Links of the Week: ESPN, Google, AIG, and (of course) Michael Jackson

By: Brett Fuller Last Updated: July 10, 2009

(UPDATE: Correct AIG link now added. You can blame me, but I blame Joomla.)

A lot can happen in a week’s time. This week alone, just in Valparaiso, there are five big events, put on by the city, charities, or the Parks Department. But outside of our little bubble known as Valparaiso, there has been a lot going on as well. And it got me thinking, what have we missed out on this week?

Well, have no fear, for I have gathered a few of what I think are some of the best links of the week. Not all of these are from the world of sports, believe it or not, but who are we kidding, most of them are. So, without further ado, here are, the Links of the Week:

  • ESPN announced a new project this week, one that actually sounds interesting! The Worldwide Leader in Sports is running a series of 30 documentaries that delve in to the 30 most interesting stories in their 30 years of existence. Guess what it's called? 30 in 30. So creative. However instead of doing their usual countdown or ranking, they’ve hired 30 directors and filmmakers to take full creative control, and the documentaries will just stand on their own. Bill Simmons explains it in greater detail in the foreword he has written. Not like this is much of a compliment, but of all of the ESPN summer projects, like “Who’s Now”, “Mt. Rushmore”, etc., this one holds the most promise.
  • For all of you techies out there, Google has announced their development of a new operating system, Google Chrome OS. For years, Google has tried to take chunks out of Microsoft’s market dominance, and here is their try at doing so by rivaling Windows. I’m a fan of Google, and this new operating system is likely to be lightweight, and won’t take a lot of system memory to run. The downside, apparently, is the lack of compatibility with legacy (aka old) software, like Microsoft Office.
  • In the worlds of politics and finance, AIG has taken a lot of scrutiny—some of it deserved, some of it not—over the past year or so because of their role in the economic downturn. In a piece for Vanity Fair, non-fiction writer extraordinaire Michael Lewis took to task of examining who exactly was to blame for the nation’s largest insurance provider’s collapse. It’s a great read.
  • It was going to write about Chad Johnson (legally now, Chad Ochocinco), and his quest to tweet during NFL games next season, but then I thought better of it.
  • In one of those events marked “SCANDAL” that probably shouldn’t have been, someone dunked on LeBron James. While that may not be a big deal in the big scheme of things, it was A) at his basketball camp, and B) someone caught it on tape. The real scandal here is that Nike confiscated any record of this happening, so it wouldn’t be posted on YouTube like this one is, or this one, or these.
  • Speaking of the NBA, the commissioner of the NBA sent out a memo to all teams and players announcing an expected reduction in the salary cap for the 2010-2011 season—by up to $10M (20%)! This has sent some teams scrambling, because for every dollar a team is over the cap, they have to pay a dollar to the NBA Profit Sharing plan, which is designed to help small market teams. Many trades have been announced, including one with the Bulls potentially going down today, where they will acquire Carlos Boozer and ship Kirk Hinrich to Portland, and Tyrus Thomas to Utah.