Shortly after yesterday’s epic Iron Bowl – I don’t use that word “epic” very often, but they’ll be talking about this one a century from now, assuming American football is still being played – I heard a pundit opine that Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s Heisman Trophy hopes were now dead. Seriously?
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The nation gives thanks … for what? I was never a William Burroughs fan, but I nonetheless find myself thinking about his 1986 “Thanksgiving Prayer,” surely one of the most caustic (and insightful) takes on our great American holiday. I’m in this sort of mood for a reason. Or two, or three. First off, you may have noticed all the
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Marketing and Search aren’t different things anymore, if they ever were. Google recently implemented their new “Hummingbird” organic search algorithm, perhaps the company’s most significant overhaul in more than a decade. Thomas Claburn at Information Week explains that Hummingbird is an expansion of Google’s Knowledge Graph, which was “introduced last year as a way to help its search engine understand
Read moreYes, PowerPoint sucks. Here’s why, plus some suggestions about how to fix the problem. Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn’t. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly
Read morePeriodically we find ourselves needing to remind everyone about our comment policy, which is quite a bit different from what you find on other sites. This isn’t a problem for a vast majority of those who visit us, but every once in awhile… So, here’s the link to the policy, which not only lays out how we do it but
Read moreCourtesy of Upworthy and WGBH we get this audio of the moment when the audience learns that Kennedy has been assassinated.
Read moreA progressive utopia, World War 3 or something in between? Sensitivity to initial conditions means that each point in such a system is arbitrarily closely approximated by other points with significantly different future trajectories. Thus, an arbitrarily small perturbation of the current trajectory may lead to significantly different future behaviour. – Wikipedia Today marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s
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Bend over USMNT. The Group of Death is headed your way. UPDATED: It’s official. Good news: the US men’s soccer team has qualified for the World Cup in Brazil next summer. Bad news: they’re fucked.
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I saw a Free Bradley Manning sticker on a car as I walked my dog this morning and it got me to thinking. Some months back I produced the New Constitution series, which set forth the principles upon a more just and workable American government might be based. The final “deliverable,” as we say in the business world, was 20
Read moreFor years my career has revolved around solving communication problems. One of my specific charges has been to “make the complex simple.” I’ve played along because many of the companies I’ve dealt with (not all, but a majority) think this way. When they do, boat rocking and cage rattling is rarely a winning strategy for advancement. But the truth is
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WTF is wrong with these people? (I’m looking at you Kellogg’s, JP Morgan and especially Yahoo!) Do you ever wonder what goes through the minds of those charged with making important decisions for big companies? Other than a stiff breeze, I mean. Let’s start with a fun one.
Read moreSo, it’s been kind of a confusing story to follow, but Andy Kaufman’s brother announced that Andy faked his death to escape the spotlight, is still alive and living in hiding, and has a daughter. Then the daughter materializes. Then it’s revealed that she’s an actress and it’s all an elaborate hoax. Or is it?
Read moreWhen thinking about why churches thrive, understand that religion is far from the most important factor. Did you see the recent story floating around on the growth of the “atheist megachurch,” the Sunday Assembly? I’m really interested in the concept. Churches have three main draws: religion, community and professional networking. The first of the three is probably the least important
Read moreThis is hysterical.
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