Jay Haynes

Numbers as art, art by numbers

Stimulating mentally and visually.

$500 million!

Wired.com.

Semel, a former Hollywood exec, was brought in to turn Yahoo into a global media company back in 2001. He floundered for years while Yahoo's market share shrank and Google grew into a formidable competitor. Semel has also been blamed for missing the chance to buy Google back in 2002, after he reportedly balked a the $3 billion asking price. Despite his failed leadership, Semel drew a salary that was as high as $72 million in 2006, and reportedly netted more than $430 million in total compensation from 2002-2007.

American Gangster

Frank Lucas: The Return of Superfly.

Of the dozens of smuggling operations he ran from Asia, Frank still rates "the Henry Kissinger deal" as an all-time favorite. To hear Frank tell it, he and Ike were desperate to get 125 keys out of town, but there weren't any "friendly" planes scheduled leaving. "All we had was Kissinger. He was on a mercy mission on account of big cyclones in Bangladesh. We knew a cook on the plane and gave $100,000 to some general to look the other way. I mean, who the fuck is gonna search fucking Henry Kissinger's plane?

". . . Henry Kissinger! Wonder what he'd say if knew he helped smuggle all that dope into the country? . . . Hoo hahz poot zum dope in my aero-plan? Ha ha ha . . ."

Of Bear and Bongs

And he is 73!

Bear Stearns Cos. Chief Executive James Cayne, in an email to the securities firm's 15,000 employees, said he hadn't "engaged in inappropriate conduct," a response to a Wall Street Journal article about his handling of the credit-market crisis that included details of his marijuana use.

Mr. Cayne, 73 years old, said he was "intensely focused" on the firm's business and denied that he had smoked marijuana at a 2004 bridge tournament in Memphis as reported by the Journal.

Why Alex Blogs

A nice little interview with my friend Alex Ross.

Q: Why do you blog?

I often ask this myself. I do have a very nice day job, after all, at the New Yorker. But I find it irresistible. The blog allows me to indulge in a kind of writing that I couldn't pull off anywhere else — a little bit sly, a little bit whimsical, a little bit aphoristic, a little bit poetic, some days nothing more than a photo, other days a fragment of an essay. It's a very "now" medium, but it also somehow harks back to the nineteenth century when authors would publish bits and pieces of treatises and diaries in the columns of newspapers. After a while, with the fascinating suggestions coming in from readers, the blog more or less writes itself!

A beautiful tribute to Anita

From my friend Andy Sack.

Anita was awesome. An inspiration to listen to and a true visionary. Fun to be around. She also was a bit kooky and crazy -- but I've always had a soft spot for kooky, crazy and passionate women. I will miss her. I think the world would be a better place if there more people like Anita :-). Goodbye Anita.

Apple Buddy

My wonderful girlfriend Hollie and my great friend Kathleen both just swtiched from Windows to Mac. So I thought I would start a group called the Apple Buddies. Whenever anyone switches from Windows, s/he can post a request to have an Apple Buddy walk them through the basics of the Mac (and the iPhone soon).

Here are my favorite Mac tricks that I gave to Hollie and Kathleen. I hope they help others. (Safari, Mail, and others to come).

Command tab. This cycles through open applications.

Command H. This hides the current application. It can be viewed with Command tab.

Command M. This minimizes the window. It can be viewed by clicking on its icon in the righ side of the dock.

F9 shows all open windows.

F10 shows all open application windows.

F11 shows the desktop.

F12 is Dashboard

Command N creates a new document or window.

Command Q quites and application.

Command Z is undo

Command X is cut

Command C is copy

Command V is paste

Command W is close

Space bar scrolls down

Shift space bar scrolls up

Command arrow up is page up

Command arrow down is page down

More to come....