Brazil part two: The Facebook Phone….

Posted on by russallo

The Facebook phone released today, reminds me a lot of the movie Brazil. Over at one my favortie blogs NY Mags Daily intelligence has a great thoughts about their choice of the word Home for their system.

“Either way, pay attention to the political implications of naming a piece of software after a primary residence — a shelter where people experience comfort and loss, a sanctuary where they’re safe and protected, and intruders are kept at bay. When Facebook says it wants to become your home, it’s making a profound statement about the way people’s smartphones are now their primary means of both getting into and out of the world around them. If the social network gets its way, you’ll start seeing Facebook every time you use your phone, and not much else.”

Read more at Daily Intelligence 

A day with Richard Simmons

Posted on by russallo

“Through Thick And Thin, Simmons Is Still Sweatin”

While working as a waiter, Richard Simmons saved up a year-and-a-half worth of tips to open his first aerobics studio in Beverly Hills in 1974. Ever since then, he still teaching classes to this day.

“Even though my work is whimsical,” Simmons says, “I have a very serious job. I cry more than I laugh….When I go to bed at night, I ask God to give me another day,” he says. “I ask him to keep me strong and make me a good teacher, and to keep spreading this right word.”

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Bureaucracy is so 19th Century.

Link | Posted on by russallo

Bureaucracy is so 19th Century.

Why we all should strive for collaborative atmospheres and organizations.

Supposing Microsoft had managed to hire technology’s top players into a single unit before they made their names elsewhere—Steve Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Larry Page of Google, Larry Ellison of Oracle, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon—regardless of performance, under one of the iterations of stack ranking, two of them would have to be rated as below average, with one deemed disastrous.

This American Life: Will They Know Me Back Home

Posted on by russallo

This American life from March 11, 2011. is an incredible overview of the impacts of war and stories of soldiers on leave from the Iraq war.

429:

Stories of people who’ve grown so accustomed to wartime that the lives they’ve left behind no longer make sense. Including a US battalion going home on leave after 15 months of deployment, and an Iraqi translator’s story of life after the gig is up.