Safety in Inadequacies

This article actually came out almost a year ago, but it's a really good read. The author makes an excellent case for why the SUV boom in America really doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense.

As Keith Bradsher writes in "High and Mighty" ... what consumers said was "If the vehicle is up high, it's easier to see if something is hiding underneath or lurking behind it." Bradsher brilliantly captures the mixture of bafflement and contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who buy their S.U.V.s.

If you asked the young parents of America whether they would rather strap their infant child in the back seat of the TrailBlazer or the passenger seat of the Boxster, they would choose the TrailBlazer. We feel that way because in the TrailBlazer our chances of surviving a collision with a hypothetical tractor-trailer in the other lane are greater than they are in the Porsche. What we forget, though, is that in the TrailBlazer you're also much more likely to hit the tractor-trailer because you can't get out of the way in time. In the parlance of the automobile world, the TrailBlazer is better at "passive safety." The Boxster is better when it comes to "active safety," which is every bit as important.

This article is particularly resonant for me because, as a driver of a tiny car, I'm surrounded by big bad trucks and SUVs all the time.

What's Your Extension

On a lighter note, have you ever wondered what type of file you'd be? Take the quiz! What am I, you ask?

You are .doc . You change from year to year, just to make things tough on your competition. Only your creator really has a handle on you.

I think I'd better retake it...

Fake Journalists Gone Wild

John Stewart tries to give CNN's Crossfire a much-needed intervention. See the video here.

I certainly agree with his opinion, and share his frustration with the media, but I'm not sure what he was expecting when he went on someone else's show to badmouth it. On his own show, he tends to be more subtle than that.

Multihit Muqabla

Been pretty busy lately, but I've had a few things queued up that I've been meaning to post.

Wal-Mart has drawn a line in the sand, and told music labels that if their CD prices don't go down, they may just stop carrying them. Wal-Mart likes to sell CDs for under $10 (and, hey, we like buying them for under $10), but up till now Wal-Mart takes a loss whenever it does that (since CD distributers cell them for over $12 a pop). They're tired of doing that. The situation is pretty uncomfortable for the record labels, since they need Wal-Mart sales much more than Wal-Mart needs to carry CDs.

"If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them," says another label executive. "This keeps me awake at night."

The article at Rolling Stone is worth a read for, if nothing else, the breakdown of a CD's cost at the end of the article.

Wanna Doom 3 ... don't ya wanna

This is the coolest soda commercial I have ever seen.

I think we should call it your grave!

This is just nuts. First of all, if you haven't seen the presidential cartoon "This Land", then get on over to Jib Jab and PYAITK. The thing is frigging hilarious.

As you probably noticed, the song in the cartoon is a take-off from Woody Guthrie's old American classic, "This Land is Your Land". Although the song was written back in the 1940s, it appears that Ludlow Music still owns the copyright to it. They have threatened the makers of the cartoon with a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. The truly scary part is that they may actually have a case. From arstechnica.com:

JibJab's lawyers are arguing that the use of the song is protected by Fair Use, but the Fair Use protections in question usually only relate to parody, not satire. The distinction is usually determined by looking at who's being made fun of. A proper paraody is one which makes fun of the thing being mimicked. So, one would be hard pressed to argue that this short animation isn't protected by Fair Use if it made fun of the original song, but it doesn't. Using the song's general features, it takes aim at Bush and Kerry, and as such, it probably would not be protected.

Here's hoping this one gets smacked down fast.

By the way, those of you who got the reference in the title get a cookie. The rest of you should look at this and this.

We Control the Horizontal and the Vertical

While the merger of AOL and Time Warner and the movie Tomorrow Never Dies have brought the issue of media consolidation before the public eye, many people have no idea just how close we are to a world where the Media Corporation owns every media product we see and hear. Ted Turner, of Turner Broadcasting fame, has written an eye-opening op-ed about the dangers of media conglomeration. It includes the following quote:

Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to own everything up and down the media chain--from broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the production studios that make them; to the cable, satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to read about those programs; to the way you log on to the Internet to view those pages. Big media today wants to own the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The rain clouds come next.

On a slightly tangential note, this page at the Columbia Journalism Review shows just how much of the country's radio is owned by a little company based out of San Antonio called Clear Channel.

Duke Gives Away iPods

Duke is giving iPods away for free!

To incoming freshman. Loaded with 'school materials'. But free iPods!

Working at the Club

Clubs aren't just for working out anymore. As an alternative to working from home, a San Francisco architect has created a new kind of neighborhood 'club' where people from the community can go to do their office work. These clubs offer all the conveniences of the office, including cubicles, meeting rooms, reception service, and business/technical services (such as photocopying, WiFi, and IT support). They offer a more social, connected alternative to working from home for people who find the home too distracting or removed.

Call me crazy, but I think there's a big future for ventures like this. There are plenty of people who live too far away from the office to make a commute feasible, and working from home isn't always an option due to distractions or other issues.