Inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship

BBC has posted a video of the first look inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship that's being built and tested in nearby Mojave. BBC doesn't allow sharing of its videos so I've linked to their page but also include above a larger overview of the Virgin Galactic project.

Tickets costing $200,000 each are on sale at select travel agents. Anyone care to surprise me on my birthday?

The smartest person in content

Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of consumer products, has been called the most powerful woman in the world. That's certainly debatable -- but one could make a convincing case given how her work touches tens of millions of lives each day.

She's also been called the smartest person in content, and evidence of that comes out during this hourlong interview at the opening of the Tow-Knight Center at City University of New York earlier this month.

CUNY's Jeff Jarvis, of Buzzmachine fame, interviewed Mayer and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and touched on a variety of media issues, most of which centered around the belief both have that "local" is an enormous opportunity for audience and revenue.

It's clear from watching this video why Mayer is where she is. She oversees Google's local, mobile and mapping strategies, and has great ideas on how to give people what they want, when they want it and how they want it.

And while Armstrong has interesting ideas of his own, Mayer is clearly the one with vision that's ahead of the curve. Mayer used to work for Armstrong, before he left Google to join AOL. It's interesting that in buying Huffington Post, Armstrong has tied his future to a woman who knows how to make money off digital content. What comes around, goes around, I guess.

50 years of fuzz guitar

If you're an afficionado of rock music, you'll want to read and listen to a couple of looks at fuzz, aka guitar distortion, whose birth came 50 years ago. 

The "Soundcheck" episode above was inspired by William Weir's Atlantic article "50 Years of Making Fuzz, the Sound That Defines Rock 'n' Roll" (worth a read and a listen for its embedded audio examples).  

I was stunned to learn that Weir credits country singer Marty Robbins with the first recorded use of fuzz, thanks to a faulty connection in a mixing board. I had thought Link Wray (whom Weir also mentions) would get the nod.

It's tough to top the Stones' "Satisfaction" in terms of fuzz brilliance, although more than a few comments on Weir's article rightly toss some love to My Bloody Valentine, a 90s-era band whose ear-shattering sound seemed to be all fuzz.