Had to check this out after reading Robert Frank's Wall Street Journal feature this morning...

Russian banking billionaire Andrey Melnichenko (only six years older than I am -- damn!) just put his new "stealth yacht" in the water. The "A:" 390-feet, enclosed like a warship, with a rotating bed atop the main tower ("A" is the first letter of both his and his wife's first name).

Check out the video of a test run near Germany (turn down your speakers -- the music's awful):

Looks to me like a sharpened, deadly piece of chalk someone might fashion in prison, topped by the cabin of a fancy ferry. None of which is to say I don't think it's darn cool. Viva la difference.

Controversial in the yacht world, for obvious reasons. Apparently the interior also ditches the usual nautical conventions. It's the first yacht effort from designer Philippe Starck.

Lots of cool photos on the web site MonacoEye.com.

Zimbabwe has been having a lot of problems lately. A sketchy election, violence and astronomical inflation. Along with all that, it has become pert near impossible to get a call through to the country.

I've been trying to get someone in Zimbabwe on the line for our show and I keep running into a wall of busy signals! I've dialed the country so many times I feel like a telemarketer desperately trying to make quota. The few times I have gotten through the conversation hasn't lasted long before the connection goes dead.

So far this is what I've learned: the phones are failing for two reasons. First, the infrastructure is shoddy and the government has no money to fix it. When things are mended, they often fall back into disrepair in a matter of hours!

Second, the government is clogging the whole system with their new "Chinese equipment" (that's how one former Zimbabwean described it to me). Mugabe's men have been blocking shortwave radio coming into the country (you know, as part of their whole, preventing free access to news and information thing). The "Chinese equipment" they bought to do it has gummed up cell phone reception across the country.

To top it all off, the Zanu-PF folks have given themselves free rein to check in on people's phone calls, e-mails . . . whatever they want. So when people can use the phones, they have to avoid saying anything that might draw the wrath of their government.

Just when Zimbabwe could use a life line the most, the call gets dropped.

As creators of new public radio ourselves -- albeit from a less lofty perch than NPR or PRI -- we certainly take an interest in the rise (and now fall) of others playing in the same arena.

The latest casualty is the Bryant Park Project -- a younger, hipper morning show concept that launched last fall, suffered some staff turmoil, and seems to have had some real trouble getting carried by any actual stations. (I posted my impressions back when it began.)

At the moment, listeners are mourning on the show's blog. Most (all?) of them must have been podcasting or streaming the show, since near as I can tell (NPR's site makes it a little tough) BPP was only carried in Seattle (from 4 to 5 am).

Launching new public radio shows is a harsh business. All while In The Loop has been creeping along our under-the-radar path, two high-profile efforts to nab younger listeners have now been conceived, lived, and died. (The other was Fair Game, a show from WNYC and PRI, which went off the air May 30). Another, called The Takeaway, also produced by WNYC and PRI, has just launched and is presumably setting off along its own uncertain trajectory.

I'll withhold my opinions of the actual shows, since they don't really matter now -- though I will beat my chest for just a moment: All the stuff these shows are being lauded for -- introducing a bold new tone to public radio, reaching out to listeners in new ways, embracing technology and podcasting -- we've been practicing and refining all along, and often doing it better. We just haven't been lucky enough to enjoy the big budgets and media blitz that have graced launches from PRI and NPR. Our only way to share ourselves has been by doing and creating -- the proof is in the product, not in the press releases.

Ah, that felt good. But I'll get off my high-horse and just leave a few strategic observations.

The economy is the easy answer to cite right now for why shows close up shop. And the current economy is certainly no friend to innovation, let me tell you . But it's not the real answer for what happened here (and what challenges still stare down The Takeaway):

* Two out of three new shows chose to compete with Morning Edition -- probably the best way to get your daily news (audio-wise, anyway) no matter what age you are. Why send an untested product up against the biggest behemoth around?

* While I naturally chafe at our own perpetual under-the-radar existence (In The Loop is three years old this summer) these shows rolled out the opposite way, with almost no opportunity to find their feet. They were born in press releases, and had to learn how to make their shows, and try to find their voice, in the glare of the spotlight. In the end, there just wasn't time for that kind of learning curve -- not with a reported $2 million annual budget (for BPP).

* I'm sure all these projects expected podcasting to be a big part of their listening mix. And it probably was/is, ratio-wise, given that radio carriage was tough to come by. But (speaking here more as a podcast listener than a programmer) I strongly believe a daily, hour-long show is a tough recipe for podcast success. An hour-long news show every day is simultaneously 1) too much to keep up with, and 2) of quickly diminishing interest if you fall behind. I podcast a few daily shows (like NPR's Day To Day, which I never hear during the day), and I get to them when I can. But the shows I actually can actually keep up with -- and feel attached to -- are the weeklies. There's nothing inherently wrong with a daily show, of course. But when it comes to podcasting, you're building yourself a hill to climb.

* Both failed enterprises (BPP and Fair Game) made a significant tactical error that I have always tried to steer In The Loop away from: They declared that they were shows for younger -- or future -- listeners. And they did this before anyone even knew what they sounded like. What's the problem with this? First, why throw up a wall for a huge chunk of potential audience right from the start? (I'm struck by the comments on the BPP blog that start: "I'm not a part of your core demographic but...") Second -- what the heck does that even mean? Saying you're going to appeal to young folks throws up all kinds of vague expectations that -- it seems to me -- can only hurt you....

Internally, I think this ambition can be decoded this way: "Something that appeals to people who like the Daily Show" (Fair Game, in fact, overtly used this reference in pitching itself to stations and listeners). But you know what? The Daily Show -- with all its fart jokes, "reach-around" impressions, and fast-and-loose approach to fact and news -- would never fly in the public radio stable. Not to mention that the Daily Show is just really, really good and has more money flowing into it than any public radio show could hope to muster. The Daily Show analogy is just one specific issue that crops up with declaring yourself a public radio gift for younger audiences. It creates all kinds of difficult expectations and comparisons -- and for what? Why not just build an organic sound and formula that works -- and let audiences decide who it's for?

Ah, public radio strategy: A subject close to my heart. I'll say one thing, though: BPP and Fair Game burned brightly while they lasted. NPR and PRI (and WNYC) get major points for chutzpah in my book. They realize the basic rule of how the game is now played: You need to create new content people actually want to listen to, and put it out there for the world to hear. They broke (break) some basic rules, in my opinion, both in roll-out and content. But all these shows seem to realize that the new metric -- even in public radio -- is not how good we feel about ourselves in the morning. It's how audiences respond.

As I write this, Jesse Ventura is set to appear on Larry King Live tonight to say whether he'll throw his name into the ring for Minnesota's U.S. Senate race (um...that'll be a pretty boring hour if his answer is "no").

He's been gone for a while, and it's time for a new nickname. Have at it.

Or suggest your own below (leave a comment).

The Week From In The Loop is back on the air. Check out our latest serving of news, commentary and satire.

Have British scientists been reading my diary again? Because a recent advancement in robotics seems an awful lot like something I've been dreaming about for years . . . Robots that dance to punk music!

The BBC reports that a team of scientists and artists have created three robots that were taught to appreciate music, specifically loud, fast and angry punk music. They did this by teaching the bots to notice patterns in various types of tunes, from country to soul. Professor McOwan, one of the brains behind the experiment, said that when punk music was played, the robots were programmed to pogo dance - a punk dance that looks exactly like you'd imagine.

"The robots can decide whether a song is punk or not within 30 seconds. The more punk it believes the song is, the more it pogos in a "happy and frenzied way", said Professor McOwan."

They rolled out the punk machines for a series of live gigs, you can see the video here. The sad part is, it looks like the robots are the only ones in the crowd, leading me top believe the real reason behind these inventions is to create an appreciative audience for lonely bands.

They better watch out though. They wouldn't want things to turn out like they did for this guy.

Free gas for life sounds pretty good right about now . . . But apparently it sounds a lot better than it actually is.

Florida's state lottery is having a summer special where the winning ticket gets you a quarter of a million dollars. The second prize is gas for life. The NY Times reports that people are buying tickets with their eyes on the second prize. Like Robert Acosta for one. From the Times:

Not that a winner's right to free gasoline is unlimited. Rather, each winner will be awarded 26 prepaid gas cards, each worth $100, every year until death. Were the 44-year-old Mr. Acosta to win, and live to be twice his current age, the total payout to him in free gasoline would be $114,400. That is far short of the first prize, particularly since virtually all the gas prize would be paid in future dollars.

Not to mention the fact that soon enough $100 dollars will probably barely cover a tank. Oh well, if it sounds too good to be true . . .

If you could have $2600 dollars of any commodity every year until death what would it be? How could you maximize that to beat the quarter of a million the first prize winner would get? $2600 of baseball cards? How about $2600 in paintings from up and coming artists?

Being a little more of a shut-in with the arrival of my baby, I've been watching a more live (i.e. not recorded) TV. And with that comes (gasp) commercials, which normally I rarely see any more.

"Big Dog" unveils the 2009 F-150 at a recent auto show (via YouTube)

As if the actual political ads on all the time aren't enough, we've got Toby donning a hard-hat and walking through the Ford F-150 plant patting workers on the backs and shouting things like, "This is the truck that helped build this country!"

Then we learn we get employee pricing on F-150s, because with gas prices like they are, apparently Ford can hardly give the things away.

While Ford is busy unabashedly using Toby Keith to sell gas-guzzlers to the workin' man, they're also busy hyping "green" design in their vehicles, talking up their plans for hydrogen, and research into "plug-in" hybrid vehicles that one day they may actually sell.

Still, these links are all just press releases -- it's clear from the ubiquitous Toby Keith ads that Ford is clinging to the one story it can tell that'll (maybe) make it any money right now: Muscle, patriotism, and obliviousness to the changing world around us.

UPDATE: A commenter asked us to post a copy of the commercial. Luckily, someone already obliged on YouTube (though it's all squished -- not my fault).

CORRECTION: After viewing the video again, Toby Keith is not wearing a hard hat. We deeply regret the error.

Courtesy of Reuters and the Economist...

(Photo by Rodrigo Arangua/AFP)

It's a cool story, all on its own: 15 Hostages dragged around the jungle for six years, broken out -- all alive -- in a single operation by the Columbian military.

But, damn! Those Columbians know how to throw a press conference. The news is barely out there when all the hostages roll up on the tarmac, step out of the plane one by one, and follow the military commanders at the microphone. (The three Americans were not among them -- evidently they're already on the way back to the states.)

Ingrid Betancourt has been talking for 10 minutes now and they left it to her to tell the blow-by-blow story of how the operation actually unfolded. And that woman knows how to stage a performance.

Brilliant! One of the most gripping live news events I think I've seen.