If you've been wondering what the holdup is in getting inflight internet access, here's an update in anticipation of ASiQ's low-cost solution within the next couple months. Just in time for you to try it out on your new iPhone, depending on where you stand in Rogers' diffusion of innovations -- and your current contract with Verizon (whose service wins hands-down over AT&T but where Steve Jobs couldn't agree on the terms of the deal).
I remember when Katherine Hepburn died a couple years ago, the quote she left the world with was that she was "looking forward to oblivion." For anyone with this kind of aspiration, it's got to affect the way you live as well as the way you die.
Ruth Graham died earlier this month after a life of some celebrity and personal accomplishment as well. She was described as a spiritual giant by her best friend and husband of almost 64 years, Billy.
Like Kate, Ruth also wrote of her passing: "And when I die, I hope my soul ascends slowly, so that I may watch the earth receding out of sight, its vastness growing smaller as I rise, savoring its recession with delight."
I'm sure it did, so that she could. What a great way of looking at it.
On the few occasions when I've watched these shows, I've been disappointed with the waste of time. This is a remarkable piece from "Britain's Got Talent" (a stateside version of American Idol) about real talent apart from showmanship and pop-culture sellability.
Part of the win is obviously in the surprise element from Paul, the cell phone salesman from South Wales. Something to keep in mind when you're making your marketing pitch (and we're all marketing something...).
It was twenty years ago today - June 12, 1987, that Ronald Reagan made the speech that became the tipping point for the direction of the western world -- JFK's "world of freedom" -- in the end of the twentieth century.
It was my privilege to stand there in Berlin that day and hear President Reagan, at that time my Commander-In-Chief, make his stunning delivery in front of the quadriga of the Brandenburg Gate.
He didn't have to say it. It was a great speech without it and in fact, his advisors all told him to leave it out. Twenty years later I can still tell you firsthand the cold war was very real.
But making the challenge based on his conviction that it was the right thing to do changed the world. "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Freedom has a cost and we stand on the shoulders of great men.
