Tales of Hoffman

One Way to Keep 'em Honest

Enoch is at a CME meeting and blogging it to keep them honest. Not sure that his metric of counting how many slides in each presentation speak about the sponsor's product is necessarily always accurate, but it's as good a proxy as any, and most of the speakers are coming out looking pretty balanced. No surprises here.

When it's done right, CME is not as biased as many would have you believe. Plus, most importantly and as I've been saying all along here...Docs can smell the difference between the balanced stuff and the unbalanced stuff from a mile away, so there's every incentive to do the former and stay away from the latter.

I iMixed

Downloaded the iTunes update. As I said yesterday, I don't think there's anything earth-shattering here, but I'm intrigued by the what Apple's calling "iMix". They've managed to create some community-style content in iTunes by allowing individuals to post their personal playlists. Pretty saavy as this is the type of thing that will allow them to hold onto their lead in the downloading arena. It works seamlessly (as one would expect from an Apple app) and, I must say I didn't think I would care about looking at others' playlists, but once I was in the store, it did get me to click around a bit more than I would have normally.

Anyway, as an experiment, I've posted links to to playlists that I uploaded last night right over there in the left hand column. Take a look and let me know what you think.

iTunes to Get an Update

According to this story: Yahoo! News - iTunes 4.5 to add iMix, videos, trailers, WMA import, more, iTunes is getting a bunch of new features -- maybe today. I'm not sure any of them really represents any kind of big step forward, but I guess they sound kind of cool.

The Following Events Happen Between...

I've been watching "24" for two seasons now. I admit it's brainless, but it's fun. The thing that really bothers me though is how no-one on the show eats or goes to the bathroom. I don't care how heroic Jack Bauer is, there's no way he could hold it in that long.

Worst. Site. Ever.

Good article in the New York Times today about Sony Qualia, a line of electronics that are striving to be upscale of all upscales. Thanks to Enoch for the pointer to Sony's Qualia site, which could very well be the very worst site of all time. What the hell are they thinking?

Tell the Chicken What to Do

I know it's just a viral marketing ploy. I know it's really an ad for Burger King. But, I can't resist. I have to visit and tell you about www.subservientchicken.com. Go there. Have fun. It's really irresistable in a high tech/low tech kind of way. Kudos to their agency.

The Month that Wasn't

First New Orleans = Fun.
Then a few weeks of heck.
Then a week at Disney World with the family = even more fun.
Now, I'm back.
Hope to be a more regular contributor to the blogosphere again. Here goes.