] 360electrical makes electrical outlets that swivel in
] your wall to accommodate bulky plugs and transformers --
] if your plug blocks the other outlet, just rotate it
] until it doesn't.

Boing Boing: Rotating electrical outlet for big plugs

] Despite almost four millennia as centres of civilisation,
] it was only fairly recently that cities attracted more
] than a small percentage of the global population. With
] hindsight, the 20th Century was the century of
] urbanisation.
]
] In 1900, only 14% of humanity lived in cities. By the
] century's close, 47% of us did so. This change is
] revealed in the growth of the number of medium-sized
] cities. In 1950, there were 83 cities with populations
] exceeding one million; but by 2000, this had risen to
] 411.

Of course, at least in the US, some of this may be attributed to an increased definition of 'urban' space. The city lines of a city founded in 1950 is far more generous than 1850 or 1750.

PSFK: Half Of Humanity To Go Urban

] Like McDonald's, Starbucks is a concept driven as
] much by real estate as it is by coffee and the coffee
] experience. These days Starbucks opens at least three new
] locations a day somewhere in the world. It has taken a
] lot of real estate to open up 9,000 Starbucks locations
] and it will take even more real estate to reach their
] stated goal of 30,000 global locations.
]
] There is much to learn about Starbucks expertise in the
] real estate game and Arthur Rubinfeld, former EVP of Real
] Estate with Starbucks, shares many of these learnings in
] BUILT FOR GROWTH (Wharton Publishing, 2005).

Brand Autopsy: Starbucks Real Estate Learnings

] According to Forrester Research, bloggers tend to be
] affluent (average household income: $57,900), influential
] with peers, and broadband-connected. 25% of all bloggers
] are ages 18-24 - this group is 9 times more likely to
] have their own blogs.

...or at least care to identify themselves as such.

And naturally, the question of this research: what is a blog? Is this a blog? Is a livejournal a blog? If I have memestreams and livejournal "blogs" -- and say two other similar public accounts -- am I one blogger?

Average blogger household income is $57,900 :: AO

] The stock is being sold directly by Berrett-Koehler to
] customers and others associated with the company. The
] stock is not available from any broker or other party,
] and no commissioned selling agent is involved in selling
] the stock. To be eligible to invest, you must have
] purchased one or more of Berrett-Koehler's publications
] within the last three years, or be a BK author, or
] provide services to BK, or be associated with BK in some
] other way.

This is a great little publisher. They published "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", one of the most important books of the last year.

Direct Public Offering of The Berrett-Koehler Group

] Nobody has the time to struggle getting %u201Cinto%u201D
] a book. You need to start with something compelling.
] Check this out from forthcoming title called The Story of
] Success.

Nice opening story.

800-CEO-READ Blog: The Story of Success

] Chart of the Day asks, "When is the best time of the year
] to buy or sell a home?"
]
] The answer to that question could save you a significant
] amount of money. Timing your home purchase or sale has a
] significant impact on price.

Wow. Good to be without a family.

The Big Picture: Selling a Home: Best Time?

] Call it the curse of the magazine indicator. Paul
] Krugman's quote on the subject is infamous: "Whom
] the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of
] Business Week."

The Big Picture: Uh-Oh: Apple on the Cover of Fortune

] When hotel heiress Paris Hilton found out in February
] that her high-tech wireless phone had been taken over by
] hackers, many assumed that only a technical mastermind
] could have pulled off such a feat. But as it turns out, a
] hacker involved in the privacy breach said, the Hilton
] saga began on a decidedly low-tech note -- with a simple
] phone call.

Paris Hilton Hack Started With Old-Fashioned Con

] On one level -- on most levels, actually -- Tarantino and
] prime-time's highest-rated dramatic series seemed like a
] poor match. The director's strengths lie mainly in black
] humor and eccentric characterization, while the "CSI"
] franchise is resolutely unfunny and its running cast of
] characters can only politely be called archetypes.
] Fragments or vestiges is more like it; cardboard cut-outs
] would also work. Watching stony CSI team leader Grissom
] (William Petersen) trying to engage in trademark
] Tarantino banter about his childhood relationship with
] Trigger -- that would be Rogers' trusty steed -- is
] almost physically painful.
]
] Furthermore, Tarantino isn't much of a plot architect
] (although I'm sure he'd beg to differ). Instead, he's a
] pack rat who snitches bits of story from here and there
] and makes them stick together with a distinctive
] aesthetic. Whether you like him or not, his movies
] breathe, while the "CSI" shows are essentially finely
] tuned machines. They depend on whiz-bang reenactments and
] animations, and on plots that switch back once, twice and
] sometimes three times before dropping you back at your
] front door, 59 minutes past the hour.
]
] There are deeper incompatibilities, too. "CSI" is the big
] television hit of the George W. Bush era, and the message
] it delivers over and over is, appropriately, a simple
] one: Step outside the boundaries of conventional family
] life -- into bisexuality, cross-dressing, Ecstasy raves,
] Goth rituals, or just some extramarital whoopee -- and
] you're likely to wind up exsanguinated on someone else's
] bathroom floor, with pantyhose in your mouth. Tarantino
] is a culture icon of the '90s if there ever was one, and
] it's safe to say that his moral code, to the extent he
] has one that isn't quoted from Sam Peckinpah, flows
] through a more lubricious valley.
]
] Still, there was something to this combination --
] something like getting sick-drunk on tequila and then
] rolling down a hillside of poison ivy, maybe. Tarantino
] grasped one important fact about "CSI" that is a perfect
] fit for him: It's a sick puppy of a TV show, probably the
] most sadistic thing on the air that doesn't feature
] midriff-wearing bimbos with spray-on tans competing with
] each other. In inflicting terrible torments on one of the
] CSI cops, and perhaps the least likely one at that, he
] tries to turn the series' cruelty on its head. Eads, a
] jarhead-jock type who normally displays the emotional
] range of a refrigerator, infuses Stokes' terrible plight
] with a wrenching humanity that's almost entirely new to
] this show.

CSI and Tarantino are both different, guilty pleasures of mine.
This review nicely characterizes why both are, and why they make odd bedfellows. I'll have to track this episode down myself.

When Tarantino had a cameo on Alias, another guilty pleasure, that was something. It made sense. And has a great character. But CSI?

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Tarantino's morbid take on