Thursday, November 3, 2011
Blueprint for a New American Home
by S. Mitra Kalita, WSJ
The new American home is taking shape.
Tough recent years are leaving their mark on home design, just as the housing-boom years sent square footage soaring and stamped a distinctive "McMansion" style on neighborhoods across the country. Big home builders, smaller architecture firms and even bathroom-fixture makers are adjusting to the shift toward more practical features and away from the aspirational.
The new styles are showing up in the relatively few new homes under construction as well as in the remodeling of older homes. More people are renovating as they stay put longer.
Disappearing are formal living and dining rooms, two-story foyers and second staircases. There are fewer places to stick grandfather clocks, wedding china and bowls of glass balls. Plenty of space is opening up for shoes and sports equipment, schoolwork and textbooks, wrapping paper and scrapbooking supplies. And maybe even an elevator shaft, just in case Grandma moves in or Mom and Dad stay for ages.
That doesn't necessarily mean smaller homes, though median square footage of 2,169 last year remained below the peak of 2,277 hit in 2007, according to 2010 census data.
"The spaces where everybody hangs out and that they use every day are the spaces that families actually want a little bit larger," says Tony Weremeichik, a principal at architectural-design firm Canin Associates in Orlando, Fla. "Buyers are asking, 'Why spend dollars on space I am not going to use?' There's no need for drama anymore."
"Value and need are driving the home purchase decisions, not the potential investment value," says Stephen Melman, an economist for the National Association of Home Builders.
So the soaring cathedral ceiling is out. And it's got company. Here are some fading features and the new designs that are replacing them:
Read more:
Getty Images (foyer); AJ Mast for The Wall Street Joural (2); iStockphoto (nook); Sandy Huffaker for The Wall Street Journal (2)
The new American home is taking shape.
Tough recent years are leaving their mark on home design, just as the housing-boom years sent square footage soaring and stamped a distinctive "McMansion" style on neighborhoods across the country. Big home builders, smaller architecture firms and even bathroom-fixture makers are adjusting to the shift toward more practical features and away from the aspirational.
The new styles are showing up in the relatively few new homes under construction as well as in the remodeling of older homes. More people are renovating as they stay put longer.Disappearing are formal living and dining rooms, two-story foyers and second staircases. There are fewer places to stick grandfather clocks, wedding china and bowls of glass balls. Plenty of space is opening up for shoes and sports equipment, schoolwork and textbooks, wrapping paper and scrapbooking supplies. And maybe even an elevator shaft, just in case Grandma moves in or Mom and Dad stay for ages.
That doesn't necessarily mean smaller homes, though median square footage of 2,169 last year remained below the peak of 2,277 hit in 2007, according to 2010 census data.
"The spaces where everybody hangs out and that they use every day are the spaces that families actually want a little bit larger," says Tony Weremeichik, a principal at architectural-design firm Canin Associates in Orlando, Fla. "Buyers are asking, 'Why spend dollars on space I am not going to use?' There's no need for drama anymore."
"Value and need are driving the home purchase decisions, not the potential investment value," says Stephen Melman, an economist for the National Association of Home Builders.
So the soaring cathedral ceiling is out. And it's got company. Here are some fading features and the new designs that are replacing them:
Read more:
Getty Images (foyer); AJ Mast for The Wall Street Joural (2); iStockphoto (nook); Sandy Huffaker for The Wall Street Journal (2)
The Once and Future Way to Run
by Christopher McDougall, NY Times
[excerpt:]
It’s what Alberto Salazar, for a while the world’s dominant marathoner and now the coach of some of America’s top distance runners, describes in mythical-questing terms as the “one best way” — not the fastest, necessarily, but the best: an injury-proof, evolution-tested way to place one foot on the ground and pick it up before the other comes down. Left, right, repeat; that’s all running really is, a movement so natural that babies learn it the first time they rise to their feet. Yet sometime between childhood and adulthood — and between the dawn of our species and today — most of us lose the knack. (...)
Two years ago, in my book, “Born to Run,” I suggested we don’t need smarter shoes; we need smarter feet. I’d gone into Mexico’s Copper Canyon to learn from the Tarahumara Indians, who tackle 100-mile races well into their geriatric years. I was a broken-down, middle-aged, ex-runner when I arrived. Nine months later, I was transformed. After getting rid of my cushioned shoes and adopting the Tarahumaras’ whisper-soft stride, I was able to join them for a 50-mile race through the canyons. I haven’t lost a day of running to injury since. (...)
The only way to halt the running-injury epidemic, it seems, is to find a simple, foolproof method to relearn what the Tarahumara never forgot. A one best way to the one best way.
Earlier this year, I may have found it. I was leafing through the back of an out-of-print book, a collection of runners’ biographies called “The Five Kings of Distance,” when I came across a three-page essay from 1908 titled “W. G. George’s Own Account From the 100-Up Exercise.” According to legend, this single drill turned a 16-year-old with almost no running experience into the foremost racer of his day.
I read George’s words: “By its constant practice and regular use alone, I have myself established many records on the running path and won more amateur track-championships than any other individual.” And it was safe, George said: the 100-Up is “incapable of harm when practiced discreetly.”
Could it be that simple? That day, I began experimenting on myself.
Read more:
[excerpt:]
It’s what Alberto Salazar, for a while the world’s dominant marathoner and now the coach of some of America’s top distance runners, describes in mythical-questing terms as the “one best way” — not the fastest, necessarily, but the best: an injury-proof, evolution-tested way to place one foot on the ground and pick it up before the other comes down. Left, right, repeat; that’s all running really is, a movement so natural that babies learn it the first time they rise to their feet. Yet sometime between childhood and adulthood — and between the dawn of our species and today — most of us lose the knack. (...)
Two years ago, in my book, “Born to Run,” I suggested we don’t need smarter shoes; we need smarter feet. I’d gone into Mexico’s Copper Canyon to learn from the Tarahumara Indians, who tackle 100-mile races well into their geriatric years. I was a broken-down, middle-aged, ex-runner when I arrived. Nine months later, I was transformed. After getting rid of my cushioned shoes and adopting the Tarahumaras’ whisper-soft stride, I was able to join them for a 50-mile race through the canyons. I haven’t lost a day of running to injury since. (...)The only way to halt the running-injury epidemic, it seems, is to find a simple, foolproof method to relearn what the Tarahumara never forgot. A one best way to the one best way.
Earlier this year, I may have found it. I was leafing through the back of an out-of-print book, a collection of runners’ biographies called “The Five Kings of Distance,” when I came across a three-page essay from 1908 titled “W. G. George’s Own Account From the 100-Up Exercise.” According to legend, this single drill turned a 16-year-old with almost no running experience into the foremost racer of his day.
I read George’s words: “By its constant practice and regular use alone, I have myself established many records on the running path and won more amateur track-championships than any other individual.” And it was safe, George said: the 100-Up is “incapable of harm when practiced discreetly.”
Could it be that simple? That day, I began experimenting on myself.
Read more:
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Tech Savvy: Rachel Sterne
[ed. A profile piece, but also interesting to hear about the different approaches New York is taking to digitally engage four million citizens.]
by Adam Green, Vogue
In late August, while millions of New Yorkers rode out Hurricane Irene with bottled water, flashlights, and transistor radios, Rachel Sterne, the Bloomberg administration’s 28-year-old chief digital officer, was hunkered down in City Hall with a MacBook Pro, a BlackBerry, and an iPhone. As wind and rain lashed the five boroughs, Sterne was involved in a real-time experiment in how a municipal government networks with its citizens during a natural disaster. It involved coordinating the city’s use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, Crowdmap, and its own Web site and data mine to send out alerts (“Stay indoors”), provide maps with citizen-submitted photos and reports (downed trees, power outages), and answer questions spreading through the digital sphere (No, Rikers Island is not in an evacuation zone; yes, you can take your pets to shelters). “It was a really exciting case study of how technology can exponentially increase our reach during an emergency,” Sterne says. “I could totally nerd out talking about it forever.”
Mayor Bloomberg named Sterne the city’s head nerd back in January, making New York the only U.S. metropolis with a chief digital officer, joining London and inspiring Rio de Janeiro to follow suit. “Right now, our society—the way that we get information, consume culture, have relationships—is being disrupted, which is just a trendy way of saying ‘completely transformed,’ ” she says. “And if we want government to stay relevant, we need to harness the technologies that are changing the way people live.” The news of Sterne’s appointment caused an online frenzy and instantly transformed her from a well-liked, well-connected member of the New York digerati with a short but impressive résumé—founder of her own citizen-journalism site; TED Talks and Aspen Institute pundit; adjunct professor at Columbia Business School—into the face of a new era in digital governance.
Read more:
Photographed by Sebastian Kim
The First Kiss
The decision to kiss for the first time
is the most crucial in any love story.
It changes the relationship of two people
much more strongly
than even the final surrender;
because this kiss already has within it that surrender.
….. Emil Ludwig
via:
What was the Best Time and Place to Be Alive?
[ed. Interesting thought experiment (and history lesson).]
If you could travel back in time, what would be your destination? We put the question to a group of contributors and guests, starting with the historian Patrick Dillon ...
From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, November/December 2011
Making his own choice of the best time to have been alive, Edward Gibbon, author of “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (1776-89), didn’t have much doubt. “If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.” This was the second century AD, when Rome’s “five good emperors”, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, brought a peace and stability that western Europe would—in Gibbon’s view—never see again. But maybe it was an easier question then. Gibbon was white, smart and male. He could walk from the right end of one hierarchical society into another without a tremor. Nor was he sacrificing much technology to do so. Barring gunpowder and the printing press, his world and Hadrian’s were close enough to let Gibbon swap breeches for a toga and barely notice the difference.
For us, the question needs a little more thought. Anyone who dislikes pain, prefers their operations under anaesthetic, and has no wish to die of smallpox, might well choose to live now. We can balance that by awarding ourselves perpetual good health, but it’s harder to level the playing field when it comes to gender. Not many modern women, however frustrated with their lot, would choose to go back to long skirts, tight corsets and a general assumption that they are stupid. The same may apply to any European who isn’t white, and to anyone in the less affluent three-quarters of society. My children once went on a school trip to Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington’s home. I thought they were going to learn about lords; instead they were taught what it was like being a servant. Transport most of us to ancient Rome and we’ll find ourselves in a poorhouse or slave barracks. To give our question a chance, we have to assume that we can do our time travel, if not first-class, then in premium economy, switching genders if we feel like it, to land somewhere moderately comfortable.
This isn’t a question about technology, where the present will always trump the past. It’s about lifestyle and ideas, people and manners, things that ebb and flow. Armed with a passport to the good life in a time and place of our choice, not many will pass on the journey. Culture-vultures will book their seats in Shakespeare’s Globe in 1599 or the Cotton Club, Harlem, in the 1920s. Hero-worshippers will queue up to watch Michelangelo chisel stone in 1501 or Genghis Khan ride into battle in 1206. Epicures, the most prudent time-travellers, will follow Gibbon to Rome, or time their birth to dodge a call-up for the world wars and surf the Pax Americana.
Read more:
Related:
If you could travel back in time, what would be your destination? We put the question to a group of contributors and guests, starting with the historian Patrick Dillon ...
From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, November/December 2011Making his own choice of the best time to have been alive, Edward Gibbon, author of “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (1776-89), didn’t have much doubt. “If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.” This was the second century AD, when Rome’s “five good emperors”, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, brought a peace and stability that western Europe would—in Gibbon’s view—never see again. But maybe it was an easier question then. Gibbon was white, smart and male. He could walk from the right end of one hierarchical society into another without a tremor. Nor was he sacrificing much technology to do so. Barring gunpowder and the printing press, his world and Hadrian’s were close enough to let Gibbon swap breeches for a toga and barely notice the difference.
For us, the question needs a little more thought. Anyone who dislikes pain, prefers their operations under anaesthetic, and has no wish to die of smallpox, might well choose to live now. We can balance that by awarding ourselves perpetual good health, but it’s harder to level the playing field when it comes to gender. Not many modern women, however frustrated with their lot, would choose to go back to long skirts, tight corsets and a general assumption that they are stupid. The same may apply to any European who isn’t white, and to anyone in the less affluent three-quarters of society. My children once went on a school trip to Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington’s home. I thought they were going to learn about lords; instead they were taught what it was like being a servant. Transport most of us to ancient Rome and we’ll find ourselves in a poorhouse or slave barracks. To give our question a chance, we have to assume that we can do our time travel, if not first-class, then in premium economy, switching genders if we feel like it, to land somewhere moderately comfortable.
This isn’t a question about technology, where the present will always trump the past. It’s about lifestyle and ideas, people and manners, things that ebb and flow. Armed with a passport to the good life in a time and place of our choice, not many will pass on the journey. Culture-vultures will book their seats in Shakespeare’s Globe in 1599 or the Cotton Club, Harlem, in the 1920s. Hero-worshippers will queue up to watch Michelangelo chisel stone in 1501 or Genghis Khan ride into battle in 1206. Epicures, the most prudent time-travellers, will follow Gibbon to Rome, or time their birth to dodge a call-up for the world wars and surf the Pax Americana.
Read more:
Related:
THE BEST TIME, AND PLACE, TO BE ALIVE: JAPAN, 784-1185AD
THE BEST TIME, AND PLACE, TO BE ALIVE: AMERICA, C.15,000BC
THE BEST TIME, AND PLACE, TO BE ALIVE: RUSSIA, 1870S-1900S
One Minute Physics: Schrödinger's Cat
[No cats were harmed in the making of this video.]
Schrödinger intended his thought experiment as a discussion of the EPR article-named after its authors Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen—in 1935.[1] The EPR article highlighted the strange nature of quantum entanglement, which is a characteristic of a quantum state that is a combination of the states of two systems (for example, two subatomic particles), that once interacted but were then separated and are not each in a definite state. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the state of the two systems undergoes collapse into a definite state when one of the systems is measured. Schrödinger and Einstein exchanged letters about Einstein's EPR article, in the course of which Einstein pointed out that the state of an unstable keg of gunpowder will, after a while, contain a superposition of both exploded and unexploded states.
To further illustrate the putative incompleteness of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger describes how one could, in principle, transpose the superposition of an atom to large-scale systems of a live and dead cat by coupling cat and atom with the help of a diabolical mechanism. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, wherein the cat's life or death depended on the state of a subatomic particle. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse, the paradox is a classic reductio ad absurdum.[2] The thought experiment illustrates the counterintuitiveness of quantum mechanics and the mathematics necessary to describe quantum states. Intended as a critique of just the Copenhagen interpretation (the prevailing orthodoxy in 1935), the Schrödinger cat thought experiment remains a typical touchstone for all interpretations of quantum mechanics. Physicists often use the way each interpretation deals with Schrödinger's cat as a way of illustrating and comparing the particular features, strengths, and weaknesses of each interpretation.
- Wikipedia
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Lost Art of Buying From a Butcher
by Florence Fabricant, NY Times
Patrick Martins summed it up in a single slab: pork belly. “That’s the cut that people ask for the most,” he said. “Evidently they can’t find it in their supermarkets.”
No, they cannot. And that is just one reason why Mr. Martins opened a real butcher shop on the Lower East Side last month.
He’s not the only one. Butcher shops, once a vestige, are opening in many New York neighborhoods where buying meat has often been reduced to staring down a sea of plastic-wrapped foam trays. These new stores offer much more. To make the most of them, though, a basic understanding of the butcher’s craft is essential.
Buying some pork or most other meats is not as simple or as cheap as picking out an apple. Do not tweet your friends for advice; consult the butcher.
“Here, you can have a conversation with a human being, and I can tell you that every transaction is different,” said Brent Young, one of the butchers at the Meat Hook in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This no-frills workroom in the shadowy rumble of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway goes a long way to dispel the notion that a dedicated butcher shop is an elitist venue for those times you want a prime T-bone to impress the in-laws.
How you plan to cook the meat determines the cut. And the quantity for a serving will be based how it will be trimmed, and what else you are serving. If the meat you think you want is not available or too expensive, the butcher can offer alternatives.
“We can offer cuts you never see in a supermarket,” Mr. Young said. “Cheap cuts. Customers on a budget come in asking for ideas, they want other options.” To make the most of the animals, the Meat Hook’s butchers went to France for two weeks last spring to learn how butchering is done there, and discovered little portions of succulence that could be ferreted out of parts of a steer, like the merlot steak and the oyster steak. (Remember that it was the French who popularized the hanger steak, which now is sometimes sold in better supermarkets.)
For those whose appetites stray beyond steak, a culinary adventure in the way of oxtails, marrow bones, kidneys, pig’s ears and trotters starts with the butcher, usually after a phone call in advance. You also need a butcher for some less exotic items like brisket that is fattier and juicier than the more easily found lean first cut.
“Our restaurant features nose-to-tail dining so we break down whole animals,” said Christian Pappanicholas, an owner of Cannibal, the new butcher attached to Resto, a meat-centric restaurant in Murray Hill, in Manhattan. “And if a customer wants to buy certain cuts they’ve had here to cook at home, like lamb neck, we can sell it.”
It’s a major turnaround in the way meat has been bought and sold. Some 40 or so years ago, beef was shipped to New York’s meatpacking district in the form of whole carcasses, or “rail beef.” Then the big Midwestern packing houses started shipping what was called “boxed beef,” primal cuts packed in Cryovac. Now, butchers like those at Cannibal are carving whole animals again, and not just for beef.
Read more:
Photo: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Know your cuts:
No, they cannot. And that is just one reason why Mr. Martins opened a real butcher shop on the Lower East Side last month.
He’s not the only one. Butcher shops, once a vestige, are opening in many New York neighborhoods where buying meat has often been reduced to staring down a sea of plastic-wrapped foam trays. These new stores offer much more. To make the most of them, though, a basic understanding of the butcher’s craft is essential.
Buying some pork or most other meats is not as simple or as cheap as picking out an apple. Do not tweet your friends for advice; consult the butcher.
“Here, you can have a conversation with a human being, and I can tell you that every transaction is different,” said Brent Young, one of the butchers at the Meat Hook in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This no-frills workroom in the shadowy rumble of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway goes a long way to dispel the notion that a dedicated butcher shop is an elitist venue for those times you want a prime T-bone to impress the in-laws.
How you plan to cook the meat determines the cut. And the quantity for a serving will be based how it will be trimmed, and what else you are serving. If the meat you think you want is not available or too expensive, the butcher can offer alternatives.
“We can offer cuts you never see in a supermarket,” Mr. Young said. “Cheap cuts. Customers on a budget come in asking for ideas, they want other options.” To make the most of the animals, the Meat Hook’s butchers went to France for two weeks last spring to learn how butchering is done there, and discovered little portions of succulence that could be ferreted out of parts of a steer, like the merlot steak and the oyster steak. (Remember that it was the French who popularized the hanger steak, which now is sometimes sold in better supermarkets.)
For those whose appetites stray beyond steak, a culinary adventure in the way of oxtails, marrow bones, kidneys, pig’s ears and trotters starts with the butcher, usually after a phone call in advance. You also need a butcher for some less exotic items like brisket that is fattier and juicier than the more easily found lean first cut.
“Our restaurant features nose-to-tail dining so we break down whole animals,” said Christian Pappanicholas, an owner of Cannibal, the new butcher attached to Resto, a meat-centric restaurant in Murray Hill, in Manhattan. “And if a customer wants to buy certain cuts they’ve had here to cook at home, like lamb neck, we can sell it.”
It’s a major turnaround in the way meat has been bought and sold. Some 40 or so years ago, beef was shipped to New York’s meatpacking district in the form of whole carcasses, or “rail beef.” Then the big Midwestern packing houses started shipping what was called “boxed beef,” primal cuts packed in Cryovac. Now, butchers like those at Cannibal are carving whole animals again, and not just for beef.
Read more:
Photo: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Know your cuts:
The Inside Story of How Microsoft Killed Its Courier Tablet
by Jay Greene, CNET
Steve Ballmer had a dilemma. He had two groups at Microsoft pursuing competing visions for tablet computers.
One group, led by Xbox godfather J Allard, was pushing for a sleek, two-screen tablet called the Courier that users controlled with their finger or a pen. But it had a problem: It was running a modified version of Windows.
That ran headlong into the vision of tablet computing laid out by Steven Sinofsky, the head of Microsoft's Windows division. Sinofsky was wary of any product--let alone one from inside Microsoft's walls--that threatened the foundation of Microsoft's flagship operating system. But Sinofsky's tablet-friendly version of Windows was more than two years away.
For Ballmer, it wasn't an easy call. Allard and Sinofsky were key executives at Microsoft, both tabbed as the next-generation brain trust. So Ballmer sought advice from the one tech visionary he's trusted more than any other over the decades--Bill Gates. Ballmer arranged for Microsoft's chairman and co-founder to meet for a few hours with Allard; his boss, Entertainment and Devices division President Robbie Bach; and two other
At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates' waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft's executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn't trying to build another e-mail experience. He reasoned that everyone who had a Courier would also have a smartphone for quick e-mail writing and retrieval and a PC for more detailed exchanges. Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
But the device wasn't intended to be a computer replacement; it was meant to complement PCs. Courier users wouldn't want or need a feature-rich e-mail application such as Microsoft's Outlook that lets them switch to conversation views in their inbox or support offline e-mail reading and writing. The key to Courier, Allard's team argued, was its focus on content creation. Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents.
"This is where Bill had an allergic reaction," said one Courier worker who talked with an attendee of the meeting. As is his style in product reviews, Gates pressed Allard, challenging the logic of the approach.
It's not hard to understand Gates' response. Microsoft makes billions of dollars every year on its Exchange e-mail server software and its Outlook e-mail application. While heated debates are common in Microsoft's development process, Gates' concerns didn't bode well for Courier. He conveyed his opinions to Ballmer, who was gathering data from others at the company as well.
Within a few weeks, Courier was cancelled because the product didn't clearly align with the company's Windows and Office franchises, according to sources. A few months after that, both Allard and Bach announced plans to leave Microsoft, though both executives have said their decisions to move on were unrelated to the Courier cancellation.
The story of Microsoft's Courier has only been told in pieces. And nothing has been disclosed publicly about the infighting that led to the innovative device's death. This article was pieced together through interviews with 18 current and former Microsoft executives, as well as contractors and partners who worked on the project. None of the Microsoft employees, both current and former, would talk for attribution because they worried about potential repercussions. Microsoft's top spokesman, Frank Shaw, offered only a brief comment for this story and otherwise declined to make Microsoft's senior executives available.
Read more:
Steve Ballmer had a dilemma. He had two groups at Microsoft pursuing competing visions for tablet computers.
One group, led by Xbox godfather J Allard, was pushing for a sleek, two-screen tablet called the Courier that users controlled with their finger or a pen. But it had a problem: It was running a modified version of Windows.
That ran headlong into the vision of tablet computing laid out by Steven Sinofsky, the head of Microsoft's Windows division. Sinofsky was wary of any product--let alone one from inside Microsoft's walls--that threatened the foundation of Microsoft's flagship operating system. But Sinofsky's tablet-friendly version of Windows was more than two years away. For Ballmer, it wasn't an easy call. Allard and Sinofsky were key executives at Microsoft, both tabbed as the next-generation brain trust. So Ballmer sought advice from the one tech visionary he's trusted more than any other over the decades--Bill Gates. Ballmer arranged for Microsoft's chairman and co-founder to meet for a few hours with Allard; his boss, Entertainment and Devices division President Robbie Bach; and two other
At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates' waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft's executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn't trying to build another e-mail experience. He reasoned that everyone who had a Courier would also have a smartphone for quick e-mail writing and retrieval and a PC for more detailed exchanges. Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
But the device wasn't intended to be a computer replacement; it was meant to complement PCs. Courier users wouldn't want or need a feature-rich e-mail application such as Microsoft's Outlook that lets them switch to conversation views in their inbox or support offline e-mail reading and writing. The key to Courier, Allard's team argued, was its focus on content creation. Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents.
"This is where Bill had an allergic reaction," said one Courier worker who talked with an attendee of the meeting. As is his style in product reviews, Gates pressed Allard, challenging the logic of the approach.
It's not hard to understand Gates' response. Microsoft makes billions of dollars every year on its Exchange e-mail server software and its Outlook e-mail application. While heated debates are common in Microsoft's development process, Gates' concerns didn't bode well for Courier. He conveyed his opinions to Ballmer, who was gathering data from others at the company as well.
Within a few weeks, Courier was cancelled because the product didn't clearly align with the company's Windows and Office franchises, according to sources. A few months after that, both Allard and Bach announced plans to leave Microsoft, though both executives have said their decisions to move on were unrelated to the Courier cancellation.
The story of Microsoft's Courier has only been told in pieces. And nothing has been disclosed publicly about the infighting that led to the innovative device's death. This article was pieced together through interviews with 18 current and former Microsoft executives, as well as contractors and partners who worked on the project. None of the Microsoft employees, both current and former, would talk for attribution because they worried about potential repercussions. Microsoft's top spokesman, Frank Shaw, offered only a brief comment for this story and otherwise declined to make Microsoft's senior executives available.
Read more:
Concept photo of Microsoft's Courier tablet (Credit: Gizmodo)
Current Events: Will Greece Destroy the Euro Zone?
[ed. There might have been a bit of cautious optimism last week when news of a Euro Zone agreement (tentative) emerged, but now everything has fallen into chaos. Even if Greece was, as it appeared, headed for a certain default, regardless of whatever austerity measures and outside controls were applied in the short term, European Central Bank and Euro Zone banking partners would have preferred an orderly default that extended over a period of several months (to unwind leverage and raise capital at higher market valuations), but that doesn't look likely now. And, even if Prime Minister Papandreou's government is overthrown and everyone goes back to the original game plan, Greece's citizenry has been energized and the resulting turmoil could be frightening. Then there's Italy and Portugal, not to mention our own investments in European debt. Can you say contagion?]
[UPDATE - and, for or a simple explanation of how contagion works, read this:]
Unlikely Happy Ending
by Veronique de Rugy, NY Times
The Greek prime minister has announced that he will seek the opinion of his people by referendum about the price they would have to pay in the form of austerity measures to get a second European Union bailout. Does this mean the end of the euro zone? Well, at this point a happy ending for the euro block seems increasingly unlikely.
First, contrary to what the headlines led us to believe, the details of the agreed-upon E.U. bailout package weren’t set in stone. That means it was unlikely that this deal would actually have saved the euro anyway. Second, the referendum would give the Greek people the option to choose between more austerity measures directed by the E.U. bailout or to roll the dice and continue on the current path. At this point, it looks like they will likely reject austerity. That vote — or even the signal sent by the referendum announcement — then increases the risk of a default.
As George Mason University Professor Tyler Cowen noted a few weeks ago, a default probably means an exit from the euro zone. Also, leaving the euro zone could, in theory, benefit Greece. Cowen explains that the default may reinforce the idea that the government isn’t that committed to its banking system, which, “will lead to a continuing exodus of deposits from Greek banks. It’s not clear how the Greeks can stem that additional pressure.”
Under one scenario, pro-actively leaving the euro could alleviate the pressure and, as Cowen says, allow Greece to start “the process of Greek bank recapitalization, long and painful though it might be.”
Of course, there is a slight chance that a transparent Greek default and euro exit (followed by Portugal?) may help preserve the monetary union for those countries that remain in it. It wouldn’t be without months of tremendous market turmoil but in the end, Europe could stand on firmer grounds without the constant fear that the Euro-Agamemnon is imminent.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Today, Greece is still borrowing money to pay for its daily consumption; a default would mean even more austerity measures, which could lead to severe social unrest if not worse. And then we have Italy. No reason to be optimistic there (120 percent debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and a 10-year yield was up to 6.31 percent). The collapse of Greece followed by Italy could quickly bring the whole union down.
Sadly, we may soon have the answers to our questions.
Read more:
More from the BBC:
[UPDATE - and, for or a simple explanation of how contagion works, read this:]
Unlikely Happy Ending
by Veronique de Rugy, NY Times
The Greek prime minister has announced that he will seek the opinion of his people by referendum about the price they would have to pay in the form of austerity measures to get a second European Union bailout. Does this mean the end of the euro zone? Well, at this point a happy ending for the euro block seems increasingly unlikely.
There is a slight chance that a Greek default and euro exit may help preserve the monetary union, but the collapse of Greece followed by Italy could bring it down.
As George Mason University Professor Tyler Cowen noted a few weeks ago, a default probably means an exit from the euro zone. Also, leaving the euro zone could, in theory, benefit Greece. Cowen explains that the default may reinforce the idea that the government isn’t that committed to its banking system, which, “will lead to a continuing exodus of deposits from Greek banks. It’s not clear how the Greeks can stem that additional pressure.”
Under one scenario, pro-actively leaving the euro could alleviate the pressure and, as Cowen says, allow Greece to start “the process of Greek bank recapitalization, long and painful though it might be.”
Of course, there is a slight chance that a transparent Greek default and euro exit (followed by Portugal?) may help preserve the monetary union for those countries that remain in it. It wouldn’t be without months of tremendous market turmoil but in the end, Europe could stand on firmer grounds without the constant fear that the Euro-Agamemnon is imminent.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Today, Greece is still borrowing money to pay for its daily consumption; a default would mean even more austerity measures, which could lead to severe social unrest if not worse. And then we have Italy. No reason to be optimistic there (120 percent debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and a 10-year yield was up to 6.31 percent). The collapse of Greece followed by Italy could quickly bring the whole union down.
Sadly, we may soon have the answers to our questions.
Read more:
More from the BBC:
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)