One of the nicer things about living in my neighborhood has always been the fireworks. I live only a few steps from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which overlooks the East River and lower Manhattan. Ever other year, we get a front-row seat for the immense Macy’s Independence Day display. (Macy’s alternates putting its floats in the lower and upper East River; when they’re upstream, by Queens, we can’t see a damn thing.)

But it’s not just Macy’s. Any company that’s willing to pay the freight and go through an apparently rigorous application process can fire off pyrotechnics in New York Harbor, and a fair number do. On more than a few nights, we can hear rhythmic booming from the harbor. More than sometimes, we run outside to see them.

Since September 11, it should not be a surprise, there have not been any fireworks displays in New York City; the last one was quite enough, thank you. But I was certain that this past Friday — late in the evening, like 10:45pm or so — I heard the characteristic booms. I didn’t go out to check it out; it had been a long day.

I don’t (yet) know what the noise was, but it didn’t make the local news so it wasn’t awful. But if you believe this link, it wasn’t fireworks either, because the next ones in the city will be this July 4, somewhere over the East River — just as usual. It should be something to see.

The next time you hear a record company say they want to step on freely distributed online music for the sake of recording artists, think on this.

Also, an article in NetSurfer Digest (edited by fellow Internet Press Guild member Laurie Nyveen) reports on an interesting experiment by Baen Books. Laurie charges for access to NSD, but here’s the gist: the Baen author Eric Flint put the text of his books online, and saw sales jump 200 percent. Says Flint:

By far the main enemy any author faces, except a handful of ones who are famous to the public at large, is simply obscurity. Even well-known SF authors are only read by a small percentage of the potential SF audience. Most readers, even ones who have heard of the author, simply pass them up.

Why? In most cases, simply because they don’t really know anything about the writer and aren’t willing to spend $7 to $28 just to experiment. So, they keep buying those authors they are familiar with.

What the Free Library provides-as do traditional libraries, or simply the old familiar phenomenon of friends lending each other books-is a way for people to investigate a new author for free, before they plunk down any money.

And by making their wares freely available, artists can get around a closed distribution channel. I went to buy the new Michelle Shocked album tonight. My HMV store first said it hadn’t shipped (once they acknowledged that there was such an artist as Michelle Shocked), then acknowledged that oh, it had shipped but they didn’t have it and probably wouldn’t get it. Hello, Amazon?

From CNN, a lovely bit of news for this new dad of twins:

A study being released at a meeting of the American Heart Association on Wednesday found that men who decide to become househusbands and take care of children at home may be putting their health and hearts in danger.

In fact, researchers conducting the study in Framingham, Massachusetts, for the National Institutes for Health found men who have been stay-at-home dads most of their adult lives have an 82 percent higher risk of death from heart disease than men who work outside the home.

Doesn’t say anything about how it compares to working for a boss who acts like a child.

What is it about interactive television that so many companies are so willing to spend so much money on it when so few customers seem to care? Time Inc., CBS, IBM, Sears, Comcast — the list goes on and on.

Add Microsoft. About 200 jobs are vanishing, and Microsoft doesn’t usually lay people off. From the WSJ:

Moshe Lichtman, who took charge of all of Microsoft’s struggling TV operations in January, … said Microsoft would now focus on delivering software for simpler “broadcast” services, such as video on demand, and for new “media center” devices, which can offer home networking, DVD playback, and music and photo storage. Microsoft’s previous products were less focused on video and home networking, which some cable companies say consumers now want.

…

Indeed, Microsoft’s announcement is an admission that the company’s previous strategy of building complicated software for expensive set-top boxes, such as Motorola Inc.’s DCT-5000, simply hasn’t worked out, and Microsoft hasn’t been able to deliver a viable business model for cable companies, analysts say.

If it weren’t for Jay Chiat, there wouldn’t be an Engergizer Bunny, you wouldn’t know what a “swoosh” is, and Apple Computer probably wouldn’t be alive.

Chait, one of the great ad men of the 80s and 90s, passed away yesterday, apparently of prostate cancer.

With the Apple “1984” ad that introduced the Macintosh, Chiat helped invent “event advertising,” and his work with Enegizer added a still-unaccustomed edge of irony to network ads.

Not only did he help change the way commercials looked, his Chiat/Day agency pioneered open “hotel-style” workplaces, where no one had dedicated space and people were forced into interacting with other employees. A lot of people hated it, and with good reason. But it sure knocked people out of routines, and that’s usually a good thing for creative types.

AOL Time Warner, like so many one-time stock market darlings, has been lagging of late. The company and its investors are on a seemingly endless quest of synergies, looking for ways that a company that owns everything from Wakko to People to CNN to Netscape can work with itself.

As something of an intellectual exercise, Goldman, Sachs put up $20,000 in a competition between teams of MBA students. The task: tell incoming AOLTW CEO Richard Parsons how to maximize return.

The team from Harvard (and note: the team consisted of four women) won, beating finalists from Dartmouth and Yale. Unlike its competition, the Harvard team didn’t preach synergy, though. They said that the best way for AOLTW to make money was to let its individual units compete with each other, each unit seeking to maximize its own return without particular regard for how it might affect another unit.

I’d be interested to know where those four women get jobs after graduation.

The bad news is, he was testifying about Homeland Security, since Director Tom Ridge won’t.

Only kidding. He (it?) was in favor of more music in public schools. Me too.

Funny thing is, it’s usually only stuffed shirts in Congress.

And at last, here was a witness that George W. could follow.

(Thank you, thank you. Please tip the waiter.)

Atlanta police will be adopting Dean Kamen’s Segway gyroscopic scooter on a trial basis, says the AP. They’ll have six of them for a two-month try-out.

The slightly snotty dispatch says purse-snatchers will only have to break into a brisk job to outrun a Segway. Maybe it’s me, but 12 miles per hour seems like a pretty snappy pace on foot. Maybe the miscreants will need a bicycle. Or, it being Atlanta, a horse.

The fine folks at Disney and Pixar have disclosed what the next three movies are going to be. The line starts on the left.

As often, the subways provide another slice of New York color. From the New York Times:

That Screech You Hear Isn’t the Shuttle Rolling In. Thousands of subway riders scramble and squeeze in a slightly more civilized manner because of Millie Mendez’s voice. By Randy Kennedy.