Charles on… anything that comes along

OK, here’s the latest. My column has been pushed aside a little by this Microsoft/Yahoo thing - where the problems of integrating the two systems go far beyond the simple problem of wiping out “Yahoo” and putting Microsoft there. How about getting rid of PHP and replacing it with ASP, or dumping FreeBSD for Windows Server - which it’s almost sure to do, isn’t it? Plus the fact that on the whole, mergers fail, and hostile takeovers don’t have a much better track record when it comes to preserving shareholder value for either side.

Plus, at the end, the two sides are going to be left with what looks like the second-best technology in pretty much every field except photo sharing. And even there, do you trust Microsoft not to throw the wrong baby out with the bathwater? Can it be ruthless in killing the things that don’t work in MSN/Live, and keep the good ones from Yahoo? History isn’t encouraging.

The problems of merging Microsoft and Yahoo

Trying to put two companies together almost always leads to tears, the destruction of value and, of course, job losses, and the result is never quite as good as the separate pieces

How hardcore gamers are being pushed aside by the soft surround

Which is the leading next-generation console company? Is it Sony, with its energy-sucking PlayStation 3? Or Microsoft, the new adult on the block?

Insider blames overheating GPU for Xbox 360 failures

The high failure rate of the original version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console is principally due to the graphics processor unit getting too hot and warping the motherboard, claims an anonymous source within Microsoft

Revolutionary ‘travel time’ maps stumble at the cost barrier

You’ve got your dream job in central London. You’re prepared to travel for between 30 and 60 minutes to get to it. You’ve also got enough money to put a deposit on a house. Where do you start looking?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Great insults of our time (3 April 2007; score: 75.52%)
• My latest at the Guardian: any challenge for Microsoft/Yahoo? And some free our data stuff (7 February 2008; score: 53.84%)
• Sorry, but I'm not sympathetic to the Guardian's gap blogger (21 February 2008; score: 50.69%)

This only struck me the other day, but Creep has come on the iPod, and I thought I’d throw it out there for everyone else to consider.

One of the things that makes ‘Creep’ so wonderful is its melody; anyone can sing along. (Not necessarily successfully, but, you know..) Of course, Jonny Greenwood’s wrecking-ball guitar as the song moves into the chorus makes it fabulous, and the whole is greater than its parts.

Then the other day there was a song playing on the radio and I realised that it expresses just the same sorts of emotions. Except it does them while wearing a cardigan and crooning.

The song? Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You. As sung by Andy Williams:

You’re just to good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you…
You’d be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much

….second verse extract: Pardon the way that I stare
There’s nothing else to compare
The sight of you leaves me weak
There are no words left to speak

(Not by Burt Bacharach, as I had thought; instead, apparently - if Wikipedia is to be believed - Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio.)

And now Creep:
When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world

I think they both express pretty much the same emotions: longing for someone you can’t have, who you find you can’t stop watching (an emotion familiar to pretty much anyone from teenager upwards). A teenager hearing the first one could re-interpret it like the second.

There are even similarities in the tune - not that I’m suggesting Thom Yorke stole anything, only that it’s one of those subtle ways that artists sublimate existing work and create something that fuses it with the modern time.

(Bonus piece of irrelevance: the song was originally sung by Frankie Valli, who stars in series 5 of The Sopranos, which is where I’m up to at the moment in my mission to re-watch the whole damn lot. After that, I’ll get to work on The Wire.)

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• What is Microsoft's Songsmith like? Enterprise software, that's what (28 January 2009; score: 64.1%)
• The curse of Radiohead strikes X-Factor again (8 October 2007; score: 63.92%)
• G4 perform 'Creep' on the X-Factor: is there a tree high enough to hang them from? (12 December 2004; score: 47.03%)