Other kids worshipped baseball players. My hero was a fictional Scottish engineer from the 23rd century.
Before the terms geek and nerd entered the vernacular, we were called
brains, or, more cruelly, weirdos. We built Heathkits, disassembled
televisions and tape recorders, and bribed the librarian to give us
first crack at the new issues of Popular Science and Popular
Electronics, usually by changing the ribbon or switching the golf
balls on her newfangled IBM Selectric.
Racine’s Artist Colony
IF Racine, Wis., is not yet the Hamptons of the Midwest, it’s not for lack of effort.
This formerly gritty industrial city roughly 70 miles north of Chicago and 30 miles south of Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan has been trying for much of the last decade to reinvent itself as an artist’s colony and tourist destination.
The efforts have included the opening of the $11 million Racine Art Museum on Main Street in 2003 and the creation of a gallery district centering on nearby Sixth Street, currently home to about a dozen galleries.
Racine Map. Madison based Gorman & Company, developer of the Mitchell Wagon Factory Lofts is mentioned in Sharoff’s article.
Racine is considering county-wide WiFi. Perhaps they’ll have it in place before we Madisonians do?
Small Town vs. Wal-Mart: Jefferson Opposition Alderman Faces Recall
The company left in its wake a recall effort against one alderman, a local newspaper smarting from the loss of a major advertising client and hurt feelings from people on both sides of the debate.
David Olsen, the targeted alderman, said the schism has divided the city of about 7,500 more than an 11-month strike at the local Tyson Foods plant in 2003.
George Gilder on Hollywood
Scott Kirsner interviews George Gilder about the pending “dissolution of the television and motion picture industries as we know them”. MP3 Audio. Meanwhile, our good Senator, Herb Kohl has some decisions to make on whether he supports the future, or the past.
Entrepreneurs: Competing with the Big Firms
Tom Peters offers up several useful tips on competing with big organizations:
Can the small player compete in a world of Citigroups and Bank of Americas? I said it was a lark. And I more or less meant it. That is, among other things, giants— “new tech,” CRM, etc notwithstanding— will always be clumsy and impersonal relative to an “intimate local” who is really out to make a dramatic difference.
Cap Times on Media Concentration
A Capital Times Editorial on “Breaking up Big Media Concentration“:
The consolidation of American media has robbed this country’s citizens of the competing journalism, the honest dialogue and the cultural diversity that the founders intended when they wrote a “freedom of the press” protection into the First Amendment to the Constitution.
American media were never perfect, of course.
But the quality and independence of the media have suffered over the past three decades, as Congress and federal regulators rewrote the rules to make it easier for big media companies to buy up more and more of the country’s communication outlets. As recently as 1996, a single company could only own a few dozen radio stations nationally. Now, because of the rule changes contained in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, one company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200 stations and dominates many local media markets around the country.
Not a word about the increasing concentration of the daily newspaper business, however. The internet is addressing this question, of course.
EAA Heats Up: B17 Buzzes Madison
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Click on the photos for a larger view.
The EAA’s AirVenture starts Monday. Looks like a fabulous show this year with Burt Rutan’s White Knight/SpaceShipOne paying a visit. A rare WWII vintage B17 buzzed Madison this morning. I snapped these photos in a hurry. The cell tower fly by is an interesting reflection of today’s world vis a vis 1940’s technology. More on the B17.
Customer Service – 2005
Joanne Jacobs tells a useful story about trying to get money back from a credit card company – with a classic ending.
Entrepreneurs: An Interview with Wil Shipley
Drunkenblog interviews Wil Shipley, one of the creators of the quite successful Delicious Monster: “The greatest media cataloging software in the world”. Well worth reading. Via Brent.
Open Source Medical Records System
Now, however, Medicare, which says the lack of electronic records is one of the biggest impediments to improving health care, has decided to step in. In an unprecedented move, it said it planned to announce that it would give doctors – free of charge – software to computerize their medical practices. An office with five doctors could save more than $100,000 by choosing the Medicare software rather than buying software from a private company, officials say.
Verona based Epic Systems creates and supports a medical records product along with many other health care tools. Slashdot discussion. Worldvista site.