Heavy Metal Alphabet Baby - The best thing you'll see today.
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This is amazing.
Netflix developing Legend of Zelda series!
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From The Verge, reporting on a story from the Wall Street Journal
“Nintendo fans have all the more reason to sign up for Netflix. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is in the process of developing a new live-action series based on The Legend of Zelda. The series is reportedly in early stages, as the streaming company courts writers, but sources say Netflix wants it to resemble Game of Thrones but with a more family-friendly tone.
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I have only one thing to say. Shut up and continue to take my money!
Slayer's Raining Blood Played on kids instruments
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This guy can make a passable version of Slayer's Raining Blood on crappy kids instruments. Pretty impressive! Just more proof that it's not the tools; It's how you use them.
Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs Movie Gets a Release Date
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So it's official. The Aaron Sorkin penned, Danny Boyle directed Steve Jobs biopic that has gone through development hell finally has a release date. October 9th, 2015. Do I care? Not so much. There has been so much drama surrounding the casting and production of this movie that something smells off to me. It seems like it's being made simply because it HAS to be at this point. That being said, there is a lot of star power, and a lot of Academy Award winners involved, so who knows. I just take it as a bad sign when Ashton Kutcher looks more like Jobs than Fassbender does.
INSPIRATION OF THE DAY - February 4th, 2015→
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Today's inspiration comes in the form of the hauntingly beautiful portraiture of photographer Lee Jeffries. The Christ-like figure above is actually an example of Jeffries' street portraiture of homeless individuals. Apparently he spends quite a bit of time exploring the streets of countries throughout the world, seeking out these interesting characters. After speaking with them for a time, and paying them for their time, he produces a stunning portrait of them.
Some people have said that this work is exploitative of the homeless who are desperate for cash. I think more than anything that this work is exactly the opposite. It illustrates better than almost anything the heartbreaking nature of homelessness throughout the world. Also, Jeffries' work makes the viewer focus on the fact that these homeless people are exactly that, PEOPLE. The human element is unavoidable here. Please take the time to look through his work. I hope you will find it as moving as I did.
Why Amazon buying RadioShack stores is a brilliant move.
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Bloomberg today is reporting that Amazon is possibly in talks to purchase a number of RadioShack retail stores as part of their long-rumored expansion into retail.
“(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc., aiming to bolster its brick-and-mortar operations, has discussed acquiring some RadioShack Corp. locations after the electronics chain files for bankruptcy, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Amazon has considered using the RadioShack stores as showcases for the Seattle-based company’s hardware, as well as potential pickup and drop-off centers for online customers, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the deliberations are private.”
Amazon has been moving more and more into the electronics world first with its Kindle, then its range of Kindle Fire Tablets, and its Kindle Fire Phone which, while a failure, was an important step (one that will almost certainly be iterated upon). Even now they are doing early shipping of their in-home digital assistant Amazon Echo, which is one of the more interesting pieces of tech we've seen this year.
All of these products could very much benefit from a small local store where one could try them out, ask questions, and get support a la Apple's Genius Bar. This makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than Sprint's purchase of some of these stores. In fact, it seems like a brilliant business move, as long as they don't buy too many.
Not only that, but many people are overlooking Amazon's AmazonBasics brand. They sell a ton of super inexpensive branded products like HDMI cables, lightning cables, bluetooth speakers, laptop bags, camera bags, batteries, car chargers. Heck, they even have AmazonBasics branded clothes-hangers!
Imagine being able to go into a physical store to go into to pick up an HDMI cable. or batteries, or an iPhone charger, and not being charged an arm and a leg for it like Best Buy (or Radio Shack for that matter) does. Just having a few of those things on hand in-store would be enough to deal a pretty significant blow to Best Buy, which at this point probably makes most of its sales on two things: Items people don't usually have shipped (TVs, appliances), and impulse purchase items (phone cases, hdmi cables, flash drives, etc) that they mark up tremendously (think $50 HDMI cables).
Even the locations are very compatible. Radioshack stores tend to be small and located in just about the perfect place for an Amazon store. Small stores mean low-rent, which hopefully means Amazon will be able to absorb that cost in the way they do so well.
Though, I'm sure they are going to want to raise some capital to keep these possible stores afloat. It's a good thing they have a super easy way to do it. How, you ask? Make the stores an Amazon Pickup location. Of course, that's obvious. Even better would be to make the store a SAME DAY pickup location. Let's say I order a few books from Amazon in the morning, and at checkout it gives me the option to pick them up later that day from my local Amazon store for an additional $10.00. If this is a book I really want, or need. You know I'm going to pick that option. They could even give their Prime members a discount, and make it $5 instead.
We already know that Amazon is using information about your shopping cart, your wishlists, as well as your browsing activity to start shipping items that they think you might purchase to warehouses close to you so that they can get them to you faster. What if this method was used in their retail stores as well. They could start pre-shipping items that they think you might want to a regional warehouse that feeds a number of local stores. With a small fleet of trucks per warehouse, they could easily provide that same day pickup at the store.
A lot of people are writing this Amazon Retail business off as a bad idea. Though I have a feeling a lot of those people said the same thing about Apple when they decided to get into retail. Me? I think this could be one of the most important retail plays of the decade. I'm curious to see what they do.
Joystiq and TUAW shutting down is the best thing that could have happened to them.
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Okay, that headline sounds harsh. Hear me out. I have loved Joystiq just about since it began. It was singlehandedly the site that kept my waning interest in Video Games alive. I was also a huge fan of TUAW until it started to fall off and iMore and 9to5mac became my go-to Apple sites. For a long time, both of those sites were way better than they had any reason to be with AOL's crappy management.
That's why I'm glad they are gone.
There was far too much great talent working at both sites, being totally shortchanged by AOL. I'm hoping to see some more projects in the vein of Stratechery by Ben Thompson. People with a singular voice and a talent for writing who can bring their own particular flavor to the topic they want to cover.
We live in a time now where making a publishing platform for yourself that can withstand massive traffic spikes is easily within anyone's reach. With growing ways to finance yourself via ads, or donations, or crowdfunding, I think it's time to get away from the corporate model of blog publishing.
Almost without fail, every major blog that has been eaten up by a big publisher ended up worse off in the end. I personally can't wait to see what all those talented people go off and do.