertainment, but Stephen Foskett today detailed on his Packrat blog how he took the new 2009 Mac Mini base model and souped it up into a cherry speed demon for a total cost of $701. For those with the chops, this looks like fun.

What's next on iPhone. Today's Apple iPhone OS 3.0 preview event offered some games that will be upcoming on the new iPhone. So far, none look mindblowing, but this live feed from Engadget may yield a few more as the day wears on. The multiplayer game "LiveFire" sounds like it has some potential.

Colbert Goes to the Graveyard: If you only have a few moments, you can take time out to watch this interview on the Colbert Report with Neil Gaiman, author of The Graveyard Book, Coraline, the Sandman comic series, and so on and so forth. Die hard fanboys/girls can also follow him on Twitter and find out what he's having for breakfast.

OK, end of break. Get back to work!

Photo: Gizmodo

Note: this post is also on my client blog: Online Storage Optimization.

Tweet You Very Much

Twitter is a powerful tool, not to mention a great distraction ... er, method of connecting with others. If a show biz personality who is just learning email can get 70K followers in 24 hours, then clearly anyone can dive in and have fun. Yet, Twitter can also be a headache-inducing, information-spewing overload machine, especially for those of us who use it to keep up with the latest tech trends.

To deal with this, Twitter has made some updates, such as home page search, which can be helpful. Yet, it's still hard to keep one's head above water with all the noise out there (insert continued mixed metaphor here). Heck, it can even be overwhelming to figure out which tools to use to manage one's Twitter accounts and usage.

For all of this, the TwiTip blog is a solid source for advice on how to keep the info deluge under control. Today's post dealt with the many Twitter-based tools and honed it down, offering 10 MORE Must Have Twitter Tools. One item on the list that's already generating some discussion is TwitterSnooze. This service puts some of your more, shall we say, prolific followers on a pause button so you don't have to receive their tweets for a period of time--something that's less cruel and final than unfollowing someone. The downside is that the person you've snoozed will be alerted on the day you "unsnooze" them. Therefore, the folks at TwitterSnooze suggest you send the following card:



Tasteful, don't you agree?

Another way to keep your head from exploding due to overload is to get into a hash tag room of interest, such as this one. These are becoming more popular and keep your follows under control to some extent. A variation on this is the Retweetist, which aggregates the most popular retweets going around the twit-o-sphere at any given moment.

And speaking of retweets, here--in case you live under a rock and haven't yet seen this--is Ellen talking about Twitter:



Note: this post also appears in a slightly different form on my client blog, Online Storage Optimization.

Is This You?

Marketing guru Robert Middleton makes a number of extremely helpful suggestions on how to build a web site that works. I've invested in his web site toolkit, and I recommend it for anyone who is writing and/or developing their own site. Perhaps his best suggestion--and I suppose I'm giving away a bit by mentioning this--is to speak directly to one's ideal clients, asking them whether they see themselves in what you have to offer.

I still don't have my site built, but I see no reason to ask the question "Is This You?" in a blog post, where there's room for comments and responses.

1. Do you have the feeling that there's all this social media stuff you're supposed to know about, but somehow you're not onto it?
2. Does the word "Twitter" make you break out in hives?
3. Do you spend half your day Tweeting, updating your Facebook page, blogging, and revising your web site, and yet have made little or no progress meeting your business goals such as attracting the right customers or increasing revenues?
4. Are you breaking new ground in some way with your business, and therefore having trouble getting anyone to understand where you fit in the overall context of your industry?

OK, I'll leave these for starters, but would love to hear whether any of these questions ring true for you. Feel free to Tweet me @sunshinemug about this, or leave a comment right here. Looking forward to your responses!

That's not writing. That's typing.

I sweat over these posts, I really do. So much to say, and all this room to say it in. But this time, I won't. This time, you see, I have nothing of importance to say. Somewhat like this panel on cloud computing I attempted to watch today. So much talking, and so little said.

I have to agree with Robert Scoble, who put it this way: "I hate panels ... They have the most well-known cloud experts. But we aren't learning all that much. And this is one of the most entertaining and knowledgeable set of people you will see on a single stage."

Yet, the Twitter hash on the thing was pretty amusing, as were the comments on the Ustream feed. Which leads me to this perhaps non-techy observation--the reason that cloud computing is exciting is not really anything to do with computing. The hardware--and even the applications themselves--are only of interest to a select group of people with a direct stake in them. For the vast majority, what's exciting about cloud computing is something else. Something to do with community. Or something.

Update even later in this late and lazy night: Christopher Kusek has written something quite intelligent on the topic, with promises to start a cloud blog.

Jumped the shark

In my last post, I talked at (perhaps too much) length about the end of Starbucks, and came to the conclusion that the brand jumped the shark the day they started offering those breakfast sandwiches. Which got me onto a new train of thought. What else has jumped the shark of late?

For those who don't know, the term "jumping the shark" comes from an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie straps on water skis and literally jumps over a shark. That was the day, many say, the show lost its mojo and began to slide into the dark waters of oblivion. It is an accepted phrase among TV buffs, but I don't see why it can't be extended to other aspects of life.

With that, here is my list of Silicon Valley shark jumpers:

1. Email. Now that we have Twitter, why exactly are we forced to communicate via this clunky and overly permissive medium? As we now know, if you can't say it in 140 characters, maybe you just need to shut up. Or start a blog.

2. Web 2.0. What was that going to be, exactly?

3. PCs. Can't we all just admit that Mac has won and get on with it?

4. Facebook. Our parents are on there. Our grandparents are on there. Nuff said.

5. Google. I know people still use it all the time for search, docs, and what have you. Some of us still believe in Blogger. But do we think about the fact that we use it? No. It's just not interesting anymore.

6. Scoble.

7. The "killer app." Someday, we were once told, there would be this like, unifying app that would bring together everything--everything!--on the web. Umm. No, there won't. And I for one am tired of worrying about it.

8. VC funding. (See above, Web 2.0)

9. YouTube. (See above, Google)

10. Vlogging. I don't know where that went, but it is definitely gone now.

The end of the (Starbucks) era?

Is it me, or is Starbucks in the news more lately than ever? A recent Bloomberg article on coffee prices seems a perfect example of this. The article is not just about Starbucks--in fact in many ways it's not really about Starbucks at all--but you'd never know that unless you read the whole thing carefully through.

The Starbucks name is emblazoned in our consciousness in a way that almost no other brand is today. And right now, I think what's happening is the death of that brand. It has become too closely linked to what we have come to see as the excesses of the last decade. Our love affair with the comfy chairs, the jazz and the sipping of a latte while typing away on a Macbook might just be coming to an abrupt and ugly end.

Starbucks as a coffee chain has actually been around since the late 80s, but most people associate it with its rise to prominence in the mid-90s, when those big green signs started popping up on every street corner. Remember when its ubiquity was lampooned by Christopher Guest in "Best in Show"?

Starbucks had a starring role in the dot com era. The shine of that time stayed on the company long after the bubble burst. When I went to work at Red Herring, I was told that if you wanted to know what VCs were up to, the best thing to do was to hang around the Starbucks on Sand Hill Road. After the crash, Starbucks was there to soothe our frazzled nerves and remind us that a little luxury could still be had. The housing refi bubble, of course, meant we still had the cash for a $5 a day coffee habit.

It's hard to say when Starbucks started to flame out. Several commentators pointed out that the brand basically jumped the shark the day they started introducing breakfast sandwiches. And today's news that they're planning to introduce instant coffee is obviously the nail in the coffin. (Or should I say the nail in the coffee?) But whenever the exact date was, the little green mermaid is now starting to look like a symbol of times gone by--times, in fact, that many of us would like to forget.

The irony, of course, is that Starbucks is not just a symbol. It's a real company that is struggling to stay afloat in a down economy. It must cut costs and seek new revenue sources. The fall has probably been coming for many years now, and even Howard Schultz's hasty return as CEO a year ago can't change the course it's on. And so sadly, it must come up with new gimmicks and innovations, it must automate its processes, and introduce all kinds of other measures to remain solvent. (Amazingly enough, it is still offering its employees health insurance, despite the fact that this is one cost that is helping sink the company.)

So, who knows? Maybe Starbucks the company will live on, gradually becoming associated with something as mundane as the supermarket coffee aisle, where its instant packets will compete for market share with Maxwell House and Folgers Crystals. But the Starbucks that was--the brand that I might actually say defined my generation in many ways--seems to be fading away with each blast of steam from the automatic espresso maker.