“Their fiery hair, along with their bold personalities makes Irish brides the perfect choice for men looking for a good time. Ireland women have a spark that is missing from women of other countries. Irish brides can bring excitement into your life and be your best friend, along with your life partner. Rose Brides offers a wide variety of Irish brides. You can find the perfect Ireland mail order bride that you can have fun with. All of the lonely nights in your life will be a thing of the past.”
Grand Theft Auto 5 and Dead Island: Riptide's bloody torso statue were among the ways the media "failed women in 2013," according to a video created by The Representation Group and titled How the Media Failed Women in 2013.
The video has been picked up by media outlets like Time Magazine and serves as a lowlight reel of the year. It juxtaposes the achievements and breakthroughs made in 2013, such as women making it onto the list of Time's most influential people, with instances of sexism in commercials, music videos, video games and on the news.
Almost halfway through the video, a scene from Grand Theft Auto 5 and a news item about Dead Island: Riptide's bloody torso statue make an appearance, making the statement that some video games — like many other forms of media — are part of the problem.
The Representation Group is a non-profit movement that uses film and media to highlight injustices created by gender stereotypes. The group is behind the film Miss Representation, which was selected for the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.
The video can be viewed above. Polygon's review of Grand Theft Auto 5, in which our reviewer details the sexism in the game, can be read here. Polygon wrote a feature exploring the gendering of video games.
References to Hennessey and Courvoisier have been par for the course in rap lyrics since the ‘90s, but how did this exclusively French beverage get so popular in both the songs and in the African American community? Slatehas a fascinating look at the reign of cognac in the states, which started long before Busta Rhymes and P. Diddy recorded “Pass The Courvoisier.” Behold:
"Cognac’s relationship with African-American consumers started later, when black soldiers stationed in southwest France were introduced to it during both world wars. The connection between cognac producers and black consumers was likely bolstered by the arrival of black artists and musicians like Josephine Baker, who filled Paris clubs with jazz and blues during the interwar years, according to Dr. Emory Tolbert, a history professor at Howard University. France appreciated these distinctive art forms before the U.S. did, continuing a French tradition dating back ...
As thousands of Rohingya flee Myanmar to escape religious persecution, a Reuters investigation in three countries has uncovered a clandestine policy to remove Rohingya refugees from Thailand's immigration detention centers and deliver them to human traffickers waiting at sea.
Sometimes Bert and Ernie seem like a couple of wise guys and that's why they've hired actual wise guys, Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa, to play themselves in this very festive Bert and Ernie Christmas Special.
Cyborg card players of the 1920s. Hermann Peschel, seated at right, lost his left arm and his right arm below the elbow in the First World War. The grip of these super-early artificial arms could be controlled by shoulder movements.
BARRINGTON, RI—Calling it the most scandalous cover-up of the past half century, dim-witted conspiracy theorist Daniel Burgess told reporters Thursday he believes the U.S.
Indie supergroup Wild Flag has pretty much broken up. Drummer Janet Weiss told The Skinnythat the quartet “just kinda ran its course,” and that, reasonably, “it’s hard to have a band when you live five hours apart by plane.” Of course, that’s not an official decree that they’ll never play together again, but it feels pretty final. But, hey, that leaves the door open for a Sleater-Kinney reunion!
Wild Flag released just one LP as a group, 2011's pretty good Wild Flag. The band hasn’t really played together since last summer, and each member of the group is busy with its own projects. Carrie Brownstein has Portlandia, and Janet Weiss just released a new record with Quasi. Mary Timony has a new band, Ex Hex, which will release its first record in 2014, and keyboardist Rebecca Cole has been touring with Telekinesis.
An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.
Medium: Damascus steel, ebony, shibuichi (an alloy which can be patinated into a range of subtle muted shades of blue or green, through the use of "rokusho" treatments)
"But with 10 seconds left in the half, we had a moment. It was the single most extraordinary moment in the history of BREAKING MADDEN. In fact, it might be the moment of my entire video-gaming life.
I intercepted one last pitch and ran to the end zone. I watched the replay, and Drew Brees caught my eye, and ... and he looked up at me and smiled.
He smiled. He understands. _He knows._"
Fumbles are glorious, but over the last few decades, they've been on the decline in the NFL. Let's bring them all back. All at once. And let's destroy as many rules of man and God as we need to.
American football historians will tell you that the football, which was once perfectly round, grew oblong and sprouted its points to better accommodate throwing. They're right, of course, but there's another consequence of the modern ball's shape that is so profoundly vindictive, you might think it was intentional. You drop a baseball, it'll just sit there on the ground. You drop a basketball, it's nice enough to bounce up and return to your hand.
You drop a football, and you are punished. It will fall neatly on its side, or punch into the ground on its end, and you have absolutely no means of intelligently predicting which direction it will go. The next time you see a fumble, pay close attention to the limbs of the folks trying to retrieve it. A second ago they were finely-tuned hyper-specialists; now they are clumsy chuckleheads, legs moving one way as the ball looks like it might bounce left, then arms flailing the opposite way as it takes an unfriendly carom.
They are all unfriendly caroms. Even the friendliest possible carom, the one that puts the ball right into the player's hands, often comes as such a surprise that he's unprepared to grab it. He's like the camper lost in the forest without the good sense to stay put; the rescue parties comb the map, square by square, as the camper confidently marches out of the search grid.
The shape of the football is a cruel punishment, sitting deep within its stitches, waiting to be exacted upon the careless and clumsy-handed. Without a dog in the fight, this is often thrilling to behold. Fumbles are wonderful, and I wish they weren't going away.
What if I am an old man and all the fumbles are gone? I don't want to think about an underwater Miami, and neither do I want to think about that.
In this week's episode of BREAKING MADDEN, we'll attempt to reverse this trend. Sunday night, the Saints and Panthers meet in an extraordinary match-up. Both teams are among the very best in the league at not fumbling. This will no longer be true. I'm going to try to engineer as many fumbles as I possibly can, and this is how I'm going to try.
Welcome, everyone, to ball security Hell:
Music: "The Cockfighter" from Scott Walker's 1995 album "Tilt"
I. TURN THE SAINTS AND PANTHERS INTO SUPER-TACKLERS.
Playing, as usual, with Madden NFL 25, I edited the ratings of every single defensive player on both rosters. They're now a perfect 99/99 in the categories of Strength, Tackling, Power moves, Hit power, and Stamina.
I also edited their tendencies to max confidence, consistency, and clutch. I'm unable to tell you how much of a difference these actually make, but I'm leaving no switch un-flipped here. I'm the dummy who buys the equalizer for his stereo and pushes every slider all the way up. Some might tell me I'm missing the point. I'm not. I just want to hear it crackle.
II. FOOL WITH THE GAME'S GLOBAL SETTINGS.
Graciously enough, the game allows us to adjust the overall frequency of fumbles, so of course I took full advantage. I also cranked the "fatigue" setting all the way up with the hope that the ball carriers get tuckered out and lose their grip.
The real-life Saints and Panthers play in the Superdome this week, which simply won't do. Instead, I sent them to play in a generic outdoor stadium and set the weather to "heavy snow."
Oh, and as you probably gathered from the video above, I disabled the "offsides" penalty entirely.
III. CREATE GOD-AWFUL RUNNING BACK COMMITTEES.
The likes of DeAngelo Williams and Pierre Thomas are gone. The Saints and Panthers now both have three running backs apiece, and they are terrible, boasting ratings of absolute zeroes in Carrying, Trucking, Stamina and Strength. They weigh 160 pounds in order to make them easy to tackle, and they're seven feet tall so that there's more of them to tackle.
As usual, I found these running backs on Twitter:
if you would like to be in the next Breaking Madden, please tell a one-tweet story about a time you dropped something
As an aside, I'll have y'all know that reading through my responses is one of the highlights of my week. I received around 900 applications this time around. Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered. In the end, I settled on the following six individuals:
No worries, m'man! It should be noted that the nuclear football contains safeguards that would prevent anyone who wasn't the President to authorize a nuclear missile launch. The same could not have been said of Soviet Russia's nuclear program.
If any of you ever meet a man named Stanislav Petrov, thank him for perhaps saving your life. In 1983, Petrov, a Soviet lieutenant colonel, received a report from his computer that a missile had been fired from the United States. He dismissed it as a computer error. The computer then reported four more American missile launches. Within a couple of moments, he had to decide whether to notify his superiors, who might well have launched a full nuclear retaliatory attack against the States. Under presumably immense pressure, Petrov decided not to inform his superiors, and the reports were later found to have been system errors.
Decades later, an American peace organization gave him a trophy and a thousand bucks.
A popular contention of the Evolutionist set is that Evolution is as easily proven as gravity. It's so not, but they enjoy trotting out that line while browbeating Creationists. This sport of mocking the reasoning and knowledge of people who were raised to believe differently than they were, in sociopolitical environments that are often quite different and poorer than theirs, is known these days as "militant atheism." Two things about militant atheists: first, they're right, and second, I find them insufferable and I don't want to be around them ever.
I poked around to see whether this was a quote or reference from something. It's not! It's original storytelling! Suit up, Plante. Also, for those curious, "Plante" is pronounced by kicking over a wheelbarrow full of Atari Jaguars.
Brandon is suiting up because he's my friend and ex-roommate and I am a favoritist, and also because we share stories of childhood, spilled tomato product, and shame.
It's actually the earliest vivid memory of my life. I was with my mom at a Food 4 Less grocery store in Omaha, Nebraska, which would have put me at about three years old. There was this glass jar of spaghetti sauce on the shelf, and I somehow managed to knock it over. It shattered. Spaghetti sauce was all over the floor. My mom assured me that it would get cleaned up and that I wasn't in huge trouble, but I looked up, and this girl -- who was probably around eight but may as well have been 30 feet tall -- just stood there and frowned, man. For the longest time. Just staring me down.
I don't think I've ever felt such enveloping guilt, shame, or uselessness. The first feeling I ever felt that I still remember was shame. That is not an accident. Shame works.
Rossini, the great opera composer, could recall only two moments of real grief in his life. One, when his mother died. And the second time was out on a boat when a chicken stuffed with truffles fell into the water and was lost.
It was tricky to find the proper perspective for that screenshot above. Just know that Butler is being catapulted seven feet in the air. The sorrows are just beginning for you, sir.
Saints RB: [ERROR]
I selected this person's tweet for admission and put this person in the game, but by the time I went back to write this piece, the tweet had been deleted. I know it was funny, but I cannot remember what it was. For a week themed by the dropping of things, this is perfect.
THE GAME.
For this experiment, I completely disallowed passing plays. Both teams called rushes on every play from scrimmage. As for myself, I played exclusively as the defense -- I feel it's important to note that I never took control of any of the running backs, and am in no way responsible for any of the stuff they did.
Stuff like this.
Chris Plante takes the ball, runs a couple steps ... and then just stands there. I've never seen an AI-controlled ball carrier do this in Madden, but then again, Madden has never seen me arrange a defense like this:
It was like building a Rube Goldberg football device. I'd put the Panthers in singleback formation so that their running back didn't have a blocking back, and then I'd call a pitch right, and then I'd pick up the other controller and move the entire New Orleans defense to the right side.
Nothing could save these running backs from this.
Not even the world's most feckless stiff-arm. It's like Plante was signaling a turn on a bicycle or something. See, this is where the aesthetic benefits of making these guys seven feet tall really shines through. There's just so much to tackle.
Every time, I'd send my defender hurtling toward one of these poor suckers with a well-timed hit stick. I feel confident that it is just about impossible to hit fools any harder in this game than I did.
Injuries were piling up. They suffered broken jaws, herniated disks, and dislocated elbows. By the end of the first quarter, Lana Berry and Josh Butler were the only two backs who were medically able to play. The game's AI actually tried to fix things while I wasn't looking. Without notice, it quietly plugged the real-life fullbacks in at halfback.
NOT ACCEPTABLE. I simply switched to multi-back offensive formations, made the fullback block, and continued about my affairs.
There's that Josh Butler hit I mentioned earlier. He's seven feet tall, and he got about 11 feet in the air. That is perhaps the furthest from the ground that a football player has ever been.
These poor fellas, man. They didn't like this one bit. One one occasion, Brandon took a massive hit, coughed up the ball, and while everyone else either went after it or stayed put ...
... he immediately got up and ran off the field. Wrong sideline, friend!
So hey, remember when I told y'all I turned the "offsides" penalty off?
I really appreciate Cam Newton's arm-flail up there. "That should not be allowed! Oh well. Time to line back up and see whether this will happen an 18th consecutive time."
After abolishing the line of scrimmage, a whole lot of possibilities opened up. I could place one of my guys right behind the quarterback, so that he ran right into me the second he snapped the ball. I could line up 10 yards behind the running back with Controller A, place Controller B on the floor and get a running start with my tackler. And then, like a diabolical sewing machine, I'd snap the ball on offense with my foot just as my guy was ready to lay the wood. It was the saddest of storytelling quilts.
Before long, I was getting pretty good at intercepting pitches.
Thankfully, the game counted those as fumbles, which I was happy to add to the overall tally.
These offside shenanigans were so fun that I had to expand them to the kicking game. It wouldn't let me try to kick on the opponent's hold, which was frankly a little disappointing.
Sometimes Madden will tell me, in no uncertain terms, "no."
"No. You cannot do that. You cannot line up a defender between the kicker and the holder and then tackle the kicker before he gets to the ball. I have spun around in this little box all afternoon and watched as you committed 30,000 penalties, issued felonious quantities of assault, roundly mocked me, and trivialized the fine work that lots and lots of folks put into making a fun video game. But I cannot let you do that."
THE RESULTS.
Since both the Saints and Panthers were on equal footing, I frankly didn't care who won. Under these settings, the game was so extraordinarily time-consuming that I decided to call it quits after a half. (The score was Panthers 23, Saints 9, thanks entirely to defensive touchdowns and safeties.) I simply felt that I had ruined all I could. I mean, you can only burn a village to the ground once, you know?
After one half, this game featured: - Negative-435 total yards - 140 tackles - 144 fumble recovery yards - 30 fumbles
Yes sir/ma'am, we were on pace for 60 fumbles in a single game. That's more than double the amount that any real-life team has over the course of this entire season.
I was satisfied. Madden was thoroughly broken.
But with 10 seconds left in the half, we had a moment. It was the single most extraordinary moment in the history of BREAKING MADDEN. In fact, it might be the moment of my entire video-gaming life.
I intercepted one last pitch and ran to the end zone. I watched the replay, and Drew Brees caught my eye, and ...
Music: "The Cold Part" from Modest Mouse's 2000 album, "The Moon and Antarctica"
"the only way forward for significant iPhone growth is the long slog of winning new customers. I certainly think Apple is up to it, but there are no more home runs."
China Mobile Ltd. has signed a long-awaited deal with Apple Inc. to offer iPhones on its network, a person familiar with the situation said, an arrangement that would give the U.S. technology giant a big boost in the world’s largest mobile market.
The rollout of iPhones on the world’s largest mobile carrier by users, with over 700 million subscribers, is expected to start later this month, around the time of a Dec. 18 China Mobile conference in Guangzhou, according to two people familiar with the carrier’s plans. China Mobile is one of the world’s last major carriers that doesn’t offer the iPhone.
At the Dec. 18 event, China Mobile plans to unveil a brand for its fourth-generation, or 4G, network. China Mobile executives have said they would only begin to sell the iPhone after introducing 4G services. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Wednesday it gave licenses to China Mobile and its smaller rivals to operate the higher-speed mobile networks, clearing one of the last hurdles.
This was all but confirmed back in September when the iPhone got a TD-LTE/TD-SCDMA license, but now we at least know the date.
Three thoughts:
This is a very big deal. Feel free to ignore anyone making snarky comments about China’s average monthly wage being the same as the price of an iPhone 5C. The two pertinent facts about China are that:
There is tremendous income disparity
There are a TON of people
So while many Western markets may have a greater percentage of the population that can afford an iPhone, the absolute number of Chinese who are potential customers is very high as well.
The China Mobile iPhone will be a BIG upgrade – and it will only be available in China. There have been reports that there are as many as 45 million iPhones on China Mobile’s network, and every single one of those runs at EDGE speeds thanks to China Mobile’s use of the aforementioned TD-LTE/TD-SCDMA networking. It’s fair to wonder how much customers value LTE>3G, but LTE>Edge is a massive upgrade indeed; all of those 45 million customers are prime candidates for the China Mobile iPhone.
Moreover, calling it the “China Mobile iPhone” is not an accident. This is a third version of the iPhone that will only be available for sale in China. There will be no gray market undercutting iPhone sales as is the case for China Unicom and China Telecom. At the very least, this fact alone will provide a nice boost to Apple’s quarterly China numbers.
The low-hanging fruit is gone. For several years now any questions about APPL’s growth prospects have had a simple answer: just wait until they add NTT Docomo and especially China Mobile. Well, they now have, and the only way forward for significant iPhone growth is the long slog of winning new customers. I certainly think Apple is up to it, but there are no more home runs.
I don’t know this for a fact – which is why this is a footnote – but I would bet there is a certain measure of prestige associated with having China Mobile – the lead Chinese telecom – as your carrier. In other words, while 50% of China’s mobile subscribers may be on China Mobile, the percentage of “rich” subscribers may be even greater
Built for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montréal, the Parc Olympique remains one of the city's most iconic landmarks in part thanks to its 540-foot-tall, italicized tower that looks over a stadium, which now hosts everything from fairs to exhibitions to social events; a 380,000-square-foot esplanade that is perfect for all kinds of outdoor events; and a sports center with pools for young and old and novice swimmers or professional athletes. As part of an effort that began in 2011 to revitalize the park and increase visitors, Parc Olympique has introduced a new identity designed by Montréal-based lg2boutique.
The 1976 Summer Olympics Montréal logo.
Taking cues from the world of sport, the logo is inspired by both athletic corridors as well as the oval of the Olympic Stadium, the symbol of the Montréal. The circles in the logo and the choice of the four colours in the platform symbolize the different installations in the Olympic Park: the Stadium, Tower, Esplanade and Sports Centre. The entire platform reminds us of the first calling of the Park and helps us relive the Olympic history that took place there.
Provided text
The park itself where you can see the stadium, tower, esplanade and sports centre.Logo in different colors.
It's amazing how the mere use of the word "olympique" and a few concentric circles trigger associations to some of the quintessential Olympic identities, from Tokyo 1964 to Munich 1972 to Mexico 1968 to the subject at hand, Montréal 1976. For the Parc Olympique lg2boutique has only used four circles instead of the Olympics five both to represent the four attractions of the park and, I am guessing here, to skirt the ire of the IOC who keep the rings locked with a chastity belt. The resulting logo is as simple as you can get before verging into simplistic, thanks to a solid execution and a contrasting relationship between the circles and the typography plus a beautiful color palette.
In application this is non-stop awesome, from the secondary inline typography to the blocks of solid color (not a hint of white on those either!) to the restraint shown in not plastering concentric circles everywhere. Overall, there is a really high level of sophistication in this identity.
Magic: The Gathering is a game that, at the tournament level, has no small measure of self-seriousness. A little over a decade ago, judges at professional tour matches decided to carve out a space for more casual players. At the outset, they were just looking to unwind after long days of micromanaging the rules of this complex and expansive collectible card game. (Even the official “basic rulebook” is 36 pages long.) And since they like Magic, “unwinding” meant playing more Magic. That day, the “Elder Dragon Highlander” format was born.
The judges were probably sick of seeing the same cards over and over—at tourneys, where winning is obviously the paramount goal, players will stick with tested strategies when they build their 60-card decks rather than experimenting or exhibiting too much individual flair. So in this after-hours session, the judges eschewed the usual hyper-competitive, hyper-calculated approach and built behemoth 100-card ...
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/wgbdvs Check the Kobe video right here - http://bit.ly/ImPa2s This was a sponsored video. Twitter - https://twitter.com/Bi...
Microsoft is unveiling an aggressive plan today to combat government surveillance. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, says the software giant shares the concerns of its own customers about government surveillance of the internet, and is planning to address them with improved encryption, legal protections, and source code transparency. In a detailed blog post, Smith labels government snooping an "advanced persistent threat," a term generally used to describe teams of hackers that coordinate cyberattacks for foreign governments.
Microsoft’s response follows recent revelations that the NSA has been secretly collecting private user data from various tech giants. The Washington Post revealed details of a program, known as MUSCULAR, that the NSA uses to tap into networks owned by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to obtain user information. Documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed a number of Microsoft-owned services have been targeted by the NSA, allegations Microsoft says it’s "especially alarmed" at.
Server-to-server encryption planned for end of 2014
The NSA’s methods of targeting weaknesses in encryption between servers and data centers have forced Google and Yahoo to step up their own efforts to prevent NSA snooping. Microsoft is following a similar path, promising to pursue an engineering effort across the firm to strengthen its encryption processes. Smith notes that all of Microsoft’s "key platform, productivity and communications services" will encrypt customer data with strong 2048-bit encryption as it moves between data centers. While Smith doesn’t provide a full list of Microsoft’s key services, Outlook.com, Office 365, SkyDrive, and Windows Azure are all used as examples. Skype is the notable exception from the small list of examples, despite allegations that the communications service had been integrated into an NSA PRISM surveillance program previously.
Microsoft says it will also encrypt data moving between its servers and customers by default. The server-to-server and customer encryption plans will both be in place fully by the end of 2014, and Microsoft is also working with competitors to ensure data travelling between services, such as email communications, is protected in future. Some services, such as Office 365 and Outlook.com, already encrypt data travelling between Microsoft and customers, and Microsoft is also encrypting Windows Azure storage as it’s moved between servers as well as most Office 365 workloads. "In other areas we’re accelerating plans to provide encryption," says Smith. While Microsoft’s promises to encrypt data seem like an obvious oversight in hindsight, technology firms have avoided such protections previously due to their complexity and performance impact on server operations.
Microsoft will challenge gag orders in court
Microsoft is also tackling NSA snooping with new legal protections. Smith says Microsoft is "committed to notifying business and government customers if we receive legal orders related to their data." While gag orders prohibit Microsoft from doing this on occasions, Smith notes the company will challenge them in court. "We’ve done this successfully in the past, and we will continue to do so in the future to preserve our ability to alert customers when governments seek to obtain their data." Microsoft is also pushing for government agencies to obtain data directly from its business customers, rather than securing it through requests to access it through the various cloud services the firm operates.
While Microsoft has just opened a new Cybercrime Center to allow third-party security researches to work alongside its employees, the software maker is also opening "transparency centers" that will allow foreign governments to inspect the software code Microsoft produces. The centers will be opened in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, allowing third parties to confirm there are no back doors in Microsoft’s software source code. "We all want to live in a world that is safe and secure, but we also want to live in a country that is protected by the Constitution," explains Smith. "We want to ensure that important questions about government access are decided by courts rather than dictated by technological might."
the perpetual surprise of people who realize they don't have a way to just fucking render markdown already
I have some Markdown files that I’m editing and I wanted to generate a folder of HTML files. I looked around on my machine and was surprised I didn’t have anything at hand for that already.
So I wrote a script. I’m a Ruby novice, and it’s quite likely that my Ruby is weird in a dozen different ways. But the script still might be useful to you. (The script requires the RDiscount gem.)
'Amazon, particularly in the holiday season, is susceptible to horror stories about work conditions in their distribution centers, and this helps blunt that'
great
In case you missed it – and how could you? – this happened:
While professional skeptics have been skeptical, the sheer audaciousness – and frankly, awesomeness – of Amazon’s drone proposal has attracted a near unanimous outpouring of amazement and adulation, at least if my Twitter feed is to be believed.
It truly is a masterstroke, and perhaps the purest expression of the unbounded vision Jeff Bezos has. The benefits are manifold (even if the drones never actually come to pass):
Positive PR: To say that the drone story generated positive PR is a dramatic understatement. Amazon, particularly in the holiday season, is susceptible to horror stories about work conditions in their distribution centers, and this helps blunt that
Increased Sales: The happy coincidence of the drone reveal happening the day before “Cyber Monday” was certainly noted by the aforementioned skeptics, and there is likely some truth to the claim that Amazon saw great benefit in being front-of-mind for consumers planning holiday purchases
Improved stock performance: While Amazon’s stock is up over the last few days, the added justification of their insane P/E ratio is the more important takeaway. The most elementary valuation of a stock is the sum of all future (discounted) growth, and talking about drones leaves open the possibility that Amazon’s business isn’t even close to being fully fleshed out
Improved morale: My timeline, both on Twitter and Facebook, is full of Amazon employees simply in love with their company. That translates into that many longer hours at too little pay during the most difficult month of the year
Competitive pressure: In this case I’m referring to the pressure Amazon is putting on not just its competitors, but also its partners. Small surprise that UPS suddenly announced that they too are looking into drones. This helps keep them on their toes.
And yet, vision that moves the needle like this drone announcement is exceedingly difficult to pull off for a few reasons:
Vision must be aligned to the company’s mission: What is great about the drones is that they actually make a lot of sense given Amazon’s core business model. As I wrote previously in Amazon’s Dominant Strategy:
Jeff Bezos’ critical insight when he founded Amazon was that the Internet allowed a retailer to have both (effectively) infinite selection AND lower prices (because you didn’t need to maintain a limited-in-size-yet-expensive-due-to-location retail space). In other words, Amazon was founded on the premise of there being a dominant strategy: better selection AND better prices – the exact same as Sears.
And, just like Sears, Amazon has added convenience. No, they haven’t opened retail stores; instead they created the amazing Amazon Prime. Prime is the reason my family made 173 separate orders from Amazon in 2012: it’s so much more convenient to order toothpaste the moment you open the last tube than it is to make a trip to Target. And Amazon is pushing even further down this route, testing same-day delivery in multiple markets for everything from said toothpaste to TVs to tomatoes.
And, now, potential 30-minute delivery
Vision must be surprising, yet (just) plausible: Vision that is totally predictable is likely attainable, but doesn’t garner any of the aforementioned benefits. On the other hand, vision that simply isn’t possible destroys credibility.
Amazon Prime Air came out of nowhere, and yet, if you squint your eyes just enough, you can see it coming true. Talking about marginally decreasing page load times may be impactful (and you can be sure Amazon is focused on this), but it doesn’t exactly inspire
Vision must come from a trustworthy source who has done it before: Companies that regularly promise a fantastic new future and then fail to deliver lose vision because they lose credibility. This isn’t an issue for Amazon:
Amazon sells books online: "That'll never work"
Amazon rents computing: "But they sell books"
Amazon ships via drones: "Screw it, why not"
The benefits of vision are clear, and yet, given the necessary conditions, vision that resonates is quite rare. Just take a look at some of the largest consumer technology companies (in order):
Amazon: Still laser-focused on completely owning shopping. Infinite selection, lowest prices, and, in the future, immediate delivery
Google: Still laser-focused on organizing all of the world’s information, even if it makes folks uncomfortable that that information includes you. Things like self-driving cars and Google Glass fit the vision criteria nicely as well
Apple: Still laser-focused on iterating great products that people love to use, but there are reasons for concern, particularly when it comes to the iPad. That’s not a surprise, actually: the iPhone and the Mac are operating in defined markets; while the iPad is defining a new one, and is thus more dependent on vision. This is precisely why I find recent iPad marketing so concerning; if Apple isn’t getting that right, is it for lack of vision? And if so, what does that mean for future products?
Facebook: The challenge for Facebook is not a lack of vision – clearly, they wish to connect everyone – but rather, that they have just about accomplished their founding goal. What’s next?
Twitter: Twitter is in many ways the exception that proves the rule. It’s not clear what vision, if any, the current management team has, but the product is so good that it hardly matters. Except, of course, it does, particularly now that Twitter is a public company. Will they maximize their potential?
Microsoft: Microsoft suffers from a more advanced case of Facebook’s malady: they have long since accomplished their goal of a PC on every desk. From Skating Towards the Goal:
But again, what is the new goal? What is Microsoft’s reason for being? What ends are achieved by a massive conglomerate spanning CRM systems to database software to gaming consoles? Microsoft, perhaps more than any other company, needs focus, vision, and a problem worth solving. To be sure, that falls on the next CEO, but the bigger question that must be asked is if such a problem – one suitable for the unwieldy behemoth that is Microsoft – even exists.
This uncertainty is why Microsoft’s impressive R&D arm is still rather irrelevant. How can you create something aligned to the company’s mission when said mission is so murky? And, of course, this is compounded by Microsoft’s tendency to overpromise and underdeliver
Yahoo: Marissa Mayer is nice, but does anyone yet know what the point is? At least Microsoft’s core business – enterprise software – seems more stable than Yahoo’s display advertising.
I could go on for quite some time, particularly with earlier stage companies, but the bigger conclusion is that vision at a minimum seems correlated with relevance on one hand, and stock performance on the other.
Unfortunately, by definition, it’s not something that can be learned through “best practices.”
"Miller worked with the teams at Plum and Haven in the East Bay to extend what they do there: make all the liqueurs, bitters, syrups, and other ingredients in-house. The menu is full of them though the homemade-aspect isn't highlighted. ... The Reviver #9 is a spin on a Corpse Reviver with every ingredient made in-house except for the gin. Homemade Malort, Curacao, and Lillet with lemon and gin. The drink is really bitter-forward and complex. ... Jack's Rose is a take on the Jack Rose of course, made with American grape brandy, house creme de rose, and lemon. There's no additional sweetener so they rim half the glass with dehydrated lemon sugar."
a lot of cryo-vaccing which, whatever, but the simpler ones with house-made ingredients are yes and please and thank you
The newest restaurant from the Daniel Patterson Group is located in San Francisco but named Alta CA. It should be in soft opening mode any day now. The bar manager for the cocktail program is Ashley Miller, most recently of Hakkasan and TRES before that. Miller has put together a drink program highlighting seasonality, which is nice to find in San Francisco again with most bars focusing on the brown, the bitter, and the stirred. Miller worked with the teams at Plum and Haven in the East Bay to extend what they do there: make all the liqueurs, bitters, syrups, and other ingredients in-house. The menu is full of them though the homemade-aspect isn't highlighted. Not the final menu. I started my tasting with a sample of the delicious beet ginger beer (non-alcoholic), which is carbonated in a siphon. Miller says she plans to serve different flavors of it throughout the year. Then it was onto the booze. We went from lighter to heavier drinks and I was able to taste everything except the Julep. I started with the Doc Holiday, a Moscow Mule variation with Seven Stills vodka that was cryo-vacced (sp?) with huckleberries, plus lime and ginger beer....
Chino is a Capuchin monkey who has been living at the International Primate Rescue sanctuary since his previous owner brought him there three years ago.
