Junesix Media

The 2007 Forbes Fictional 15

Thu, 08 May 2008 17:08:00 -0400

The 2007 Forbes Fictional 15 :

Fun roundup of the 15 richest fictional people in 2007 as ranked by Forbes.com. They also ranked them in 2006 and 2005. They also cover why certain people were dropped off between years. Example: Santa Claus and his infinite wealth was taken off the list in 2006 due to doubts of his existence.

Here’s the full 2007 list for you lazy readers.

Scrooge McDuck - $28.8b - Mining, Treasure Hunting
Ming The Merciless - $20.9b - Technology
Richie Rich - $16.1b - Inheritance, Conglomerates
Mom - $15.7b - Technology, Conglomerates
Jed Clampett - $11.0b - Oil & Gas, Banking
C. Montgomery Burns - $8.4b - Energy
Carter Pewterschmidt - $7.2b - Inheritance, Steel
Bruce Wayne - $7.0b - Inheritance, Defense
Thurston Howell III - $6.3b - Howell Industries
Tony Stark - $6.0 - Defense
Fake Steve Jobs - $5.7b - Apple Computer, Pixar
Gomez Addams - $2.0b - Inheritance, Investing
Willy Wonka - $1.9b - Candy, Aerospace
Lucius Malfoy - $1.6b - Inheritance
Princess Peach - $1.3b - Inheritance

SF needs a BBQ Festival like the Big Apple BBQ in NYC

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:47:18 -0400

SF needs a BBQ Festival like the Big Apple BBQ in NYC:

Apparently there was one in Justin Herman Plaza in August 2007. No updates for 2008 though. I’ve emailed the contact address for that Guardsmen Barbecue Festival to see if they’re doing one this year.

(via dazzlingdelta)

Citysearch = Irrelevant, right?

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:27:39 -0400

Yep, it’s completely irrelevant. Citysearch is still stuck in the dotcom-era and developing its service as a portal. But portals only work when they hook into useful services - they’re actually pretty uninteresting for presenting pages of content. People prefer the casual, review-oriented blog+game+social network of Yelp.

Yelp is really brilliant and its popularity works on the same mechanics that make Wikipedia popular. No one has done a study of Yelp but I’m certain that it also relies on a elite group of 1000 or so reviewers in each city that write reviews of every restaurant, club, and store. Those are the ones you see with 500+ reviews and tons of compliments and “firsts”. And getting those compliments requires writing an entertaining but thorough entry, like writing a good blog post. To these elite, Yelp is blogging as a game and a de facto diary of what they’re doing, ie. “my life on Yelp.”

Citysearch is automatic FAIL because it lacks any incentives for people to spend time writing reviews.

mascarah:

Is it just me or is Citysearch totally irrelevant? The “customer” reviews of places are total shills. They still list places that aren’t open. Why does anyone use it?

I saw the new Iron Man movie over the weekend and instantly...

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:57:00 -0400

I saw the new Iron Man movie over the weekend and instantly thought of designing a shirt with the arc reactor in the chest. It could have two variants: one with the arc reactor coming out from the chest with the shirt torn around and a second variant with just the glow of the arc reactor beneath a gray heather shirt.

This guy on eBay went one step ahead and made a shirt that has a working, glowing LED module in the chest! And it even turns on and off by touching the center!

His first shirt sold for $148. I’m gonna post this to Etsy’s Alchemy and see if someone can manufacture it for $40-$60.

Etsy has a bunch of watch cufflinks. These are beautiful...

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:39:00 -0400

Etsy has a bunch of watch cufflinks. These are beautiful specimens ranging from $40 - $85. I need my tailor to make me some more French cuff shirts.

"Once a King, never a Prince. True entrepreneurs are basically unemployable. Nobody wants a former..."

Fri, 02 May 2008 12:09:01 -0400

“Once a King, never a Prince. True entrepreneurs are basically unemployable. Nobody wants a former boss as an employee. They don’t just fade away, they start new companies.”

- A commenter in Paul Kedrosky’s post about the age breakdown of US entrepreneurs.

Twitter becoming the Midas Touch?

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:57:00 -0400

The influential Twitter mini-universe is going completely gaga over Brightkite. It’s nearly identical to the mobile geolocater service Plazes with a single exception: Twitter integration. Somehow that’s been sufficient to kick off a firestorm of signups and Brightkite is struggling to keep up with the influx of new users.

For now, it seems Twitter is firmly secure as the bleeding edge communication tool. Any new social networking/geolocating/shiny web 2.0 app would be wise to latch on Twitter’s position as a crucial piece of infrastructure. Oh, and showing off a screenshot of an iPhone app that doesn’t exist yet doesn’t hurt cough Brightkite.

UPDATE: If you want a Brightkite invite to check it out, I have 3 of em. Send me a reply at twitter @junesix, I’ll friend you and then you can direct message me your email address.

"I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about..."

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:17:00 -0400

“I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.””

- An excerpt from Clay Shirky’s speech, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, at the Web 2.0 conference about the increased productivity via “cognitive surplus.” Clay told this story to support his belief that this is more than just an idea and that people are growing accustomed to interacting with media and not simply consuming it.

Bracelets made from discarded camera lens components by Oye...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:45:00 -0400

Bracelets made from discarded camera lens components by Oye Modern.

I’m not a jewelry guy but these would be great gifts for photo-geek friends/loved ones. Too bad about the price ~US$215.

(via swissmiss.com)

Evan Shaner does amazing “re-imagined” illustrations...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:21:00 -0400

Evan Shaner does amazing “re-imagined” illustrations of other cartoon and comic figures.

The above is Dennis the Menace’s family re-imagined as the Fantastic Four.

Below is Charles Schultz’ Peanuts Gang re-imagined as The Watchmen.

(via laughingsquid.com)

"As an industry — as a business model — health care is winning. It is taking everyone’s money with..."

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:12:00 -0400

“As an industry — as a business model — health care is winning. It is taking everyone’s money with an amazingly low level of accountability for the product it sells.”

- George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente (via jayparkinsonmd.com)

If Microsoft goes fully hostile on Yahoo

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:08:21 -0400

If Microsoft goes fully hostile on Yahoo: Great read at Marc Andreesen’s blog on how a potential hostile takeover by Microsoft of Yahoo could happen. The attorneys who compiled it drop a lot of hints to the finance departments other big dot-coms on what they should do to avoid a similar predicament.

Sara, have you tried Remember The Milk? It’s a great to-do...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:16:39 -0400

Sara, have you tried Remember The Milk? It’s a great to-do list app that integrates right into the sidebar of Gmail. Screenshot here. And it’s free!

saramcpherson:

I just realized that I’m not very nice in the To Do lists I e-mail to myself.

Fleming: Inside the Life of James Bond’s Creator

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:23:58 -0400

Fleming: Inside the Life of James Bond’s Creator:

I had no idea Ian Fleming was such a renaissance man. Not only did he write the James Bond novels, earlier in his life he had worked as assistant to the British director of naval intelligence and later wrote a series of memorandums and letters to Col. William Donovan describing what a US intelligence agency should look like. In essence, he wrote up the blueprints for what would become the CIA.

After suffering a heart attack, he changed directions and wrote a book about a magical flying car for his son, Caspar. That book was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, later made into the classic 1968 children’s film.

"I find myself thinking of a checklist Wozniak wrote a few years ago describing how to become a..."

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:52:00 -0400

“I find myself thinking of a checklist Wozniak wrote a few years ago describing how to become a genius. His advice was straightforward yet strangely terrible: “You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired.””

- Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm (via jakoblodwick)

Green is... not what PG&E is doing.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:07:06 -0400

I pick up the mail this afternoon and in my stack of junk mail is an 8-page glossy booklet from PG&E telling me what it means to be “green.” Inside is a section on dwindling natural resources on Earth followed by recommendations on stuff I can buy to save energy. There’s also a postcard stapled to the center pages that I can fill out and mail to them to receive even more junk mail printed on paper. 8 pages times a good portion of the 11.5 million households in California is a mega crapload of paper.

Way to go PG&E - you guys obviously don’t believe in a single thing you’re preaching.

French Toast Kabobs I want these for lunch. (via swissmiss.com...

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:25:12 -0400

French Toast Kabobs

I want these for lunch.

(via swissmiss.com via hostessblog.com)

A tale of Eric Ziebold, former #2 at Thomas Keller's The French Laundry

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:04:00 -0400

As told by Shuna Fish Lydon, former pastry chef at The French Laundry.

“No.” Eric said to calm them a bit, “Stand over here, I’m going to show you how to put out this table, I’m going to show you how to cook, how to work like a team, how to put out just one ticket.”

And then he did. He cooked every single course, by himself, with not another soul on the line touching sauce pots or spatulas or garnishes. He jumped this way and that, gracefully, using every part of his body, talking, admonishing, telling, teaching, showing, explaining as he went.

It was the most amazing thing I ever saw in a kitchen.

Eric took over the entire kitchen and cooked all those cooks under the fucking table.

Love reading stories of people just kicking ass at what they do best.

Clue Premier Edition - $150 “Like a Candy Land board...

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:25:00 -0400

Clue Premier Edition - $150

“Like a Candy Land board made of real candy, Clue Premier Edition ($150) ups the game’s realism with nine sunken, three-dimensional rooms, each with precise details including the appropriate furnishings. A non-removable tempered glass lid lets the board function as a display piece between games and keeps curious little hands off the goods inside, while the familiarity of the classic characters lets the grown-ups feel like kids again.”

I dig fancy remakes of simple things.

(via uncrate.com)

The OR Project Courtyard Installation at the Milan Furniture...

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:20:22 -0400

The OR Project Courtyard Installation at the Milan Furniture Fair 2008 from Inhabitat’s extensive photo gallery of the fair. The installation is a photo-sensitive canopy sculpture.