Night Beat Replay: Beware of Small Business Saturday

(The Following Post was published in 2011 as I discovered Small Business Saturday. The Post is Satire. Shop at the Business You Want to Shop At. Even Wal-Mart was originally a Small Business. Are you angry when your Children Become Adults? Properly nourished businesses will grow. Enjoy)

Today I am compelled to pass on news regarding a diabolical plot by the multinational corporations to control the world. Now this information has been provided to me by the peaceful folk at Occupy Wall Street, so we can be assured of its reliability.
Like all diabolical plots, this one has an innocent name. It's called Small Business Saturday. It has an equally innocent slogan "When we all shop small, it will be HUGE!" I have found numerous examples to show just how huge.

In 1902 Real Estate Agent George D. Dayton opens Dayton's Dry Goods, a small retail store on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, MN

In 1962 Sam & Helen Walton open a discount retail store in Rogers, AR. Unable to find investors for their one little store, they are forced to put up 95% of the money on their own.

In 1965 Leonard Riggio establishes Student Book Exchange in Greenwich Village. The small bookstore is devoted to providing low cost textbooks to college students.

In 1971 English Teacher Jerry Baldwin, History Teacher Zev Siegl, and Writer Gordon Bowker start a small coffee shop at 2000 Western Avenue in Seattle, WA

In 1976, in a garage in CA., two hippie kids build a computer circuit board with a fruity name. It has a CPU of 1MHz, 8kb of Ram, and 1kb of VRam, and sells for the beastly sum of $666.66

In 1978, 25 year old college dropout John Mackey and 21year old Rene Lawson Handy borrow $45,000 from family and friends and open Safer Way, a small natural foods store in Austin, TX

Now these are all small businesses, the backbone of America, and deserve our support. You would think so, and people did support them, and look what happened. They turned into the monsters Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks and Apple, responsible for destroying main streets across this land.

What about the last example? That is the worst of all, for only three years later, when they only had 19 employees, Gaia herself, in her infinite wisdom, attempted to wipe this great evil out by unleashing the worst flood in Austin in 70 years. Without insurance, Mackey and Handy, with nearly a half million dollars worth of damage, would have closed, except that neighbors and customers volunteered to help them clean up the store, and vendors and creditors gave them time to pay their obligations. This allowed them to reopen after only 28 days, and they became Whole Foods Market, responsible for shutting down small natural food markets everywhere.

I think it is obvious. I implore you, Do Not Support Small Business. It WILL Grow.

An Apple A Day

Will set you back nearly a million dollars if it's a 17 inch MacBook Pro, and Apple Shareholders will be forever grateful. Of course you should still get a small plaque for as little as $18K (a shuffle a day). What?, that's talking about fruit? My Bad.


I have recently been reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It is a book which I would highly recommend to everyone, especially if you are among the Apple Haters (You know who you are).


By way of full disclosure, I would be considered among the Apple "Faithful". The first time I ever touched a PC (I'm not including the mainframe DEC VOX2000), it was a Mac SE, and though I spent a long time using pen paper and typewriter after college, my first computer, which has served me very well, is my bondi blue clamshell iBook. My only regret with that computer is that I never understood Apple's release schedule before I bought it, and so soon after I did, a new model came out. Other than that...No Complaints.



Courtesy Amazon

 All that is in introduction to this. I have been reading Steve Jobs the biography by Walter Isaacson. It is an eye opening read to be sure, and I highly recommend it to everyone, especially to the legions of "Apple Haters" out there. Now before I got a hold of a copy I had heard that It wasn't a rah-rah book and that there a lot of things in the book that may shock the average apple fan, and that was true in some respects, but in a good way. The biggest revelation of all to some could be that Steve Jobs was human. To most people today he would be called an abusive employer unconcerned about his employees feelings, but he also wound up being a great motivator. Those who learned to push back and were not easily cowered wound up staying with him and created "Insanely Great" products such as the Macintosh, the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

It was interesting to read about how the Macintosh came about, about the ill fated Lisa (which I found out was named after his "illegitimate" daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.  As much as I think I follow apple events, I never knew he had a child (he had three others in addition to Lisa) or a family (he was married to Laurene Powell) until after this book came out. For a public figure he was able to retain a personal level of privacy even the average Joe has a problem maintaining.

I also learned that corporate history rarely moves in a straight line. Everybody knows Apple's release history. Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad. Wrong. Actually, based on R&D, it's Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone. Jobs and crew started out with the concept for the iPad at first, but due to the opportunity in the Cell Phone market, decided to test the idea with the iPhone first, so those statements about "Apple is not considering the tablet market", pure jobsian spin.

The story of his cancer treatment was a big downer (no big surprise), but that doesn't kick in until the end. The Real (Toy) Story of Pixar and the NeXT misfire are real revelations if all you think of with Steve Jobs is Apple.

As a Biography I would give Steve Jobs 5 Emeralds. Even the haters might be convinced. Support the Night Beat buy buying a copy at Amazon. You can get it in Hardcover, Kindle, or even Audio CD. I will return Monday with more music, and until then I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Y2J: 10/05/11

We at The Night Beat are a little more somber today. Last Night I was about to check one of my email accounts when I noticed a news story announcing the death of Steve Jobs. Now without revealing too much let me say that while I am younger than Steve Jobs, I am not that much younger than him to not be affected. He Was 56. That's too young for anyone to die.

Back just before the turn of the millennium (that's 1999 for most people), everybody with a Windows based computer was fretting about this thing called Y2K. Seems that Bill Gates never anticipated past the year 1999, so the computer clock would roll back to 0000. They issued fixes an nothing happened anyway, so we will never know what might have happened. Anyway, back at Cupertino, Jobs announced that the clocks in Macintosh Computers were set all the way, I think, until some ridiculous time in the future like 2245 or something.

I say that because, to the Apple Faithful, yesterday will be a day we remember always, sort of like people remember where they were when they heard JFK was shot. Our hearts are a little saddened, but we know that Apple is in good hands. From all appearances, handpicked CEO Tim Cook will always be asking that important question: WWSD (What Would Steve Do?). I would say things are going to stay on an even and maybe still upward course.

Apple has been a big part of this bloggers life. Back when I was in college I started out on computers on a DEC/VAX mainframe. Using Basic line commands you typed forever and when you issued the print command, it printed.....One Paragraph. Then during my junior year things changed and we got a new computer room. Actually it was two rooms. In one room there were some large PC Computers running DOS. All I needed to know was that it revolved around the same line commands that the mainframe used. In the other room were these tiny things with one hard floppy slot and maybe a 6 inch screen. They were Macintosh SE's. Anybody who was an early convert to Macintosh remembers constantly swapping floppies between software and saving, and doing it happily, because, even though that took time, the revolutionary concept of WYSIWYG computing and GUI's made computing intuitive. And I credit the Mac and Jobs for, while not exactly paying for my college education, at least giving me a good amount of walking around money, because, Using Macwrite, I set myself up typing other students term papers. If I had to use DOS or the old mainframe, I think I would still be typing that first term paper.

I said all that to say this. Steve Jobs will be missed by many, and my ancient iBook seemed to take little longer than usual last night to reboot (perhaps it was mourning?). I have realized that the iBook (coming to the end of its useful life) would need to be replaced, and because of no other reason than money, I had briefly considered purchasing a windows machine. I have repented. You get what you pay for, and I would rather have a computer that "Just Works".

One final note. To the "Church" of J***A**** called Westboro Baptist Church. You gave up on Jesus a long time ago. If Steve Jobs went to hell, I have a feeling a lot of you will find out personally one of these days. If you were truly convinced that Apple and Jobs were evil, you should have used an Android Phone. I now apologize both to my readers and those of the Donkey Community. You are wonderful beasts of burden and I should not have compared you to the WBC.

I shall return soon with more music posts. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

An Interview With A Lioness

Introductory Note: I am writing this post as a participant in the "Interview With A Character" Blog fest put on by Melissa at The Undeveloped Story. I asked her if I could post two and she said it was okay. Here is number one.

• NB: We at The Night Beat are primarily concerned with music, but sometimes an opportunity comes along that you just can't pass up, even if you have to stray outside your comfort zone. Talking to us today via Skype from her office in Split, Croatia is Susan Bradford, President and CEO of Thames Electronics. Miss Bradford, thank you for taking some of your time to talk to The Night Beat.
• SB: My pleasure
• NB: The Computer world, as well as the emerging world of Social Media is increasingly a youth movement. Being the CEO of a major corporation at 35, you must be fitting in quite well.
• SB: It's 29, but, yes, I am doing quite well.
• NB: Pardon me for correcting you, but my notes say that you were born on July 15, 1976. That would make you 35.
• SB: Never press a Lady on her real age. As to your original question. The Social Media landscape is dominated by Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg is only 27, so even I feel like a fossil at times.
• NB: Recently shock waves went through the tech community with the announcement by Steve Jobs that hew was stepping down as the CEO of Apple. Without sounding overly crass, let me ask "is this good news for Thames?"
• SB: I should bloody well hope so. (Laughs). Seriously though, all of us at Thames Electronics wish Mister Jobs only good health. I'd be lost if it weren't for my iPhone or iPad. I only wish we had come up with them.
• NB: But is it good news for Thames?
• SB: I don't think it has any effect. Thames makes supercomputers, so I don't think we compete against each other. Still, I would like to have invented the iPod.
• NB: On to another subject. From the mid 90' to September of 2009 the major cities of Europe were terrorized by a cat burglar...
• SB: I think terrorized is highly prejudicial
• NB: Your answer begs a follow up. Since Lioness' exploits seem to have ended around the same time as your auto accident. Are You Lioness?
• SB: It is a remarkable coincidence, but that is all.
• NB: On another topic, would it be appropriate to call you the Six Million Dollar Woman?
• SB: I Bloody well hope not. I am worth 75 Million Pounds, that should be good in dollars as well.
• NB: Actually it's over 100 Million Dollars. I was actually referring to a 1970's era Science Fiction Show about a man whose life was saved after a horrific accident by turning him into a cyborg.
• SB: Simply preposterous, I don't know where you get your information.
• NB: I talked to a General Jonathan Knox in Chicago.
• SB: Since you talked to The General. It's closer to the Billion Dollar Woman when you figure in all the prototypes.
• NB: Any Superhuman abilities?
• SB: None that have appeared so far, but I haven't exactly tried to do anything special.
• NB: Not trying to pull any semi's?
• SB: No.
• NB: No accidental revelations?
• SB: Did I send my date flying through a plate glass window when all I wanted to do was slap his face? No. Sound's like fun though. Except for not needing glasses and not tiring as easy, things are kind of normal.
• NB: On a final note, I see that now that Kate Middleton has married Prince William you have moved to the top of the Beautiful Brit List. Congratulations.
• SB: Thanks. I don't want to seem to vain, but being a cyborg does have its privileges. Since the operation I went from a size 4 to a size 2. Daddy was on the phone from London as soon as the list came out. He's already got several dates lined up for me as soon as I hit British Soil. Suddenly I love Croatia.
• NB: Miss Bradford, thank you for your time.

End of Interview.

Waiting for the Verizatt iPhone

This week Verizon Wireless formally announced what is probably Apple Computer's worst kept secret, that the next carrier for the iPhone would be Verizon. Predictably, the media coverage of the event has fallen on the usual talking points. First up were the Apple Haters. The report usually went Apple Choosing Verizon for the iPhone is a good move, but it is too little too late, and soon google and Android will rule the world aah ha ha (Evil Genius laugh added by me). Next up were either the Apple Lovers or, conversely, the AT&T Haters. The report went sort of like this A Stroke of Genius by Steve Jobs. Every smart phone sold in the world will be a Verizon iPhone by February 11 and by the end of the month of February AT&T will be a distant memory as it disappears from the world as quickly as the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz.