Archive for 2007

Much to my dismay, the summer is half over. I’ve spent most of it getting on airplanes, driving to swim meets, and sitting in front of my computer not writing. Sigh. But I have managed to do some reading. And now, on this midsummer’s night, I can offer you two recommendations. The first is Then […]

I’m late in seeing these data, but the Census Bureau recently released new numbers verifying the self-employment boom in America. In 2005, the last year for which stats are available, the number of ‘non-employer’ businesses (businesses without paid employees) topped a record 20 million. “A daily average of 2,356 people went into business for themselves,” […]

A Japanese temporary staffing firm is rolling out (literally) robots to work as receptionists in offices and hospitals. “The 1-meter-tall robot Wakamaru can identify visitors, conduct a simple conversation and move by itself to take visitors along preset routes to rooms or other destinations while singing a song,” according to the Japan Times. Best of […]

Sign at the entrance of an exhibit at the Musee National d’art Moderne, Paris, 9 July 07

I don’t like talking about bestseller lists. (It’s not that I’m modest. It’s that I’m superstitious.) But A Whole New Mind continues to put some solid numbers on the board — so I figured I’d risk angering the spirits by raising the topic. AWNM has been on the BusinessWeek bestseller list for four consecutive months, […]

“As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” — Lt. Col. Paul Yingling on the lack of accountability among top American military brass in Iraq (Source: Armed Forces Journal via

Frauenmangel. (Definition: The lack of women.) According to this Economist story, it’s a problem afflicting eastern Germany. “In some towns there are only 75 young women for every 100 young men. In one or two there are as few as 40.”

That’s the lede of this Reuters story about Japan’s “Nobel Prize for manga,” which was awarded to Hong Kong’s Lee Chi Ching, author of Sun Zi’s Tactics (shown here.) One of the judges was the legendary Machiko Satonaka, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing back in May.

I’m a sucker for lists. And today, thanks to some odd cosmic convergence, I came across a pair I really like. The first is Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule (great book, btw) Bob Sutton’s “15 Things I Believe.” (You’ll find it looking at the left-hand column of this link and scrolling […]

PricewaterhouseCoopers says Americans will soon spend more money on videogames than on music. The rest of the world already devotes more of its shekels to games than to tunes.