See ya' round, Brett Favre

Wow, it is the end of an era.

There are so many things that come to mind when you think of Brett Favre...

1. He is the classiest football player I have ever heard of.  Nobody, on the field or off, speaks ill of him.  Every player in the league seems to respect him.


2. He is a real role model (yes, even with his addiction problem).  He played the game for what it meant to win.  He wanted to give his best whenever he stepped onto the field, and it showed.


3. How in the hell do you get FARV when it should be pronounced FAVER???  I mean, I can SEE where the R is... it’s AFTER the V.  maybe I shud hav gon to a gooder skool.


4. NEWS FLASH - DATELINE 2013 - BRETT FAVRE ENSHRINED IN HALL OF FAME ON FIRST VOTE - DUH!!!!!


5. No matter who they played, or when, you knew watching number 4 was going to be enjoyable.  I do think, however, that the legacy of Brett Favre will live on more in the football follies reels that they have compiled over the years.  His banter with other players, other team players, coaches and refs are the stuff that legends are made from.  He’s hilarious.  He might have a future in comedy?


6. Manning and Brady may have the spotlight now, but it’s longevity that matters.  They’ll be remembered for the rings and the seasons, Favre will be remembered as a “Player of the game of football”


7. I think it was a great call to walk out on top of his game.  He had a GREAT year and it will make his leaving that much more memorable.  Had he left last year, people might have said, “Well he stayed past his useful life”.  Now, they can say he left on top of the game of football - where he belongs, with the legends!

See ya round, Brett.  Take care and thanks for 17 years of sharing a part of your life with us non professional athletes.  Good on ya!

How Sony got slapped by Micro$oft... and Nintendo... all for Blu-Ray

Balmer gloats and drinks the Champagne of sweet victory...

"Ohhhh, we so sowwy abowt PS3" Chairman apologizes for PS3 recalls...

I can’t believe the war is finally over.  Sony wins!!!  Blu-Ray is the new heavyweight CHAMPEEEEN of the Wooooorrrrrrrrlllllllldddddd.

WRONG!!!!!

You know who won this fight?   really?  MICROSOFT!!!

And everyone who bought a Blu-Ray disk, player or sticker helped them do it.  The best part is, they don’t even realize how they were duped, manipulated and used so that MS could pump up the XBox 360 and demolish the PS3.  Sorry, legion of  Sony fans.  Even as you bought your Blu-Ray PS3s you were lining the coffers of Micro$oft.  Well done!

Lets forget the fact that the format of HD-DVD was better.  Blu-Ray has ALOT going for it, and it won the war because it was the better technology.  Since the release of the two specs, the only thing HD-DVD had going for it was it’s cheaper format and easier structure.  In every other major category, Blu-Ray kicked it’s ass.  So why did it take over 2 years of constant fighting to bury HD-DVD?

Well, set your way back machine to when both companies were announcing the new 3G video game machines.... Xbox 360 and PS3.  MS knew it needed to do something incredible to make a dent in Sony’s market domination with the PS2.  Then Sony offered them the greatest gift the business world has ever seen.  They trumpeted how the PS3 would have and be a Blu-Ray player.  Instantly, Balmer and Gates were hugging and crying in their champagne brunch!

They knew they would go with the abortive format from Philips called HD-DVD.  They knew they could leverage a format war, that Sony would spend BIG money on Blu-ray, all the while, developing the XBox 360 download service and getting a LEGION of fanbois to embrace the digital delivery method.  (Can you say, Apple TV, NetFlix, TiVo etc)

And just like the dupes they were, Sony POURED money into Blu-Ray, spent HUGE money to woo the major studios and bought off major game developers all in a vain attempt to win a format war that they had won at the starting gate.   And the side effect of all this?  MS was able to market the 360 way ahead of Sony, they had great games at the rollout, all while Sony and it’s developers tried desperately to get killer games onto the system.  (Meanwhile Nintendo walks in and slaps both of them, but that’s another story.)  As Sony poured money into Blu-Ray, they had to slight something, and it was game development.  Sony even went so far as to buy the Blu-Ray equipment for some smaller game developers.  What a bonus if you’re a small developer.

“My favorite iteration of the HD DVD campaign was the negative push whereby all you heard was how Blu-ray disks would scratch easily and be ruined by a single thumbprint, or how they are hard to manufacture, and on and on. This was an orchestrated attack and none of it was true.”, John C. Dvorak

So here’s the scoop...

1. MS never intended to back HD-DVD


2. Blu-Ray was better from day 1


3. Sony poured capital into backing/hyping Blu-ray


4. MS didn’t spend a dime on HD-DVD


5. 360 rolls out with network that works and people get behind digital delivery model for stuff


6. PS3 rolls out with lousy games, network flaws and some very Un-Sony-like problems


7. MS “loses” the fight and Sony wonders why it cost them so damn much to win


8. Phillips/MS/HD-DVD people all giggle and watch the latest Blu-Ray copy of “The Office”

It truly has been fun to watch this fight.  I’m kind of proud of Steve Balmer, he managed to win a fight like this without buying another competitor.  In fact, he showed more style than Bill Gates.

Oh, and congratulations to all you PS3 / Blu-Ray buyers.  You’ve got some great hardware there... <snicker>  But just think... 2008 is going to be the year of the PS3.  (Unless of course, they roll out some more clunker games...)

Rethinking AIDS in Africa - mind blowing....

Wow, I like this lady alot.  She really makes you think about things in a new way!  By looking at AIDs from an economic standpoint and re-examining the assumptions made already, she really turns the epidemic upside down.  Her points were validated when the UNAIDS foundation revised it’s estimates of the number of world-wide AIDs patients way down.  But like she says, growth of the epidemic is still way up.  I love how she addresses policy issues, without trying to say who should do what, she just says we need to think again... long and hard, about how we need to fight this scourge.

Here is a link to her talk at TED... it’s a VERY good watch.

TED | Talks | Emily Oster: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS? (video)

And here is some links to her other works;

TED | Speakers | Emily Oster

Check this out, you won’t be disappointed.  (Well, maybe you will if you think we should just ignore AIDs.)