In Salt Lake

I’ve been AWOL for the last four or five days now, trekking to Tulsa for the funeral of my grandmother, Wanda Peters. I have some more thoughts to share on her passing and will get caught up there soon. In the mean time, thank you for your patience as I dig out from under the pile that has accumulated around me. It’s starting to ferment!

Apollo Group says verdict won’t have affect on business — misses point entirely

Apollo Group leadership thumbs their collective nose at the courts, saying that the $277.7 million verdict against them “will not have a material adverse affect on its business or cash flows.”

While it’s thrilling that the company has enough cash to cover the bond and the finding, investors should note: the company has likely learned very little from the experience. [Read more]

Norman Mailer Dies - McGrath Write-up at the Times

Mr. Mailer belonged to the old literary school that regarded novel writing as a heroic enterprise undertaken by heroic characters with egos to match. He was the most transparently ambitious writer of his era, seeing himself in competition not just with his contemporaries but with the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

Proof that MySpace has Jumped the Shark: Axia College MySpace Page

Axia College of University of Phoenix MySpace PageI haven’t posted much about my experience at University of Phoenix. It’s a big place with many challenges and, even with nearly a decade under my belt there, I’m ill equipped to comment on most of them. But I find this one downright funny.About six months ago the director of marketing called me in to a meeting with the MySpace folks. They were evaluating alternative media for marketing purposes and had been approached by MySpace with an advertising package. For over $100,000 they’d set up Axia College of UOP on MySpace and give them ad space on the MySpace internal site network, driving clicks back to the Axia MySpace page. This, for something like three months. (note: I could have that backwards — it’s been a while — but it could be $300,000 for a month. Either way, it’s ridiculous). [Read more]

Amusing Baseball Quote of the Day

I just thought the only ONLY thing that defined the Red Sox was that they couldn’t win the world series. So then they won, and they’re not really the Red Sox anymore. They’re just some anonymous team that players leave so they can go cut their hair and join the Yankees.

- Curt Siffert

Radiohead Retraction

Wow. Did I ever misjudge this band. I hereby take it back — almost everything I said about them a few weeks back.If you’re not following the Radiohead saga, several weeks ago, the band made news when they announced they would not sell their new album on iTunes because the store refuses to sell albums as albums, and instead requires artists to agree to sell at least a few tracks track-only, at $0.99 each.I still contend that shunning track-only sales is silly. But in the context of my hyperbole, I said I’d ignore the band entirely as a result. Then, I went on trying to ignore them.I tried hard. [Read more]

Cadence ProjectMaster 4.0 Online

Full Disclosure Here: I’m a former employee of Cadence Management Corporation, and I’m also a contractor. Plus, I genuinely like the folks who work there, and I think they do good things. That said…I’m working on a voice over for the Cadence ProjectMaster 4.0 Online software demo. It’s about 10 minutes of me talking over a screencast of the tool, demonstrating how it works, walking through the features and so on. As such, they’ve given me access to the real deal online to test features so that I can create the script. This. Thing. Is. Fantastic.

[Read more]

Links from LZZR.com

Here are some thoughts, and an experiment in fighting link bumping, from LZZR.com, an SEO weblog — interesting take on some of the current “nofollow” controversy.

Why it is good to link to LZZR

Chautauqua Photos

For those interested, I’ve started a flickr set of pictures from around the institution, including some larger pictures of the guest lecturers so far. Yes, most are family pics, OPC (other people’s children), but they’re cute children — what can I say.

Click here to head to flickr!

Chautauqua, Day 3: Arianna Huffington Lecture Today

More on this lecture after I actually see it. But there was a Huffington editorial in the local paper today and she had this comparison regarding traditional media converging with new media:

The shifting dynamic between those two forces is exactly like the relationship between Sarah Conner and the T101 in the “Terminator” movies. At first, the visitor from the future(digital) seemed intent on killing Sarah (print). But as the relationship progressed and the sequels unspooled, the Terminator became Sarah and her son’s one hope for salvation. Today, you can almost hear digital media (which for some reason has a thick Austrian accent) saying to print: “Come with me if you want to live!”

Am I the only one who finds that … funny?

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