Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

The Donald’s Ground Zero rehash? “Hey Trump, Fugetaboudit, you’re fired!”
Freedom Towers… blah, blah, blah… what’s in a name, more of the same?

My recent excursion to Yosemite National Park was inspiring. Surrounded by strong granite formations and cascading waterfalls, I breathed in a site that is bigger than any band of terrorists.

Here is something lasting and good that Americans can feel proud of. Why should the Prudential Financial company employ the Rock of Gibralter as its corporate symbol, a foreign rock, when we have these beauties here at home? Aircraft hijacking terrorists: go ahead, fly into one of these babies. Bring it on!

Efforts to rebuild at “Ground Zero” are mired in controversy. Glass and metal towers are so 20th Century. We are advanced technologically, let us design a challenging building as strong and great as a Yosemite granite formation. It’s time for a change! Imagine the greatness of a mountain-like structure in lower Manhattan! A truly visionary project would enable creative landscaping and even rock climbing on the structure. Inside it would be a modern office building and commercial park, with all the glory of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

This is my challenge to the great architects and real estate developers of New York City. Innovate a strong, enduring and inspiring structure, something undeniably grand and awesome such as Yosemite’s Half Dome.

Remember that Memento guy who couldn’t remember anything, so he took Polaroids of himself? Polaroid was once on the cutting edge, but instant digital photography antiqued the photo-chemical process into an Industrial Era memento.

Meet the new boss. In March 2003, Polariod appointed Michael Pocock as president and CEO. In August 2003, Polaroid declared bankruptcy.

Same as the old boss. Two years later, Polaroid’s remnants are being sold off, and Pocock gets $8.5 million!

More than 4,000 Polaroid retirees last month received a check for $47 – a one-time payment from a trust fund to compensate retirees for legal expenses.

“It’s such a shame, because we got killed,” said Peter Bass, a 72-year-old Lexington resident who retired 13 years ago after 35 years at Polaroid. Bass used his $47 to take his wife out for pizza and will very likely need to come out of retirement to make ends meet.

For more details, listen to the Marketplace radio story.

So, don’t get fooled again. We hear lofty speeches from Presidents and CEOs about values and ethics, and those are mighty fine words. Show me the secret CEO handshake! Unless you can be the boss, the president, the CEO, or a guy who gets a lot of money and stock, why bother taking the chance of being fooled again?

P.S. Comic relief Social Security toon.

More of the same in software food chain evolution, Adobe announced it is acquiring Macromedia. Of course this is a big buzz all over the Internet, so I had to get my 2 cents in.

Many say it’s Adobe’s defensive move against giant Microsoft. Others say against Apple. Whatever the case, this is no surprise, and big fish eats little fish business as usual for many industries.

From my own experience, Macromedia’s upgrade prices have always been aggressively high, so just maybe with Adobe’s large product and license base, those costs might come down. Also there is some hope of better product integration, for those who bounce from Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop to Macromedia’s Flash.

Story behind the story, the illustration above was originally designed and created in Flash, but WordPress 1.5 doesn’t integrate Flash files yet, so what you see is a substitute animated GIF. Maybe Adobe will buy WordPress, and fix that, but for what price? WordPress is currently free.

In an act of compassionate brilliance, United State Congress ordered blood transfusions from steroid using baseball players into the brain-damaged Terry Schiavo. “It is the American Way, and darned good sportsmanship too, for the super strong to care for the super weak,” declared a congressman from New Mexico.

In a related story, weakened by high fuel prices, SUV owners stood vigil and prayed for government passage of a large oil transfusion from the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge.

There’s too much goooogling on these days. A few days ago I attended the first Google AdSense Forum at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. I got overstimulated by meeting fellow Google AdSense webmasters, enthused presenters and smart Google team members, and liked it! Jennifer Slegg was one of three presenters, and she has dutifully written the Forum up in greater detail at her blog, Jensense. Another panelist, Chris Pirillo founder of Lockergnome.com gushed all over Google AdSense arousing curiousity and laughter. The next few days I’ve spent furiously tweaking parts of mediaspin.com to reflect improvements and techniques discussed at the meeting.

Did I mention that I am moving and will be off-line for almost a week? Does anyone care? I for one care, and will write to Congress to have them act immediately to prevent me from being unplugged, and becoming a brain dead demonic monster, or worse. More on this political hot potato topic later…

Hey kids! Wanna do some cool Digital Effects on Spider-Man 3 or Stuart Little 3? Great! Well, get the air out of your heads and listen up punks! Your colossal boss will be a bean-counting professional, much like Digital Domain’s Scott Ross, quoted in the Phil LoPiccolo’s editorial in Computer Graphics World, “Making movies is an art, but it’s also a business,” he adds. “I tell my people, if you want to be Vincent van Gogh, go cut off your ear and live in the South of France.”

Is Scott still feeling his lumps from Titanic’s near suicidal artistic excesses? And folks, if you catch Boss Ross’s drift, be ready to work long hours at Van Gogh-ish salaries. Or move to Singapore. What wuz ya thinkin’… this is ‘spose to be fun? Fuggetaboutit!

On Feb. 10 Synaptics stock shares tumbled because a few Wall Street analysts rumored that Apple’s future iPods would no longer use their wheel interface. Their opinions caused a panic that brought Synaptics stock down 50% in price, from the mid $30 range to below $21. (I had to buy some at those prices!)
“Bear Stearns analyst Andrew J. Neff said Apple last week unveiled its latest PowerBook laptop computer outfitted with a TrackPad, its own touch-sensitive interface developed using chips made by Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

Further indications suggest that Apple will use its internally developed technology on the next generation of its wildly popular iPod media player, Neff said. He added that Synaptics, whose most popular design is the iPod’s scroll wheel, historically has been Apple’s sole supplier of touchpad components.”

Today Synaptics provided the much needed facts, sweet official words, dispelling the rumors.
“We have received numerous inquiries from investors and analysts regarding the use of our products in the Apple iPod. In the absence of definitive communications from Apple regarding these matters, we have not believed it appropriate to comment on unconfirmed rumors and speculation. In addition, our policy generally is not to comment on market rumors, speculation, and changes in our stock price.

We are filing this Form 8-K in order to respond to inquiries regarding recent announcements of new product introductions.

Yesterday Apple announced several new iPods and we are confirming that our interface solutions are being used in those products. As has been the case since our initial product introductions in fiscal 1996, we compete for designs on a product by product basis and have no assurances from any of our OEM customers that they will utilize our interface solutions in any of their future products.”

Apple’s iPod is so successful, Apple’s stock has doubled and is set to split, so why would they change their design? Think about it.

Hear ye! Seller’s Voice is an powerful way to distinguish yourself on eBay.

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