Even Without File Trading, CD Business Model is Dead

Lossless compression for music is the way to go -- then can get rid of CDs with confidence nothing is left behind -- if want to later, can recreate the CD perfectly. But in 5 years nobody will be using CDs, except maybe nostalgic people like those that still use vinyl claiming they can hear a difference (a brief side commentary for these people: even if you can hear a difference, which you probably can't do under controlled circumstances, the difference isn't so great as to justify spending the $ you do -- you just want something to talk about at cocktail parties).


I use Monkey's Audio. Aside from the stupid name, and the proprietary nature of the format, I use this one b/c I don't care much about the proprietary nature -- it converts out to a neutral format, and from there it's GUI allows you to call any compression program against the WAV. So could convert to another lossless format when it comes time to do so. And as MP3 formats become better, it is a matter minutes to program the GUI to recompress everything.


But that's not the reason for this post. The point I wanted to make is that what little loss there may be, we're loosing it with things like iTunes, which is why I'm still buying CDs. But I really like like file trading sites b/c I can buy a used, but basically new (I only need one good rip) from Amazon or ebay. So the price per song or album still comes down dramatically. I just ordered a bunch of used CDs from Amazon.

Movie Review: Garden State (2004): 80 out of 100

Pretty good for an Indy. A lot of people getting really excited about it -- it does have a certain breakneck appeal. The counteract is really good, in fact I just ordered it from Amazon. I'm trying a purchase from Used for the first time -- who cares anymore when all we do is move it to digital.


Follows protagonist home for break b/c his mother died. Immediately sense something is wrong. Family is disbanding (of course), b/c kid broke mother's back when he was 9. OK this is ridiculous. The whole dispensation family undertow's are pretty silly. This is what doesn't work for the film.


What does work, kind of, is how protagonist changes through film. Early on, we learn and see, he deals with feeling via heavy medication. It is only through falling in love that he stops taking "should be lethal" doses of lithium, because he wants to feel. Stop me before I puke. Protagonist plays a really good version of an emotionally disconnected person, a role he was made for.


Film's end has group yelling into an never-ending abyss, which is apparently the meaningless-ness of life. Protagonist yelled into it, significantly, at first alone, and then together with person from past (highschool buddy) and person in future (Natalie Portman). He yells alone, then he calls them to yell with him. This is a micro summary of the message of the film: only through the bonds of togetherness can we overcome the abyss. Remember, though, Nietzsche said, you look into the abyss and the abyss looks into you. If you want meaning in your life, stop looking for it for the abyss will pierce you when it gazes back, and just live, Royal Caribbean cruise style, GET OUT THERE.


If you want to see basically the same plot (guy coming to home town, disfunctional family, school buddies from high school, learning about life, etc.), go see Beautiful Girls, which was in like 1996. It even has Natalie Portman in exactly the same role. It also has Uma Thurman, and the guy who is now on Broadway doing Avenue Q (which incidentally is a 95). Beautiful Girls is a 95 -- because it doesn't have to be so esoteric with its message. It is a strait forward message about life and growth and acceptance. And you learn something about desire and contentment. With Garden State, you really don't learn anything worth anything, except that feeling emotions = good... Life is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Most people already know this, but it is entertaining to be reminded from time to time, especially when set to such a great soundtrack.


Here's plot info and other reviews

Lake Byllesby Campground

Lake Byllesby Campground
7650 Echo Point Road
Cannon Falls, MN 55009
507-263-4447

Lots #118 + 119 are the best, with 119 being the better of the two. Could easily accommodate 2-4 or even more tents; no need to get more. Hot showers at the checkin station. Bring a wheel-barrow or sled of some sort, as all gear must be carried 150 yards or so from nearest parking lot.

Rained tremendous amount last night: sounded like tent was about to collapse, but it held strong. Also lots of wind. First night was very cold.

Guests cooked new potatoes by slicing (carrots + onions optional) into double-lined foil, w/ good bit of butter, salt, pepper, Lawrey's seasoned salt. Put on grill as it warms, let sit there for 1/2 hour to 45 min while drink beer, then take off when ready to put meat on. Delicious. Add a bit more seasoned salt to the potatoes when opened up.

Lake is larger than expected, but choked with algae. Saw lots of carp. Would be a good lake to explore further, and would be good for recreating, like skiing. Mouth of river might have better luck. Lake is dammed.

Have dozens of very clean picnic sites, with grill stations. Would only need a bit of charcoal and could have 90% of the fun of camping, without the 3 hours of packing/setting up, then tearing down, unpacking... Lot of work to do everything to get ready. Takes 45 min to get there down 61, to 20, to 52, north to 86, west then follow signs on frontage road.

Camping List (8/22/2004)

Clothing
- T-shirts
- Sweatshirt
- Waterproof lite jacket
- Socks/underwear
- Toiletries
- Rain gear if it is expected to rain
- Jeans
- Shorts
- Swim suit
- Sun glasses

Mess
- Disposable cups
- Disposable plates
- Disposable utensils
- Beer, coke, Pepsi One, and Captain Morgan (will satisfy 99% of people)
- Condiments for meat
- Napkins
- Coffee or hot chocolate
- Cups for hot beverage
- Cast iron skillet
- Other frying surface pan
- Spatula
- Knives
- tongs
- Scouring pad
- Dish soap
- Few dish towels
- Roll of paper towels
- Don't forget condiments for meat
- Lawrey's Seasoned Salt makes everything taste better
- Couple gallons of water

Camping
- Tent
- Chairs
- Wood (costs lots to buy there)
- Matches of lighting instruments
- Paper for fire
- Sleeping bags
- At least one flashlight
- Gas-powered lantern
- inflatable mattress
- Pump for mattress
- Water jug full of potable water
- Maybe: toilet paper
- Bug spray
- Sun block

Other
- Fishing stuff
- Bikes
- Water stuff
- Frisbee
- Lawn bowling equipment
- Football
- Camera
- Board games
- Cards

Banjo Paterson - Australia

From National Geographic, August 2004, "Banjo", an excellent article on the poet of Australia.

When he finished school at 16, he joined a law firm as a lowly clerk and began a life of higher paying drugery in the desk-bound world of the city. H worked his way up the office ladder and qualified as a solicitor when he was 22.
By the time he landed the brief to dune the elusive Clancy, he had been behind a desk for nine years, fidgeting under the weight of his own expectations. Poetry became his escape, Clancy his muse.
"It's a question of what you're willing to give up. He had a pretty lucrative career going. Living a footloose drover's life wasn't something he really wanted to do, so much as something he would love to have done. He'd have liked to have had a romantic past like that to look back upon."
And so he created one. ...

Clancy of the Overflow:
Banjo was a lawyer in Sydney. He had a client come in who needed a debt collected from one Clancy. His threatening letter to Clancy came back undelivered, marked on the back: "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving and we don't know where he are." From the poem:
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he face the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow
p. 21:
Australia saw itself: a nation of quite, determined underdogs who would one day surprise the doubters and do great things, and a people who could rise fearlessly to any occasion and never give in, no matter how tough the going. The others might rein up at the mountaintop, terrified of the ground that lay ahead, but...

p. 29:
"Our 'ruined rhymes' are not likely to last long," he wrote in one of his last published essays, a couple of years before his death in 1941. "But if there is any hope at all of survival it comes from the fact that [we]had the advatage of writing in a new country. In all the museums throughout the world one may see plaster casts of the footprints of weird animals, footprints preserved for posterity, not because the animals were particularly good of their sort, but because they had the luck to walk on the lava while it was cooling. There is just a faint hope that something of the sort may happen to us."

Brand in the Land of Bureaucracy

Big, public companies usually suck at brand management. Why? Building brand is the art of saying no -- saying no to near term opportunity. In particular, it is the Faustian choice between volume and brand. Brand is the art of turning down opportunities. It is discretion. The only time this works is when the highest levels of management, to the board of directors, understands this, and understands the sell-out that can occur if near-term opportunities are put before the discipline of brand management.

The case-in-point is selling to Wal-Mart. To marketing types this is nothing new. Public companies, who must perform quarterly, will have top-level management holding direct reports accountable for meeting numbers that satisfy wall street. The issue occurs when there is a shortfall. The group with the shortfall will inevitably look for short-term ways to increase revenue. Sure, they will look pick the one that least damages the brand in the name of volume, but that is a slippery slope for sure.

Big companies should confront this reality and focus on acquisition of brands. Following the pharmaceutical model would be advantageous. Small start-ups build brand equity over the course of several years, then sell-out to the big guys. This happens somewhat, but not with the focus nor to the extent that it should. Smaller players don't have the layers of bureaucracy, any one of which could spoil the delicate discipline necessary for brand positioning over time. Another problem w/ larger companies is the turnover at key areas, which make poor follow-through. I dare say at many companies creating big brands is 1/2 luck.

question: And this I truly don't know the answer to: When launching an upscale brand, it is surely advantageous to launch the upscale merchandise first, position the brand as upscale, then extend ever so cautiously downward. But are there examples of the opposite occurring? Where somebody has launch low, and then gone high? The only way I can think of it is by accident: the brand get so outcast, it becomes cool. Example: Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Maybe not exactly an initially high-high end beer, but certainly one that competed on a national stage with such notables as Coors, Miller, and Bud... Here's an article about them:
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2003/08/05/National/Brew-City.Heritage.Coming.To.A.Head-447813.shtmlg

Zumbro River

Took my father float fishing down Zumbro River, going fly rodding for small mouth today. Father's day gift. The day was perfect, crisp, clear, high of 80. Fishing was poor -- it has been a wet summer. Went w/ Larry Barnhardt, of Mezappa, who runs a flat-bottom guide boat down the river. Paid 140 for it, but regularly costs 250, I believe. I caught 2 lb big mouth bass, and 4 lb northern. Northern on spinner, bass on fly. Some of the things for memory of the trip:

- Best time for smallmouth: Mid-June, but then take chances with weather. "Get as close to spawn as possible..."
- Put in about 10 min from Mezappa, at dam, take out at bridge. When get to bridge, get way over to the left, out of the rapids. River is very navigable if water is down -- could easily take the 12 foot john-boat w/ two oars and the trolling motor. Make sure have anchor.
- Total trip legnth: about 4.5 miles. We set in @ 11, and out @ 4:30, including a leisurly lunch and taking several long passes at the best water. Could do in 2 hrs if went strait through.
- Takes about 1 hr. 15 min to get there from the citites. Takes 10 min or so from the dam to the bridge by car.
- Key to fishing smallmouth: Play the eddies, etc. Use no more than 2-3 casts to get out to target, and if fly lands cleanly, "fish it out..." even if not the perfect position -- a quiet approach trumps a perfect placement. After trying regular bass/panfish poppers, put on Larry's specials: a long hook, covered with colored frizz, a weight at the front end near the eye of the hook. They sink, but can still be used w/ fly rod. While fishing edge of fast / slow water, through up into slow water, then twirl the rod to slow the line from pulling too fast, then with the left hand, rod tip down, pull 5-6 inches at a time, sharp, to imitate a crawdad's movement. Fish rocks and rapids.
- Surface temp yesterday, says Larry, was 77. Didn't catch any smallies.

Vietnam Era Zippo Lighters

In nam, solgiers would inscribe things on their Zippo lighters.  Most inscriptions were uninteresting.  Some were good:

"We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful"

WE CAME BECAUSE
WE BELIEVE
WE LEAVE BECAUSE
WE ARE DISALLUSIONED (sic)
WE COME BACK BECAUSE
WE ARE LOST
WE DIE BECAUSE
WE ARE COMMITTED
 
ALWAYS TOPPED
OR ALWAYS STONED
I MADE IT A YEAR
I'M GOING HOME
 
HO CHI MINH IS A
COMMUNIST MOTHER FUCKER
 
IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HERE
SHUT THE FUCK UP
 
IF YOU GOT
THIS OFF
MY DEAD ASS
I HOPE
IT BRINGS YOU
THE SAME LUCK
IT BROUGHT ME
 
IF I HAD BEEN AT
KENT STATE THERE
WOULD HAVE BEEN
ONE HELL OF A BODY COUNT
 
I LOVE THE
FUCKING ARMY AND
THE ARMY LOVES
FUCKING ME
 
Here's the full article:
http://www.suntimes.co.za/1998/06/28/lifestyle/life01.htm

Berkshire Hathaway acquisition Criteria

I was @ the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting in 2004. This is the from their annual report of that year -- note how anti-BS it is. So many of those damn consultant-types saying they know how to invest this / that... Look at these rules! They are simple. Question: Why do you think they won't participate in auctions? This is the antithesis of bureaucracy. I remember one of the questions was how Warren/Munger determine pay packages for their execs... and specifically if they use compensation consultants. Warren pontificated for a few minutes on how they like to keep things simple, on the back of a napkin, for example. Then, true to the act, Munger leans forward to the mic: "I'd rather throw a viper down my shirt than hire a compensation consultant." They seem to have a general disdain for consultants of almost any type. I'm in corporate America, and I see this: most consultants are 99% talk, and companies hire them to make it feel like they're doing something.

If you've read this far, you have an interest in the Berkshire Hathaway site, which is a testament to design simplicity, to information, to content. Remember when yahoo.com had a simple interface, like 1997? Google still does, now a couple months around the IPO... Here I say it: The start of the fall of google is when they allow advertising on their main page. It will mark the day when the pressures of public ownership trump commitment to the idea of pure search. Any bets on when this will be? I give them one cycle of earnings reports... some bright exec will say "we can meet numbers advertising on the main site..." and then the age of google's innocence is gone. But I digress.

--------------


Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
acquisition Criteria

We are eager to hear from principals or their representatives about businesses that meet all of the following criteria:

(1) Large purchases (at least $50 million before-tax earnings),
(2) Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to us, nor are "turnaround" situations),
(3) Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,
(4) Management in place (we can't supply it),
(5) Simple businesses (if there's lots of technology, we won't understand it),
(6) An offering price (we don't want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

The larger the company, the greater will be our interest: We would like to make an acquisition in the $5-20 billion range. We are not interested, however, in receiving suggestions about purchases we might make in the general stock market.

We will not engage in unfriendly takeovers. We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer -- customarily within five minutes -- as to whether we're interested. We prefer to buy for cash, but will consider issuing stock when we receive as much in intrinsic business value as we give. We don't participate in auctions.

Charlie and I frequently get approached about acquisitions that don't come close to meeting our tests: We've found that if you advertise an interest in buying collies, a lot of people will call hoping to sell you their cocker spaniels. A line from a country song expresses our feeling about new ventures, turnarounds, or auction-like sales: "When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."