I’ve been successfully brainwashed by Thermador’s marketing materials for their Star Burner, their star-shaped gas stove burner that efficiently directs heat to the center of the pan. I had not paid much attention to gas burners before, and this collection of burners was enlightening. Artist Raymon Elozua has been collecting these for many years, often pulling them out of appliances abandoned on the streets of New York. Standing on their own they are indeed visually striking. And that Thermador burner loses its innovative edge. (A Yahoo daily pick)

Virtual Orchestras
If the stagehand union and Actor’s Equity had not shown solidarity for the Broadway musician’s strike, most producers had “virtual orchestras” ready to keep the shows going. What is a virtual orchestra really, beyond being a computer? And what are the operating costs? The 1987 contract negotiations allowed synthesizers (before the virtual orchestras) into the Broadway orchestra pits and their use has expanded. Orchestrators will often plan them into their scores, which gives you an idea of the mindset that the orchestra union is trying to counteract to salvage their livelihood. The new virtual orchestra systems are already being used for many touring companies, sometimes completely replacing live instruments, sometimes supplementing a few solo players. The striking Local 802 website lists the companies and individuals that it does not wish its members to associate with. These are the virtual orchestra creators.

Music Arts Technology was founded by former union member Brett Sommer. A laptop computer and a piano keyboard are hooked into the theatre’s sound system. The show’s score is programmed into the software and playing parts on the keyboard triggers the entire playback. Disney has been working with Sommer’s technology for their Broadway productions (Aida, Beauty and the Beast). Music Arts quoted Broadway producers costs of $35,000-$50,000 up front, plus fees of $890-$1,000 a week. A conductor or piano player must also be hired to operate the system.

Bianchi & Smith/RealTime Music Solutions’ virtual orchestra is more complex than Music Arts’. It uses networked computers and multi-channel speaker playback to more closely approximate the different instruments and their ranges. In a performance of “Evita” at New York Technical College, 35 loudspeakers (16 for the strings) replaced live instruments. A conductor can control the tempo to match the live performance of the singers. Their cost quote: ”$21,000-$50,000 depending on amount of music in show, plus $15,000 to $20,000 in equipment costs, which can berecouped from weekly fee on run of show or subsequent production.” RealTime’s charges a weekly fee of $1,500.

Hiring 24 to 26 musicians for a pit orchestra costs $30,000 to $40,000 a week.

New York Times writer Martin Arnold has written his final “Making Books” column. Blasted a few years ago by Salon for not having his finger on the pulse of the industry, Arnold wraps up his five years on the column with a few statements on the state of the world of publishing and his hopes for its future. And his final words are meant to ring in the ears of his many critics. He quotes Emerson: “Tis the good reader that makes the good book;…in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear” and then states: “this column has not been for the few hundred in the publishing industry — who often haven’t liked it — but for that good reader. I know a woman, who happens to be a writer, who always carries a book with her wherever she goes. This column was written for readers like her.”

A November 2002 Business 2.0 article took a behind the scenes look at Ikea’s process for creating new products. The company name comes from founder Ingvar Kamprad’s initials, plus the first letters of the names of the family farm and the village where he grew up. Not surprisingly for such a cost-conscious company, Ikea begins with the price. Their three price ranges (high, medium, and low) and four styles (Scandinavian, modern, country, and “young Swede”) are used to plot their product line on grids to discover holes that can be filled with new items. Kamprad had such early success with his cheap price points that his Swedish furniture-selling rivals prevented manufacturers from selling to him. So he turned to Polish furniture makers, a fortuitous tactic that led to multiple low-cost manufacturing locations who compete for Ikea business, thereby further reducing costs.

Once a price and manufacturer for a product is defined, internal designers compete to create the new item. Designs may then be further refined to optimize how much product can fit on a pallet, flat pack being the name of the game. Then the store decor is worked into the mix, pushing a frugal but fun lifestyle for its customers. Ikea has been an astounding success, and continues to dominate in each country it enters. The store we patronize has been doing twice the amount of business originally forecast, and two more nearby locations are in the works. Ikea has already conquered what is often the most difficult biggest business boundary to continuing expansion: internationalization.

Scripts for un-aired episodes of Firefly were auctioned off on eBay and are being typed up by the (very kind) buyer. An episode called “Hearts of Gold” is on Usenet and more are expected as the manual typing progresses. Note that you could consider these scripts spoilers for any future Firefly offerings, so click at your own discretion. Also I make no claims regarding the legality of the posting (it’s copyrighted material of course). (via Whedonesque)

The Mercury News reports on the rise of products catering to those with lactose intolerance. There’s a website, No-Dairy.com, devoted to lactose-free groceries and food products. According to this page: “There are an estimated 50 million lactose intolerant adult Americans, including 70% of the black population, 15% of the white population, and 80 to 97% of Jews of European descent and Asian-Americans. Eskimos, Native Americans, and South American Indians are other highly lactose intolerant groups.” Also, there is a correlation with the presence of lactase in populations with a long history of herding animals and relying on their milk for food. No big surprise there!

“Six shades of blush, liquid eyeliner and seven shades of eyeshadow.” USA Today reveals the transformation of Harvey Fierstein into Edna Turnblad for the musical Hairspray. He’s scheduled to appear as Edna on the Today show this Friday. Previously: rehearsal photos for Hairspray by Jill Krementz I linked to last May. (via Bradlands)

I’d been wondering when/if Handspring was going to move into their new digs in downtown Sunnyvale (known to me, prior to the foundation going in, as “Oh my gawd, did you see that gigantic hole in the ground?”) Turns out they’ve negotiated out of that $2 million per month lease, but it cost them $75-80 million.

Dan Bricklin, who in addition to being known for Visicalc also co-founded Slate, described his reactions to the latest round of Tablet PC technology back in November. His essay covers much of the history of pen computing software and hardware from ten years ago up to now. It concentrates on the business productivity software area, as that is what the Tablet PC is oriented towards, rather than the vertical application market that the software I worked on at GRiD was designed for. As a happy user of the good ol’ GRiD Convertible, which really was a Tablet PC before there was such a designation, Bricklin was pleased to recover much of that machine’s flexibility when he got his Toshiba Tablet PC. He loves portrait mode (it’s great for reading and I still miss it myself). His main point is that this new round of Tablet PCs should, and often does, take advantage of what was learned in that last, rather unsuccessful round. Microsoft is getting the technology out into the hands of users (and they can afford a few rounds of failure) to get the information they need to ultimately create a successful tablet and pen environment. They also have the luxury of being able to influence hardware vendors to certain specifications rather than having to sink millions into being a PC developer themselves.

Signs of the times. The price of gas in these parts.