Links for 07-11-2008

• Twin Peaks: Interesting Thing of the Day - This was a fun series at the time.
• Megan McArdle (July 11, 2008) - Notes from the line - From the comments: "What the eff is so great about the iPhone that you would go through all this?" It's not the product, it's the preening.
• 50 Remarkable Nature Wallpapers | Graphics | Smashing Magazine - They're not really all nature and many are highly manipulated, but striking all the same.
• Your Corporate Homepage is Really Google.com - The title says it.
• Liars, Damn Liars and Statistics: Gartner Goofs on Server Numbers - Rob Enderle - An interesting look at the dark underbelly of market share data.
• America The Dissonant: Seven Movies That Send Mixed Messages About U.S. - The Screengrab - The description of Forrest Gump here is brilliant.
• Criminal Probe of Apple Options Is Ended - WSJ.com - Fairly or not it certainly perpetuates the idea of a Steve Jobs reality distortion field.
• Data Center Strategies: VMware: Welcome to the Game. - I can't really agree with ignoring the EMC relationship factor wrt what went down. But there are a lot of other good thoughts to ponder herein.
• Why VMware's Greene was pushed off a cliff | Computerworld Blogs - Profoundly disagree. "The removal of Diane Greene is probably VMware's best hope for survival."
• Enterprise 2.0 and the 90-9-1 rule | Jon Mell - Web 2.0 ideas and strategy - Very true: "It is only after the first person asks a question (the 1%) that the flood gates open and others (about 9% of the audience) feel safe enough to ask theirs. The other 90% wish everyone would stop asking questions so they can get to the buffet lunch."
• Dilbert.com Live Performance - Funny. Mean. But Funny.
• The Long Tail: The Long Tail of Baby Names - I thought this was sort of an interesting statistic when I saw it yesterday. To the degree that there's a decline of, say, viewers of the top-rated TV programs there probably are some common causes: a more heterogeneous population, fewer shared cultural touchstones, and so forth.
• How Getty Is Killing the Stock Photo Industry - A Picture's Worth - "As much as Getty would like to position this move as an open embrace of the community, it's not. Instead, it's a way to lock out competition, and allow them to continue with status quo. They're hopeful that this infusion of content can somehow staunch the flat/declining growth of their traditional licensing revenue, and why not? Their growth has historically been predicated on acquisition of boutique agency content until they bought virtually everyone up, and alienated thousands of photographers and buyers in the process."
• Simkl and IM History: Two services that spy on your IM conversations (for you) | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET - I've been looking for something like this--although I've also considered just writing something that works with Trillian and stores my logs on a private server.
• HP Moving Defense Department Into The Cloud - Data Center Knowledge - I'm not a huge fan of using "cloud" to refer to a general datacenter architecture style. This seems to mask the on-premises vs. off-premises distinction which is important for a variety of reasons.
• Go Big Always - 10 ROI charts you can’t live without - This is funny/cute. But there are also some interesting thought embedded herein (e.g. the blogosphere one).