Monthly Archives: August 2010

The demise of Barnes & Noble

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Bookseller Barnes & Noble (B&N) is in bad financial shape. According to a commentator in the Wall Street Journal, B&N fell prey to the Internet though they made some missteps on their own.

I, for one, will be sad if bookstores such as B&N and Borders go completely out of business. B&N came to the Chicago area in the 1990s and I shopped at some of the early locations. They were like a new world compared to the bookstores that existed then: relatively large, nice decor, with a varied selection. (I know some would argue this could be found at independent booksellers but I haven’t ever had much experience with these in my suburban life.) As both B&N and Borders expanded into music (a section I spent a lot of time in) and coffee, I found them even more likable locations. I still occasionally am very happy to spend an evening in one of these stores, browsing through magazines, music, and all sorts of books.

Shopping for these things on the Internet has some advantages, including the big factor of pricing. But browsing Amazon.com is still a qualitatively different experience than browsing a large bookstore.

Google CEO Schmidt talks about its future

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The Wall Street Journal reports on a conversation its editors had with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Some of the nuggets of information (with some help of this Telegraph piece):

-The world of targeted information is near at hand. Schmidt says, “a generation of powerful handheld devices is just around the corner that will be adept at surprising you with information that you didn’t know you wanted to know.”

-Google might even help plan out what you should be doing: “”I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” he elaborates. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.””

-From the Telegraph article: “Mr Schmidt said he believed that every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrasssing photographs and material stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

-About privacy regulation: “Mr. Schmidt says regulation is unnecessary because Google faces such strong incentives to treat its users right, since they will walk away the minute Google does anything with their personal information they find “creepy.””

Some fascinating insights into how Google hopes to be part of people’s lives in the future. The piece about young people perhaps needing to change their names once they reach adulthood in order to escape their online past is a reminder of how much information is available on the Internet.

One growing political metaphor: the car

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Politico examines President Obama’s usage of the metaphor of driving a car to describe the national political scene and handling of the economy. The metaphor has grown over the months and recently included the first mention of “Slurpee” by a President in a speech.

Politicians commonly use metaphors and symbols in speeches. The car is such a part of American life that people can instantly grab onto the implications. What would be the metaphorical response from Obama’s opponents?

Moving? Consider the walkability and transit scores

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The Infrastructurist looks at two figures that may become part of the home-buying equation in the near future: a home’s walkability and transit scores.

How much this influences homebuying decisions remains to be seen. I’m sure there is part of the population that wants such a location where daily needs, like parks, food, and transit are within a reasonable walk. But there are certainly others who would emphasize other features, like the size of the home, over the home’s context.

We know that Americans don’t want to walk much more than a quarter mile to get to things. New Urbanists use this information to guide their planning: homes should be within a 5-10 minute walk away from necessities.

Quick Review: Georgia Aquarium

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While recently in Atlanta, I had a chance to make a brief visit to the Georgia Aquarium. Some quick thoughts:

1. Overall, a beautiful facility. Well-designed with an interesting central space/lobby. Vivid exhibits. The only downside was the large crowds in some of the exhibits.

2. The best part were the large tanks. This aquarium doesn’t have a lot of individual tanks featuring a lot of different species. The emphasis is on large tanks, particularly in the Ocean Voyager exhibit. While this exhibit features some rare animals such as the whale shark (unbelievably large), this has numerous great viewing points plus a tunnel underneath the middle of the tank. The viewing theater space at the end of the exhibit was a location where I could sit for a long time just watching the animals swim by. Here is an image of the whale shark from the viewing theater:

3. There were a number of innovative ways to view the tanks. In addition to the tunnel in the Ocean Voyager exhibit, I walked through a small tunnel with glass ceilings (probably three feet tall) under a river exhibit. The penguin exhibit featured special “bubbles”: people would walk up into the exhibit from below and while surrounded by a plastic bubble perhaps four feet across, see eye-to-eye with the penguins.

4. There is a special shark exhibit that didn’t feature any live sharks but had a lot of information on fossil teeth, different shark species, and interactions with humans. One room featured a frozen giant tuna next to a large shark and talked about how sharks chased tunas in the ocean depths. On one hand, the exhibit said sharks were dangerous creatures (with a particular emphasis on their teeth and jaws). On the other hand, the exhibit kept saying that the media and Hollywood have over-hyped shark attacks.

5. The aquarium seemed pretty kid-friendly, particularly in the Georgia Coast exhibit where patrons could touch a number of animals (I touched a small shark, stingrays, along with a few other small and more fixed creatures) and kids could crawl around in some cool-looking equipment.

6. Like many museums today, it was pricey: around $31 for what I saw (and I didn’t purchase all the add-ons).

Even with the price and the crowds, this was well worth the money. I thought the Shedd Aquarium was a lot of fun – this relatively new aquarium is vastly superior.

Military towns benefit from increased compensation

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USA Today reports “16 of the 20 metro areas rising the fastest in the per-capita income rankings since 2000 had military bases or one nearby.” Compensation packages have increased since 2000: “Soldiers, sailors and Marines received average compensation of $122,263 per person in 2009, up from $58,545 in 2000.”

While places with nearby military bases benefited from these changes, USA Today also found some losers in per-capita income over the past decade. These include high-tech centers, college towns, and industrial cities.

Blagojevich wins round 1

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While sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting to return to Chicago, I saw the big news of today live on CNN: Rod Blagojevich wins round 1 as he is convicted on only 1 of 24 counts brought against him by the federal government.

Amazing.

The jurors started speaking tonight. According to the foreman:

But in the end, he said, the “lack of a smoking gun” was too much of a hurdle for jurors to reach more than the one unanimous decision.

And the charge of trying to selling the Senate seat might have been held up by one juror:

[A young juror] said a female juror who was the lone holdout on convicting Blagojevich of attempting to sell the Senate seat “wanted clear-cut evidence, and not everything was clear-cut.”

The court proceedings will continue.

And what does this mean for the State of Illinois, politics, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald?

Behind the curtain of the Bozo show

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The Bozo show was a long-time institution on Chicago television. The clown, televised on WGN, started on the air in 1960 and spread to stations around the country.

A new book commemorates the 50th anniversary of the show’s beginning. Among the stories in the book:

The Chicago show was so popular, Susan Harmon confirmed, that mothers would sign up for tickets the day their child was born, so six or seven years later, or even longer (at one time, there was a 10-year wait), their kid could attend the show.

Now that good evidence about the local impact of the show.

I attended the show when I was younger after seeing it for years on TV. (I have photographic evidence that I will not share here.) I’m pretty sure my mom got tickets from someone at work. I don’t remember much about the experience…but it was probably fun.

Knowing about college freshmen

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Before the start of each college school year, Beloit College publishes the Mindset List. This list is intended to provide an overview of how incoming college freshman understand the world. While the list certainly serves to get Beloit College on media outlets throughout the country, the list has some value. According to the creators, it is meant to help professors in the classroom:

Being aware of the generation gap helps professors craft lesson plans that are more meaningful, said Ron Nief, a former public affairs director at Beloit College and one of the list’s creators.

Developing lessons that students can relate to can be a challenge, particularly if technological and cultural changes accumulate as a professor ages.

The list is also a good reminder of generational differences. While students and faculty may inhabit the same academic classrooms, their experiences and perspective of the world can differ greatly.

Colleges have debt too

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The New York Times has published an opinion piece by Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, that puts a slightly different spin on the perennial college-costs-are-out-of-control argument.  He suggests that the institutions of higher education are themselves as indebted (and troubled) as their students:

There is a similarity between the debt crisis on Wall Street and what threatens higher education. Just as investors borrowed more and increased their leverage in volatile markets, many colleges and universities are borrowing more and betting on an expanding market in higher education at the precise moment their product is becoming affordable for fewer people.

It’s an interesting observation with potentially far-reaching implications.  There is always going to be demand for higher education, but it’s hard to see how a university like N.Y.U. can sustain debt levels higher than its endowment (“a staggering $2.22 billion debt with a relatively modest $2.2 billion endowment,” according to the article) in a world where “four years at a top-tier school will cost $330,000 in 2020, $525,000 in 2028 and $785,000 in 2035” if present trends continue.