A quick recap: Steve Jobs, the current CEO of Apple Computer, was also the CEO of Pixar Animation until Disney recently purchased Pixar for 7.4 billion(!). With the Pixar acquisition, Jobs becomes a member of the Disney board –and an influential member at that with more stock in Disney than anyone else.
It looks like Jobs is staying true to form and exerting controlled, uh, control over some of Disney’s marketing decisions, at least where they concern current Pixar interests. Allegedly, Jobs has pulled the plug on cross promotional meals at McDonald’s.
Disney is not renewing its cross-promotional pact with the fast-food giant, ending the arrangement with this summer’s release of “Cars” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” link
During a conference call last year Jobs, who is a pescetarian (neither vegetarian nor vegan as is often reported), said “there is value” (in fast-food tie-ins) “but there are also some concerns, as our society becomes more conscious of some of the implications of fast food.”
The cynical take on this is that Disney has done such a good job on diversifying their cross promotion that they no longer need the crack-like happy meals to get kids jazzed for a flick. Case in point: Cars isn’t scheduled to be in theaters until June and already my friend’s kid has a pair of shoes with the Cars character plastered all over.
Or could it be that this is just genius marketing in its own right? Has the popular tide turned against McDonald’s so much that it just makes sense to pit yourself against them in the ol’ good versus evil exercise?
Either way, the nation’s fat children thank you Steve Jobs. Well, sort of.
Read the whole article
Those wacky Lifehackers are at it again, this time showing us all how very, very lazy we all are. The have been running a series on coolest user submitted workspaces, and the latest entry is by a man that is very reminiscent of, well, me a few months back. World, meet the treadputer:
In a recent effort to halt and reverse my physical decline, while not taking away time from working, I’ve set up a ‘treadputer’. Now instead of sitting in a chair at the computer I stand on a treadmill and walk all day, at the computer.[…] My goal is to lose 50-60 pounds of fat over the next year, and gain back 20 pounds in muscle, I calculate I’ve lost 30 pounds of muscle since I started working intensively on the startup.
Well, Walker, good luck. And thanks for ruining my favorite comfy chair. We’ll be checking in from time to time to see how you’re doing so be sure to actually turn it on from time to time.
Read the whole article.
The treadputer blog.
There’s a great swapping site out there on the “net” (ha, couldn’t resist) called Bater Bee. This service forgoes the ugly cash game and allows you to swap CDs, DVDs, and games for points. By following the link and creating an account, you get some free points to get you started and (unless they changed it) one free transaction (usually a buck a trade).
Using my freebies from signing up, I picked up 2 CDs: Tonic’s Sugar and Nine Days’ The Maddening Crowd (yes, I’m dating myself a tad –good times). I ordered them up on Friday and here it is Monday afternoon and I have them both in hand. I’m as happy as a peach and will probably use this again. If not, I still have two CDs that I wanted and could not get via bittorrent the local record store.
Check it out here.
Are you a nerd with a hankerin’ for some quality food late at night? Got a deadline looming and feel the need to take the ol’ lappy with you? You may want to reconsider that in the future. An unidentified man (shocking, no?) got the smack put down on him while eating and working on his laptop by a few friendly NFL locals at a Los Angeles Denny’s on Sunday night.
According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Police Department detective Robert Lewis said a group of people — including [Ricky Manning Jr.] — attacked a man in a Denny’s restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.
“The group began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd,” Lewis said, according to the Sun-Times.
Of course, we’re assuming our man-nerd was working on a project and not, well, taking his “girlfriend” out for a nice meal.
Read the whole article.
Those darned Brits are making me feel a bit more guilty today:
“If a million PC users switched to a more efficient power supply, it would save almost the equivalent of 250 thousand litres of gasoline a day.”
No matter how easy these devices make our lives there is little doubt that they are costing us and the planet dearly.
As Mr Richards says: “If you really want to be green with your PC, when you’re done using it turn it off.”
Read the whole article.
A classically romantic triad: a man, a set of train tracks, and the iPod that came between them. Who will be the victor? Will the conflict reign? Will I stop this and get to work on time?
…read on….
