Netflix recently awarded their $1 million prize to a seven person group of statisticians and computer scientists for improving the accuracy of customer movie recommendations by ten percent.

Living in Boise. Idaho, one of the things I really look forward to is my daily New York Times. Yes, I can get it online, but I’m enough of an old fart that I like to relax with a hard copy over my morning coffee. The problem is, it has to be flown in from Seattle and doesn’t get here until almost midday, sometimes not even then as it is delivered by a notorious local family of drug addicts!

‘Rockjazz’ pianist 36-year-old Eric Lewis a.k.a Elew played at TED Long Beach, California, in February this year to an audience that was impressed enough to give him a standing ovation. Elew’s style is difficult to describe. He studied piano as a child and later at the Manhattan School of Music. He then played for the Lincoln Center Jazz Troupe and toured with jazz greats Wynton Marsalis and Cassandra Wilson before breaking off to go it on his own. His individual style – he often stands when he plays, reaches into the piano to pull its strings and contorts his face [...]

An article in The New York Times today highlights the increasing tendency of teenagers to greet each other by hugging, to the bewilderment of their parents, who are more accustomed to handshakes. Not just limited to family, good friends, and lovers, hugging has become a standard way to say hi in high school hallways. There are even distinct varieties of hug:
There is the basic friend hug, probably the most popular, and the bear hug, of course. But now there is also the bear claw, when a boy embraces a girl awkwardly with his elbows poking out. There is the hug [...]

You have to laugh when you read the piece in Saturday’s New York Times about how Ad Revenue on the Internet is no longer the Holy Grail it has been promoted as for the last few hundred years or so. Remember, ever since the immortal dot com implosion, we were incessantly bombarded with the “Field of Dreams” scenario? Build the world’s wankiest Web site, give free access, free content, Jesus, even offer them your girlfriend for free. That way, you’ll generate a huge audience, then years down the road you’ll be able to milk the shit out of these cretins. [...]

As I write this on a Sunday afternoon, after a splendid lunch accompanied by a bottle of rather fine claret, I am relaxing with my essential Sunday New York Times. Which, now that I live in Boise, Idaho, I don’t get ‘till late afternoon, as it has to be flown in from Seattle, then delivered by a family of local drug addicts, who sometimes have a problem getting out of bed in the morning.
But, that’s of little consequence to the main thrust of this week’s diatribe. After finally getting my mitts on the New York Times, I first read the [...]

The New York Times has branched out into the “hyperlocal” news market with two new websites that cover very small, specific areas. Launched last week, The Local is a simple, blog-like repository of local news and events. The Local acts as a kind of digital, small town newspaper that filters out all the national and international news to only deliver what’s relevant to your corner of the world.
At the moment, The Local is being field-tested in two areas, Maplewood, Milburn and South Orange, New Jersey and in the Fort Greene-Clinton hill area of Brooklyn. They each have small staffs, and [...]

Living out in the wilds of Idaho, I have to wait ‘till mid-day to get my hard copy fix of the New York Times… Yeah, I know I can get most of it online hours before, and I usually do. But shit, that’s not the same as spilling your breakfast beer over the print edition and making the ink soak into the tablecloth, so your wife can give you a huge bollocking to start her day on a high note… Anyway, I digress. I look forward to the Sunday edition. Yes, it is boat anchor sized. But also, it has [...]

This parody ad comes from the team at 92YTribeca. Nice little viral effort written and Directed by Michael Showalter. Satire always reveals so many social truths.

Eric Wilson writes an interesting piece in last week’s New York Times, “Change? It Wasn’t in Fashion” pointing out how in 2008, compared to the topsy turvy year in the American political arena, the fashion industry was decidedly more cautious (or in his words, stubborn). Marc Jacobs revived designs from earlier collaborations with Murakami and Steven Sprouse, even marketing them with tried and true imagery. Models from the 1990s are making a comeback. Trends which have been around for way too long (they are trends after all, meaning they’re supposed to shift and morph with significant timeliness) just won’t go [...]