Dennis Ritchie has also passed on… I could also write some blurb but have a peek at the Google News stories, they’ll give you the details.

C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. x}-;-‘—-

#rip

Stevey’s Google Platforms Rant

I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I’ve been at Google for that long. One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies — an impression that has been reinforced almost daily — is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right. Sure, it’s a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one. It’s pretty crazy. There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly. I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn’t let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it.

…

Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don’t get it.

It’s lengthy but a great insight into working at both Amazon and Google. If you’re a developer, pay attention to the “extending the platform” concepts. Any kind of framework needs plug-ins to win. Just ask WordPress and Firefox.

PS. I stuffed a copy in Evernote for safe-keepings.

#google

‘The Avengers’ trailer: Marvel superheroes unite

“The Avengers” movie trailer was released Tuesday morning, and the two-minute peek into the Marvel Studios movie promises explosions, fight scenes and Tony Stark’s trademark sass.

The much-anticipated film, directed by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon and scheduled for a May 4, 2012, release, unites the Marvel superheroes that have been separately dominating the box office since “Iron Man” in 2008. The trailer shows Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) telling the team why they’ve been – er – assembled, the heroes checking out their digs at what we can assume is S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, and “Thor” villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) misbehaving again, all to the soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails’ “We’re In This Together.”

Thor was good. Iron Man 1 & 2 were good. Joss Whedon is good. Nine Inch Nails is good. This movie better be good or I’m gonna go Magneto on somebody’s ass come May.

#movies #avengers

Talk about going to the extreme for one market demographic..

Dr Pepper Ten: ‘It’s not for women’

Or at least that’s the idea behind Dr Pepper Ten, a 10-calorie soft drink Dr Pepper Snapple Group is rolling out on Monday with a macho ad campaign that proclaims “It’s not for women.” The soft drink was developed after the company’s research found that men shy away from diet drinks that aren’t perceived as “manly” enough.

[…]

Instead of the dainty tan bubbles on the diet can, Ten will be wrapped in gunmetal grey packaging with silver bullets. And while Diet Dr Pepper’s marketing is women-friendly, the ad campaign for Ten goes out of its way to eschew women.

Dr. Pepper: can’t we just have regular Dr. Pepper packaging with the word or number “10” by the logo? See example.

You’ll probably capture a greater market share appealing to everyone instead of simply the macho men.

Are women going to think I’m chauvinist? Are men going to think I’m an asshole? Will my dog bite me?

The thing is, most people don’t want to stand out, they want to blend in. Don’t give them a reason to be the butt of someone else’s joke.

Let’s just be cool - not dainty, not macho - ya know, like the regular Dr. Pepper.

PS. Real macho men drink Old Style with a complete disregard for public safety and/or calories.

#corporatedollars

Season 4, Episode 5 of the Clone Wars is pure awesome. The close up camera angles, gritty look and clone trooopers war paint really took the show where it needed to be. I love the tilted fly over of the transport ship and the troopers’ new bad attitudes.

The plot was average but the overall look and feel of this particular episode is always how I had imagined the Clone Wars to be. And not the underwater¹ season opener.

Best of all the story arc with Jar Jar and the Gungans is finally over. I’ve hated them since Episode I and I cringe whenever a Clone Wars episode features or even mentions them.

¹ How can lightsabers work underwater?

#tv #starwars

Netflix Abandons Plan to Rent DVDs on Qwikster

“We underestimated the appeal of the single web site and a single service,” Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said in a telephone interview. He quickly added: “We greatly underestimated it.”

I bet they had truckloads of test cases that said “Ya, I want to make my life harder.” And lettuce not forget, we were just dinged on a price increase.

Elsewhere:

• Qwikster: Gonester!

#netflix

Ex-Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh dead after predicting own death on Twitter

The 40-year-old was found dead on Saturday afternoon in a Chicago hotel room. Last month he told his 1000 followers on Twitter that he dreamt he would die.

“Dreamt i died in chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep). need to write my will today” Welsh wrote on September 26.

He made some cool art.

#rip #music

Rise Against performing Savior.

The video borders on corny but the song is good and the band is from Chicago so they got that going for them.

Plus I think the furries were really slam dancing. Can you still say slam dancing?

Watch on YouTube →

Lyrics

It kills me not to know this but I’ve all but just forgotten
What the color of her eyes were and her scars or how she got them
As the telling signs of age rain down, a single tear is dropping
Through the valleys of an aging face that this world has forgotten

There is no reconciliation that will put me in my place
And there is no time like the present to drink these draining seconds
But seldom do these words ring true when I’m constantly failing you
Like walls that we just can’t break through until we disappear

So tell me now if this ain’t love then how do we get out?
‘Cause I don’t know

That’s when she said I don’t hate you boy
I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save
That’s when I told her I love you girl
But I’m not the answer for the questions that you still have

And the day pressed on like crushing weights
For no man does it ever wait
Like memories of dying days that deafen us like hurricanes
Bathed in flames we held the brand, uncurled the fingers in your hand
Pressed into the flesh like sand, now do you understand?

So tell me now if this ain’t love then how do we get out?
‘Cause I don’t know

That’s when she said I don’t hate you boy
I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save
That’s when I told her I love you girl
But I’m not the answer for the questions that you still have

One thousand miles away, there’s nothing left to say
But so much left that I don’t know
We never had a choice, this world is too much noise
It takes me under, it takes me under once again

I don’t hate you
I don’t hate you, no

So tell me now if this ain’t love then how do we get out?
‘Cause I don’t know

That’s when she said I don’t hate you boy
I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save
That’s when I told her I love you girl
But I’m not the answer for the questions that you still have

I don’t hate you
I don’t hate you, oh, oh
I don’t hate you
I don’t hate you, no, oh, oh

#music

What is that you fear?
Stagnation.
Stale breaths.

Boring mundane life whittled away to the shadows of midnight t.v. flickers.

I fear finding more stimulation in staged scripts and reality-based shows than in my own.

I fear missing out or giving up on any more life.

Once we find the key to nirvana, the bliss of ignorance is replaced by the bliss of enlightenment. And that key then must be ripped from our fingers if it is ever to be taken away.

Either that or we must be willing to put it down.

I fear not that someone would rip away the things I hold dear, but that I would, out of ignorance or stupidity or simple neglect, lay down my set of keys.

I fear the hollowing out and scraping along in the shell of a man who had given up. Losing all glimpses of a self that I truly enjoy. Losing touch with a man that I fought so hard to let go of so I could become him.

That’s not right.

I fought for who I am with myself and now that i’ve wrestled me away from myself, I don’t wanna let me go. The hinting of this clenches my grinding teeth.

I fear becoming like the people I used to feel pity for. The people who held me in respect because I was doing all the things that I think they secretly wanted to do, was the kind of person they secretly wanted to be.

I fear being demoted to their level of existence. I fear their level of discomfort.

I fear being what I imagine the mundane people I went to high school with must be doing with their time.

I don’t fear rejection - I know too many people who admire me. I fear arrogance.

I fear growing old before I’m through being young.

I fear going too far and not being able to come back, letting go too much.

I fear feeling inspired and not having a handy medium.

I fear over-exposure, over exposing my film.

I fear not feeling good about what I’m doing, losing respect for myself, for my work. In truth, I am missing the work I used to be doing.

I fear looking out the window at a revolution.

I fear the magic not being home when I return.

Fuck the boogie man:
I am him.

PS. This was written in 2001 or 2002.

#writtenword

Fast food ads have more impact than parents, study suggests

While the impact of food ads on children is considerable, Ferguson said that parents “have an advantage if they are consistent with their long-term message about healthy eating.”

Talk to your kids regularly. About everything.

#medical #foodies