Stale Chips and Other Reasons Why We Should Rethink The Way Companies Operate

I woke up this morning with an intense craving for salsa, the kind that leads you sprinting for the kitchen with eyes still bleary and a lack of balance that sends you bumping into walls. Usually I make my own chips, but this morning cried urgent hunger so I reached into the back of my pantry and grabbed a bag of tortilla strips I'd bought a few weeks ago out of laziness and should have thrown away.

But like I said, I wanted salsa. And if you know me, you know my combination of an iron stomach and twisted, stubborn hubris means I'll eat just about anything no matter how weird it smells or old it seems. And so I started eating.

The salsa was everything I'd dreamt of (literally, a salsa dream is what started this all), but the chips, they were a different matter entirely. And as I chewed I had a bit of an epiphany. Why should chips get stale? The answer is, they shouldn't have to.

It's not like chips are made of organic ingredients and real corn. They're practically crunchy chemicals, yet no one has solved the stale problem? It seems counterintuitive. Counterintuitive unless you're the chip company aiming to earn as much money as possible from families who will either devour your chips or buy a new bag the second the chips lose their crunchy freshness.

And so I wonder: Will it ever become truly integral for brands to tap into the entirety of their resource base in order to give us a product that's top of the line, as best as it can be for consumers?

Will we all ever truly be on the same team where win-win isn't a rare choice but a standard business practice? And if that were to occur how would innovation change? Most of all, how unstoppable could we be?

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Bring the house to shambles with the dancing you'll do to Finn Riggins, a band best suited for fans of Matt and Kim and other fast rock.

Tech Talk: Google Voice Debate

Google Voice. In a way it looks like the next big thing in phone technology. It's supposed to become available to the public in a few weeks (you can check updates and progress here) and when it does, you will be able to use it to send SMS messages, record phone calls with the push of a button, read voice mails as text, and save everything forever. It also allows you to forward calls to one phone number, all your phones, or just some of your phone numbers based on who's calling. For now you have to forward your number(s) and deal with having anyone call your new number if you want to use Google Voice, but eventually they hope to allow people to port their numbers in directly if they wish.

It sounds amazing and it's all free, but before we go skipping through the park chewing gummy bears, there's definite conflict. For starters, when Google released a Google Voice iPhone app to Apple and it was rejected (the details here). The FCC is debating over what to do and we have yet to see that play out, but even if Google does win the battle and get to flex its muscles and threaten what profit means for carriers like AT&T, then what will happen to the people who use the program?

This could be one of Google's benevolent loss leaders that lays groundwork for establishing themselves in the mobile sector and helps them become more powerful in the future, but it's quite possible that Google will figure out how to monetize programs like this. One New York Times analyst pointed out that this could mean upselling an advanced version of the product (Chris Anderson's Free, anyone?) or using this as a platform for creating selling, targeting, and monetizing advertisements. Google always says, "Trust us." I hope we can.

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In case your eyes are glazed, here's a solid music recommendation to melt the glaze away. Check out Flunk, a group best enjoyed while relaxing in a dark room. They've been around almost a decade but their Portishead-like sound will probably be worthy of chill Buddha Bar type mixes for decades to come.

Flunk - "Blind My Mind"

This Is Your Brain On Music

Theoretically the pitch of sound doesn't exist unless it's heard. So that tree that fell over in a distant forest; it didn't make a sound. And the chocolate cheesecake chilling in your refrigerator; that doesn't taste like anything. The dessert sitting in the fridge only holds the potential for taste. At least that's what Daniel J. Levitin says in the first chapter of This is Your Brain on Music. My parents gave me the book this past holiday and although I'm only reading it for the first time, when I'm done with this I'm sure I'll have digested every sentence in the book at least three times.

Thought provoking and unlike any book I've ever read, I'm finding myself obsessed with his scientific breakdown of our human obsession with music. I'm sure I'll continue to discuss some of the topics Levitin covers as I progress, but for now I'd like to list some of my favorite topics so far.

1. Music was initially all inclusive, meaning the creator and observer of music were one in the same. Everyone danced and beat drums in tribal rituals. Now we're different. Our pop rock society dominates and the line between music makers and spectators is more polarized than ever before. Will the gap continue to widen or will it close in the future? I think it will close, at least to a certain extent. Our society won't let go of concerts and that type of thing, but with the leveling advent of the internet anyone can create and digitally release an EP. Also, think Guitar Hero. Maybe people will always download music for free, but they're willing to spend $90 on Guitar Hero III. And for a youth consumed with virtual interaction, I see games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band playing a large role in social interactions. Play the drums with the Red Hot Chili Peppers or rap alongside Lil' Wayne's newest release. Maybe this is the new way of consuming music, and if so what better way for the industry to make profits than to allow Wii users to connect to the internet and download the play-along version of Mary J. Blige's new single? This particular (highly rudimentary and thinking aloud) type of musing may be flawed, but this is the type of jointed music experience I'm predicting might fix the music industry.

2. Pitch can be mapped on the brain. Different areas of the brain respond to different pitches, and the neurons in our auditory cortex fire at the precise frequency of the pitch of a pure tone being played. We don't do this visually, but musically, we do.

3. People (well most people) can naturally extract the beat from a song and tap their feet or snap their fingers to a beat. This type of meter extraction is impossible for most computers, but it's inherent in humans. Does this suggest that we're naturally tied to music? This is the type of wonder This Is Your Brain On Music induces.


Relative to this post, today's musical gem is the UK's BrakesBrakesBrakes. Their beat heavy rock blurs the line between catchy pop songs and dance music. Check out the bouncy "All Night Disco Party" and the surprising "Beatific Visions" video below.

"Beatific Visions" reminds me of some early OK Go and the cutesy side of Fountains of Wayne. Watch, and you'll see that "existence exists."