Over The Edge – Dan Rosenbaum's random musings

There goes Plan B…

So now comes word that Starbucks will close 200 more U.S. stores (in addition to the 600 already slated), putting another 6,700 people out of work. I guess all my friends in publishing will now need a new “last-resort” job option. One wonders if the severance benefits include a high-value Starbucks card and free Wi-Fi. […]

The Real Macworld Keynote

So the “leaked” keynote was wrong on pretty much every count. What we got was a vastly improved Apple TV, interesting flexible video rental options, a neat network attached storage device, and the sexiest damned laptop I’ve ever heard about. The MacBook Air will get a lot of ink for being so thin and so […]

Filed Under: Tech

Blown up in Iraq

From the Middle Eastern Times: I was blown up last Tuesday. Luckily I can write about it. Many others who’ve shared the experience can’t. They’re dead, or their bodies and brains are so messed up by shrapnel or concussion they can’t remember the details. It takes a special kind of person to be a war […]

Jobs Keynote Leaked?

Steve Jobs’s keynote at Macworld is a lot like the president’s State of the Union, only with better security. That’s why it’s so remarkable that there’s been a possible leak on Wikipedia. What makes it almost credible is the a) degree of detail and b) the modesty and probability of the products presented. No flying […]

Filed Under: Tech

Gawking OKed by Top NY Court

In a development sure to annoy natives citywide, New York State’s highest court says it’s OK for pedestrians to stand obliviously in the middle of busy intersections and force people to walk around them. From the NYTimes: [Judge Carmen Beatrice Ciparek] later added: “Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support […]

Tesla Wins! Tesla Wins!

Infrastructurum Longa, Vita Brevis. Forgive the piggish Latin. The geekier among you know that although Thomas Edison gets all the credit for the light bulb and municipal power and all that — Consolidated Edison, anyone? — he actually came out the loser on a big standards war: AC vs DC. Edison was a big proponent […]

Maybe they can use one of the leftover crocodiles from the NYC sewers…

Over in the swamps of Jersey, they renamed what was once the Brendan Byrne Arena and was then the Continental Airlines Arena after Izod, the popular leisureware of the 70s and 80s. (The news angle is that someone’s suggesting that the building will be more valuable, not less, when there are no pesky tenants left. […]

How’d you like to be the guy in the next cube?

From the AP, via WCBS Radio: FORT WORTH, TX (AP) — A 47-year-old insurance company worker accidentally fired his gun in his office cubicle, shooting himself in both legs, police said. The man, who hasn’t been identified, had put his .45-caliber gun into his jacket pocket and then draped the jacket over the back of […]

Meckler buys Mediabistro

It was no secret that the media trade site mediabistro.com was for sale, and the asking price of $25 million was reported so widely that it was easily believable. But yesterday’s word that the buyer (for $20 million now and maybe $3 million maybe later) was Alan Meckler and Jupitermedia was, well, pretty surprising. Alan’s […]