there are 8 posts from January 2006

January 31, 2006

fifty year target

Everyone will of course be talking about the Google “miss.”  Looking beyond the schadenfreude for a second, what’s still really astounding is the lack of consensus on the street about where the goog’s headed.  Here’s the last sentence of the story from today.reuters.com:

Target prices on the stock vary between $225 and $600. Twenty-nine analysts have some sort of “buy” rating. Six have a “hold” rating. Three recommend investors “sell” Google shares.

Was in Disneyland weekend before last with my family and my younger brother.  Disneyland is celebrating its 50th anniversary; and they’ve had plenty of time to get an awful lot of things right about the park.  This led to a post-Autopia question of “What’s Google in 50 years?”  (Interesting to note that 50 years is roughly two orders of magnitude out from a near term price target.)

(Won’t please someone tag me with that “four questions” thing so I can do something other than think about Google in 50 years?  Anil today, over lunch:  “Sippey? Does he still have a blog?”)

January 26, 2006

yep, that was me.

My sincere apologies to anyone stuck in Bay Bridge traffic between about 8:30 and 9:00 this morning.  That was me in the dark blue Passat whose alternator failed just after crossing Treasure Island.  There’s nothing like being stuck at a dead stop in the second lane from the left and watching in your rear view mirror the traffic stack up behind you…

January 26, 2006

40 part motet

Justin Davidson, guest posting to Alex Ross’s blog The Rest is Noise, has a great bit today on Janet Cardiff’s installation at the MoMA in New York, “40 Part Motet.”  I love this closing graf, connecting Cardiff to remix culture…

To me, there’s something deeply touching about hitching one’s imagination to another person’s - not as a form of exploitation, reiteration, or even homage - but as an acknowledgment that you don’t have to start from scratch. It’s the reason I like Robert Rauschenberg’s art, or (some) modern additions to old architecture. What Cardiff has done is not so different from what DJs do all the time. It’s a Tallis remix. But so loving, so simnple, so magical.

The piece blew me away when I saw it in October; on its own it’s worth the $20 MoMA admission price.  Go.

January 10, 2006

add this to the highlight reel

Someone better add this to You Tube:  the clip from tonight’s Daily Show when Ed Helms managed to lure Mark Crispin Miller into an argument over whether Oscar the Grouch eats plastic bottles.  There was this perfect moment when Miller snapped out of his 15-minute induced haze and realized just how foolish he must look countering Helms’ argument that Oscar could in fact replace the trash collection service in Dish, Texas.

Quick, someone order me a copy of Boxed In:  The Culture of Television.  Must be a fantastic read.

January 06, 2006

beauty's more than skin deep

The Journal has a piece on its front page today about the redesign of the Gap’s retail outlets (in sum, more inviting, dark wood floors, leather couches, less bright white).  The piece makes a big deal about the slump in Gap’s business, and how they’re hoping that the new look and feel will help breathe some life into their sales figures.  But then, buried near the end of the piece, is this gem…

Gap is also rethinking the product mix in each store. Instead of shipping the same sizes to each location, it’s stocking them based on an area’s demographics and what customers have bought in the past.

You honestly mean to tell me they weren’t doing this before?  If it’s true, and if I were a shareholder, I’d be looking for changes that go a bit deeper than the store’s skin…

January 05, 2006

like jellyroll, like sculpture

Is it possible to fall in love with a site because of its URL alone?

January 03, 2006

art mediating life

The only thing that could make the Abramoff story any better is if K Street were still in production and they were able to fictionalize the whole sordid thing for television by Sunday night.

January 01, 2006

customer hostile programming

The kids are napping, the storm’s approaching, and all I want to do is watch some meaningful football.  So I sit down on the sofa, catch the last 30 seconds of the Carolina / Atlanta game, and get ready for the second half of the Fox doubleheader, which is Washington / Philadelphia, a game with playoff implications.  Woo hoo! Red blooded American male entertainment. 

Which is then pre-empted by reruns of Taxi on our local affiliate, KTVU.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Taxi, mind you.  It’s just not Washington v. Philadelphia.  Armed with my phone, I go searching online for KTVU’s number to give them some red blooded American male vitriol via voice.  But instead of their number, I end up finding this story:

Fox Sports has a scheduled its usual football double header for the first day of the year, but because of NFL rules, KTVU Fox Channel 2 will be unable to broadcast the second game.  Because the SanFrancisco 49ers are playing at home in a game that is being aired locally, competing stations are not allowed to show other NFL games in the same time slot.

This is obviously nuts.  I figure the rule’s intended to protect the television revenue of the local franchise, but the Bay Area’s two losing teams this year pretty much guaranteed that the only non-PPV NFL programming was of Really Lousy Football.  It’s doubly nuts today – it’s the last week of the season, and the 49ers aren’t even fighting for the honor of the first pick in the draft.  Playoffs start next week; the NFL should be using this week to build an audience to sustain them through Super Bowl Sunday.  Instead, we’re stuck watching a game that the local fans can’t even bother to show up for – as I watch the Niners are playing to a 1/2 empty stadium.

It’s an NFL world, and we’re living in it.