Was looking forward to playing Gran Turismo 4 this winter break. Unfortunately, it's release has been delayed until 1Q05. This will probably not help my spring productivity very much. Thanks, Digital Polyphony and Sony. (Photo from one of my favorite game sites Gamespot ).
 

The combat airdam and boost gauges (never mind there's NOS, no turbocharging) are too sweet for words.  

Tried Firefox yet? If not, you should. Or at least try one of the very good (although I still prefer Firefox) IE-based tabbed browsers like Avant or CrazyBrowser. Still, Firefox is, by far, my favorite. It's use of real estate, extensions, speed, and overall ergonomics are great.

This is a great little list of things to do when your brain fails you.

I've lately found a hard time writing linearly - the way that I used to write all the time in school, back before I used computers. Now, I find myself working nonlinearly more than ever. While this is good for creativity, its bad for structure and raises new barriers to getting started and getting finsihed. Lately, I've found decent success writing using the snowflake methodology.

You begin writing anywhere you want - that is, for any supporting argument, premise, conclusion, recommendation, whatever. Write just a sentence or two, though, that captures the essence of the thought. Then, move on to the next element. Write the essence, and no more. Do this a few times. Then go back and write a supporting sentence, second point, or whatever that relates to the first item you wrote about. Repeat with the second.

This isn't making sense. Read it about here from someone who's put more effort into organizing how it works. It's pretty liberating.

Anyone remember Oracle's "Unbreakable" campaign? I was just wondering whatever happened to it. I wonder if it was retired because it had run its course and a fresh new campaign was needed or whether it met an untimely demise at the hands of people who proved it is, most definitely, breakable.

It would not be interesting to hear whether making outrageous promises like this -- even when they have absolutely no possible chance of being true -- actually worked to bring in new customers. In other words, what is the ROI on making an utterly ridiculous claim, if not a complete, boldfaced lie?

Of course, big promotional campaigns such as this one also have an important effect on focusing the company itself on delivering on the outward-facing promises. Perhaps it was as much of a motivator for the company to aspire to as much as anything. And, of course, that was the spin that executives and PR reps ultimately had to put on the campaign once it was proved (and it didn't take long) that Oracle -- like all software -- had, and continues to have uncovered, dozens of serious security flaws.

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-831142.html?legacy=cnet

I don't really know that anyone really listens to Larry or really believes Oracle messages that aren't along the lines of, "Better uptime and scalability than any competing database on the market," claims which have a much better chance of being based in fact and experience. Perhaps by reason of its very lack of credibility in making a claim like "Unbreakable," Oracle was actually able to get away with it.

What if Microsoft were to run with that as a slogan for its Longhorn release? Actually, maybe Steve Jobs can run with it on the new Apple OS and beat Microsoft to the punch. That would really give him a lot of pleasure, wouldn't it? I mean, he could stick it to Gates and Ellison in one fell swoop!

I can see the slogan now: "Apple. Unbreakable. No, really, we mean it."

Actually, maybe Sun out to consider this for Solaris. They can go with, "Solaris. It's really, really super-unbreakable. Like, beyond-Oracle-unbreakable. Our crap is totally, completely, absolutely, utterly, impossible to break. Ever."

It really is remarkable what Ellison gets away with. Can you imagine any other CEO even having the -- what's the right word... stupidity? gall? stones? courage? arrogance? boldness? machiavellianism? -- to claim something so utterly preposterous?

Didn't he see Titanic in 1997?

Can someone from Toyota explain to me how they could put such a fugly rear end on the Camry Solara?



It's like they held a blowtorch to the old Infiniti J30 and the Lexus SC430. To me, it looks droopy which is exactly the wrong look you want to give to someone who's an aging baby boomer - which is who buys cars like this. They're drooping already. Give them something *PERKY* not droopy.

And what's up with the Tiburon-like side body panels?

I look at this car and think "Little Mermaid."

Moving sucks. Well, it mostly sucks.

There is the hassle of sorting through what seems like every article of clothing, every scrap of paper, every photo, every knicknack and curio, every book on your bookshelf... The agonizing decision of, "What if I should ever want or need to refer to my notes from my financial economics class 9 years ago? What if I should ever want to reread these papers on how certain normally anti-inflamatory apolipoproteins found in HDL actually become pro-inflammatory in the acute thrombotic conditions present in an atherosclerotic coronary artery?"

It's utterly irrational. Holding onto those notes, those papers, dutifully transporting them from apartment to apartment every 3-4 years, respectfully dusting the covers off, ceremoniously leafing through the contents, rediscovering the history of a long-lost world like an archaeologist, reveling in the depth and breadth of what I had managed to learn in just 10-weeks, and when the bittersweet ignorance of what I have long forgotten begins to become too much, I set them back in their tattered cardboard sarcophagus for shipping to the next "museum" where they will likely stay in a dark corner of the garage or closet for the next 3 years.

But this ritual is more and more often leading to a decision to destroy history rather than preserve it. Perhaps it is because I am, once again, back in school and flooded in papers, graded homeworks, lecture notes, books, and course readers. Supply of academic nostalgia has totally dominated demand, cheapening it - like a beach with billions of seashells, millions of which might be fossilized relics of species that have been extinct for millions of years.

I also credit the amazing ability of the Internet to immediately conjure forth incredible on-demand resources to provide at least a partial answer to virtually any question about virtually any subject.

Finally, as I have gotten more focused in my career and industry, the connection between certain stores of knowledge and my career trajectory seems more dubious than ever.

Still, my fondness for certain liberal arts courses, particularly those in history and public policy, compels me to stay them from the landfill. But financial economics?

Well, I'll be getting my MBA next May. Out it goes.

So I wanted to see what the hype was with iTunes. I downloaded it a few weeks ago and browsed through the music store, which was pretty slick. It's got a nicer interface than the web storefronts of Napster, BuyMusic, Wal-Mart, and others and the integrated player/music manager is nice. I found a few songs from one of my favorite soulful lounge/deep house artists, Miguel Migs, and decided to buy about a half a dozen tracks. On the downside, I found it crashed consistently and reproducibly on my WinXP PC every time it hit a particular part of one song. While I have a PC-bias, despite using Macs for about 8 years (though only up to OS 7 or so), I don't think the iTunes client is notably better than Windows Media Player 9. Furthermore, Apple automatically installs a bunch of unnecessary items in your startup folder that slow down startup like an Ipodmonitor (don't even own one) and Quicktime that chew up memory and take extra time to load every time you boot your machine. iTunes product managers (actually, I might know a few), please see about asking people if they want this junk in their startup folders in the next rev!

So after buying a few songs and listening to them on my PC, I decided they would be great to take with me to the gym. So I went to try to add them to my MP3 player. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you anywhere that ITunes are protected with Apple's-specific DRM that prevents you from listening to them on any MP3 player. It only lets you listen to them on an IPod.

This is exactly the same experience I had with BuyMusic.com, where through the entire purchase process, it doesn't tell you that you cannot transfer the music to any MP3 player - only one that supports Windows Media format AND Windows DRM. Most consumers think if their MP3 player package says it supports .WMV format, it will support Windows DRM. They would be wrong. It doesn't. As I've learned, only a miniscule fraction of MP3 players out there support the Windows DRM format, and most of these are concentrated at the highe end of the market.

Needless to say, I experienced the same incredulity and cynicism after my dissatisfying ITunes experience as I had after my dissatisfying BuyMusic.com experience. Specifically, if I had bought these tunes from a music store (at the same price per track), I would have the ability to rip it to MP3, WMV, or any other format my heart desired and play it on my car stereo, MP3 player and PC. As it is, my PAID-FOR music is stranded on my PC because my player isn't compatible with the DRM format of these vendors. The thing that really pisses me off is that it doesn't say anywhere in the purchase process that your music will only work if you have a player that supports this DRM standard or that DRM standard. This kind of underhanded profiteering by the music stores ensures that I won't buy any other music until I decide to upgrade my MP3 player.

At the end of the day, I see no particular reason to go with an Apple-DRM over a Microsoft-DRM compatible player. They both lock you in.

Maybe HP will come up with a player that works with both formats. That would certainly be welcome.

In the meantime, I've stumbled across a freely-available tool called hymn that appears to be able to liberate my ITunes for my own personal consumption. You can get it here: hymn -- Hear Your iTunes aNywhere

To the iTunes and BuyMusic.com vendors, I would say this: I'm happy to pay for what I listen to, but I should also be able to listen to what I pay for when and where I want -- I'm not sharing the music with anyone else, I'm not selling it to anyone else, I just want to do the same thing with a song I download as I'd do with a CD I bought in a record store. I know you're at the mercy of the recording companies but please, somewhere along the way, notify me that my DRM-encrypted music is only compatible with specific players (and give me a list of those players). After that, it's caveat emptor. But without the warning, I feel like I've been had.

Others will feel the same way. And most will go back to downloading on LimeWire, Kazaa and others and not even feel bad about it -- they'll wonder why they ever bothered trying to actually pay for music they couldn't listen to.