LINKS AND COMMENTARY
Latest essay: Filling Pyra's Pockets: A pioneering development company is overlooking its greatest asset
January 17, 2001 +
Back in the more freewheeling days of Internet startups, BigStar Entertainment made waves (of laughter) when it thoroughly ripped off UrbanFetch, taking advantage of UrbanFetch's loss leaders in October 1999. BigStar purchased, at retail, $5,000 worth of DVDs at prices below wholesale (and had them delivered within an hour, of course) before UrbanFetch changed its purchase policy.
As BigStar CEO David Friedensohn told the Silicon Alley Reporter, "I'm a lifelong New Yorker, and we have a joke about stuff like this: A tailor keeps buying pants for $10 each and sells them for $8, and he claims he'll make it up on volume. You know what? If they're stupid enough to sell below wholesale prices, then fuck 'em."
UrbanFetch gave up the ghost a few months ago. Unfortunately, sneaky purchasing tactics didn't help BigStar, which today became the first Silicon Alley startup to get delisted and kicked over to the OTC Bulletin Board by Nasdaq.
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January 16, 2001 +
The good news: Sky-High Rents Are Declining in Manhattan.
The bad news: "Anything under $2,500 for a one bedroom still flies off the hook," [Citi Habitats President Andrew] Heiberger said. "Studios under $1,800 fly, too."
Thinking of moving to Manhattan? Want some sage advice? Keep waiting.
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Fantastical is a good web zine focusing on web designers who write (like me, only with a higher profile).
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January 12, 2001 +
Y'all're making my life easy -- all of today's items came via email.
From Brian comes an interesting twist on what to do with free music.
Andy is only a passive baseball fan but he has compiled the All Met-Con Team in honor of the Armando Benitez lawsuit.
And yes, you still can rename layers in Photoshop 6. Turns out you have to control-click on the layer and select "Layer Properties" and do it in there (thanks, Richard!). So no shin-kicking necessary, although I'd like to have a talk with the UI folks who decided that control-click-select on a layer is more intiutive than double-clicking, which still works for different options.
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January 11, 2001 +
Could someone please find the person at Adobe who disabled the ability to rename layers in Photoshop 6 and kick the fucker in the shins for me?
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The New York Observer reminds single women to search Google to investigate their dates. Sounds good to me -- a Google search for David Wertheimer brings folks right to my home page with a push of the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
The third item on Google's results list is another dot-commy David Wertheimer, president and CEO of Wirebreak Inc. Not a bad person to be mistaken for, I suppose, although the other David is taken.
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Poking through my CD collection with a friend last night I rediscovered my Liz Phair albums.
She may have fallen below the radar now, thanks to parenthood and a changing musical climate, but music fans should not forget what a significant impact she had on rock music in the 1990s. Releasing her debut at the height of the grunge era, she brought a tenderness to songs patterned after the Stones instead of Seattle. And no other woman at the time was so deliciously, brutally sexual with her lyrics:
"Every time I see your face I get all wet between my legs ... I think of things unpure, unchaste, I want to fuck you like a dog, I'll take you home and make you like it ... I'll fuck you till your dick is blue"
"I ask because I'm a cunt in spring, you can rent me by the hour"
"You've been around enough to know that if I want to leave, you better let me go, because I take full advantage of every man I meet"
"He said he liked to do it backwards. I said, that's fine with me -- that way we can fuck and watch TV"
Is it any wonder every 21-year-old American male had a crush on her?
(Yes, this kind of thing will be in the music section soon, I promise.)
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January 10, 2001 +
U.S. News reports on "simplifying gadgets" that "just drive us crazy." File me and my PDA woes in that user base. The first sub-head in the article says it all: "Easy is hard."
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And what will Bill Clinton do when his presidency is up? Well, hey, he'd make a great (and legally eligible) president of France. C'est bon!
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How sexy is Apple hardware? Someone posted a photo of the new titanium PowerBook on AmIHotOrNot. It's got a 9.9 so far.
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January 9, 2001 +
The Industry Standard anticipates that 2001 will be the year online consumers start paying for things. They make no mention of paying for FTP weblog applications, although the parallel can be made.
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Also in (on) the Standard this week is a James Fallows expose on memory slag in Windows hard drive storage. What's memory slag? That's when you think your instant messaging is anonymous, but unbeknownst to you, little blips of your conversations are being saved at the end of your email archives. Whoops.
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January 8, 2001 +
Blogger raised enough money to get its new server.
Missed this one from a few weeks ago: On his personal web site, Pyra founder Evan Williams discussed pricing models.
The two are not unrelated, although Pyra has yet to truly do what it must.
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No comment necessary: adultstaffing.com.
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January 4, 2001 +
Remember the early IBM e-business ad with the clueless hotshot web designer and his boss, where the dialog went something like this:
Designer: "So check it out. Our logo spins, it whizzes across the page, and it even bursts into flames."
Manager: "What if we were able to coordinate all our commerce online, so that our suppliers can talk to our clients all at once?"
Designer [after a pause]: "I don't know how to do that."
Except at Visa, the manager chose to listen to the clueless designer (and, no doubt, the marketing department) instead.
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I love Ed. Not the guy, the TV show. Clever, witty, charming, sexy, warm, unique, perfectly cast.
I hope "Ed" solidifies its ratings, because it truly seems like something special. I haven't been this impressed by a show since "ER" and "My So-Called Life" first appeared. ("The West Wing" is great, too, but I'm not into politics, so it doesn't hold my attention.)
I only watch three or four regular TV shows in a season, excluding sitcom reruns and sports programming. I can't be bothered to watch many more. I either watch unique, compelling shows or complete guilty pleasures. In the last year or so my entire schedule has changed. Here's what I'm watching now versus the last time I thought about it:
January 2001:
Ed
That '70s Show
Blind Date
May 1999:
ER
Ally McBeal
Undressed
Dawson's Creek
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January 3, 2001 +
The Pyra/Blogger revenue essay has been moved here.
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January 2, 2001 +
Happy new year.
News from the Ideapad front: I'm working on a PC for a change, so if things look weird, blame Allaire. This is all quite alien, and kind of fun.
I've also decided to redesign all of netWert. Look for a sexy new Ideapad in a month or so (no promises, as I'm going to install a database and learn some XHTML, and I don't have a timeframe on that yet).
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Next time, skip the Research button on the stock display pages. The New York Times on Monday exposed many stock analysts as shills for their companies' investment banking arms. Me, I'm selling all my stock and buying a new car.
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I'm looking for a different name for Chords, since, well, a lot of today's music doesn't use any. Leaning toward "PB&J" right now (it's an acronym; you'll see). Got a better idea?
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The concoction:
3 parts observation
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dash of sarcasm
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The history:
The Ideapad debuted on November 1, 1998 and has been in its current format since March 2000.
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