Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan's Anti-Depressive Apartment - WSJ.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303467004575574120135824404.html

"In his first book, entitled "My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living" (Harper Collins, 2005), Mr. Adler elaborated on his design manifesto, which consists of a list of rules like "tchotchkes are life enhancing" and "colors can't clash."

  

On the day of our visit: In addition to the two ceramic dog sculptures there was a canister with a high-relief marijuana leaf and what appeared to be a gun. "That's a mantique from the 1970s, a men's perfume flask," Mr. Adler said. "It's hard to say no to a gun-shaped perfume flask, I always say.""

check your Yahoo account

i apologize if you have received spam from my yahoo account.  i changed the password, deleted all contacts, updated the password hint questions.  i was also shocked to find that yahoo pulse also was publicly showing my home address and phone numbers.  i do not remember authorizing that or setting it up.  if you have not checked out your yahoo account lately, you might be surprised what information that yahoo has defaulted to make publicly available.  unfortunately  i cannot delete the yahoo mail acount without deleting all of my yahoo account info including my yahoo id's for yahoo groups.

Ray Ozzie on cloud computing, and complexity

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20020559-17.html

""We're moving toward a world of 1) cloud-based continuous services that connect us all and do our bidding, and 2) appliance-like connected devices enabling us to interact with those cloud-based services," he writes. He continues:

At first blush, this world of continuous services and connected devices doesn't seem very different than today. But those who build, deploy and manage today's websites understand viscerally that fielding a truly continuous service is incredibly difficult and is only achieved by the most sophisticated high-scale consumer websites. And those who build and deploy application fabrics targeting connected devices understand how challenging it can be to simply & reliably just 'sync' or 'stream'. To achieve these seemingly simple objectives will require dramatic innovation in human interface, hardware, software and services.

Meanwhile, the PC-centric, client/server world has "accreted simply immense complexity over the past quarter century. To which he adds a warning: "Complexity kills. Complexity sucks the life out of users, developers and IT. Complexity makes products difficult to plan, build, test and use. Complexity introduces security challenges. Complexity causes administrator frustration." "

Me: "Complexity Kills." I'm going to write that on my whiteboard.

Has Microsoft -- gulp -- figured it out?

http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything-is-different-now

"The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys."

Me: Has Microsoft figured it out?  This could be the most stunning turnaround ever. It's clear to me now that ayone who intends to compete and be taken seriously in the smartphone arena MUST have world class software AND hardware. Clearly that is what these companies are capable of.  "Parity" devices that are "good enough" just wont cut it.  We are witnessing the new generation of smart phones - Smart Phones 2.0.  Does HP WebOS have the vision -- and the will -- to compete?

Keep that cell phone out of your bra

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/22/EDN71G0OKM.DTL

"It's too late for Andrea X, a young, active mother of three from Southern California. For more than six years, this vegetarian and runner drove her children everywhere, with her cell phone tucked snugly into her sports bra. She used her hands-free headset and was on the phone for four to five hours a day. Often her chest or ear would redden, but she thought little of it. This spring she developed a malignant tumor right where her phone had sat on her breast. No one in her family has ever had breast cancer"

HP WebOS 2.0 review - Engadget

Check out: "webOS 2.0 review" - www.engadget.com http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/19/webos-2-0-review/?icid=engadget-iphone-url

"Despite some issues, webOS 2.0 is probably neck and neck with iOS4 when it comes to polish and ease of use, and that's a pretty huge thing for Palm. This isn't just a good OS, it's a great OS, and the updates in this version have made it even better. It's obvious that when combined with even slightly better hardware, it's also a fast experience that makes it easy to get real work done. And that's the problem with webOS 2.0, really. Palm is still hampered by last-generation, underpowered hardware. The Pre 2 is nice, but it's not cutting edge, and it doesn't hold a candle to the iPhone 4 or G2. If Palm wants to survive in this game -- let alone truly compete -- it needs to push killer hardware into the marketplace now. The faithful are dwindling, and the smartphone race is getting more crowded every day -- webOS 2.0 is a big improvement, but if this and the Pre 2 are Palm's hail mary, they just lost the game."

another blog template change in order

- reject the premade templates because "everyone is using them" and "my blog might look like someone else's"

- spend hours getting it "right"

- end up with a questionable combination of background and colors

- but remain confident that i have retained my uniqueness

Amid the headscratching over Apotheker, and ongoing discontent about Hurd, finally some positive spin on HP's new CEO, which I want desperately to believe

http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-employees-react-to-new-ceo-2010-10

“I do find it amusing that people like Jack Welch and that idiot at Oracle have gotten absolutely apoplectic regarding our new CEO.”
“Leo has to be better at handling people than Mark Hurd. That guy sucked to work for and kept the money for himself.”
“I was concerned it would be Hurd henchman Bradley so it could have been worse I suppose. It doesn't matter, the inept board remains in place, Hurds plans continue to move on…So to your question about the CEO, "WHO CARES".”

http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-leo-apotheker-ceo-2010-9

“In many respects, I always felt like Apotheker's reign was similar to U.S. President Barack Obama—both men inherited a glamorous, high-profile position that was in a world of hurt when they were sworn in.”

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/70946.html    (if you read only one article, read this one)

“Now if you were to sit back and go down a list of folks who both know how to compete with Oracle and have a personal desire to bury that company along with its CEO -- and omitted Charles Phillips, who is under a strong non-compete (great backstory on how Larry may have screwed Charles) -- you'd end up with Leo Apotheker and Ray Lane, both of whom lost their CEO jobs, largely thanks to Larry Ellison.

Both men are back, they are pissed, and they want a big piece of Oracle. They now have access to HP's vast resources, have deep knowledge of Oracle's weaknesses, can likely convince companies like SAP and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) to help, and represent a preferable choice to many of Oracle's recently acquired customers than Oracle likely does. I expect HP is going to experience some rather dramatic changes in the next few months.”

FOX News - SciTech - Latest Headlines - Microsoft's iPad Answer Will Be Here for the Holidays

Sorry for pointing you to Fox News, but that's where the article showed up -

http://scitech.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=23952&content=43415354&pageNum=-1

And while Microsoft has finally confirmed the launch date for its Windows Phone 7 operating system -- stick with FoxNews.com for the big event on October 11 -- a recent video discovered by Engadget of an alleged HP Slate prototype hints that the experience still hasn't been streamlined for touchscreen operation.

Ballmer admits Windows 7 isn't fully optimized for the tablets. "We're not going to do a major revamp of Windows 7 for slate applications; that will come in the next version (Windows 8)," Ballmer said at the UK Tech Days conference.

HMM LETS SEE - MINUTES TO BOOT, HEAVY, HOT, POWERHUNGRY (short battery life), HUGE APPS REQUIRING TONS OF MEMORY, CANT LOAD ANY NEW COOL MOBILE APPS THAT ALL YR FRIENDS ARE USING (Angry birds, Qik Videoconf, Foursquare, etc), AND PROBABLY NOT 3G, SO ITS HOUSEBOUND, NOT MOBILE - it will feel like a humongous, expensive Ipod Touch (which is also wifi only) -- but with no apps and all the downsides of a Windows machine. Yeah, I would pay money for that why? To run MS Excel on my couch? I guess that's interesting.

I'm sure Ballmer knows this, but a touchscreen and WiFi does not a mobile device make. It's enabling a mobile experience (with 3G); supporting new mobile use cases like liveblogging, location-based (Foursquare) and augmented reality (Yelp Monocle) applications; in a lightweight pocket device form factor.

NYT: At Risk From the Womb

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03kristof.html?src=me&ref=general

"Stress in mothers seems to have particularly strong effects on their offspring, perhaps through release of cortisol, a hormone released when a person is anxious. Studies show that children who were in utero during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967 were more likely to have schizophrenia diagnosed as adults. And The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that Chinese born during the terrible famine from 1959 to 1961 were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those born at other times."

Third Party Rising

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?src=me&ref=general

"We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies.
"If competition is good for our economy," asks Diamond, "why isn't it good for our politics?"
We need a third party on the stage of the next presidential debate to look Americans in the eye and say: "These two parties are lying to you. They can't tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world's leaders, not the new Romans."

HP on Léo Apotheker: 'We have never felt more confident' - Oct. 1, 2010

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/01/technology/HP_ceo/

$4.6million for relocation expenses? doesnt hp have some spare real
estate they can just give him?