The idea of starting a company’s pretty exciting. You have a vision, you begin to talk to people about it and form a solid team of folks to execute on the idea, and you begin work on the actual product. Of course, without money in the bank funding people’s salaries, an office, a copier and fax machine, etc, it seems pretty tough to actually get going. The result’s that more often than not, people wonder how to attract the attention of VCs when they’re just starting to build their product. My simple answer:
Don’t.
The Patriots aren't unbeatable, but if you want to take them down, you'll need great players, great strategy—and some luck wouldn't hurt. If the Steelers, or any other team, want to end New England's reign, here's the master plan they'll need to follow.The Eagles and Ravens came close, and provided the "blueprint", but it's hard for a team that hasn't executed for a full four quarters all year to suddenly do so in a single game, especially its biggest of the year. The Steelers don't fall in that category, though, so let's see what they can do.
While Favre is lionized for playing through tragedy, Terrell Owens' success has never been given the same kind of context. [...] Why is every hurdle Favre has jumped over presented as the Pillars of Hercules, while a guy like Owens is dismissed as a loudmouth?It's always good to remind ourselves that our perceptions of famous people really are shaped by the media, whether or not they fit those perceptions in real life.
Among the items was the 1898 document pictured above, entitled "Special Instructions To Players," regarding the use of obscene language by players at the ballpark, to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and to verbally battle with unfriendly fans. [...] This piece is ironic as it provides many examples of exactly the kind of "brutal language" that was being outlawed. In fact, it is so over the top that at first we thought it was some type of a joke.It's somehow comforting to know that people living in the 19th century said things like, "You ****-****er!", "**** my **** you *** of a *****!", and "I'll make you **** my ***!". Heck, I even learned a couple of new ones!
To address safety, Smart has placed a steel safety cage and four air bags in the compartment to protect motorists and provides standard electronic stability control to help prevent the vehicle from swerving off the road. "Safety has to be a given," Zetsche said.Well, I sure hope it's a given ... given that I've seen this video:
Amazon will be releasing Nov 21, 2007 a new e-book reader using digital ink called Kindle for $399. I'm not sure I'm bothered by or not bothered by the fact that it is entirely closed. It is closed and only uses EVDO to get content. It's about the size and weight of a "large" paperback but at 600x800 167ppi it's still not the same resolution of a similar book.Could it do what nobody has yet been able to do? From Levy:
Though Bezos is reluctant to make the comparison, Amazon believes it has created the iPod of reading.I think it will be a while yet.
After repeated unsuccessful attempts to restart the stalled engines, Pearson and Quintal once again consulted the 767 emergency manual, this time for advice on an unpowered landing. Much to their dismay, no such section existed, presumably because a simultaneous engine failure had been too ridiculous for Boeing engineers to contemplate.
After lulling you into complacency with the game's superficial similarity to Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto (depressed or not) signals that he intends to torment you. The first row of question-marked boxes you encounter includes that familiar mushroom, Mario's iconic power-up. Except this mushroom is different. It's deadly. As Mario was tossed from the screen, I experienced a combination of shock and puzzlement. That would become a familiar sensation over the next three hours. Again and again, the game uses your familiarity with Super Mario Bros. to subvert the playing experience.Mental Floss Magazine profiles Shel Silverstein's career, from Playboy cartoonist to children's books author to musician.
Silverstein made it pretty impossible to get pigeon-holed into a poetry-and-cartooning rut by simply tossing in a few other careers on top—songwriter, musician, novelist, you name it. In 1959, just a few years before he started to write children’s books, Silverstein began a respectable career in music. How respectable? Well, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, won two Grammy awards, recorded more than a dozen albums, and wrote hundreds of songs that were recorded by artists including Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.
She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."
"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.
As in any marathon, exhaustion and fear make quitting seem smart. You can say you tried, blame the weather, and find a hotel. But breaking a record — any record — takes something more, something personal. Right now, it will take everything. There's no room left for strategy. Roy simply has to hit it hard.See also: C'était un Rendez-vous and 32 Hours 7 Minutes
The radar is crazy with bleep! and blatt!, the spreadsheets litter the cockpit like dirty floor mats, but Roy hits it anyway. He doesn't need charts anymore. He is the chart, and Excel and Google Earth and Garmin MapSource and something more, too, a guy with something to prove.
NEW OFFICE POLICY - EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!!!
Dress Code:
You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.
If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage you money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.
Sick Days:
We will no longer accept doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.
Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non employees attend the funeral arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary; the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.
Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken.
After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the "Chronic Offenders" category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company's mental health policy.
Lunch Break:
Skinny people get 30 min for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.
Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.
Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.
Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.
The wonder of "Peanuts" is that it worked on so many levels simultaneously. Children could enjoy the silly drawings and the delightful fantasy of Snoopy, while adults could see the bleak undercurrent of cruelty, loneliness and failure, or the perpetual theme of unrequited love, or the strip's stark visual beauty.
Murphy is himself one of the least encumbered people you are likely to meet. He has no telephone, no bank account, and, at the time I caught up with him, he was spending most nights on a bench in the park and passing his days at his chosen employment: offering lessons at $15 to $20 per and hustling speed chess for $2 to $5 a game. Yet as a player, Murphy's fame extends far beyond the park. In past years, he'd racked up major tournament wins, routing some of the best chess players in the country and cementing a widespread reputation as a player who might have risen to international prominence had his life taken a different turn.Update: Another choice quote:
The proudest teaching I ever had was I taught a pimp in New York. His name was Comfort, as in 'comfortable.' I was going down the street to my friend's house. I had my board with me. He said, 'You know anything about that game?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You have time to show me?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Step into my office,' which was a pink, long Cadillac. I got in. It had a bar in the car and everything. I started thinking, 'Now how in the world am I gonna show this pimp how to play the game of chess?' So he asked me, 'What do the queen do?' I said, 'The queen do all the work.' He said, 'Ohhhh, now what do the king do?' I said, 'The king don't do nothing.' His eyes lit up when he heard that. He said, 'Man, I like this game already.'
As the summer wore on, however, it became clear even to Kasparov that the Other Russia could only put forward a “parallel” candidate, a symbolic one. At first, Kasparov was reluctant to be that candidate, but when he proceeded to win many of the Other Russia’s regional primaries in August and September he began to change his mind. “It seems I have no choice,” he said.
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, and the U.S. reacted the way any mature, technologically savvy nation would — which is to say we lost our marbles.This quote comes from its photo-essay commemorating the anniversary, which lists the "highs and lows of space exploration", from the moon landing to the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts and more. As for the moon landing:
So, here was the proposal: The nation that had launched precisely one astronaut into space on one mission that had lasted 15 minutes was going to put a man on the moon in less than nine years, bring him home alive, and do it all before the Russians — who, let's face it, had a surer hand with this kind of thing than we did — could. Oh, and this bright idea came from the man who had signed off on the Bay of Pigs.No mention of "the Russians used a pencil", but there are more harrowing moments that sometimes get lost in histories of the "space race".
Here's a syllogism every astronaut knows: Space pilots are test pilots; test pilots die; therefore, space pilots will die. The key is not to be one of them.Legendary author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke was asked for his thoughts on Sputnik by IEEE Spectrum. Obviously, he provides a perspective that few others could:
Launching Sputnik and landing humans on the Moon were all political decisions, not scientific ones, although scientists and engineers played a lead role in implementing those decisions. (I have only recently learned, from his long-time secretary Carol Rosin, that Wernher von Braun used my 1952 book, The Exploration of Space, to convince President Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.) As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study, space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century. But thanks to the ambition and genius of von Braun and Sergei Korolev, and their influence upon individuals as disparate as Kennedy and Khrushchev, the Moon—like the South Pole—was reached half a century ahead of time.One tangential thing that struck me while reading the TIME photo-essay and during my consequent (and inevitable) jaunt through Wikipedia is what it must be like to be any astronaut not named Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin (the list may also include John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Jim Lovell). Take, for example, John Young. He flew two Gemini missions (smuggling the first corn beef sandwich in space onto Gemini 3), two Apollo missions (testing the lunar module on Apollo 10, and setting the moon speed record with the lunar rover on Apollo 16), and two shuttle missions (the first, STS-1, as well as the first to use Spacelab, STS-9) — the only man to command missions in all three programs. Quite a career, if you ask me, but spent in relative obscurity.
Go to www.sandp.com, select United States, then click on the "products & services" pull-down bar, then the "indices" option. Next, choose the "learn more" option listed under the Standard & Poor's 500 entry. Next, click the "data" tab, select "earnings' and then scroll down a bit to "S&P 500 Historical Average Price to Earnings Ratio." That will open a spreadsheet showing the S&P 500's P-E ratio every quarter going back to the index' inception in 1936.Here is the link to the data page that I am sure will change once the S&P dudes redo their site.
| U.S. Show | No. Seasons | Tot. Episodes | U.K. Show | No. Series | Tot. Episodes |
| Cheers | 11 | 273 | Absolutely Fabulous | 5 | 36 |
| Curb Your Enthusiasm | 6 | 58 | Are You Being Served? | 10 | 69 |
| The Cosby Show | 8 | 201 | Blackadder | 4 | 24 |
| Everybody Loves Raymond | 9 | 210 | Dad's Army | 9 | 80 |
| Frasier | 11 | 265 | Father Ted | 3 | 25 |
| Friends | 10 | 236 | Fawlty Towers | 2 | 12 |
| The Larry Sanders Show | 6 | 89 | The Office | 2 | 14 |
| M*A*S*H | 11 | 251 | Porridge | 3 | 20 |
| Roseanne | 9 | 222 | Spaced | 2 | 14 |
| Seinfeld | 9 | 180 | Yes Minister/Yes, Prime Minister | 5 | 38 |
Batman: "Cattail Lane and Nine Lives Alley. The Grimalkin Novelty Company is on that corner."If I had a glass of milk, a webcam, and some Legos, I'd drink the milk, re-enact the Chocolate Rain video, and construct a wall. Friedrich Kirschner's 3-D Scanner shows that he is clearly smarter and more resourceful than I am.
Robin: "Grimalkin? What kind of a name is that?"
Batman: "An obscure but nevertheless acceptable synonym for cat, Robin."
And when Roy Batty came out of the phone booth, for some bizarre reason we never noticed that somebody's thumb was in the bottom left-hand corner. The phone booth had an automatic door and I couldn't de-automate it, and I was getting really beaten up 'cause we were up against the gun, so I just shot. And there was the bloody thumb in the frame. It's little mistakes like that that you're tempted to leave in. It's a signature that says, yes, it is fiction, it is moviemaking.Update: Greencine Daily links to more articles on The Final Cut.
The silliest thing that people do, in my opinion ... is they market before the product is on the shelf. It feels good and everybody gets excited, so I do a marketing campaign before I am on the shelf. I spend a lot of money, get people all buzzed about it, and then consumers go to find it, and they can't see it. And then I don't have any revenues to justify doing it again, and I look like a complete moron. That is real.
It sounds like the plot for a scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened.
