December 3rd, 2009
It’s all about “value.” What is value, I mean, apart from what someone is willing to pay for something? Because if YouTube, which loses almost $500 million a year was worth $1.6 billion three years ago. And Facebook, which makes no money whatsoever, turned down an offer of $8 billion and is valued at $10 billion. Then how can NBC/Universal be worth only around $14 billion?
Forget mere (mere!) profitability. Which entity do you think has a better chance of even existing in 10 years, NBC/Universal or Facebook?
0 comments"Think about the future."
December 3rd, 2009
And so they have over at the New Atlantis. A great new blog on futurism and the transhumanist project called Futurisms. Highly recommended.
(Also, a cookie for the first one to place that line.)
0 commentsAirport Bars
December 3rd, 2009
Galley Friend C.L. sends a link to a fantastic blog about airport bars. In particular, don’t miss the comments, which tend toward the brilliant. Sample awesome:
0 commentsDrinking at the airport is usually like being a pigeon that keeps whappin’ itself into a closed window. I’m not 100 percent sure what I mean by that, but I do know that it’s especially true at the Fox & Firkin. If you like the whole idea of a traditional English pub–and sweet Lordy in heaven, I do–then you will regard this bar as a personal insult. Let’s just start with the fact that you’re in Dulles, where Stalinist realism had its last big hurrah, so the atmosphere isn’t exactly Shropshire-on-Buggery.
Brief Afghani Aside
December 3rd, 2009
The people who work my side of the street seem to be reasonably happy with President Obama’s decision on Afghanistan: his ordering of more troops into the theater while simultaneously setting a withdrawal date. The reason these folks are happy, I think, is because they believe that the troops are what matter and that Obama included the withdrawal date in his plan simply to give himself cover from the left. For the most part, the left–which is largely unhappy with Obama’s decision–seems to agree with the right’s reading on Obama.
Doesn’t it seem just as plausible that in reality, the most salient part of the president’s plan is the withdrawal date, and that the increase in troops is simply included to give him cover from the right?
0 commentsTiger Beat
December 2nd, 2009
About that little Tiger Woods thingie, there’s more. Lots more. This looks like a Cat V super story.
Update: Woods has now issued a Clinton-esque statement acknowledging personal failings and asking for privacy, etc. under the strange header “Tiger comments on current events.”
“Current events”? Like Obama’s Afghanistan speech? Or Friday’s coming unemployment numbers?
In any event, it seems like another ill-advised statement. If Woods has done nothing illegal–and there’s no indication that he has–then he should simply clam up and refuse to speak about any of this, ever. Let the tabloids do what they do. You can’t control them. Take your lumps. But refuse to participate and make clear to the mainstream media that you will not–not tomorrow, not three years from now–ever talk about this stuff. Private is private and while they’re free to do what they want, you won’t play along.
The problem is, by coming out and trying to promulgate his own series of events from the outset, that sort of principled hard line might not be available to him in any plausible way.
0 commentsHot Coffee!!!
December 1st, 2009
Oh, how quaint Grand Theft Auto now seems.
Seriously. Watch the clip. You’ll think it’s parody.
0 commentsA Contrarian View on Twilight: New Moon
December 1st, 2009
Galley Friend Mike Russell has some surprisingly nice–albeit measured–words for New Moon. At first, I was a little surprised, given the general disparagement of the movie, but on further reflection maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised: After all, it has a script not rushed out because of a looming strike and it’s directed by Chris Weitz.
By the by, if, in 2002, someone had told you that the director of the really spare and wonderful About a Boy would follow his smart little movie up with two giant, CGI-heavy, and poorly regarded kid/teen movies, would you have believed them? Just a reminder of what a funny place Hollywood is.
0 commentsCrime Blotter
December 1st, 2009
Someone is stealing David Bradley’s money again.
0 comments
