If you don’t have $$$$, you’re forced to find friends…Network-building beats $$$$…Money fosters bloat, waste, [and] complacency. It’s the enemy of resourcefulness, grit, [and] drive. Hunger (of all kinds) is the great motivator. — Tom Peters, The Brand You 50
Quote, “A series of bartenders actually paddled around [a garden fountain, filled with 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg] in a small wooden canoe, filling up guests’ cups.” Drinking stories from history that put all of yours to shame.
Mike Rhode’s handdrawn session notes from the SEED Conference are fascinating, not to mention an insightful summary of the conference speaker’s main points. I draw my notes to speakers/sessions/sermons/etc., so this totally resonates with me.
H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds has been continuously in print for over 100 years. Fans have collected various editions of the book from 1898 until present. I’m particularly a fan of this 1916 edition, as well as the pair of 1962 and 1963 editions from Penguin Books.
Hulu Video Site from NBC/NewsCorp
NBC and News Corp’s online video venture Hulu is beta testing. If the comments on their blog are any sign of things to come, it’s going to be a bumpy road. The embed quality is good:
But shouldn’t that be the price-of-admission for video delivery online now? Why is there no fullscreen? No way to get it out of my browser and onto a TV or an iPod (other than that whole NBC hating Apple thing)? NBC, aren’t you completely ignoring how thousands of users are actually viewing full shows now? Challenging iTunes with a branded, embeded online player for an age that’s using the internet more, but home computers less? Brilliant. I love it when companies make decisions for me about how I should use and view content.
Perhaps even more troubling, non-U.S. residents can forget about accessing any of the content (thanks to IP blocking), so they’ll keep bittorrenting shows, which doesn’t exactly combat the piracy that NBC seems obsessed with. One commenter writes “Piracy works outside of the US, Hulu does not. I guess I’ll have to stick with piracy.” Sad, but true.
I love the simplicity and huge imagery of the new site for Lomography’s re-release of the all-plastic 120 film Diana camera. I’d like to get my hands on one — the soft blur, super-saturated coloring, and random contrast make for great photography.
All revolutionaries need respectable cover. And the wisdom of trusted elders. So contact, cultivate, nuture like-minded souls who are higher up the food chain than you are. They will require care and feeding, but it’s worth the effort. — Tom Peters, The Brand You 50
The challenge: why aren’t you contacting people in your field who are better at what they do than you are? What’s stopping you? What about people within your organization who will fight for you and your ideas? You need them.
For a limited time only, Paste Magazine wants you to name your own price for a one year subscription. That’s 11 issues and 11 CDs (with roughly 220 songs) for a minimum fee of $1.
There’s been some great commentary on the Matt Perman quote I excerpted from his article Make It Free. Today, Perman discusses Objections to Make It Free.
Here’s a handy chart of beef cuts and recommended cooking methods. Tonight, some lovely Eye Round steaks that have been marinating since Saturday will be what’s for dinner in the Blankenship household.
If you are a Christian media ministry, I commend the following vision for maximizing your effectiveness online: Post all of your content online, for free, without requiring registration, in a maximally usable interface. — Matt Perman, Make It Free
Perman goes on to explain why, and cite some startling statistics in Desiring God‘s success: “[Rather] than seeing a threat to your financial survival, you will see a more enthusiastic donor base and a larger amount of web traffic that results in more interest, more spreading, and the financial provision you need…[After] we redesigned our website on the basis of these principles, we saw these results within four months: Visits increased 99%, audio listens increased 352%, and page views increased 359%. One year later, traffic continues to increase at a significant rate.”
If you upgraded to Mac OS X Leopard and want to rid yourself of the ugly dock, and you know how to open Terminal, then this image will be helpful to you. It gives the bottom dock the same glass-less style as the side dock. (Unfortunately, the active icons are still those tiny, worthless lights and the dock divider is still ugly. Can’t win ‘em all.)
New site and work from skwiot/smith. I especially enjoy the non-commissioned work.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin touched down on the Moon via the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969. In the event of a catastrophe that would have left them stranded, presidential speechwriter William Safire had already drafted In Event of Moon Disaster for President Richard Nixon to read to the nation. Sobering thought.
The average North American works 27 hours a month paying for the 32 hours per month they spend driving! — Alan Durning, The Car and the City:24 Steps to Safe Streets and Healthy Communities
A note from The Management: Due to the use of “#” link for the JavaScript dropdown site navigation and the “#comments” link for individual post pages, the dropdown nav doesn’t work when you’re on an individual post page. If anyone with some JS skills wants to help me come up with a better solution for the dropdown, I’d be super-thankful for your help.
Five Potential Album Titles for My Friend Lee McDerment, Culled From Completely Out-Of-Context Verses in the Book of Isaiah
1. With Treachery the Treacherous Betray!
2. Leviathan the Gliding Serpent
3. Leviathan the Coiling Serpent
4. All Gaiety is Banished From the Earth
5. Beat Your Breasts for the Pleasant Field
I wish more money and time was spent on designing an exceptional product, instead of trying to psychologically manipulate perceptions through expensive advertising. — Phil Kotler, marketing guru
The utterly beautiful Bank of New York logo (shown) is going away to the identity graveyard in the sky, thanks to a July corporate merger with Mellon Bank. It’s only two years old, and I’m sad to see it go. The new company name (The Bank of New York Mellon) is awkward, and certainly a tad long. The 
