Sunday, July 29, 2012
Micro-Units
At the 41-second mark of the YouTube blockbuster “Shit New Yorkers Say,” a young man stands in a friend’s tiny bedroom and exclaims with disbelief, “This place is huge!”
It’s a knowing wink aimed at other locals, and in fact, the entire video is a deftly edited drumroll of the pedestrian concerns and biases of the city’s young, recent arrivals. The same type of people whom Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to lure to the city with more “huge” apartments. Last week, Bloomberg announced that the city will construct a “micro-unit” building on city-owned land. A pilot project to test the idea of rezoning the city to allow smaller units in general (the current minimum is 400 square feet), the building’s apartments will be around 300 square feet and rent at the market rate, now about $2,000 a month.
Reactions ran rampant. News outlets wondered if such small apartments were inhumane — Tokyo, the world’s go-to city for “people living in drawers,” became a common point of reference. Others, like the New York Times architecture critic, praised the plan as an innovative way to add density and studio apartments to a city that needs more of both. A few linked the proposal to the tiny-house trend, dubiously insisting that Americans suddenly love cramped quarters. And in a fit of self-parody, a game of one-upsmanship commenced as Manhattanites insisted that the micro-units are palatial. “What’s the big deal?” asked one online commenter. “I lived in a 200 square foot apartment on the [Lower East Side]. 300 square feet sounds huge…”
That’s a silly statement, but it illustrates a point: There’s no baseline “normal” for dwelling size. What seems crazy to suburbanites is routine for city people, just as a 300-square-foot studio might seem luxe to someone with four roommates. As if observing an exotic tribe, the AP marveled that “Some New Yorkers, desperate for storage space … turn their ovens into storage for clothes,” as if to insinuate, how dismal a life! (For the record, hardly anyone does this.) But a New Yorker might find it more cruel and unusual to be stuck in a big, roomy house 10 miles from any decent Thai food or public transportation.
by Will Doig, Salon | Read more:
Photo: Shutterstock/Salon/Benjamin Wheelock)
The Oracle of Girl World
[ed. I'm not sure why this article seems so fascinating. The improbability of Ms. Gevinson's success? Its velocity? The depth and appeal of a certain type of culture she's tapped into?]
“Tavi is on her way — her flight was delayed,” a girl in a floral headband told the expectant crowd, many of them raised on Ms. Gevinson’s offbeat pronouncements over the years (“I strongly feel that daisies are literally the best thing ever”).
In the meantime, the audience of mini fashionistas snacked on cupcakes and listened to readings from Rookie, the online magazine that Ms. Gevinson started last fall. The magazine grew out of Ms. Gevinson’s blog, The Style Rookie, which she started at the ripe age of 11. Writing in a spunky, discerning voice, Ms. Gevinson shared ruminations on everything from Proenza Schouler to gym class, and posted unsmiling self-portraits taken at her home, in Oak Park, Ill.
Then, in a whirlwind so sudden it now seems inexorable, Ms. Gevinson became the darling of those she’d revered, like John Galliano, Miuccia Prada and the Mulleavy sisters. Soon she was warping through the celebrity rinse cycle: sitting front row at fashion week, interviewing Rei Kawakubo in Tokyo and drawing praise from Lady Gaga. She even garnered some backlash from old-timers, including a Grazia editor who complained at a Dior show that her bow was blocking the runway.
By the time Teen Vogue named her “the luckiest 13-year-old on the planet,” in 2009, Ms. Gevinson had appeared on the covers of Pop and Love magazines and starred in a video for Rodarte’s Target line. Later, she was profiled by both The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. With her thick glasses and dyed blue-gray hair (Tavi was sometimes mistaken for an outré granny), she was a petite tastemaker.
But all little girls grow up, and Ms. Gevinson wasn’t content to remain a novelty. In late 2010, she announced a new project: an online magazine inspired by Sassy, the Nirvana-era teen magazine that folded in 1996. Sassy’s founding editor, Jane Pratt, nurtured the venture, and within six days of its start Rookie broke one million page views. (...)
As her online empire has grown, Ms. Gevinson has branched out. This year, she gave a TED talk (“Still Figuring It Out”), appeared onstage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the nonagenarian fashion icon Iris Apfel, and sang a plaintive Neil Young cover for the animated short film “Cadaver,” in which she voices a character opposite Christopher Lloyd and Kathy Bates.
The Brooklyn event was the kickoff of the inaugural Rookie Road Trip, a 16-city tour across America. For the last month, Ms. Gevinson and her cohorts have been traveling through cities like Omaha, Salt Lake City and Boise, in search of kindred spirits and the open road.
by Michael Schulman, NY Times | Read more:
Photo: Emily Berl
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Equity Poor
The answer to that is rather complex, but one major factor is that trade-up buyers — folks who upgrade from smaller, cheaper “starter homes” to pricier properties, and who classically are a pumping piston in the engine that drives the housing market — are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to trade up right now. This key segment of the market is especially likely to be “equity poor.”
Unlike underwater borrowers — who have negative equity, with more debt on their homes than those homes are worth — equity-poor borrowers have less than 20% equity in their homes. Why 20%? In the current tight lending climate, buyers generally need to put 20% down on a home in order to get a mortgage. So if you’re currently in a $400,000 home, even if you have 20% equity, you can’t trade up to buying a $600,000 home solely on the basis of the money you would extract if you sold.
According to CoreLogic, a real-estate-data provider based in Santa Ana, Calif., roughly 45% of homeowners with mortgages have less than 20% equity in their homes. This tally includes owners who are underwater. Approximately one-quarter of this group can be described as equity poor. In other words, more than 11 million households have some equity, but not more than 20%, and they are not far enough up the ladder to easily attempt a jump up to the next rung.
by Alison Rogers, Time | Read more:
Photo: Moodboard/Getty Images
Unprotected
In early days, they move us around. From factory to warehouse. From warehouse to truck. From truck to store.
One day in store, boy human sees us on shelf. He grabs us, hides us under shirt. He rushes outside.
He goes to house, runs into bedroom, locks door. He tears open box and takes me out. He puts me in wallet.
I stay in wallet long, long time.
This is story of my life inside wallet.
The first friend I meet in wallet is Student I.D. Jordi Hirschfeld. He is card. He has been around longest, he says. He introduces me to other cards. I meet Learner Permit Jordi Hirschfeld, Blockbuster Video Jordi Hirschfeld, Jamba Juice Value Card, GameStop PowerUp Card Jordi Hirschfeld, Business Card Albert Hirschfeld, D.D.S., Scarsdale Comic Book Explosion Discount Card.
In middle of wallet, there live dollars. I am less close to them, because they are always coming and going. But they are mostly nice. I meet many Ones and Fives, some Tens, a few Twenties. One time, I meet Hundred. He stay for long time. Came from birthday card, he said. Birthday card from an old person.
I also meet photograph of girl human. Very beautiful. Eyes like Blockbuster Video. Blue, blue, blue.
When I first get to wallet, I am “new guy.” But time passes. I stay for so long, I become veteran. When I first arrive, Jamba Juice has just two stamps. Next thing I know, he has five stamps—then six, then seven. When he gets ten stamps, he is gone. One day, Learner Permit disappears. In his place, there is new guy, Driver License. I become worried. Things are changing very fast.
Soon after, I am taken out of wallet. It is night. I am scared. I do not know what is happening. Then I see girl human. She is one from photograph. She looks same in real life, except now she wears no shirt. She is smiling, but when she sees me she becomes angry. There is arguing. I go back inside wallet.
A few days later, picture of girl human is gone.
by Simon Rich, The New Yorker | Read more:
Illustration: Bendik Kaltenborn
Friday, July 27, 2012
Hermes, after a painting by W. B. Richmond.
From The magazine of art vol. 9, London, Paris, New York, Melbourne, 1886.
via:
Making the Most of Mentorship
Earlier this month, my mentor, former boss and business partner, Marvin Traub, passed away at the age of 87. Marvin was a defining figure in the American retail industry and the man who, in his longtime role as president and CEO of Bloomingdale’s, pioneered the concept of bringing entertainment to retail. With his out-of-the-box ideas and ability to rally people around his vision, Marvin put an indelible stamp on the way the industry operates today. And even in his later years, possessed of a rare energy and passion for life, Marvin worked harder than anyone I have known. I was extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work closely with him, learn from his vast experience and meet many of the industry contacts that he nurtured over half a century of work.
Marvin’s passing got me thinking about the extraordinary importance of good mentors. In life, in general, we often rely upon select people — parents, teachers, spouses — to help mold us into who we are. The business world is no different: we need bosses to grow us into successful business people. And, in turn, we need to mentor those who are looking to become the same. Marvin was a boss and mentor who greatly shaped my career. And now, with him gone, he has inspired me to do the same for others.
Not all bosses are Marvins. Sometimes a boss is and will always be nothing more than somebody you work for. But even in a more favourable scenario, mentoring and being mentored isn’t easy. We don’t always like to be shaped and it’s not always fun doing the shaping. Indeed, many of my most important learnings from bosses like Marvin came during bumpy moments when we did not see eye to eye on a particular issue. Similarly, the process of mentoring some of the people of whom I am most proud was almost as painful childbirth. The fact is, great mentors and mentees are not necessarily great friends. With that said, here are some words of advice on how to mentor and be mentored effectively.
HOW TO BE A GOOD BOSS AND MENTOR:
1. Lead by example — and stick to it.
Good bosses and mentors take a stand on how they want things done, which sets the standard for the organisation at large. No manager’s style will make everybody happy. The key is to be consistent, so that employees learn how to operate within your particular approach.
While at McKinsey, I worked on a project for a manager with incredible attention to detail. His reports were premeditated and polished to a tee: the structure of the document, the choice of words, the rigour of the analysis, even the labeling and placement of the footnotes. At first, I grumbled about his “anal-retentiveness.” But I soon learned that his painstaking approach drove real results and I benefited greatly from employing it throughout my time at the company.
In my next job, I made investments for a billionaire entrepreneur who was a risk taker, unbound by process, structure and other norms. At first, this was chaotic and confusing. But he, too, was incredibly successful and he taught me to be comfortable operating in an environment in constant flux. I learned how to anticipate the unpredictable. And without this guidance, launching and running an internet start-up would have been a daunting task indeed.
The key is: whatever your style, teach it and bring others onboard. They may not love your approach, but they will adopt it. Nobody respects a flip-flopper.
2. Inspire through conviction.
The best mentors and bosses are those who inspire through passion and conviction. Marvin was a master at getting people to do things they normally wouldn’t do because he believed in his ideas so strongly. He got Diane von Furstenberg to ride an elephant to a Bloomingdale’s store opening event. He convinced the city of New York to change the direction of traffic on a major avenue so that the Queen of England could visit Bloomingdale’s. For Marvin, the sky was the limit and his passion inspired those around him to dream big. Whatever you believe in, whatever you stand for, broadcast it with all of your heart. Conviction is infectious — demonstrate it and your people will dream big with you.
3. Give honest feedback frequently.
You need to be extraordinarily honest and forthcoming about the feedback you give your mentees, positive and negative. Your people can’t be proud of what they don’t know they’ve done right and they can’t fix what they don’t know is broken. A month into my job at McKinsey, I was shocked by a performance review from the partner leading my first project, detailing my need for improvement in several areas. But I sucked it up, made changes and came to really appreciate granular criticism on a regular basis as critical to my growth. I probably would not have progressed at the company without the constant, tell-it-like-it-is feedback loop.
Last month, when M’O completed its latest round of financing, I received a message, out of the blue, from that same partner who gave me my first performance review. “I am so proud of you,” it said. So the cycle of feedback continues. Be honest, be critical, be forthright.
4. Share yourself
Have the confidence and willingness to share your experiences and relationships with your people. That’s half of what they are looking for.
Marvin Traub went out of his way to share with me his vast network of contacts. Over daily breakfasts at the Regency and lunches at the Four Seasons, Marvin and his business partner, Morty Singer, introduced me to hundreds of colleagues and associates — including my co-founder, Lauren Santo Domingo. Many of these introductions have formed the basis of my professional community. And Marvin’s generosity in this regard motivated me to work even harder for him. The point: be generous with your network of knowledge and contacts and your mentees will bend over backwards for you. Hoarding only slows their growth and fosters resentment.
5. Encourage debate.
Just because you are the boss, it doesn’t mean you have all the answers. Sure, you know that, but you really have to believe and show it. Encourage debate among your people. Get them to speak up and voice their opinions, even if they’re unpopular opinions, particularly with you. Let feisty people tell you your idea is stupid. Help timid people articulate their support for your idea. Good mentors listen and learn and develop outcomes that take into account different personalities and all sides of the argument. To be clear: this is not about letting people be rude — it’s about enabling people to say whatever they think about the idea at hand.
HOW TO BE A GOOD EMPLOYEE AND MENTEE:
1. Debate respectfully
In keeping with the previous point, when your mentor encourages debate, be vocal in expressing your opinions. Articulate your point and provide evidence to back it up. But don’t get out of line if your boss doesn’t see it your way. Your boss is usually your boss for a reason. Pattern recognition and concern for other factors may influence the final decision, even if the outcome seems counter-intuitive to you.
by Áslaug Magnúsdóttir, The Business of Fashion | Read more:
Photo: LaVanguardia.com
The 'Chemputer' That Could Print Out Any Drug
At the same time, one branch of that thinking has itself evolved into a new project: the notion of creating downloadable chemistry, with the ultimate aim of allowing people to "print" their own pharmaceuticals at home. Cronin's latest TED talk asked the question: "Could we make a really cool universal chemistry set? Can we 'app' chemistry?" "Basically," he tells me, in his office at the university, with half a grin, "what Apple did for music, I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescriptiondrugs."
The idea is very much at the conception stage, but as he walks me around his labs Cronin begins to outline how that "paradigm-changing" project might progress. He has been in Scotland for 10 years and in that time he has worked hard, as any chemist worth his salt should, to get the right mix of people to produce the results he wants. Cronin's interest has always been in complex chemicals and the origins of life. "We are pretty good at making molecules. We do a lot of self-assembly at a molecular level," he says. "We are able to make really large molecules and I was able to get a lot of money in grants and so on for doing that." But after a while, Cronin suggests, making complex molecules for their own sake can seem a bit limiting. He wanted to find some more life-changing applications for his team's expertise.
A couple of years ago, Cronin was invited to an architectural seminar to discuss his work on inorganic structures. He had been looking at the way crystals grew "inorganic gardens" of tube-like structures between themselves. Among the other speakers at that conference was a man explaining the possibilities of 3D printing for conventional architectural forms. Cronin wondered if you could apply this 3D principle to structures at a molecular level. "I didn't want to print an aeroplane, or a jaw bone," he says. "I wanted to do chemistry."
Cronin prides himself on his lateral thinking; his gift for chemistry came fairly late – he stumbled through comprehensive school in Ipswich and initially university – before realising a vocation for molecular chemistry that has seen him make a series of prize-winning, and fund-generating, advances in the field. He often puts his faith in counterintuition. "Confusions of ideas produce discovery," he says. "People, researchers, always come to me and say they are pretty good at thinking outside the box and I usually think 'yes, but it is a pretty small box'." In analysing how to apply 3D printing to chemistry, Cronin wondered in the first instance if the essentially passive idea of a highly sophisticated form of copying from a software blueprint could be made more dynamic. In his lab, they put together a rudimentary prototype of a chemical 3D printer, which could be programmed to make basic chemical reactions to produce different molecules.
He shows me the printer, a nondescript version of the £1,200 3D printer used in the Fab@Home project, which aims to bring self-fabrication to the masses. After a bit of trial and error, Cronin's team discovered that it could use a bathroom sealant as a material to print reaction chambers of precisely specified dimensions, connected with tubes of different lengths and diameters. After the bespoke miniature lab had set hard, the printer could then inject the system reactants, or "chemical inks", to create sequenced reactions.
The "inks" would be simple reagents, from which more complex molecules are formed. "If I was being facetious I would say that to find your inks you would go to the periodic table: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on," Cronin says, "but obviously you can't handle all those substances very well, so it would have to be a bit more complex than that. If you were looking to make a sugar, for example, you would start with your set of base sugars and mix them together. When we make complex molecules in the traditional way with test tubes and flasks, we start with a smaller number of simpler molecules." As he points out, nearly all drugs are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as readily available agents such as vegetable oils and paraffin. "With a printer it should be possible that with a relatively small number of inks you can make any organic molecule," he says.
The real beauty of Cronin's prototype system, however, is that it allows the printer not only to control the sequences and exact calibration of inks, but also to shape, from a tested blueprint, the environment in which those reactions take place. The scale and architecture of the miniature printed "lab" could be pre-programmed into software and downloaded for use with a standard set of inks. In this way, not only the combinations of reactants but also the ratios and speed at which they combine could be ingrained into the system, simply by changing the size of reaction chambers and their relation with one another; Cronin calls this "reactionware" or, because it depends on a conceptualised sequence of flow and reorientation in a 3D space, "Rubik's Cube chemistry".
"What we are trying to do is to combine the notion of a reaction with a reactor," he says. "Conventionally the reactor is just the passive space or the environment in which a reaction takes place. It could be something as simple as a test tube. The printer allows it to be a far more active context."
by Tim Adams, The Guardian | Read more:
Photograph: Murdo Macleod
I’m Lonely. Is That So Odd?
I come home from work. The lamp on a timer that has welcomed me back through the gloom of the last few months burns, unnecessarily, in the sunny kitchen. I’m reading a thriller, which is living up to its name. I sit down with my coat still on and return eagerly to chapter three.
Two hours later, I put the book down and realise it’s dark. The lamp provides the only pool of light in an otherwise pitch-black house. It’s also quiet, deathly quiet, without even the hum of the central heating or the swoosh of the washing machine to break the silence. Radio 4, also on a timer, tuned itself off before the Archers. The mobile phone on the table beside me is silent. It hasn’t rung, beeped or throbbed, probably since yesterday, maybe the day before. No calls, no emails, no texts, no Facebook notifications, no tweets, and there’s nothing blinking on the answerphone, because the landline hasn’t rung since December, except people in call centres who can’t pronounce my name.
All these methods of communication and yet nobody’s communicating with me.
There was a time when coming back to an empty house would fill me with pleasure – like a snowy day at school. I’d luxuriate in the extra, unexpected bonus of having the place to myself, and happily breathe in the peace and quiet. But now, as anticipated, when, two years ago I wrote here about my very empty nest – with the kids grown, gone, or not yet home from college – it’s just lonely. There, I’ve said it. I’m lonely.
We’re all so popular now, so connected. Social networking is the buzzword. We have all these new verbs – we blog, we Skype and tweet our thoughts in fewer than 140 characters. We post our status on Facebook and talk and surf constantly on our mobiles so that the trains or buses in the evening are a sea of heads, all bowed as though in prayer, worshiping their Blackberries and iPhones, tap, tap, tap – the rosary of the text message. It’s a mark of shame to have no friends, real or virtual, no followers, not to be linked-in to everyone you ever met for five minutes at a party – once – in 1974. So finding yourself at home, alone, with only 30 followers on Twitter, four of whom are the same person, a silent phone, and nobody you care to call must mean there’s something wrong with you. You’re unpopular, friendless, abandoned, alone. Lonely.
Surely somewhere there’s a party you should be at, a dinner you should be invited to, a partner who should be partnering you, a family who should be missing you?
In my case, I have four kids and my solitude is only temporary. In a week, a month, my newly graduated son and student daughter will arrive to re-colonise their bedrooms. For the next year or two, even without David Cameron’s edict, my semi-adult offspring will continue to be reluctant, economic refugees in the house.
Children need their parents, even grown-up children – but they just need them to be alive, they don’t need them in the same room. They want you to be uncomplainingly happy somewhere over there. In the background. Out of the way. And only to step forward when needed. They don’t want you to tag them on Facebook. This is as it should be. You raise them to be confident, caring, well-adjusted, independent adults with rich, fulfilled lives and friends of their own. You can’t whine about being lonely if they then do just that. If mine were still clinging to me for company, I would feel I had failed them. Like surely, I myself have failed at this popularity contest called life if I’m lonely; as, apart from Eleanor Rigby, the elderly and the recently bereaved, apparently I’m the only one who feels this way – alone in this club too.
by Marion McGilvary, The Guardian | Read more:
Photo: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo
More than 150,000 techies and executives were swarming the city’s hotels last January in the annual bacchanalia of cutting-edge gizmos and gadgets. Attendees ran from one vendor to the next, snapping up fistfuls of freebies, inhaling flavored oxygen, and rubbing elbows with stars such as LL Cool J and Justin Bieber.
But this night, an air of discomfort filled the Palazzo Ballroom, where Ballmer was about to give the show’s opening presentation, one delivered by Microsoft’s C.E.O. for 14 of the previous 17 years—the first 11 by Bill Gates and the rest by Ballmer. Weeks earlier, the company had declared that this would be its final keynote—and, worse, that it wouldn’t even be back next year as an exhibitor to showcase new innovations. The timing for big news about its products, it said, didn’t match that of the annual high-tech pageant.
Rumors had swirled throughout the day that Ballmer planned to go out in a blaze of glory, offering a peek at a yet-to-be-released stunner from a company whose recent innovations had too often been lackluster or worse. Instead, what emerged was a gonzo spectacle, structured as a confab between Seacrest and Ballmer. Cookie Monster showed up, as did a gospel choir that belted out a bizarre song composed entirely of random tweets shot into cyberspace by who-the-hell-knows.
As for announcements of quantum leaps into the technological future: nothing. Ballmer applauded the still-long-awaited Windows 8 operating system (which as of this writing is available only as a release preview online). He burbled about his expectations for Xbox, the game console that successfully competed with Sony PlayStation. Out came Windows Phone 7 again, which, despite widespread praise from users, had experienced bleak sales results. A demo followed, which proved an embarrassment; the device’s voice-to-text messaging failed and then another glitch forced a Microsoft staffer to reach for a different phone. The media response was dismal—the company’s last presentation, a prominent blogger wrote, was a “cruel joke.”
Microsoft’s low-octane swan song was nothing if not symbolic of more than a decade littered with errors, missed opportunities, and the devolution of one of the industry’s innovators into a “me too” purveyor of other companies’ consumer products. Over those years, inconsequential pip-squeaks and onetime zombies—Google, Facebook, Apple—roared ahead, transforming the social-media-tech experience, while a lumbering Microsoft relied mostly on pumping out Old Faithfuls such as Windows, Office, and servers for its financial performance.
Amid a dynamic and ever changing marketplace, Microsoft—which declined to comment for this article—became a high-tech equivalent of a Detroit car-maker, bringing flashier models of the same old thing off of the assembly line even as its competitors upended the world. Most of its innovations have been financial debacles or of little consequence to the bottom line. And the performance showed on Wall Street; despite booming sales and profits from its flagship products, in the last decade Microsoft’s stock barely budged from around $30, while Apple’s stock is worth more than 20 times what it was 10 years ago. In December 2000, Microsoft had a market capitalization of $510 billion, making it the world’s most valuable company. As of June it is No. 3, with a market cap of $249 billion. In December 2000, Apple had a market cap of $4.8 billion and didn’t even make the list. As of this June it is No. 1 in the world, with a market cap of $541 billion.
How did this jaw-dropping role reversal happen? How could a company that stands among the most cash-rich in the world, the onetime icon of cool that broke IBM’s iron grip on the computer industry, have stumbled so badly in a race it was winning?
by Kurt Eichenwald, Vanity Fair | Read more:
Photo: Dan Gluskoter/EPA/Landov
Google Fiber - 'Bring it On'
[ed. Nice to see somebody with muscle and deep pockets bringing some competition to the cable companies.]
The web-search company announced that a bundle of TV and ultra-fast Internet will sell for $120 a month. That includes three devices needed to stream Wi-Fi signals and to store large amounts of computer data and TV programming. It will also come with a Nexus 7 — an iPad-like device that runs on Google’s Android operating system.
“Not just Internet TV, but real TV with your favorite channels,” said Milo Medin, vice president of access services at Google.
The company’s demonstration of the TV service appeared as impressive as any DVR-type service on the market. It allows people to control the TV with the Nexus tablet, with their smartphones or with old-fashioned remote controls. A household will be able to record eight shows at a time, store 500 hours and search through “tens of thousands” of on-demand movies in Google’s catalogue, in addition to Netflix accounts.
The TV package has big holes in programming, however. It lacks ESPN, the most popular and expensive part of most cable packages, and other Disney Corp. offerings.
“We’re launching Google Fiber with content providers who share our vision,” a Google spokeswoman said in an email when asked about the missing channels. “Over time, we will be expanding our TV package well beyond the channels it currently includes.”
Or you can get stand-alone Internet at speeds more than 100 times faster than most broadband for $70. By comparison, Comcast Corp. recently announced it would sell speeds of 305 megabits per second — Google’s offering is three times faster — for $300 a month.
Both the TV and Internet-only deals come with two-year contracts, for which the company said it will waive a $300 installation charge.
There’s a third option. The arrival of Google had set off worries that people with no Internet would be left out of a community transformation fired by faster-than-fast Internet. So Google announced it would provide free Internet service — albeit at far slower speeds — for seven years to customers who pay for installation. That $300 charge can be paid off in monthly $25 installments.
Google-only
Google’s fiber optic network will run slightly different from how Google described it in early 2010. Then, the company said it would “operate an ‘open access’ network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers.”
On Thursday, Google Fiber project manager Kevin Lo confirmed for the first time in an interview that Google decided not to open the network to other Internet service providers.
“We don’t think anybody else,” he said, “can deliver a gig the way we can.”
Google’s entry into the TV and Internet service is enough to make a cable man’s knees buckle. Comparing the prices on the services is difficult — particularly because no other company comes close on Internet speed and Google’s TV package is so different from standard services. Somewhat surprisingly to analysts, Google is not offering landline phone service.
Still, it’s a bold declaration by Google that speeds of a gigabit-per-second are practical and affordable in the home.
The cable and telephone industries have long said that the cost of stretching fiber optic wires all the way to the home has made such speedy Internet impractical. They also contend that customers rarely express interest in speeds much beyond 10 megabits a second, much less something 100 times faster.
Google looks as though it’s able to cut the cost of deploying such a network in two ways.
First, by targeting neighborhoods with the strongest interest, it can lower its installation costs by going only where there are large numbers of eager customers, stopping by once and moving on.
Second, it brings the same electronic engineering and manufacturing know-how that has increasingly scaled down the cost of building football field-sized data centers around the globe.
“We’re an engineering company,” Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said in an interview Thursday. “Google has a knack at looking at things in a different way.”
The competition spoke boldly in the wake of Google’s announcement Thursday.
“We compete with anyone, anytime, anywhere,” said Time Warner Cable spokesman Michael Pedelty.
The company’s 900 local employees, he said, can stand up to Google’s challenge. “Bring it on,” he said.
by Scott Canon, Kansas City Star | Read more:
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Dealing with Olympic Failure
The London Olympics will feature ten thousand five hundred athletes, give or take a few rhythmic gymnasts, but it’s possible that none are more compelling than American air-rifle shooter Matt Emmons. At the 2004 Games, Emmons competed in the three-position event, in which participants shoot from their stomachs, knees, and feet at a target fifty metres away. Going into his final shot, Emmons was in first place and needed only a mediocre score for gold. Instead, he shot at the wrong target, one lane over, and got no score at all. He finished eighth. Four years later, in Beijing, Emmons again had a large lead on the final shot: he needed a score of 6.7 in a sport where anything below 8.0 is amateurish. Each time Emmons shoots, he aims above the target, lets his sight fall into the bull’s-eye, then pulls the trigger. This time, his finger slipped and he fired early, scoring a 4.4. Emmons called the shot a “freak of nature.” He finished fourth.
Running down the list of twenty-six sports in London, none requires less athleticism, as we typically define it, than the shooting events. (Archery demands at least one muscular arm.) Yet there is no sport that requires more mental precision. Rifle shooters are trained to fire between heartbeats. Medals are won by millimetres. It’s a sport whose top competitors are expected to be so accurate that we have a hard time believing that they could actually miss. In the first Olympiad, in 1896, the American Sumner Paine used a Colt revolver to win one gold and one silver in the pistol competition. Five years later, arriving home to find his wife in a state of undress with his daughter’s music teacher, Paine pulled out his gun and fired four shots at the fleeing teacher. None hit their mark. Paine was arrested for assault but quickly released. Had he wanted to, the police figured, Paine could have nicked off the man’s fingernails one by one then put a bullet through his heart. He had shown restraint.
In the intervening century, competitive gun technology has only gotten more sophisticated. (This year’s modern pentathlon, which combines running, horseback riding, swimming, fencing, and shooting, will feature laser guns rather than air guns.) As such, the expectations for an élite athletes’ precision have only increased.
by Reeves Weideman, The New Yorker | Read more:
Photograph by Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty.
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