In Vocus
August 13, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: PRWeb
Recently David McInnis sold PRWeb to Vocus - more info. I’ve been retained with the same basic duties and responsibilities and you should continue to see the same great pace of development and ingenuity which have always made PRWeb a leader. Additionally there should be some goodness of co-mingling of our two services to the benefit of all in the coming months.
The many weeks leading up to the big day of signing, hence forth known as The Big Day of Signing, we stayed up late every night looking over legal documents reviewed and modified by so many attorneys, each leaving a colored MS Word track-changes mark. These documents became almost like one of those pictures where you had to look at it out of focus to see the image. There was data gathering, report building, statistics generating, number crunching, and just general lack of sleep. During the last leg we were in Manhattan, NY trying to get some other business rolling along, where we ended up over taking the offices and fax machine of some friends who were most gracious and made with the inking. There’s many more details involved but those are stories for the fireside, for now it’s enough to know that a vacation is in order and here’s some pictures.
The first one is of the exact moment David signed. So that is the face a person makes when they earn $28 million. The second is a nice celebratory toast with kosher wine (grape juice). A congratulations to all involved. I know Bas and Steve from Vocus were probably up as late every night as we were and it was a team effort to make this close as quickly as it did. A few other notable mentions would have to goto Alex and Joel who came with us to the Vocus corporate offices in Maryland and managed to make sense of the raw data provided to them.
Most Esselent
August 10, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
3comments Categories: PRWeb
Recently David and I met with Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg, in Brooklyn, where they took us out to a great restaurant called Marco Polo (?). The head waiter Carlos picked some great dishes for us, and David was good enough to grab some snapshots. 
Drive-by Body Pierce
August 10, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: Puter Stuff
I don’t like iTunes for several reasons having to do with its digital rights management. That aside I have to admire the design of it. I’m searching and browsing via the music store, while an album is downloading ( hence the title - Beck ), and listening to Blue Monday.
That’s equivalent to tapping your head, rubbing your tummy and tap dancing.
Wee Hour Survival
August 2, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
3comments Categories: PRWeb, Squirrels, gnash-teeth
It’s about 2:30am and I’ve got business to take care of this hour so don’t you mind. The point being that I can’t seem to find any breakfast or espresso/coffee shack in Ferndale. At the drive thru lane, the fine swing-shift people of McDonald’s inform me that they’re not serving breakfast and have no coffee brewed either. At this hour it’s survival mode, and even McDonald’s coffee will be acceptable next to a nice hot bacon-egg’n'cheese biscuit.
Luckily PRWeb has editors 24/7, I login to my instant messenger and see my cohort Thomas Pratt is working this morning. I proceed to strenuously complain to him about the microscopic state of the union. He consoles me as best he can by saying, “i’ve had their coffee…you’re lucky they were out“. Our Utah VP of Social Media Judd Bagley is also exhausted and up at this hour. We parry via email like drunken monkeys then sign off.
Our offices are fully equipped with kitchens, where I find a coffee maker of advanced capabilities. After pouring some grounds and water into it, I end up with coffee grounds soaked in water spilled all over the place. Apparently it’s a little more complicated than my own circa 1989 peculator. I’d try to figure it out, but at this hour with little sleep for the whole week I just try to clean up my mess as best I can and sit down to blog about this.
Bullet-Proof Peanut Butter
August 1, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Science
Well not really, but that’s my loose translation of the analogy Amor Holdings is giving in regards to their new “liquid” body armour. Sounding very similar to the impact armour worn by the protagonist, Louis Wu in Larry Nivens ‘Ringworld Engineers‘ novel.
Essentially a very thin layer of this new polymer is meshed with “tough fiber” materials, helping to disperse the energy of an impact ( from a projectile weapon ) better than the standard heavy Kevlar material alone. It does this by hardening at the moment of impact and then softening again afterwards. The article I read makes no mention of how this would actually protect against the whole blunt trauma aspect of a projectile weapon. For example if I’m wearing a bullet proof vest with steel plates, the actual penetration is prevented ( hopefully ) by the steel plate but the kinetic energy still knocks me on my butt and produces bruising. I imagine the same can be said for this new product. I can’t imagine military helmets will change much in design over this one.
Aside from the obvious applications it would be nice for some inner urban areas to have this mixed into the house paint to decrease the damage of drive by shootings.
I wonder how well it holds up to impacts that aren’t at the level of bullets. For example it would be great for Postal Carriers to have a coating mixed into their garments that would prevent dog bites from actually puncturing flesh. Same with wet suits and shark attacks. Though my understanding is the pounds per square inch of a shark attack is enough to shatter the bones even when wearing a chain mail type protective suit.
