These people got mortgages…..
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Nothing about marketing here, really. But I have a simple idea for the NFL, NBA and MLB to stop teams from throwing games at the end of seasons ot get a better draft pick. Instead of making the draft based on worst to best record for the season before, why not define the draft order by worst to best record over the last THREE years.
I have a few reasons for this suggestion:
- This would stop events where a great team has a few key injuries in one season, ends up with the top overall pick, and builds a dynasty out of it (see Spurs, San Antonio.
- It’s hard to tank 3 straight seasons, so individual games are less important for draft order.
- Teams that are that bad for so long need real help.
- You can make your draft choices with some “general” idea where you may end up in next year’s draft, and make some strategic decisions on free agents based on this.
- Having a ridiculous string of unjustified good luck for 1/4 season doesn’t kill you.
Anyway, that’s my big idea for the day.
You have to wonder what the people at PETA are thinking when they have “brainstorming” sessions. It’s like they purposely come up with ways to alienate anyone in the middle 98% of mainstream thought. From WNBC in New York:
VERMONT — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow’s milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.
“PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves,” the statement says.
PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.
You may now insert your own jokes and analysis.
Adding video clips to YouTube is nothing new, and video game companies have been putting demos of their games up there for years.
But Nintendo has upped the ante with some real creative work on their channel. Make sure to watch the whole video, then do some right clicking to see how they did it.
$20 Billion. $16 Billion. Two relatively large numbers that may be too hard to comprehend. So here’s a funny comparison.
According to Valleywag, the entire newspaper industry is now worth $20 Billion. I suppose that seems right for a 100-150 year old industry with papers everywhere from New York to Wasilia.
But that number seems kind of small when you figure that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s cofounders, are worth nearly $16 billion each according to Forbes. So 2 men who have made it easier to search for online versions of newspaper articles, could essentially buy the entire industry they are destroying. Does that mean personal fortunes are a tad over inflated?
I am unashamed to be a huge Mark Cuban fan. American success story of a guy who hustles, has worked his rear end off, is always searching for the best opportunity for success, and cognisant of when to get out and start something new. Now he has more money than he can ever spend and gets to run around thumbing his nose at other NBA owners. (The only unfortunate thing is that you can probably make a case that David Stern’s officials are under orders to make sure he never wins a title. See: Wade, Dwayne, 2006 NBA Finals).
Anyway, his blog is always worth reading. And I was just having a conversation about transparency yesterday which makes this thread on BlogMaverick even more relevant. The context of my conversation was whether anyone in the U.S. will be able to run for public office in 20 years, if hackers are going to be able to get to emails you sent and received.
But here are people who use real email addresses to willingly spew stupidity and hate. I would love to sit next to one of these guys in the office and get his reaction. Good for Cuban for publicizing these. Check out the post.
Does this make me want to buy a bunk bed? Maybe not. But did it introduce me to a url I had never heard of before? Yes. And am I forwarding said url around to others who might want to buy a bunk bed? Apparently so.
But check out this fun and easy game from Bunkbeds.net.
1 minute, 28 seconds
“A Nigerian Muslim court Monday detained an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives after he failed to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of them…..The authorities charged Mohammed Bello with “insulting religious creed” and “unlawful marriages” after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him until September 7 to comply with Islamic sharia law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives at a time.”
I see it now – “Elimina-wife.” 82 eliminations to get to the remianing 4. Endless possibilities on an International stage here….
Well, it’s happened. What started as a fantastic 17 person Presidential race, with people sharing new ideas for how to run the country, has turned into a giant mud-slinging session that has left me dis-spirited and ready to move to Croatia to open a coffee stand.
What happnened to this race? We had Bill Richardson’s immigration ideas, Obama’s unifying rallies and Hillary’s messages energizing women. Giulani and Thompson added star power, Romney was the clean cut businessman with the ability to run the Olympics and a state, while McCain the Maverick was driving the Straight Talk Express. Even Ron Paul, who people labeled as crazy, at least had an interesting Flat Tax Plan. Real candidates with real ideas.
But now, I can’t watch TV or listen to the radio without hearing barking, shrieking, sarcasm and disdain. No one has any ideas, and everyone has a criticism. Olberman and Chris Matthews take turns firing shots at Republicans in hopes Obama will dance with them first at the inauguration. Conservative journalists rail on Obama’s 143 days in US Senate as being unfit to lead. Media members sitting on the left side of the bench use big words and smarmy sarcasm to imply that anyone who doesn’t agree with them 100% is stupid. Those on the right scoff at people and make it clear that anyone who doesn’t know how to climb into the middle class is just useless.
Our whole country is attacking each other and every campaign message is about hate – McCain is too old., Obama too green. McCain lies, Obama exagerates. Biden is mean, Palin is crazy. Then everything that happens must be assigned to someone. The Financial situation is Bush’s fault, no McCain signed a bill in 1999 that caused this, no Obama’s liberal policies would make it worse, etc…Gas is expensive because we’re in Iraq, no because Democrats won’t let us drill, no because Republicans are beholden to lobbyists in the oil industry….
I’ve been beaten. The candidates’, pundits’, advisors’ and supporters’ combined message has finally sunk in. According to what I am hearing from everyone, “Collectively we’re screwed, it’s someone else’s fault, and we’re really going to be screwed worse if you vote for the other guy.” That’s the message I am getting – please tell me I’m hearing it wrong. Plus, none of them are explaining to me that they can fix it, they are just explaining to me that the other group can’t. So I guess that’s the message. Take my money out of the stock market and run.
Oops – too late for that too….Now what?
I was down at CTIA in San Francisco last week expecting to be wowed by tons in mobile innovations. I really thought I’d be furiously taking notes and have plenty to write about for weeks. Sadly, I was forced not to publish the trip report I did write and had sent internally to the folks at Spring Creek Group, due to my overall philosophy of only writing about innovations I like, not complaining about things I don’t get or won’t use. I figure Techcrunch does enough criticizing for the entire blogosphere, so no reason to be one of the naysayers
So instead of a trip report from the Bay, here are 2 clever text messaging apps that I read about at PCWorld.com and now use fairly regularly
1) Google Calendar SMS Commands – I use Google Calendar, as part of my slavery to Gootle Mail, Docs, Chat, Analytics and Ad Words. Instead of having to sync my Blackberry every day, i can simply send a text to GVENT (48368) with the word “day” and I get a full schedule. If I want tomorrow’s shcedule, I type “nday.” I immediately receive a text back with my schedule.
2) Diet Watcher – If you’re watching calories, Diet.com can help you keep count. Text any major restaurant chain’s name and menu item to DIET1 (dial 34381) and they’ll send you back the nutrition stats: calories, fat, carbs, and protein. In case you are curious, a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger has 440 Calories (23g fat), while a Starbucks Grande Latte has
Neither of these services are awe-inspiring, but if you want information quickly, they are pretty useful. And really at the end of the day, “Useful, Easy and Free” beat slick marketing and $60 Million in Series C funding any day of the week.