Here are the two biggest news stories to come from the recording industry in the past week:
1. The indie band Radiohead decided to let fans choose how much to they’re willing to pay for their new album. The lowest acceptable price? $0.00.
2. A group of record labels successfully sued a
Photo (of Radiohead singer Thom Yorke) from Michell Zappa
 |
Here’s a great post on why restroom hand dryers are both unsanitary and, at best, environmentally equal to paper towels.
They are alleged to be more hygienic than hand towels. I don’t buy that for a second, because they “dry” your hands by blasting them with recirculated air from the restroom itself. You didn’t think there was a canister of fresh air hidden behind the wall, did you? And guess what’s probably floating around in the restroom air. That’s right, tiny particles of you-know-what. (I will concede that the hand dryer is nonetheless hygienically preferable to the continuous-roll-of-cloth machine.)
“Tiny particles of you-know-what.” Ew.
As much as I share this guy’s dislike of hand dryers, I understand why they’re popular. If it were my job to clean a bathroom—or if it were my job to pay a guy to clean a one—I’d surely oppose paper towel use, mostly because only half of population (by my estimate) manages to land their wet towels in the waste basket.
And any person of sound mind opposes the roll-of-cloth machine. Regardless of its minimal ecological footprint and/or low maintenance costs, these things ought to be outlawed. It’s one thing to use a cotton towel in a friend’s bathroom. It’s quite another to use one in a public restroom.
Back to hand dryers: I also credit a hand dryer for staving off hypothermia two summers ago. After riding our bikes to the top of
Photo from A Nameless Yeast
Although the book was panned by critics when it was released, in 1957, Ayn Rand’s 1200-page paean to capitalism has earned a permanent place in the libraries of CEOs and other capitalistic types–and anyone else who embraces the book’s “greed is good” philosophy. According to the article, bookstores sold 150,000 copies last year.
I don’t use “greed is good” as a disparaging description of the novel. The phrase is actually an objective way to describe
The Times understands the allure of Atlas Shrugged for business execs:
Some business leaders might be unsettled by the idea that the only thing members of the leadership class have in common is their success. James M. Kilts, who led turnarounds at Gillette, Nabisco and Kraft, said he encountered “Atlas” at “a time in college life when everybody was a nihilist, anti-establishment, and a collectivist.” He found her writing reassuring because it made success seem rational. [Emphasis added]
After reading The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb, I’m more inclined to believe that success is being able to capitalize on luck—being in the right place at the right time, having parents who value education and pay for tuition, etc.
CEOs would rather believe in their own brilliance, and Ayn Rand gave them a handy philosophy with which to do so. She didn’t believe in success by luck. In her world, those who weren’t successful were either lazy or incompetent or just plain evil. She believed in success by merit and hard work—a truly American (and simplistic) notion.
As it happens, Alan Greenspan, whose memoir is being released this week, was a huge
If you can get past the initial shock of how long