Downtown Los Angeles (including the new Walt Disney Hall)

Grok Headline matches for Downtown Los Angeles (including the new Walt Disney Hall)

Walt Disney World podcast

Walt Disney World podcast 04/14/2005 12:48 PM
Cory Doctorow: Inside the Magic is a gossipy webcast about Disney World created by a Disney trufan who lives around the corner from the park and provides good insider dirt on the park and its undertakings. This week's most interesting news tidbit: no more asbestos in the It's a Small World ride! Link (Thanks, Richard! )

Comcast Proposes to Buy Walt Disney (AP)

Comcast Proposes to Buy Walt Disney (AP) 02/11/2004 09:40 AM
AP - In a surprise move, cable TV giant Comcast Corp. proposed early Wednesday to buy Walt Disney Co., the iconic media and entertainment powerhouse that owns the ABC and ESPN television networks, movie studios and theme parks, for stock valued at about $54 billion.

Comcast Withdraws Its Bid for The Walt
Disney Company

Comcast Withdraws Its Bid for The Walt
Disney Company 04/28/2004 09:01 AM
The move comes a day after Disney's board reiterated support for its embattled chief executive, Michael Eisner.

Walt Disney Game Goes 3G on Verizon
Wireless

Walt Disney Game Goes 3G on Verizon
Wireless 02/01/2005 09:37 PM
3G Feb 1 2005 6:46PM GMT

WiFi hotspots at Walt Disney World

WiFi hotspots at Walt Disney World 08/09/2004 11:46 AM
The number of WiFi hotspots in Disney World has mushroomed. I can't wait for my next trip there!

Disney's BoardWalk Resort: Convention Center Hallways/Common Areas, Resort Lobby, Main Swimming Pool Area, Concierge Lounges, Bellevue Lounge

Disney's Contemporary Resort: Front desk sitting area, 14th Floor Concierge - sitting area, Outer Rim Bar (near Concourse Steakhouse), 1st Floor Convention Center Lobby, 2nd Floor Convention Center Lobby, Feature Pool.

Disney's Coronado Springs Resort: Main Hotel Lobby, Convention Center Lobby area, Feature Pool, Francisco's Lounge.

Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: 1st Floor Lobby area including Tea Room, Convention Center Lobby area, 4th Floor Concierge area - sitting area.

Disney's Yacht & Beach Club Resorts: Main Lobby area (both resorts), Concierge sitting area (both resorts), Convention Center Lobby area, Stormalong Bay Pool.

Link (via The Disney Blog)

Largest U.S. Cable Operator Makes Bid
for Walt Disney

Largest U.S. Cable Operator Makes Bid
for Walt Disney 02/11/2004 10:46 AM
If the $54 billion deal is successful, it would make the Comcast Corporation into one of the world's largest media companies.

Walt Disney Co. to start selling
computers for kids (mouse included)

Walt Disney Co. to start selling
computers for kids (mouse included) 08/07/2004 08:45 AM
Canadian Press Aug 7 2004 12:13PM GMT

Apple and Walt Disney Records Team up to
Deliver Exclusive Soundtracks on iTunes

Apple and Walt Disney Records Team up to
Deliver Exclusive Soundtracks on iTunes 04/21/2004 04:58 PM

Google Powers Disney - Including Go.com

Google Powers Disney - Including Go.com 03/11/2003 01:22 AM

Geeking out over Gehry Organ at LA's
Disney Hall

Geeking out over Gehry Organ at LA's
Disney Hall 12/19/2004 03:34 PM
Xeni Jardin: Last night, I crawled out from behind my laptop to go hear Handel's Messiah at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with a few friends. The performance was beautiful, the architecture of the space was beautiful, but the coolest part of the evening by far? Geeking out over the awesome, gigantomongous, french-fry-esque pipe organ at the back of the hall. It's comprised of more than 6,000 pipes, only a portion of which are visible. Some are conical and made of metal, others are shaped like long, slender boxes and are made of wood. The pipes range in size from ballpoint pens to palm trees.

The organ wasn't played last night, but I'm told that when it debuted privately to a group of pipe organ professionals earlier this year -- they all removed their shoes so they could feel the deep bass vibrations in the floor. A couple friends mentioned that when the LA Phil played Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (opening theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey) a while back, this thing emitted gut-liquefying bass notes that remind you why that piece of music was selected to open a sci-fi film in the first place. That uber-low opening note doesn't kick you in the innards on a recording the way it does from a huge pipe organ in an acoustically rich venue.

Oh, also, it even smells cool! Many different fine woods were used to construct the pipes, so it emits a magical, cedary sort of fragrance that reminded me of incense in a Catholic mass.

Image: a phonecam snapshot I took of the organ, while standing beneath its tall, sonic stalagmites: Link to full-size.

Here are some wonderful photos, Link, and an Organ FAQ, from the LA Phil's website: Link< /a>. NPR did a cool segment about the organ's construction and sound, here: Li nk. And Link to a San Diego Union-Trib article. Here are upcoming organ performances at the WDCH: Link (thanks tons, Shawn Sites, and Michael and Cynthia Perry!)

Update: BoingBoing reader Bill B. says,

"I live in the Kansas City area, and have been to a concert at the huge Latter Day Saints Church in Independence, Missouri. The organ is unbelievable there as well but not designed like the one you reported on. I have been an afficiondo ever since seminary when I was a radio host for the 'Organ Hour'. One note: with organs like the one you described, you don't just feel it in your feet but all through your body. The harmonics will literally vibrate your insides when the proper notes are played. Now I must make plans to come and hear the one out in LA."

Lofty Designation for a Downtown Garage
(Los Angeles Times)

Lofty Designation for a Downtown Garage
(Los Angeles Times) 08/07/2004 05:27 AM
Los Angeles Times - It's where the car was crowned king 80 years ago in Los Angeles.

realZOOM Online Magnifying Technology
Wins Big at 8th Annual AD:TECH Awards -
Small Web Developer Tops Behemoths Walt
Disney / ESPN and AvantGo

realZOOM Online Magnifying Technology
Wins Big at 8th Annual AD:TECH Awards -
Small Web Developer Tops Behemoths Walt
Disney / ESPN and AvantGo 02/05/2005 09:51 PM
A panel of top advertising and marketing industry pundits crowned A Far Site Better’s online magnifying technology "realZOOM" as the Best Interactive Marketing Technology at the 8th Annual AD:TECH Awards in New York City agreeing with leading online merchants who have realized great sales gains and tremendous customer satisfaction. [PRWEB Feb 2, 2005]

If One Weinstein Stays, Disney Hopes
It's Bob (Los Angeles Times)

If One Weinstein Stays, Disney Hopes
It's Bob (Los Angeles Times) 07/18/2004 05:34 AM
Los Angeles Times - No Hollywood figure is generating more intrigue these days than Harvey Weinstein, who has turned his musings about his future into daily grist for industry gossips and news hounds.

Ovitz Blasts Eisner, Disney (Los Angeles
Times)

Ovitz Blasts Eisner, Disney (Los Angeles
Times) 05/15/2004 07:24 AM
Los Angeles Times - Former Walt Disney Co. President Michael Ovitz testified in a court deposition that the man who inherited his job, Bob Iger, once wanted to quit in frustration because he bristled under Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner's "micromanaging."

Troubles at ABC May Leave Disney
Vulnerable (Los Angeles Times)

Troubles at ABC May Leave Disney
Vulnerable (Los Angeles Times) 02/13/2004 07:17 AM
Los Angeles Times - ABC television chief Lloyd Braun stood before a crowd of financial analysts in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday and succinctly explained why his network's ratings have languished in fourth place.

Disney Draws on 'Passion' to Promote
'Heart & Soul' (Los Angeles Times)

Disney Draws on 'Passion' to Promote
'Heart & Soul' (Los Angeles Times) 06/12/2004 04:43 AM
Los Angeles Times - When Hollywood summons influential tastemakers to early movie screenings, agricultural organizations usually are not on the list. But early last month, leaders of FFA, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, were invited to an Indianapolis multiplex for a peek at one of this summer's documentaries, "America's Heart & Soul."

TechRepublic's Morale Boosters Hall of
Fame-Morale Busters Hall of Shame

TechRepublic's Morale Boosters Hall of
Fame-Morale Busters Hall of Shame 07/24/2004 09:22 PM

D irect and Related Links for 'TechRepublic’s Morale Boosters Hall of Fame-Morale Busters Hall of Shame'

Free registration required to download the articles. “TechRepublic’s Morale Boosters Hall of Fame provides true tales of managers who’ve succeeded in boosting employee morale through simple actions, policies, and perks.” “TechRepublic’s Morale Busters Hall of Shame provides true tales of managers who’ve lowered—or destroyed—employee morale.” Some of the actions listed in the Hall of Shame have destroyed the company……

Disney descendant quits the Disney Board
of Directors, and tells Eisner why

Disney descendant quits the Disney Board
of Directors, and tells Eisner why 12/02/2003 04:13 AM
Roy Disney's letter of resignation to Eisner .. email

craphound.com/roytoeisner.txt
track this site | 6 links

Disney Dream Desk PC - Disney glues Blue
Ears on PCs

Disney Dream Desk PC - Disney glues Blue
Ears on PCs 08/06/2004 04:29 AM
I4U Aug 6 2004 8:30AM GMT

"Disney descendant quits the Disney
Board of Directors, and te..."

"Disney descendant quits the Disney
Board of Directors, and te..." 12/02/2003 09:59 AM

Roy Disney resigns from Disney, slams
Eisner

Roy Disney resigns from Disney, slams
Eisner 12/02/2003 01:43 AM
Roy Disney has resigned from the Disney Board of Directors, and has sent a scathing email to Michael Eisner explaining, in exorciating detail, exactly why he's leaving the company his uncle founded.

1. The failure to bring back ABC Prime Time from the ratings abyss it has been in for years and your inability to program successfully the ABC Family Channel. Both of these failures have had, and I believe will continue to have, significant adverse impact on shareholder value.

2. Your consistent micro-management of everyone around you with the resulting loss of morale throughout the Company.

3. The timidity of your investments in our theme park business. At Disney's California Adventure, Paris and now in Hong Kong, you have tried to build parks "on the cheap" and they show it and the attendance figures reflect it.

Link (Thanks, Robynne!)

" Walt Mossberg: Get a Mac"

" Walt Mossberg: Get a Mac" 09/18/2004 08:51 AM

Walt Whitman!

Walt Whitman! 01/07/2004 06:17 PM
Walt Whitman! [Courtesy of My Robot Friend.]

People of Downtown

People of Downtown 03/06/2004 01:55 AM

Sydänstadin kuvia [Photos of downtown] is a nice, small photo exhibit in the Pannuhuone kahvila on Uudenmaankatu [the mincemeat crepes are very good, too]. If you're in the neighbourhood, go have a coffee and a look at the photos. In spite of the photos being digital and showing it in the enlargements, the subjects are people around downtown Helsinki which I found very interesting. The pair of couples in the photo above are especially well done and I think the artist should get photo quality glossy prints and sell these two as a set. If you can't get there, the photographer, Ukko Heikkinen, has a gallerly online of the people of Uudenmankatu which, even with some of the stiffness/awkwardness in a few them, is a terrific collection of the people who live and work here in Helsinki. M-F 9-15 until Friday at Pannuhuone, Uudenmaankatu 19.

Walt Disney's FBI files

Walt Disney's FBI files 12/04/2003 07:19 PM
Walt Disney's FBI files are a hoot -- all 450 pages worth. Mostly, they consist of various Feebs (all the way up to Hoover, whom field agents call "The Boss") fretting that Disney's farce comedies like That Darn Cat (which was based on a novel written by a retired Agent who was a constant thorn in the Bureau's side) would cast a disparaging light on the Bureau and speculating about how to convince Walt to change the FBI agents to a different species of Fed cop -- SS, Park Ranger, anything but the G-Men. Also noteworthy: trying to figure out if Walt is a Commie, debating whether they should let Walt film the crime-lab as part of a Mickey Mouse Club "future careers" spot. 2.8MB PDF Link, 3MB PDF Link, 2.7MB PDF Link

Walt Mossberg is down on the new
Smartphones

Walt Mossberg is down on the new
Smartphones 12/12/2003 11:34 AM
There have plenty of positive reviews of these elsewhere, but the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg doesn't have many good things to say about Samsung's...

Downtown Spokane gets WiFi

Downtown Spokane gets WiFi 06/26/2004 04:29 AM
At a cost of less than US$75,000, the city of Spokane, Washington has installed a WiFi network covering 100 blocks. Will other cities begin creating networks like this?

Walt Whitman Archive

Walt Whitman Archive 06/29/2004 08:45 PM
The Walt Whitman Archive, and the Poet at Work.

Eugene, Oregon, Wants Downtown Wi-Fi

Eugene, Oregon, Wants Downtown Wi-Fi 03/27/2005 06:15 PM

The city's daily newspaper urges Wi-Fi rollout: I grew up in Eugene. This is a fairly conservative paper in a pretty liberal town. And there's no sock-puppet talk here. Just a concern about keeping Eugene, a kind of island in the middle of the state with a large liberal-arts university, on track to keep the economy humming. They don't suggest city-wide Wi-Fi, but downtown Wi-Fi for free, which is a good starting place to understand usage.

Eugene's downtown used to be cited by city planners because in the 1960s, they converted from a street-based downtown to a pedestrian-only one. Streets were paved over. Remarkably, shoppers and businesses slowly fled downtown into surrounding areas and the Valley River Center Mall a few miles away on the other side of the Willamette River. A few years ago, the pedestrian mall was ripped out and life has slowly returned to downtown.

Wireless Available Downtown Victoria

Wireless Available Downtown Victoria 11/10/2003 11:11 PM
Being I have benifited numerous times from others wireless I am now settled and have my own wireless available, If your in the blenz coffee shop on the corner of Johnson and Douglas, you will be able to accees my WAP Thanks everyone for lettin me scam off you now my turn to return the favour

Baton Rouge Gets Free Wi-Fi Downtown

Baton Rouge Gets Free Wi-Fi Downtown 02/16/2004 03:56 PM
Verge Wireless built a network covering downtown Baton Rouge: Twelve access points will cover the area and the project should cost around $140,000. The network is free for Internet access but users that want secure connections will pay for the access. It seems that so far city leaders feel that more usage will come if they can raise awareness that the network exists....

Downtown Vegas Sees Big Picture

Downtown Vegas Sees Big Picture 04/20/2004 04:50 AM
Historic downtown Vegas continues to play second fiddle to the glitzy Strip, so Fremont Street officials are hoping that a giant LED video screen -- more than four blocks long -- will pull folks their way. Steve Freiss reports from Las Vegas.

What movies would Walt make today?

What movies would Walt make today? 06/11/2004 07:32 PM
Great FARK photoshopping contest: Movies Walt Disney would make today. Link (Thanks, Drew!)

Walt Mossberg: Gadget kingmaker

Walt Mossberg: Gadget kingmaker 05/04/2004 05:14 AM
Great Wired Mag profile of the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, the granddaddy of gadget reviewers, who can snap your company's neck like a twig with one twitch of his mighty keyboard.

...when it debuted on October 17, 1991, "Personal Technology" was an immediate hit. Mossberg's voice, amplified by the power of the Journal, resonated like no other. In 1992, he recommended America Online, an also-ran with only 200,000 subscribers, over Prodigy, the leader with 1.8 million subscribers and powerful backers, including Sears and IBM. "Prodigy tried to get me fired," he recalls. Mossberg's endorsement "really helped put AOL on the map," admits founder Steve Case. "It turbocharged our growth."

Mossberg's proudest moment came in 2001, when he objected to Smart Tags, a feature he tested in a beta version of Windows XP. Smart Tags could turn any word on a Web page into a link to a Microsoft property or sponsor's site without consent from the site's author.

Link

Cow Sculpture Stolen in Downtown Prague
(AP)

Cow Sculpture Stolen in Downtown Prague
(AP) 08/03/2004 12:16 PM
AP - Thieves stole a life-sized cow sculpture from a downtown square, police said Tuesday, reporting no success in recovering the burgled bovine.

Downtown Washington, DC and the new WWII
Memorial

Downtown Washington, DC and the new WWII
Memorial 06/06/2004 11:12 AM

Took the airplane down to my hometown of Washington, DC for a bit of exercise this weekend.  The city was built to awe the citizens with an inhuman scale.  Plazas are vast and the Mall itself is a forbidding barrier if you're trying to walk from place to place on a hot or cold day (the architects who wrote A Pattern Language concluded that no public square would be effective unless it was small enough that people could recognize each other from opposite ends).  The government buildings are huge and discourage casual entry by being set back from the street and not having any retail shops on the ground floor as a commercial office building might.

The D.C. of my childhood is vastly different from the D.C. of today.  Those imposing buildings that symbolize the government's power are now wrapped in concrete highway barriers that broadcast the government's fear of a lone terrorist driving a truck filled with a fertilizer bomb.  Around the Federal Reserve building, for example, the barriers cover part of the sidewalk so as a pedestrian you're separated from the street by a wall of concrete.  The effect is certainly ugly and it will be interesting to see what happens if a beautiful Old World city such as Paris needs to be secured against lone terrorists in trucks.  But in a way the cowering of the government marks the triumph of the individual in American society.  "God created men; Colonel Colt made them equal" wasn't quite right after all.  It was the terrorists who blew up the Marine compound in Beirut and those who blew up the World Trade garage in 1993 who actually made individual men the equals of government.

There is one new building in Washington, D.C. that harks back to an era when governments were all-powerful and individual men and women subordinate:  the World War II Memorial.  This is at the east end of the Reflecting Pool and adjacent to the Washington Monument (now wrapped in an ugly high security fence).  The new monument looks as though it was built by Soviet architects and indeed looks a lot like the WWII memorial in East Berlin.  The thing is huge and it makes one pause and reflect... "We'd better not start any more wars or we're going to run out of space on the Mall."

[My visit to the Memorial coincided with protests in Europe against American power in the form of George W. Bush, visiting to celebrate the American victory over the Germans in Italy.  Picking up on the theme of an earlier entry, I suppose it would not have been very politic of him to respond by saying "We're sincerely sorry for being so bellicose and we're going to show it by giving Italy back to the Germans..."]

Overall I still love Washington, D.C.  Where else can you drive on a riverside parkway, 100-percent paid for with Federal tax dollars, and pass adjacent signs reading "The George Bush Center for Intelligence" and "Turkey Run"?

Ellsworth, Maine, Has Downtown Hotzone

Ellsworth, Maine, Has Downtown Hotzone 06/09/2004 05:07 PM
Downeast Wireless has installed service throughout the Ellsworth downtown: Subscribers to Downeast.Net get 10 free hours per month; those from away spend $10 for 10-hour chunks of time. The coverage extends existing service in and around municipal buildings to the library and nearby businesses. The provider makes space available in its office for its users, too, during its weekday business hours--unique in my experience. The folks who run Downeast.Net have long roots in the area that involve more convention radio broadcasting on the FM dial. Local resident Noel Paul Stookey--he's the Paul in Peter, Paul, and Mary--is one of the firm's owner, along with Don and Jean McKillop....

The Cessna flying over downtown
Washington, DC

The Cessna flying over downtown
Washington, DC 06/05/2005 11:56 PM

A lot of folks up here have asked about the two-seat Cessna that flew over downtown Washington, DC last week, spreading panic among the bureaucrats.  How could this have happened, they wonder, imagining that the average small plane has at least the computing and display power of a Honda Accord with the navi system option.In reality an old plane like the Cessna 150 is worth less than $20,000.  Thanks to the miracle of FAA bureaucracy, a moving-map GPS unit that can be legally installed in the dashboard costs around $10,000 plus another $500/year to keep the database of airports and navigation aids current (this is government info so it would be possible for the FAA to make this available on the Web in a machine-readable form and encourage owner's of cheap planes to keep it current).  Consequently the Cessna 150 that these guys were flying didn't have one.  It is possible to get handheld GPS units for $500-1000 but they rely on AA batteries and never seem to have juice left when you need them.  Without a GPS or some earlier form of electronic navigation it is reasonably easy to get lost.  Look to the left:  sprawl, Walmarts, McMansions, SUVs.  Look to the right:  sprawl, Walmarts, McMansions, SUVs.  Look straight ahead:  sprawl, Walmarts, McMansions, SUVs.  Making matters worse the DC area is fairly flat with no distinctive terrain and the weather tends to be hazy so if you're flying low you usually can't see more than five strip malls ahead.

My favorite part of these flight restriction violation incidents is the actual bust.  When the two-seat 40-year-old airplane is finally forced to land it is surrounded by 20-30 law enforcement officials, each carrying a semi- or fully automatic pistol or rifle.  By this time the airplane and its pilot are 30 or 40 miles from the restricted area and they're at a big airport with miles of grass and fence all around.  There would be no way for the pilot to escape.  Yet despite the fact that in no case has one of these pilots ever been carrying any kind of weapon the 20-30 cops have their guns drawn and pointed at the poor schlub standing next to his 1000-lb. airplane.  The pilot is pushed down onto the pavement and handcuffed (see the photos from the recent incident at Frederick; another good one was a pipeline patrol pilot in Pennsylvania during the last presidential election who didn't find out about a last-minute visit by George W.).  To me it always made the government look weak and paranoid.  If they are this afraid of a confused unarmed guy in a 1962 Cessna 150 (who in all of the cases so far had kept his transponder turned on for the entire flight to facilitate FAA tracking) how can they possibly handle our actual enemies?

[The Cessna 150 seems to be the preferred choice for presidential intimidation.  The 1994 suicide crash of a light plane into the White House was, as one would hope conspiracy theorists would soon note, a Cessna 150 (see http://www-tech .mit.edu/V114/N40/crash.40w.html for more on this incident).]

Walt Mossberg like the iPod Mini

Walt Mossberg like the iPod Mini 02/11/2004 12:07 PM
Walt Mossbertg, the technology columnist at a little paper called the Wall Street Journal reviews the new iPo mini, and over all he likes it. Of course, he would like it a lot more if it were $50 cheaper, a common complaint and one I am sure Apple will address as for price of those cute Mini harddrives goes down. Of particular note is this little tidbit:

In fact, the latest version of iTunes even senses if you have a Mini, and if your song collection exceeds its capacity, the software can optionally auto-choose a selection of songs that will fit. It builds this selection, in part, based on which songs you've played most often or most recently, and which you've rated highest in iTunes.

This is the first I have heard of this feature, and I must say it is pretty cool.
Grok Description matches for Downtown Los Angeles (including the new Walt Disney Hall)
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Downtown Los Angeles (including the new Walt Disney Hall)

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