All Things Cahill

An interesting post on Slashdot.com notes that the USDA is considering changing their rules on what may and may not be considered “chocolate” in the US.  The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining ‘chocolate’ to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as ‘chocolatey’ and ‘chocolate-flavored.’ For my part, I’ll say that my version of what…

Read More Read More

In a major opus post, David Churbuck has given us an outstanding explanation of coastal beach erosion processes, in light of last weeks storm on Cape Cod.  Most of us forget that Cape Cod is simply a sandbar, subject to change at the whims of the hydrologic processes.  Sand moves in a predictable path along a beach — this is the “littoral drift” — sand doesn’t come into a beach perpindicularly, washing straight back out, but it moves, drawing from…

Read More Read More

In one of those amazing “They still don’t get it” moments, Nexpo, the tradeshow for the newspaper industry put up a blog, then forgot to do anything with it.  So their tradeshow is ongoing, but no one has posted to their blog since the first post in March. Even worse, instead of using one of the free out of the box packages, they’ve obviously designed their own blogging package in Coldfusion (does anyone really see that as a viable platform…

Read More Read More

Joe Bonamassa from December of 2005 with 12 year old LD Miller on harmonica. From Joe’s Bio: Born in upstate New York, Joe Bonamassa started playing guitar, on a short-scale Chiquita, at the age of four. By seven he had graduated to a full-scale model and a year later, he was playing the blues like a veteran. Says Bonamassa, “My father was a guitar dealer and player, so guitars were always around the house and part of my life. They were…

Read More Read More

I recently did something I rarely do; I didn’t pull the trigger on a project.  It was a corporate blog, and even though it was up and the software was running fine, I decided against going live.  My reasons were fairly simple.  I felt that the level of commitment to the project wasn’t there, that I was the only one really interested, and I don’t really speak for the company.  If you need to hear what I have to say,…

Read More Read More

In by far the best post I’ve read about the Google acquisition of DoubleClick, David Churbuck explains both where banner ads had failed, and how Google may revitalize them.  This is a must read for any publisher, print or online, and for all who advertise online.  The only bit I think is missing is the potential link between Google’s Pay Per Action and the banner ad, which will represent a quantum shift in thinking for the online advertising.

After our accident last week, I asked Vario customer Dr. Lou Stylos of Chelmsford, MA to give us a quick 411 on what to do if our kids (or anyone) have a similar emergency.  You see, one of the shocking things to me was the number of people who heard my story and said “I wouldn’t know what to do…”  Well, now you do.  I suggest printing this and taping it inside a kitchen cabinet next to your other medical…

Read More Read More

In their largest acquisition to date, Google bought Doubleclick, the purveyor of big media online ads.  Rumors had pegged Doubleclick being the target of Microsoft, so at the very least this was a take away play. If anyone thought that Google wasn’t serious about controlling online advertising, they’re sure to be convinced now.  For publishers, this will be an interesting play, as Google will most probably at some point start to make use of their Pay Per Action model in…

Read More Read More

David Churbuck posted about these guys earlier in the week.  Nice…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about problems, and more importantly the solution to problems.  The thing that strikes me is how often we attempt to solve yesterday’s problems, and in doing so, we create the problems we will have tomorrow. You see, as human beings, we like to work within the context we know.  That means we’re really good at seeing the things we’ve already seen, and conversely we often remain completely oblivious to that which is new and different…

Read More Read More