Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!

T, A, E, Z, & A

Apple Owner Must Read: Daring Fireball

If you own an Apple and are remotely interested in following the brand, Daring Fireball is a must read. It is a little bent toward the programmer set, but there is a lot to get out of the prolific John Gruber.

Case in point, this might be the best blog post title of 2007:

Yet Another in the Ongoing Series Wherein I Examine a Piece of Supposedly Serious Apple Analysis From a Major Media Outlet and Dissect Its Inaccuracies, Fabrications, and Exaggerations Point-by-Point, Despite the Fact That No Matter How Egregious the Inaccuracies / Fabrications / Exaggerations, Such Pieces Inevitably Lead to Accusations That I’m Some Sort of Knee-Jerk Shill Who Rails Against Anything ‘Anti-Apple’ Simply for the Sake of Defending Apple, and if I Love Apple So Much Why Don’t I Just Marry Them?

Congratulations to UW-Whitewater Warhawks

On Saturday, the UW-Whitewater Warhawks won the NCAA Division III National Championship in a 31-21 victory over Mount Union Purple Raiders. This was their third meeting for the national championship in consecutive years. The win is best defined by the opponent they beat:

• Mount Union had been unbeaten in 35 games.
• Mount Union had won by 24 or more points over every opponent this season
• Mount Union only allowed 72 total points all season
• Mount Union was favored by 21 points

Congrats to Coach Leipold and the Warhawks!

Things not to say on your first day...

You have just been hired to run the Green Bay Packers, arguably the most storied franchise in the NFL, and this is what you say in the opening press conference:

"Most of you probably know I've been in the Chicago area for four and a half years. I've really loved living in the Chicago area. I've become a Bears fan. I hopped on the Bears bandwagon last year, went to both playoff games at Soldier Field."

After that joke bombed new Packers CEO Mark Murphy went into spin control and assured the media he was no longer a Bears fan.

Not the right foot to be starting on, Mark.

Nod: Rob Reischel's "Murphy picked as next president" in Packers Plus on Dec. 6th, 2007

The passing of Marc Orchant

The news is spreading that blogger Marc Orchant has passed away after suffering a massive heart attack.

I am so saddened by this news. I got to know Marc through his work on The More Space Project. I asked eight bloggers to contribute an essay to the project and I left one spot open for proposals. Marc got the spot with a submission that was smart and tactical, a wonderful balance to the other works.

Work Is Broken: Here's How We Fix It

Summary

Meetings, presentations, and e-mail are a part of many people’s work day. Used effectively, each can help keep teams aligned, impart important information, and move projects forward. We now are bombarded with information from the web, blogs, wikis, intranets, search engines, and other digital sources in addition to paper. We’re challenged to develop and maintain a system for collecting, processing, and acting on all of this information. And the classic techniques we’ve relied on in the past have either ceased to be effective or have simply broken. In this essay, I’ll share some proven techniques for fixing what’s been broken.

You can read or listen to his More Space essay here.

If you are going to buy a Christmas album this year...

...pick up Over The Rhine's Snow Angels. The twelve song album is all original holiday music in the group's laid-back, acoustic style. My favorite is Goodbye Charles, which pays ode to cartoonist Schultz and the Vince Guaraldi Trio. White Horse, Here It Is, Snow Angel all feel great. As the iTunes review says, the whole album captures the wonderful highs and the desperate lows of the season.