Hey Mr. DJ

I was reminded this week of an old ambition of mine – I used to want to be a radio DJ. Not one of the morning talk show DJs or even an afternoon let-me-solve-your-problems DJ, but a late-night, slow-jams-playing, small-audience-listening DJ. The type of DJ not hired for their voice, celebrity appeal or wittiness, but [...]

Music’s Medium Through the Years

I look back at my relatively short life and am amazed at the changes in how I listen to music. I don’t go back to the days of vinyl records or 8-tracks, but I do clearly remember the days of cassette tapes. I remember having several briefcase-like containers that I could insert my tapes in. [...]

A Greener Kind of City

I spent a few days earlier this week in San Francisco and for the second time in six months was struck with how much more environmentally friendly of a city it is compared to New York. Sure, New York has its proponents of living a green lifestyle, and it has made strides towards greenliness over [...]

Amazon Vine

I have been a fan of Amazon.com since 2001, when I made my first online purchase through Amazon. Back then, Amazon mostly sold books, CDs and DVDs, far from the range of products Amazon offers today. In the spring of 2001 I finished a book I really enjoyed (‘The Brothers K’ by David James Duncan, [...]

A Storm for the Next Two Years

I recently purchased the Blackberry Storm and thought I would post a review on amazon.com of my experience with the touchscreen device. And yes, I am one of those people who probably would have bought the iPhone had it been available on Verizon. But not wanting to change service providers, I did my homework and [...]

Capital One

This past weekend we made a big purchase on our Capital One Visa Signature credit card. After consultation at home and later in the store with the sales associate, we finalized what we wanted and I handed over my card. We have a large credit limit and so I knew the total dollar amount was [...]

Mr. President, How Long Will it Take?

Last week’s BusinessWeek magazine reported that Saudi Arabia is currently spending over $600 billion to build King Abdullah Economic City and China is currently putting $563 billion into its country’s infrastructure. This is not to mention the billions the South Koreans are spending on Songdo, the future hub of Northeast Asia. Meanwhile, our government is [...]

Mint.com

I have always considered myself frugal, but I have never been good at keeping a budget. I live within my means and know when I can afford something and when I can’t. But a hard-numbers budget allowing me to only spend a certain amount on one category is not something I have done well in [...]

A Life Connected

During my last year of high school I was one of the kids that thought he was cool and had a pager. Mountain Dew sponsored a deal in which you could pay a reasonable amount and receive a pager with a Mountain Dew logo inscribed on it and six months of free airtime (click here [...]

The Wisdom of the Crowd

The twenty-first century will see collective wisdom and peer-to-peer collaboration change the world as much as computers and increased communication changed the world in the twentieth century. While intellectual property is still a valid concept and will continue to live on, the businesses that will thrive in the years to come will be those that [...]

Constant Construction

Several years ago a professor told me to be cautious of any institution that is not constantly under construction because a lack of construction meant a lack of improvement and potentially money. I have kept his statement in my mind since and believe it has relevance across the board. Let me explain.
Construction, as used in [...]

The Attention Span of the Average Employee

I read an article earlier this week about how short the average employee’s attention span is at work – an estimated three minutes. I found the article to be true from my experience. Given that my computer is always in front of me, I can’t help to glance over every other minute to see if [...]

An Interest in Spatial Design

One of my interests in which I have absolutely no training and hardly any knowledge of is architecture. Architectural Record and Architectural Digest are always on my must read list of monthly magazines. Each magazine has a different focus, but both are worth browsing through each month to see the best in man-made design and [...]

Gmail vs. Hotmail

When Google’s Gmail debuted in 2004 I remember receiving several emails from friends and contacts informing me that their email address had changed to such-and-such at gmail dot com. I never changed my primary email address and continued using the Hotmail account I had grown accustomed to. Looking back, I should have made the change. [...]

Energy – The Defining Issue of Our Time

Recently I have become extremely interested in the oil/gas and energy industry. I see it as one of the defining issues of the twenty-first century. From my perspective, the energy issue of today can be stated as follows: Will sovereign governments and corporations continue to find and exploit enough fossil fuels to provide affordable energy [...]

Manhattan Unleashed

Manhattan’s greatest achievement may also be its greatest downfall. Bordered by two rivers (the East River is actually an estuary or tidal straight, but whatever) and set back in a protected harbor, the island’s geographic location helped it become one the world’s foremost centers of business, finance, art, design, publishing and almost everything else. In [...]

A Shift Eastward

I read this morning that the New York metropolitan area, according to 2007 statistics, contains approximately 19 million people. This is far short of the 35.7 million people Tokyo now is estimated to encompass, but is significant nonetheless because it represents a growing population in the New York area. Yet, numbers can be deceiving. Sure, [...]

Internet Phenomena

There are times I feel that if I have been exposed to something, most people have seen or heard of it as well, especially those people around my same age. As it turns out, most people I seem to talk don’t know what I am talking about. Internet phenomena, for example, come to mind as [...]

The World in Dubai

There are some pretty ambitious people in Dubai right now trying to change the face of luxury and how we live in the future. Not only will Dubai soon be the site of the tallest building in the world when the Burj Dubai is completed, it will also be the home of The World. Similar [...]

At The Speed of Technology

I am amazed at how quickly technology has changed in my lifetime. This past weekend I was required to come into work to complete a project that had to be finished by Monday. Part of the initial groundwork was to review documents that were finalized in the late 1990s. In my mind, the late 1990s is not that [...]

Dotcom Madness

I am currently reading an account of how insane the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s was when every start-up online company was pushed to go public within a matter of months whether the company had any profits or not. The worst of it occurred at a time that I was completely out of the [...]

iTunes

I joined iPod nation well over a year ago and have enjoyed having my music collection with me as I commuted into New York City and back home each day. My iPod has also been with me to the gym and while I travel. I have almost 2000 songs (although sometimes I feel bored with [...]

iPhone Mania

Never before in my life do I remember so much hype leading up to the release of a consumer electronic device. As you all know, the iPhone came out last Friday and sold out around the country. I got my hands on one on Saturday (no, I didn’t buy a device, but I did get [...]

Two Years With the LG8300

I know that I blogged a few months ago regarding how I was going to wait until later this year to buy a new phone, but a few weeks ago I went out and bought one anyway, despite of my earlier hesitations. While I had no intention of buying the iPhone, I was impressed with the phone [...]

Should We Be More Connected or More Concerned?

I recently added the ClustrMap to my right sidebar in the hopes that someone outside of New York will view my blog once in a while. The idea that I will be able to track the general location of the computer that accessed this site is incredible. Are we becoming too connected? The past few [...]