Tretakoff Musings

I recently started rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation from the beginning. I have nothing but fond memories of the original run in the 1980s, given how excited I was for a new Trek series in my lifetime (I had only reruns and the movies to stoke my Trek interest), and it recently occurred to me that, while I diligently consumed every TNG episode, I had not experienced the series since it's original run.  Why did I do this? Well, a few reasons: With the triumphant return of Sir Patrick Stewart to the smaller screen as the venerable Jean Luc Picard , I thought it would be interesting to contrast this version with the previous, and see how far he has come. It would add color to the character, as well as Sir Patrick. Frankly, with the COVID19 lockdown, the series I have binged upon have been intense, dark, and disturbing. Combined with the activity of the world, including insane politics, homicidal police who seem to view people of color as "prey," rather than their ch...

Atom Films had an article that really hit me hard. It seems that Scott Gustin , who covers entertainment, went to the opening of Avengers: Endgame a year ago, in Los Angeles. Like all of us, he had been waiting for this film for seemingly forever, but Scott did something I bet none of us did: he recorded the sound of the crowd reacting to the film. Cool, right? Now, take a moment to visualize a year ago. No people trapped in their homes, worried about illness or financial uncertainty the likes we've never seen. Responding to Trump's latest with a roll of the eyes, rather than a frustrated scream. No overwhelming frustration leading to riots at state capitals . And no horrific illness, robbing us of friends and family, in a wave not seen in a century. No, in this time, early April of 2019, we were watching Trump still bitch about his border wall. Over in Ukraine, a country most of us hadn't really thought about, they were electing a comedian as president, and we...

Should have put a BluBet on it. RT returns to the remains of the company he founded : "James Salter, head of Hilco Consumer Capital, a Chicago company that late last month agreed to pay $49 million for the remains of Sharper Image, says he has approached [Richard] Thalheimer about working as a product consultant. "I think he'd be an excellent guy to bring back," says Salter. Thalheimer says he's considering the offer--but only if he can keep running Richardsolo ." Let the games begin. And let's hope for the great second act that only Richard can bring.

I have a confession to make: I am now officially a fugitive. Last weekend, after a cross-country trip, I vowed to Jailbreak my iPhone. Not familiar with the term? It refers to a process that unlocks your iPhone so you can install programs on it, extending the functionality. Now, Apple is already moving this way with the release of the SDK, and I will be very happy to reap the benefits, but I'm a tinkerer at heart. My PC's always have custom skins, I have hacks and shortcuts in my browsers, and more. That, combined with the need to have local games (not a lot of WiFi at 30,000 ft.), sent me on a collision course with Steve & Co. First, how do you Jailbreak an iPhone? It's surprisingly simple. First, I downloaded ZiPhone , a Windows application that made it as simple as double clicking. A couple of iPhone restarts, and I was free as a bird. The unusual part of Jailbreaking is how you get the applications after you've Jailbroken: you can really only download them with ...

With the Olympics looming large, there's been a lot of discussion on my daily ferry commute about the rise of China in the international stage, and, of course, the debate if the USA has already gone past it's nadir as the pre-eminent international power. In other words, has the USA already begun its decline, like the great empires before it? Many factors lead to this possibility, primarily the lack of investment in a manufacturing base: when a society becomes so wealthy that they find it less expensive to send work to another country, or to employ illegal aliens, no matter how trivial or important the work, I maintain that it is officially on the decline. As part of this exercise, we look at key indicators that might represent the telltale signs of when the USA "jumped the shark." For the Roman empire, it might have been the gladiatorial games and vomitoriums; the British empire saw the East India Company become it's de facto ambassador to the world. What might th...

A moment of silence this morning for my old friends, employers, and purveyors of all things needless. The Sharper Image has filed for bankruptcy. I shall shed a burltech tear in its honor. Thanks, fellow TSI alum Tim for giving me the heads up.

The media spin on the re-emergence of Richard Thalheimer continues. First, a cover story in San Francisco Weekly. Now, the LA Times spins the tale of the fascinating mercurial man and his rise, fall, and (he hopes) rise again. As I have said before here: don't count RT out. These articles aren't random, after all: it's clear he's positioning for a classic comeback story. And with the way The Sharper Image is heading these days...who knows how the story might end?

As Richard Solo waxes, it appears my old mates at The Sharper Image are headed for an ignominious end. With rumors of bankruptcy in the Ionic Breeze-laden air, investors are dumping stock, and the lawsuits are looming large. Personally, having invested a decade of my life in the company's success, I'd hate to see it end this way, but it sure seems headed that way. What's needed now is an investment group to buy the company, liquidate/reduce the footprint of the stores, and focus on relaunching the brand as an online destination. For instance, a line of products from Engadget and Gizmodo: focus on taking preorders for the Optimus Keyboard, and the like. A clearing house for new, cool and hip products: Japanese phones, concept products, mixed with old reliables like USB-powered devices at low prices. And finally, they would need to mix the business model: RSS feeds of the cool blogs with pay per click ad revenue, mixed with revenue from product sales and affiliate commission...

I had only peripherally heard that there was a live action Speed Racer movie being made. An Anime come to real life? Yet it's being done by done other than two of film's greatest auteurs, IMHO, the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix, Bound, V for Vendetta, etc.). Charles pointed me to it this AM, ruining the productivity of my day. And yet, feast your eyes on the Mach 5. Do I care who's in it? No (but Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, and Cristina Ricci are). Do I care what the script is? No (but it looks actually good). Will I see it on the basis of this car alone? Yes. 2008 is Go!

The man who invented the gadget craze of the 80's and 90's is back. After being ousted at The Sharper Image, get ready for RichardSolo.com , a bare-bones gadget e-commerce site that looks like TSI-lite for product and 1996 for design. The Marin IJ has some even handed coverage of it, but this little snippet from the web said it best: "Sometimes successful company founders should know when to fold them. Case in point is Richard Thalheimer who founded Sharper Image and has now founded an eCommerce site called Richard Solo that painfully displays that Thalheimer doesn't understand modern eCommerce....Richard Solo is an ugly site that has now competitive advantages. You can find better prices on Amazon, eBay or Froogle and you can discover cooler gadgets via Gizmodo or Engadget. We almost feel sorry for the guy, trying to stick it to his old company but making an inept attempt at it." Ouch. Well, don't count him out, yet. This is a man who's business was supp...

The holidays are coming, and you know what that means? Endless repetition of Christmas songs in the stores and on the streets. One of the "classics" is Band-Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Right out of the "it could only be the 1980's," this was a seminal moment that, 20 years later, is still trying to be imitated. Thanks to YouTube, you can relive the horror/amazement all over again. Bill Simmons says it best: "For some reason, I hadn't seen the video in ages and forgot the lineup of singers other than Bono (who has the headscratching, "Well, tonight thank God it's them, instead of you!" line that I've never been able to figure out). In the video, that line works even better because it follows the duet with Simon LeBon and Sting, and suddenly there's a young Bono standing behind them and wearing Uncle Jessie's haircut from "Full House" ... and the three of them share one mike as Bono belts his ...