• Vanderbilt Law School Symposium: Sorry I’m missing the symposium at Vanderbilt Law School today, “User-Generated Confusion: The Legal & Business Implications of Web 2.0.” (Sorry for the late notice, but if you can make it, it’s open to the local tech community. Note: Professional user-generated-content basher Andrew Keen is speaking at noon.)

  • Darrell Scott & The Acoustic All-Stars, Nashville Chamber Orchestra: Wow. If you read any of the music-related posts I write, you’ll know I’ll be in the audience tonight at Grace Chapel in Leiper’s Fork when some of the most incredible acoustical musicians in Nashville play with backup from the NCO String Quintet. Bryan Sutton on guitar is enough to get me out of the house on a Friday night. Add Stuart Duncan, Viktor Krauss, Kenny Malone and Dan Dugmore and you’re in the too much talent for one room category.

  • Nashville Symphony: Speaking of incredible acoustical music, I hate to admit that last night was the first time I’ve attended a concert at Nashville’s new Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Fortunately, I did, so I can recommend the program that repeats tonight and Saturday. I won’t pretend to base my recommendation on any knowledge of classical music. However, I do know this: the Hall is phenomenal and the program selection shows off the best the Hall and the Orchestra have to offer. From where I sat, I had an amazing view of the hands of pianist Yefim Bronfman’s while he played the Prokofiev concerto. Watching his hands was a little like seeing Cirque du Soleil for the first time.





  • There was a time when I thought I had to fill this blog with insight that was actually produced in my very own brain — or, at least, in how my very own brain reacted to what I read on the web. But that was before I knew Scott Karp. Now, the rexblog is more about pointing to his great insight, like this post from Scott about the enhanced NYTimes.com’s Technology section:

    Quote:

    “The New York Times joins what I expect will be a rapidly expanding list of media brands that aim to create value for their readers by aggregating the best third-party content from across the web and thereby take an important step towards transforming media into a dynamic, collaborative, and fully networked endeavor.”

    Sidenote (i.e., something from my very-own brain): The most unfortunate aspect of the new Technology section’s launch is the characterization of a new feature it has (a news aggregator) as a “Techmeme-killer.”

    As a longtime observer of the -killer meme, I can pretty much guarantee that whenever something is described as a -killer, it rarely kills. Also, as a longtime observer of Techmeme (as in, observing it from the day it launched and from knowing Gabe even longer), I can recall when Digg was going to kill Techmeme and, well, about 100 hundred other things were going to “-killer” it since then. I have some beefs with Techmeme (it’s Valley-centricity, for example), but it’s not going to be -killered by anything that tries to -killer it by being “like” it, but different. (Maybe one day, my very-own brain will explain what that means.)

    The opinion-leaders who obsess about what other opinion-leaders are saying about breaking tech stories will still be obsessed with what hits Techmeme.

    Another thing: Anyone who is obsessed with Techmeme has got to know (or, at least greatly suspect) that it’s more than just “a machine.”





    November 2nd, 2007