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It really should be called “sport” — there has been, and currently is an ongoing academic debate about the “s” at the end.

At any rate, Sports Illustrated has an interesting list of 10 faux pas’ that have rocked the sporting world.

You know they spend over a million bucks alone on bandwidth, right? And you know they generate almost no revenue too, right?

Here’s a great cartoon depicting their quagmire.

See also, YouMake YouTube.

As a kid you may have joked around with your friends as to what one modern contraption you could not live without if you were stranded on a desert island.

Being a history nerd, I played a slightly different game: the Marty McFly version. If I somehow ended up “Back in Time,” the one modern device I would bring with me is a digital camera with unlimited storage space.

While paintings and sketches are arguably superior visual aides to their oral and written alternatives, the Holy Grail sought after by plebe and patrician alike, was capturing the vibrant and dynamic memories – the Kodak Moments – on permanent film.

Modern day photography has its roots beginning in 1826. It sprang forth from the innovations of a Frenchman – Joseph Niepce – who ironically did not take a picture of himself (instead we have a mural).

The first color photograph was purportedly taken by the famous physicist James Maxwell, yet it was not until the early 20th century when the meticulous techniques involved were reliably refined.

Thus, thanks to some enterprising individuals of yore, you can now see some pretty cool color photos that were taken almost 100 years ago. And despite being a minute representation, a microcosm of the life and times of humanity, they serve as a window into a world that would have otherwise faded into the faceless words and wrinkles of written history:

- The Empire That Was Russia

- World War One Photos

Remember: everyone is a historian and every individual is their own biographer. So eat a balanced breakfast and take lots of pictures.

Via DamnInteresting.

Several months ago Paul Kedrosky lamented the fact that Google was merely a one-hit wonder, with all of its revenue eggs in one proverbial basket based on search-related queries. And the data still continues to be on his side.

He also mentioned that they should move towards releasing polished products instead of merely launching them as soon as they are created (or soon thereafter).

When Seth Godin visited the firm earlier this year, he specifically addressed this point (see the Q&A session). Godin suggested that rather than trying to be the “first mover” in every product category, that they should instead work on creating a stable, robust product that would be more than a flashy, whiz-bang ornament.

At this point I do not think the blame rests on one sole individual. However, based upon the way the firm is currently organized, I think that formally institutionalizing gatekeeper positions like Marissa Mayer actually works against them in the long-run.

The centralized nature of their product manager suffers from, among other things, asymmetrical information — a knowledge problem that curtails effective decision-making and stymies prompt execution.

To that point, last year, News.com put together a good overview contrasting the culture differences between Yahoo and Google. They noted that because Google was leaner, flatter and a more decentralized organization, they were more effective at rolling out creativer (sic) solutions.

However, based upon their recent history, might they become the very Yahoo they supplanted? Today, Steve Rubel posits the same question.

One solution could be a reorganization along the lines of several smaller, confederated start-ups. Example: delegating task-management and dispersing this vaunted focal authority into small cells of semi-autonomous, entrepreneurial units each responsible for their own P/L (see this facsimile of “Unbundling the Corporation”).

Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey

How big is too big? Do the leveraging abilities of traditional public firms (financial resources, clout, etc.) outweigh the long-term costs (e.g. salaries, pensions)?

In an age where you can reliably and securely contract any task to the ends of the earth at a fraction of the domestic cost, do web companies need to go public anymore… let alone receive venture capital? And do you really need to have people from Mensa working for you (see also the seminal works of Jim Collins; in BtL he suggests no)?

Remember that clip of Benny Hinn from a few days ago?

I just came across another preacher by the name of Harri Kiviniemi who has been remixed with music from a rock band called Dope.  I have no idea what country the guy is from, but his faux air guitar is pretty good.

I also bumped into a video starring the character “Borat” (aka Ali G) which illustrates why you might want to listen to the lyrics of a song before singing along.

Lastly, I bet you can’t do this on your DDR.

As a kid I recall watching on more than one occassion, a Disney-like movie that involved a unmanned combat aerial vehicle.

It was basically a miniaturized fighter jet that was operated via remote control and the events surrounding its deployment involved one boondoggle after another (so it’s nothing like Stealth).

I can’t seem to recall the name of the movie, but I did come across this interesting video of a made-at-home model airplane flying at 200 mph.

Guess what BusinessWeek discovered about State-backed monopolies? They don’t spend much on innovation.

This is not a terribly new discovery. There is little incentive for a firm that legally owns the entire market on a service, so why waste the money on more efficient or effective technologies when you have a legally guaranteed revenue stream? What is the incentive for a monopolist to invest in developing new widgets?

TechDirt suggests that these rent-seeking firms aren’t technology companies at all, but rather wealth-extractors. And AgainstMonopoly notes that their monopolistic actions speak louder than their superficial overtures.

You see, apparently despite bringing in revenues of over $40 billion last year, AT&T spent a mere $130 million on R&D. This is in contrast to the less-regulated market of computer chips, in which Intel alone spent over $5 billion on R&D.

So one question can be, what is that G-spot firms should spend on innovating?

Paul Kedrosky shows that sometimes more investments means less return in the long-run — just because you spent money on creating a product does not mean it will turn into a commercial success.

And this is a point that ArsTechnica misses in their op-ed on the matter. Throwing money at “basic research” without a comprehensive business model behind it is not a practical way of staying profitable in industries that do not receive subsidies or legal monopolies.

In fact, the main reason AT&T Bell Labs, Xerox and IBM all had the money to do what they did is because of one thing alone: State intervention.

They received tax-funded subsidies in the form of large government contracts. Their industries were protected from outside competition through patents and geographical monopolies. And while it is impossible to predict what free-markets would have created, a strong case could be made that different, more efficient patterns of capital allocation would have been made if this intervention never occurred.

In short, these firms did not have to deal with free-enterprise and its creative destruction. And unfortunately the only winners in the continual cycle of telecommunication reregulation has been the State monopolies which have once again consolidated into their original form.

And rather than making another long-winded polemical against State intervention, perhaps one of the solutions to innovation at large firms is already being discussed: Crowdsourcing.

What do these two sanitizing techniques have in common? For starters, they have both been demonized by not-so-friendly folks and have thus left the drawing board as practical uses to preventing the spread of harmful pathogens.

The FDA uses a good analogy to explain why irradiating food is not a bad thing:

Irradiation does not make foods radioactive, just as an airport luggage scanner does not make luggage radioactive. Nor does it cause harmful chemical changes. The process may cause a small loss of nutrients but no more so than with other processing methods such as cooking, canning, or heat pasteurization. Federal rules require irradiated foods to be labeled as such to distinguish them from non-irradiated foods.

The EPA notes that through this relatively safe and inexpensive process, bacteria and other microbes are killed off — thus preventing illness and food spoilage.

An interesting tie-in comes with recent research that indicates that “[v]accines made with bacteria killed with gamma irradiation” may be more effective than traditional accepted methods which use heat and chemical inactivation.

More on irradiation of food: 1 2 3 4
More on DDT: 1 2 3

Which is nuttier, playing a tongue twister game and being racked for incorrect answers.

Or.

Not speaking Japanese at all, as Chris Farley discovered.

This is perhaps the best segment Colbert has produced yet.  Even better than his grilling of the press.

Via Stephen Kinsella.  See also the antics of Ali G.