This post is mainly to remind myself how much the label Shinichi rocks. However, if you like Deep Dish, or any funky, uplifting, tribal house for that matter…well, you’ve got to check them out. On a side thought, I’m surprised that I haven’t heard those who I view as masters of dance music, Gabriel & Dresden, spin any of Shinichi’s stuff in their sets — it’s right up their alley.
“The answer is I’m fine.” — The Greek f Stephanie Venzina
The semester leading up to this summer offered a large deal of lessons in need of my learning. Most of the personal hardships that reveled can be traced back to the discontent I hold towards my attendance to a business school as well as the major I’ve chosen: marketing. I was surprised to find a package on my doorstep, sent by the Brasil lad, yielding gifts. While the Ukrainian presidential egg-thing is most certainly amusing, I’ve taken an early liking to The Corporation by Joel Bakan. If Dido’s lyrics were all I had to sum up corporations and the role branding (*cough* marketing) has, and continues, to play in our society, I’d do so with:
Like a ghost, don’t need a key.
Your best friend, I’ve come to be.
Please don’t think of getting up for me.
You don’t even need to speak.
…from her latest single, Don’t Leave Home. Luckily, my constraints don’t currently include limiting myself to her lyrics, so from Bakan himself, I present you with my favorite passage thus far:
Corporations now govern society, perhaps more than governments themselves do; yet ironically, it is their very power, much of which they have gained through economic globalization, that makes them vulnerable. As is true of any ruling institution, the corporation now attracts mistrust, fear, and demands for accountability from an increasingly anxious public. Today’s corporate leaders understand, as did their predecessors, that work is need to regain and maintain the public’s trust. And they, like their predecessors, are seeking to soften the corporation’s image by presenting it as human, benevolent, and socially responsible. “It’s absolutely fundamental that a corporation today has as much of a human and personal characteristic as anything else,” says public relations czar Chris Komisarjevsky, CEO of Burson-Marsteller. “The smart corporations understand that people make comparisons in human terms … because that’s the way people think, we think in terms that often are very, very personal … If you walked down the street with a microphone and a camera and you stopped [people] on the street … they will describe [corporations] in very human terms.”
Allow me to recall an earlier quote from Alfred Swayne where discussing the repositioning of GM, he notes, “Family’ is personal, human, friendly. This is our picture of General Motors — a big congenial household” (emphasis mine). Back to Bakan though…
Today, corporations use “branding” to create unique and attractive personalities for themselves. Branding goes beyond strategies designed merely to associate corporations with actual human beings — such as AT&T’s early campaigns that featured workers and shareholders or the more recent use of celebrity endorsements (such as Nike’s Michael Jordan advertisements) and corporate mascots (such as Ronald McDonald, Tony the Tiger, the Michelin Man, and Mickey Mouse). Corporations’ brand identities are “personification[s]” of “who they are and where they’ve come from,” says Clay Timon, chairman of Landor Associates, the world’s largest and oldest branding firm. … “Corporations, as brands … have … soul[s],” says Timon, which is what enables them to create “intellectual and emotional bond[s]” with the groups the depend upon, such as consumers, employees, shareholders, and regulators.
One of my friends Ian, fresh from a long drive of thought, asked me what my inspiration in life was; a small reminder was found inside the book I received today.
Update: 09/24/2004.
I just spotted Ricardo’s review of the book on his blog.
I’ve finally decided that it’s time I learned Java inside and out…mostly because I’d like to be able to write my own applications for the Danger Sidekick. Specifically, I’d like to be able to manage my DSPAM quarantine without having to use the clumsy interface (which is even bad on a real PC). This desire has led to the birth of my new baby: HipDSPAM. The end goal is for HipDSPAM to be an intuitive, native interface for the Hiptop to manage all the joys of spam filtering without being confined to the downfalls of the default CGI quarantine, nor the poor handling of tables in Danger’s Web Browser.
And progess is definitely being had! She’s already found a new home at the Sidekick Developer’s Resource — check it out!
So I was reading the July 26th issue of Forbes Magazine today, when I turned to an advertisment from Sprint showcasing the ways they’ve enabled Electronic Arts to, “make beautiful video games.” Being a nerd first, and a marketing major second, this particular page caught my eye rather quickly. More so, I’m quite impressed with what all EA does — and how quickly. The text reads:
“This entertainment powerhouse has massive data transport needs — they send huge data files every hour between offices in over 40 countries. By teaming Electronic Arts’ technology with IP from Sprint, gigabytes of digital assets that took 8-10 hours to send now take less than 20 minutes. This means Electronic Arts can localize games faster, which allows them to launch games simultaneously worldwide. In Europe alone, that means 17 languages on four platforms. And when Electronic arts switched from ATM to IP with Sprint, they saved roughly $100,000 a month. With Sprint, Electronic Arts is reliable, faster and more effective — in a word, beautiful.”
Aside from the spinster text trying to sell Sprint’s IP technology, I was really shocked by all that EA goes through in order to release a game. Had I previously sat down and thought about what all it took to produce, test, and market a high-quality game, I’m sure it would have struck me…but still, localization of any application is a huge effort, let alone a multi-gigabyte, multi-platform game. Since I seldomly play computer games, this had me wondering just how quickly the Halflife source tree was stolen once the actual download had commensed.
For the most part I don’t mind religion. Actually, I don’t really mind anything that doesn’t have bearing on my life — in any shape or form. The problem starts when we have people, like George W Bush, who put their ideaologies in front of science, thus prohibiting the potential development of countless live-saving treatments and therapies. Since it’s so easy to rip on GW and his little fasination with impressing his beliefs upon the world, I’ll continue with the following two examples that illustrate him and others drawing legislation based on their (hopefully non-majority) religious beliefs.
(1) I’m sure you’ve seen reports of the 19 some states working to pass state-level constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. With GW inparticular, we’ve got the (now failed) attempt at a federal amendment to the constitution on which this country was founded to prohibit two people from joining in, “holy matrimony.” Despite the fact that this whole union/marriage thing is a game of semantics, not to mention seperation of church and state says there should be no such thing as marriage in law, Bush and other ignorant people are bound and determined to impress their beligerance on me and the rest of the country.
(2) Focusing on GW alone this time, it really annoys me that the appointed leader of the used-to-be-free world feels that it’s his responsibility to spread, “God’s gift,” of freedom and democracy to the rest of the world that has yet to embrace Western life and religion(s). Maybe his saying of this was really just an afterthought to make Operation Iraqi Freedom appear more ultruistic — an effective method of making Americans more apathetic.
I write about this because I can no longer handle all the extreme dullness of perception and understanding demonstrated by those with deep religious beliefs. Now don’t get me wrong either. I understand damn well that there are plenty of very good, open-minded, intellectual people who have religion playing a large part if their lives; plenty of people who don’t use “Jesus,” or any other divine being(s) as an excuse for biggotry.
I don’t feel the need to have “God” in my life in order to be a good person, make informed, well-founded decisions, nor treat people correctly. The rude part of me wants to say that I had an imaginary friend that I talked to in grade school. Guess I’m just annoyed right now. You can’t get away from it…no matter what.
So…who knows how or why, but Disney has decided to enter the PC market — producing eMac-with-ears style PCs sporting built-in content control for kids. That’s great…another failure in progess for the niche personal computing industry. Not that I really mind that it’ll be Disney catching the wrath, after their whole political refusal to release Fahrenheit 9/11.
Anywho, that PC sure sounds good, eh? Not according to FOX New’s Stuart Varney! Here’s the problem: the PCs have no embeded protection against the annual Gay Day sponsored by the various Disney theme parks. Yes, that’s right…these computers will fail in the marketplace because of those damned queers at the park! From BoingBoing, here’s an exerpt:
VARNEY: Well, you know, I — exactly. I mean, in June you have “Gay Days” at your theme parks. You got any ‘Gay Days’ on the Mickey computer?
IGER: Well, this has built into it all kinds of protective devices that protects the kid, or the child from internet sites that a parent wouldn’t deem appropriate. Also, the fact –
VARNEY: Well, you don’t protect the kids from “Gay Days” at the theme parks, do you? Why do you have to protect them in the computer?
More to the point, teenage girls obcession with them. Maybe I didn’t notice it while attending Olentangy High School, but now that my senior year of college is about to begin, I’ve seemingly taken a lot more notice of the abundance of girls clung to them.
While working for (two days) with Ohio PIRG, one of which I was slapped down into the “ghetto” area of Granview, Ohio, I was shocked by the number of young women, definitely not in high school, that sought out security, recognition, or who knows what else, in these tote bags. What could be in them I wondered. What could be the social norm they’re attempting to adhear to while walking to their friends house lugging around various sized bags. Is there really that much stuff they need to have with them at all times at that age?
So here’s to being a gay guy, and not having to deal with the the pressures of young womanhood.
Exactly what this summer has lacked in many ways from the people I least expected to make little to no effort. My two “best friends” are either (a) drunk, or (b) getting hitched in May. You may be thinking, the hell does (a) have to do with (b), but it’s simpler than it may seem. Last summer I was really impressed when the quote, “you’ll know where my loyalty lies,” panned out to be true — that didn’t last because (a) took control. Then, with the whole gradution/last summer in Ohio (ever)/marriage thing, I expected (b) to bring us closer together — oops.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love them both dearly, I just didn’t anticipate this exact play list.
This summer has been an experience because the people I least expected (sorry!) have been there for me the most. So thanks Superman and Brasil…y’all rock! And on the Superman note, I’d like to say that summing up one of our friends as a, “person who can’t put 2 and 2 together,” was fierce. 
I’ve decided that it’s important for me to start journaling all the random thoughts I have. You could say this is because of all my frustration with T-Mobile, and the availability to developers of a fabulous program for the Danger Sidekick called Bloggy…either way, let the games begin!
