Betterness by Kawika Holbrook

SLVR Clone, Please

"In phones, as in people, looks are important--in getting your attention. But for a happy long-term relationship, it's the software design that counts." Cingular now offer's SLVR iTunes cell phone, which offers great looks and "stratospherically stupid" address book like the RAZR. Samsung's RAZR clone, the A900 "offers 90 percent of the Razr's design wow factor, but with software that's infinitely more thoughtful and efficient." Verizon doesn't have the SLVR, Samsung hasn't cloned it yet, and everything else is too bloated to bother trying. Where's the iPhone when you need it?

Today's Lunch Reading

Science Puts Enron E-Mail to Use — Oh what fun you'll find in 1.5 million emails from the world's most notorious energy firm.

Russia's Gas Diplomacy Fuels Realignment of Former Soviet Bloc — Georgia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics in the "near-abroad" are forced to diversify their energy sources as Gazprom strong-arms them with slow-downs, shut-downs, and price hikes. Sounds like Enron.

How Pixar Adds a New School of Thought to Disney — "Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. ... It's no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it's a gift to be interested."

Are politics delaying the $100 laptop — MIT Media Labs wants millions of poor kids around the world to connect to the Internet, but Microsoft -- ever so subtly -- seems to be spreading some FUD about the sustainability of the approach.

An Insider's Take on Steve Jobs — It isn't money, power, or legacies that make him tick. He wants to make products that change the world. Simple as that, really.

Hussein, Defense Team Plan to Boycott Trial — What happens if the judge finds them in contempt?

Eyes on the Road — Advice for GM and Ford: make cars people want to own.

Lockheed Wins Air Force Pact For Communications Backbone — The worldwide wireless network sounds like "SkyNet" from The Terminator movies.

Extreme Victory — Hamas political tutors learned lessons from Bush's spin doctors: "replace hot-button words with polite equivalents. "We don't need to 'kill people'," he says. "We need to 'remove occupation.' Both are the same, but the meaning is totally different." And aim your pitch to attract swing voters. "People tackling social issues get higher votes," he says. "When you kill, don't say you're going to do it. Just do it. And then say you're sorry.""

Move Over, Coke — How a maker of water with vitamins schmoozes the hell out of distributors to get on store shelves.

Why Hold the Superlatives? 'American Idol' Is Ascendant — Half of all teenage girls watching TV watch American Idol. Three hours a week of programming is considered limited, these days.

Domestic Wiretapping Counter-offensive

If you can't argue the law, argue the facts. ... If you can't argue the facts, argue the law. Or, "If you can't argue either, apparently, the solution is to go on a "public relations offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over again 'it's lawful', and to think that the American people will somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough." The students incorrectly quote Ben Franklin, but the banner's sentiment -- those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither -- is spot on. Warrant-less wiretapping is un-American. Please, let's hold ourselves to a higher standard than the terrorists. Please?

The Urge to Merge

Like Wall Street, I loves merger that eliminate redundancies. They for the savings. Me for the simplicity and potentially interesting branding work. UPN and The WB, the two netlets founded in the mid-90s, have become increasingly like one another over the years anyway, so their merger makes sense. Will the audiences merge? How young will new shows skew? Can they overcome their new lame name, The CW? There's where my curiosity lies most.

Steve's Job

I wonder what role, specifically, Steve wants to play in Disney. He has a fiduciary responsibility to protect Disney's assets, which may conflict with Apple's desire to exploit them through iTunes. This is going to be fun to watch, what with Bob Iger being new to the CEO slot, George Mitchell stepping down soon from the Charman position, and Microsoft, Real, and Google all pushing competing content protection schemes. In the end, if Disney's content doesn't ultimately play on or with something that starts with an "i" it probably won't fly.

iStanford

I always wanted to go to Stanford. Now it'll come to me.

220

I doubt I'll lose more than a pound or two every few weeks until I start exercising. I've cut down on snacking and improved the quality and quantity of meals, but it's going to take a lot more to drop the next 40 pounds.

220

I attribute the four pounds lost last week to only two days of unhealthy eating on a business trip. The other five days included a lot more water, a bit more protein, a bit less snacking, and a painful return to jogging on Sunday. Weighing myself without jeans or a t-shirt helped, I'm sure. If I haven't lost anything by the end of the week, I may try weighing myself naked and bald, just to keep up the appearance of success.

Free Love

America West/US Airways, which is "joining together to create the world's largest low-cost airlines," has lost my luggage. My carry-on luggage. The small, very important bag containing my company's projector, my CPAP machine, and everything else I worked so hard to pack into a single case so I wouldn't have to check anything but they forced me to check anyway even though it fit neatly in the overhead compartment. The federal Wright Amendment forbids Southwest from flying where we needed to go. Southwest is better that US Airways, which hasn't returned my phone call and doesn't have a link to enter my lost-luggage trouble ticket. How I hope and pray Southwest's campaign to free Love Field for longer-haul flights succeeds.

The Big Queasy

"There are parts of New Orleans that are not fit for human habitation. They never were and never will be." Yet the city's plan would open everything for rebuilding, and then buy out residents who's neighborhoods can't sustain themselves. Of course, the worst places to rebuild will end up being the most affordable to try. And it doesn't appear the feds, state and city agree on what to do, let alone how to do it.