What the heck happened to Krispy Kreme?
What the heck happened to Krispy Kreme?. “How could a company in business for nearly 70 years, with an almost legendary product and a loyal customer base, fall from grace so quickly?”
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Entries for June 2005
Keith Chen is doing economic research with
Keith Chen is doing economic research with monkeys; teaching them how money works. “When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex.”
A street sculpture by REVS was recently
A street sculpture by REVS was recently stolen in my neighborhood.
A literary map of Manhattan
A literary map of Manhattan. “Here’s where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked, and looked at ducks.”
But which chip is Intel making for Apple?
I’ve been closely watching the rumors and now news of Apple’s impending switch from chips manufactured by IBM to those manufactured by Intel. Reaction to the news has been mixed at best, with a number of people worried about 1) the enormous cost to Apple and OS X software developers in rewriting software for Intel’s x68 chips, and 2) Apple losing out on future hardware sales when OS X can run on a $300 PC available at Wal-Mart.
However, it may be that people are reading too much into this news. From an anonymous poster at Slashdot:
The contract Apple has with IBM has a “Moto” contingency. There are extremely tough provisions in the contract that Apple insisted upon to prevent another Motorola scenario from happening. IBM had no problem with the provisions because they were positive the could beet [sic] the goals by two in half the time. IBM fucked up badly.
Apple now owns a large amount of PPC IP [intellectual property] and Intel will now be manufacturing and designing PPC chips.
Everyone’s assuming that “switching to Intel chips” meant x86 chips (found in most common desktop computers), but what if they’re going to be manufacturing the PowerPC chips (or almost-compatible ones) that OS X already runs on? There’s a lot of reasons why this wouldn’t happen (How would Intel get a production facility set up that quickly? Does Apple own the IP for the PPC chips? Etc.), but when you look at how Apple protects their hardware business, it’s hard to imagine that they’d let any old cheap x86-based computer run OS X.
Even if Intel isn’t going to be making PPC chips for Apple, they’ll probably manufacture a modified version of an already produced chip that OS X will be refactored to run on so that the cheapo Wal-Mart PC can’t run it. And if that fails, there’s always DRM, which could be used by OS X to verify that it runs only on Intel chips sold in Apple hardware.
Anyway, we’ll find out on Monday; Jobs is supposed to make the announcement at the Worldwide Developer Conference.
Menu gone for now
I’ve removed the menu on the top of the front page from the site for now. Since I launched it, I’ve been playing with it on and off, listening to feedback, and trying to determine whether or not it adds or substracts from the user experience of the site. When I got back from vacation, I loaded up kottke.org in the browser and just didn’t like the looks of the thing sitting up there. Don’t know why exactly, but since it still does that flicker thing in Firefox and doesn’t work in Opera at all (thanks to everyone for sending in their fixes, BTW), it’s probably for the best. I’m going to work on it some more and it will probably return in some modified form soon.
A historian disgraces himself
A historian disgraces himself. A rebuttal of “The Theory of Evolution: Just a Theory?”
Jim Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room
Jim Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room moves to new digs on Typepad.
The theory of evolution: just a theory?
The theory of evolution: just a theory?. “Historian Prof. William D. Rubinstein shares his doubts about the theory of evolution.”
Creationism: God’s gift to the ignorant
Creationism: God’s gift to the ignorant. Richard Dawkins on the “deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda” and other creationist follies.
BBC Radio will be offering mp3s
BBC Radio will be offering mp3s of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. “All the symphonies are performed by BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.”
“The problem with mash-ups is that once
“The problem with mash-ups is that once you get past both ‘oh, that’s unexpected’ and ‘that must have been difficult’, what you’re left with is a dj with really fucking terrible taste in music”. IMO, few mash-ups have gone beyond the novelty stage.
On sickness
I’ve discovered that the only good thing about being sick is watching all 10 episodes of the excellent Band of Brothers series back-to-back for ~10 straight hours. I’m so ready to be better…before I try something stupid today like a trilogy marathon (Matrix, Star Wars IV-VI, or Lord of the Rings (extended version [yikes!])) or watching the entire 3rd season of Six Feet Under.
No more free pretzels on Northwest Airlines
No more free pretzels on Northwest Airlines. They’ll save 10s of dollars!
Excerpt of The Washingtonienne’s self-titled novel
Excerpt of The Washingtonienne’s self-titled novel. Wow, that’s bad. She should have kept her day job.
George Mikan, the first NBA basketball superstar, died aged 80
George Mikan, the first NBA basketball superstar, died aged 80.
Rural internet options
There’s a possibility that I’m going to be spending some time in a rural area with no DSL or cable over the next few months and I need high speed internet access to work on kottke.org while I’m there. I’ve investigated various options, but there are so many pros, cons, and unknown factors to weigh that it’s hard make a choice. Here’s the list:
- Dialup - Cheap, but way too slow. Not really an option.
- Two-way satellite internet - I’ve heard bad things about this, but it’s been available for awhile now so I’d guess it’s not completely useless. The latency sucks, but there’s no way to get around it and I’m not a gamer so how bad can it be? Do I go with Direcway or Starband or GroundControl or are there other companies? I’ve heard stories that some services throttle bandwidth or charge per GB. Also kind of expensive. Gotta sign year+-long contracts. Does it work in bad weather?
- Phone company says that we’re out of range for DSL, but get the DSL modem anyway and see if it works. As suggested here. Anyone done this?
- Get the phone company to drop a DSL-ready line from the trunk to the house. This is probably expensive (how much?) and would take time to convince the phone company to do.
- T1 line. Expensive. $600/mo? Probably more.
- Wifi antenna pointed towards a wireless access point somewhere in DSL land. Downsides: don’t know anyone in surrounding DSL land, possible line-of-sight issues.
- Run cable coax from nearest cable subscriber’s house several miles away. Absurd. Included only for the sake of completeness.
Does anyone have any personal experience with any of this? Any recommendations or helpful pointers? Satellite internet seems like the best option, but looking around at the available services, it seems expensive and just generally like the service they offer is kind of “my way or the highway” and generally makes me uneasy and unclean. Many thanks in advance for anything you can offer.
Interview with Nigo, founder of the Japanese
Interview with Nigo, founder of the Japanese clothing label, A Bathing Ape.
How to become an early riser
How to become an early riser. “The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy (and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week).”
The Blurb Racket is a weekly roundup
The Blurb Racket is a weekly roundup of movie blurbs put back into context. “…Travolta is as smooth as ever…” is actually “…although Travolta is as smooth as ever, the picture is a bust, a grimly unfunny comedy with no connection to reality, and worst of all, running on and on for two dismal hours”.
And it’s all my fault
Anytime I think of saying something that would be considered a “jinx”, I have this little conversation with myself in my head on whether I should actually utter the thought aloud and risk karmic payback. I’m not a superstitious person but I usually end up keeping silent. The other day on the plane home from Ireland, I decided to take a chance:
“You know what’s weird? I haven’t been sick all winter.”
After all, who gets a cold in June? *cough* *cough* So if things are a little slow around here today, that’s why.
Every issue of the New Yorker to
Every issue of the New Yorker to be offered in $100 DVD collection.
Use Morse Texter on your cell phone
Use Morse Texter on your cell phone to tap out text messages using morse code.
Choirboy
Choirboy. “As head boy at a legendary choir school, Lawrence Lessig was repeatedly molested by the charismatic choir director, part of a horrific pattern of child abuse there. Now, as one of America’s most famous lawyers, he’s put his own past on trial to make sure such a thing never happens again.”
If you’re going to see Revenge of
If you’re going to see Revenge of the Sith again, look for these easter eggs. Both the Millennium Falcon and George Lucas have cameo appearances.
Poker and fine dining
I’ve recently begun using PubSub to follow a few topics, people mostly. One of my keyword subscriptions is for “thomas keller”, the noted chef. A new item comes across the wire every day or so, usually from someone who is trying out a recipe from Keller’s Bouchon cookbook.
Then one day I noticed an item about Keller playing in a poker tournament. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I didn’t know he played poker. Must be participating in one of those celebrity tournaments that are all over the cable television.” Over the next few weeks, I discovered that Keller evidently played in a lot of celebrity poker tournaments. “Must be really into poker as a hobby,” I thought, not really reading any particular item very closely.
Then it got ridiculous…there was an item every few days about Keller’s poker playing exploits. How on earth does this guy have time to run his restaurants when he’s playing all this poker? Has this famed perfectionist workaholic chef found a new obsession? Does Thomas Keller have a gambling problem?
And then the obvious truth hit me…wrong Thomas Keller, stupid. Thomas “Thunder” Keller, aged 24, is the youngest person to ever win a World Series of Poker event. Perhaps I can take consolation in that somewhere out there, there’s a young poker fan as confused as I was about his hero “Thunder” shirking his card-playing responsibilities to write a cookbook about French bistro cuisine.
Seattle coffee shop shuts down free wifi
Seattle coffee shop shuts down free wifi on weekends to liven up the place.
Schwarzenegger has road crew dig up pothole
Schwarzenegger has road crew dig up pothole so he can fill it in later.
Two Morse coders beat two text messengers on Leno
Two Morse coders beat two text messengers on Leno. That’s it…I want a phone with one big button with which to tap out messages.
How the Vanity Fair article about Deep Throat came about
How the Vanity Fair article about Deep Throat came about. Sounds like Woodward and Bernstein kinda got the shaft.
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