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Vic Mizzy, a songwriter who composed the catchy themes for the 1960s sit-coms “The Addams Family” and “Green Acres,” has passed away. I loved The Addams Family when I was a child, the theme fit it perfectly. RIP Vic.
You can listen to the theme below. Here’s a link to the AP story Vic Mizzy Dies
This is a great interview by Scot Simon of NPR’s Weekend Edition with Freakonomics author Steven Levitt. They discuss Levitt’s new book Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. Levitt has some radical ideas about Global Warming that ought to shake things up a bit.
The Roundhay Garden Scene is believed to be the earliest surviving motion picture. it was filmed on October 14, 1888 British by inventor Louis Le Prince. It was recorded at 12 frames per second, and runs for approximately two seconds. Two seconds that changed the world.
Corked is a new movie by Ross Clendenen and Paul Hawley that pokes fun at the Winemaking business. I have not seen the film, so I can’t recommend it, but the trailer is funny. It looks like a mashup of Best in Show, Reno 911 and Bottle Shock. If the Wine Industry can be skewered like this, I guess it is finally an American institution.
Take a look. (The play button in the upper left of the video window doesn’t work. You will have to scroll down to the bottom of the player and hit the play arrow there. Player #Fail)
It seems like whenever I write a lengthy blogpost, the posts are motivated by a ‘slap myself in the forehead’ moment after reading a silly or stupid post written by someone else. I promise that in the future I will try to be positive and proactive and not negative and reactive. Okay, I won’t promise, but I will work on it. But until then….
Yesterday I read a silly and overly optimistic post on ZDnet’s, The ToyBox, written by Andrew Nusca, titled “Five Reasons Google Android smartphones will beat iPhone, Blackberry, WinMo.” All I can ask is, “Is he using the same Android phone as me?” As I said in a previous post, “My Take On Android’s First Year,” I like the Android, but it has a long way to go. Google has to get behind it and really market it, if it wants to catch up with the iPhone. In a response to Mr Nusca’s post, here are my Five Reasons Why the Android, May Not Beat the iPhone.
1. The Android Market stinks. (See My Take on Android First Year)
2. Android is improving slowly and when it does, no one knows it’s coming. Last week’s release of Donut Android 1.6 caught many people off guard. Plus there are rumors that the judging of ADC2 had to be wrapped early, because many of the apps entered into the challenge were broken by the new release. It’s a good thing this was just an app contest and not a challenge to put man on Mars.
3. The Android system may be an open OS, but as far as I can tell only boys interested in building Tower Defense games as apps are doing any serious work for the platform. I spent a good part of the last week using the ADC2 judging app on the phone and it was as exciting as watching paint dry. I taught Dreamweaver classes at Emerson College and got better looking stuff in the first week of class from Freshman.
4. Yeah, the Android will run on phones from several manufacturers. So we will have three or four companies, all trying to beat each other in the marketplace using different methods to out sell each other. Sounds like WinMo to me. That really worked.
5. The Android combines the best of what’s out there? All I can say is, Wiki the Tucker, Newton, DeLorean, 3DO, etc. just cuz it’s gooder don’t mean it’s a winner.
In summary, I have to say, once again, I love the Android phone, but Google has to get behind the system and market the hell out of this great phone concept.
Tags: Android, App Store, Emerson College, Google, iPhone, OSX, ZDNet
Yesterday I got into a bit a of a debate with @schwiz about Nancy Gohring’s article “One Year On, Android’s Not Quite There Yet,” that was published in MacWorld.com this week. While Schwiz argued that the article was a bit biased, I disagreed. I think Ms Gohring got it right and could have gone further. It has to be said that any criticism of Android that appears in MacWorld is suspect, but just because it’s published there doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
I support open platforms. I think what the Open Handset Alliance is doing is important. I think the Android OS is great and I love the HTC G1. All of that being said, I do think that the platform has a long way to go and that time may be running out. I will tell you why I think this, but a little background first.
I’m an early adopter. I’ve invested in technology, large and small platforms, big and small devices, with some success and some failures over the years. In the 1990s I started a successful special effect and editing company in Boston. Early on, I bet on the Avid non-linear editor and Discreet Logic’s special effects/graphics system, Flame, but before I invested in those products, I tested Data Translation ’s Media 100 and SGI’s Matador. Why do I mention these products? Avid and Media 100 were non-linear editing software systems operating on Apple computers. The Flame and Matador were graphic/special effects software packages operating on SGI (Unix) computers. So these were basically applications running on an off the shelf computer. Of course there were some modifications made to the hardware, to optimize the operation of the software, but essentially, the concept is not dissimilar to the Android model. (Except that I spent a lot more money on the hardware and software in each case.) Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Fast Food
Entrepreneur, editor, social media observer/commentator. Contributing Editor of food & wine destination @bottlebuzz. Android & iPhone fan. Partner @dgtldndln.
An Open Letter to the Editor of the Connersville News-Examiner
January 17, 2010 in Commentary by admin | 1 comment
Dear Mr. Hufferd,
While I am sure you rely on the family members of the recently deceased to submit the copy and text for the obituaries in the News-Examiner, I would suggest that before obituaries appear in your online version, you or your staff might want to review and edit the copy.
In a recent obituary for the late Samuell David Barnes the first line reads, “Samuell David Barnes, 26, formally of Cambridge City, Ind., passed away on Jan. 13, 2010, at his home for the last three months in Connersville.” I assume the writer intended to use word “formerly” instead of the word “formally,” unless of course the decedent kept his formal resident in the great municipality of Cambrige City and was only a informal resident of the environs of Connersville.
Also from the structure of the sentence I am unsure if the late Mr. Burns was a three month resident of Connersville or if it took him three months to die in Connersville. I am sure this comes from the over use of commas as parentheticals and an error in logic in the statement. Of course if I am mistaken and the sentence should be read as written, I apologize. If that is the case however, I imagine the truth behind that statement will reduce the amount of upcoming casual emigres from Cambridge City.
Sincerely,
Mark Fish