books and bashing Denise's reality show

a user in dA commented on the chess photo of mine(royal games);
"i'm actually writing my final about this piece; the assignment is to find a piece of art, a photograph, a doodle, anything, and write a three page paper and prove a point about it.

my thesis is that you're proving that good does not always prevail.

it's due tomorrow so i should get back to work."
thats really interesting, my original comment when i posted the photo was about how i find it pretty cheap, not my favorite at all, yet i shot it and posted it, finding some irony in the whole thing. now, of course my opinion is nothing more than mine, and on most days i get opposing comments on this. maybe theres no right answer, nor need there be, but yea, i find the user writing a course final(or whatever) based on this quite fascinating, i asked if i could read it as well :)

i might be extra-interested since im just reading this book which i found in Stockholm, called Winners, losers and Microsoft. its in general about market behavior and competition in IT, and whether or not the best products prevail or not. while the book is written in '99, the research made on it is still quite valid. theres an example case studied in depth, about the qwerty/dworak keyboards. its a known legend, that dworak is actually better, but the market locked-in on qwerty. however, this is merely a legend. yes, i was surprised, i was nearly getting a dworak keyboard already.

goign to Amazon reminds me how it was one of the first webshops that efficiently (i believe so) customized the service for the users, recommending books based on what youve bought or just viewed, and telling what others bought alongside a certain book. ive always admired this, others followed i think a lot later. so, now of course im checking out what else users bought in the field of IT markets and economy. interesting boks on my wishlist now include:
The Commanding Heights: the Battle for the World Economy
The Search: How google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
Platform Leadershirp: How Intel, Microsoft and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation
and the co-writer of the book 'W, L and M' (Liebowitz) wrote another book on the topic in 2002;
Re-thinking the Network Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace.
i will have to see first if any of these are available in the company library, im pretty sure the Helsinki city library would sublimely fail on me again.

this one; The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values gives me a chuckle and should be interesting as well...:) *jen, destroying our culture as we speak*

amd if we go further down the weblane; there's
The Wisdom of Crowds
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

one of my latest favorite readings have been the web-related articles on the New Scientist. not too long, not too heavy, yet with some interesting tid bit's of info that i find interesting.

ive been checking out more tv-shows too; including, but not limited to (...);
IT crowd, which is fairly amusing & nerdy
In Treatment was way too heavy and i got uncomfortable...but Gabriel Byrne as a psychologist...i wouldnt mind having a few hours of that every week, please?
The Wire i cannot even remember what was this, lol. obviously not my thing. oh yea, cops in a rough neighbourhood solving crimes in a bit unorthodox ways, trying to be funny at the same time.
Denise Richards: It's Complicated. Denise's own supposedly not staged dating show, where she has dates with guys her friend or someone else hooked her up with. actually im sure its genuine for alarge part but it feels...fake, maybe she should stick in movie rather than play herself ? :( but of course, shes hot all the same. the first comment on the IMDb-page (bu JessPunpkQueen) kind of sum's it up, starting with;
"Here's the reality, Denise: you're not the Bond girl. You're not the girl from Wild Things. You're the woman who married Charlie Sheen. And, frankly, it's hard to feel sorry for anyone who would marry Charlie Sheen.

This stated, I did not watch this show wanting to dislike her. I really wanted to like her. Despite myself, I enjoy reality shows. Yes, I am a little ashamed, but there it is. What can I do? I wanted to like her and I wanted to like her show. However, she makes it very hard. If anything, her show, an obvious attempt for her to gain sympathy, hurts her case, because the difference between her and her ex-husband is that HE openly admits to being a deeply flawed individual, while she whines about her critics, but is somehow thoroughly convinced that America will think her bad personality is cute. I think I'd rather HE get his own reality show, because at least he's entertaining.
..."


found a new artist today; Swod. piano with some electronic sounds... i like my music easy goin'.

web apps etc then:
Symbaloo seems fairly promising, trying to give your favorite online-services to your starting page (assuming you set it to Symbaloo), but i dunno, its got all the big ones on the default, its in the US Beta version... we'll see what it turns out to become, if anything?
a USEFUL service for once; downforeveryoneorjustme? its not often but there are times...when you wonder if its down for everyone or just me. simple as that. heres the answer.
Wikio is trying to be useful starting site i guess, cllecting news, just like a 100 other similar services, i cannot find a difference for their benefit so far...especially since the right column is just swamped with what really seems like ads, "top searches" and "top products" or whatever, an its all god damn cell phones.
tweetmeme tracks the most useful links in twitter. well, it I a way of seeing whats a up i guess? *shrugs*

bunny named Chomsky chillin' it out! lovely cute ah...