The Lynnertic

Collette - Ring My Bell

Collette Roberts is an Australian pop artist who performed as ‘Collette’ in the 1980’s and 90’s. She claims to have started the tshirt-over-lycra fad in Australia, which might be a bit of a stretch, if I may say so myself. Today, Collette is a model and make-up artist, and volunteers at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. She played out as recently as 2006.

Here’s the video of her 1989 hit single “Ring My Bell” from the album “Raze the Roof”

Collette made it to the cover of Smash Hits Magazine! From the exclusive Interview:

The impetus for "Ring My Bell" came about when our gal, a self confessed "club person" was out at various nightspots and happened to notice the great reaction that "Ring My Bell" got when the DJ played the original version… Collette decided that the song could do with being "brought up to date" and "modernized" and so went into a recording studio to lay down a demo of the song - took it to a record company and hey presto! she had a recording contract, made a single and became a star overnight!

… "I went into a newsagent to buy a lollipop - I really like lollipops - and I was just there to buy this 30c lollipop and then girl starts chucking a mental going "Oh my god it’s Collette". Here I am standing there with my lollipop and she’s going "What flavour would you like Collette?" and I’m going, "Oh, lime", and she’s going "We also have orange and raspberry!" and I’m going "No, I’ll just have lime thanks!


Did she give it to me free? Nah! I think she was too overwhelmed to ask for an autograph too!"

… "I think Collette does appeal to everyone," she insists. "It’s just me and it’s not too far away from me. Anyone can dress like me. A lot of girls out there can relate to me. I’m not wearing anything you can’t buy or copy. I’ve really begun to notice that almost every girl about eight is wearing bicycle pants and a t-shirt. It’s really funny!"

Unintended consequences of Google’s Street View

Within days of the technology’s introduction in the Bay Area, Google’s rolling camera cars photographed a man urinating against a Highway 1 road sign, a pair of coeds sunbathing on Stanford’s campus,
and two men engaged in a full-on fistfight in San Francisco.

from “Google engineer hits street for proposal 2.0“, San Jose Mercury-News, Aug 6, 2008 page 6B

Silicon Valley, birthplace of electronic warfare.

The Secret History of Silicon Valley

Google Tech Talks
December, 18 2007
Speaker: Steve Blank

How Stanford the CIA/NSA Built the Valley We Know Today

How much does an average Googler know about the history of the place he works in? Silicon Valley. Come and test your knowledge. I have seen this talk and I assure you - even seasoned Silicon Valley veterans will find this story interesting. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank will talk about how World War II set the stage for the creation and explosive growth of Silicon Valley, and the role of Frederick Terman and Stanford in working with government agencies (including the CIA and the National Security Agency) to set up companies in this area that sparked the creation of hundreds of other enterprises.

Speaker: Steve Blank
Steve Blank spent nearly 30 years as founder and executive of high tech companies in Silicon Valley, most recently the enterprise software firm E.piphany. He has been involved in or co-founded eight Silicon Valley startups, ranging from semiconductors to video games, and personal computers to supercomputers. He teaches entrepreneurship at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Columbia University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Engineering.