The Credit Crisis explained in 11 easy minutes

Take a look at this video. It's a pretty cool summary of why we're in the mess we're in.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The Majesty of Gershwin...on YouTube

You can't overstate the marvel of YouTube and other video sharing sites. Forget the schlock that constitutes 50 percent of the material on YouTube. The other half contains gems like the one below.

Rare footage of one of the greatest American composers is one example of YouTube's tremendous value. This footage would have been next to impossible to view unless one paid a visit to a museum. This is especially true when considering Gershwin died at age 38 in 1937, when motion pictures were still relatively new.

I sought this clip after one of the student pianists at my daughters' high school performed Rhapsody in Blue last week. He did a wonderful job, and it made me want to see what Gershwin material was out there. Enjoy. (Note: the video title says "1943." That's obviously wrong.)

Who wouldn't lay down on the tracks for this coach

A 60 Minutes profile of USC coach Pete Carroll. A study in optimisim, overcoming failure and living life for a deeper reason. You'd swear you're back in the 60's or 70's, when hope, selflessness and leadership by example seemed to be in greater supply.



Watch CBS Videos Online

A cool network...for electric cars

How cool would this be: A network of electric battery charging stations placed throughout a country. To power cars. Cars that you rent or purhcase at 6 cents a mile (compared to the average cost of 12 cents a mile to operate a conventional gasoline-powered car). No more worrying about whether your charge will last all day. You can always find a charging station.

It'd be cool if a state or country could start installing this kind of system. But...well....they already are. Japan, Denmark, even Hawaii. And the business plan has been written. Tom Friedman wrote about it today. Hold on to your lithium ions. It's gonna be a fascinating ride.

A dazzler if there ever was one

For the past several years I have been skeptical about the horrendous amounts of money--a good chunk of it taxpayer dollars--spent on sports stadiums. Our country's obsession with spectator sports not only costs billions upon billions in funding for facilities, but also untold dollars in health care costs used to treat diabetes and related conditions among the number of people who can't get off their fat asses and get some physical activity because they are sedentary 9 months out of the year watching football, basketball and baseball on TV.

In addition, it seems once a sparkling new arena is built, it doesn't last more than a couple decades. The Silver Dome in Detroit, RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Key Arena in Seattle, The MetroDome in the Twin Cities, are all coming down because they are not good enough for the franchise owners and they apparently are not worth refurbishing. Plus, icons such as Yankee Stadium, Busch Stadium and others are bulldozed because they cannot accommodate the wealthy club seat buyers.

To me, in times of disastrous health care economics, a severely underperforming education system, public infrastructure demise, and many other critical public investment needs, sports should be much lower on the investment totem pole.

However, being the objective observer I am, and realizing that a capital society gives the market what it wants, I do have to say the new Dallas Cowboys stadium under construction is a design marvel. No matter how necessary or unnecessary it may be, one cannot deny its place among the truly cool.

More conceptual images are here. (You'll need to scroll down a bit).

Bioeconomy: Learnings from a marching band contest

I'm sitting in the high school football stadium on a Saturday evening, waiting for my kids' marching band to take the field.

A kind older gentleman is sitting in front of us by himself, and we start up a typical conversation: "Where are you from, what instrument does your kid play," etc.

He then tells us he used to work at the Maytag plant in Newton, IA. Maytag was sold to Whirlpool several years ago, and one of the Midwest's mighty manufacturing centers had now all but disappeared, with jobs moved to other parts of the country and the world.

He then tells us about the classes he is taking at a community college. Biotechnology retraining classes offered to Maytag workers whose jobs were eliminated.

"We just grew some mouse tails this semester," he says. "And you know what? We're learning how you take smokestack emissions from a factory, shoot them into an algae pond, and watch the algae grow as they suck in the CO2. One day's worth of algae growth can produce 1000 gallons of biofuel."

"And yesterday I just cloned a carrot."

He was slightly giddy as he told us about his coursework and lab projects. This 60-some year old man who probably had spent the better part of 40 years building washers and dryers and should be on the cusp of serious retirement planning was now spending two years to get himself educated to take on the bold frontier of alternative energy and biotechnology.

"Cargill has 150 biotech production jobs at their corn processing complex in Eddyville, and they only have six candidates to fill them so far. They told me there is a job waiting for me when I'm done with my classwork."

I think I sense some bootstraps being pulled.

Modern beyond modern

With a name like Modernista, an advertising agency has to make sure it's cutting edge. This is the agency that did the Hummer ads (back when gas was $1.80 a gallon), with the kid who builds a Hummer-looking go-cart and goes off road to beat his friends in a race. All to the tune of The Who's "Happy Jack." It also does those Cadillac spots with the sultry babe asking if your car turns you on.

Years ago, Modernista had a wicked looking Web site that would probably still look amazing today, using the all the amazing flash tools. Now, it has what it calls a "siteless" Web site. Go to Modernista.com and at first you think you've typed in the wrong Web address. A small message--almost seeming to be an error message--pops up on a Wikipedia page, assuring you that you've reached the right company. It then directs you to its portfolios on Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, etc.

What will be next for this vanguard of the marketing world?