punctuative!

Thank you, Mr. President. Glad to be receiving...

Wed, 13 May 2009 17:41:58 -0400

Thank you, Mr. President. Glad to be receiving communication.

Signed up for twitter updates from your abode today, too. Measures meant to produce an informed electorate, and encourage feedback, should be lauded.

“If your hat leaves behind indentions in your hair,...

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:16:03 -0400

“If your hat leaves behind indentions in your hair, Chrystal says to work them out by lightly wetting the fingertips and running them through the hair. Next flip your head over and back then tousle. ‘The baby powder trick always works well too’, notes Chrystal. ‘You can find the small bottles at the drug store. Keep them with you and then sprinkle a little bit on your scalp and rub it in with fingertips. It absorbs any oil and gives you a freshly washed look.’” [sic on the wonky grammar]

-Ashley Dawson in Valeo: The lifestyle magazine for physicians and healthcare executives (“Derby Hats By Day & Party Hair By Night”)

It’s going to be quite a weekend.

Stoked for my buddy John who will be presenting. Movin’...

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:13:20 -0400

Stoked for my buddy John who will be presenting. Movin’ on UP…

“Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.”

File under “you know it’s time to update your site...

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:09:00 -0400

File under “you know it’s time to update your site when:”

Received the following as an email address input to the VCDB tool:

create.an.rss.feed.and.i.will@thx.cool.site.com

Well worth a listen - the “adventure capitalist” on...

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:29:00 -0400

Well worth a listen - the “adventure capitalist” on present day economic circumstances. Disarmingly candid. [via]

"Disemvoweling" Comments

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:50:00 -0400

Whenever Nielsen Hayden encounters a nasty post—an ad hominem attack, for example—she leaves it up but removes all the vowels: y r fckng sshl, for example. The result is incoherent enough that it’s neutered, yet coherent enough that no one can cry censorship. The comment hasn’t vanished.

Best of all, because disemvoweling is visible, it trains the community. “You’re teaching the other commenters what the lines are by showing them comments that have stepped over the line,” Nielsen Hayden says.

[via]

“Disemvoweling” is wonderful wordplay (and makes for a terrible pun!).

Pieter Hugo - Mallam Galadima Ahmadu with Jamis, Abuja, Nigeria...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:35:03 -0400

Pieter Hugo - Mallam Galadima Ahmadu with Jamis, Abuja, Nigeria 2007

This one hung at a local gallery (which happens to be a hotel) for several months - appropriately, a massive print. Can’t help but stop in your tracks.

Skype for iPhone just announced. If the iPhone camera lens was...

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:38:00 -0400

Skype for iPhone just announced. If the iPhone camera lens was screen-side, would you do video calls? I would.

Almost a literal interpretation of music hosted “in the...

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:01:23 -0400

Almost a literal interpretation of music hosted “in the cloud.” Droga5 nailed it, IMHO.

Glad to see commercials showing up on YouTube with attribution AND metadata (here, info on the songs included in the ad). I ended up buying one.

“Facebook is like ‘Cheers,’ where everyone knows your name,” she...

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:38:19 -0400

“Facebook is like ‘Cheers,’ where everyone knows your name,” she said. “Twitter is the hipster bar, where you booze and schmooze people.” [via]

Andrew Chen has the academic version of this argument.

"If it doesn’t go to $hit, it’s gonna be a grand slam."

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:45:00 -0400

““If it doesn’t go to $hit, it’s gonna be a grand slam.””

- An investor friend summing the venture industry’s mantra rather nicely. Bumper stickers from Zazzle on the way.

Best Google logo interpretation to date. Thank you, Eric Carle.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:28:00 -0400

Best Google logo interpretation to date. Thank you, Eric Carle.

"The Great Depression suppressed economic activity, but not the commercial spirit. In the middle of..."

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:11:04 -0400

“The Great Depression suppressed economic activity, but not the commercial spirit. In the middle of it, Dale Carnegie published “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which promised imminent success and went on to sell more copies than any other book to that point but the Bible. The stagflation of the 1970s didn’t discredit capitalism. It gave rise to the supply-side movement and the apotheosis of the entrepreneur.”

- David Brooks, exuding patriotic commercial optimism in his latest column. Thank god for the “apotheosis of the entrepreneur.” Hard work should be exalted.

“We’re planting our version of winter wheat.”...

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:02:00 -0400

“We’re planting our version of winter wheat.” [via]

-Michael Moritz of Sequoia on investing in the downturn. Great line.

Several lessons in today’s press around Lenovo’s...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:43:23 -0400

Several lessons in today’s press around Lenovo’s “Pocket Yoga” netbook:

1) Rumor can be difficult to distinguish from fact - this device turns out to be a 2 year-old concept that was long-ago shelved

2) Mainstream journalists borrow from citizen insights (and sometimes without attribution) - see dlongwing’s reasoning as to why this might be a concept device (comment #3), followed by Fast Company’s identical assertion. Possibly a coincidence, of course, but representative of a trend.

3) PR is a new beast - anything and everything can “leak.” Communicate honestly and frequently. And keep tabs on what’s being said. Buy a solution from Radian6, Networked Insights, or the others now offering social media monitoring services.

Rarely is VC mentioned in this context: “Reese Jones, a...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:55:31 -0400

Rarely is VC mentioned in this context: “Reese Jones, a venture capitalist-slash-geek-slash Ms. Daedone’s boyfriend, likens orgasmic meditation to massage.”

"For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these..."

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:47:00 -0400

“For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.”

- The now much-linked to Clay Shirky piece, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable”

Taken feet from my old office entrance in Soho. The scene felt...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:44:13 -0400

Taken feet from my old office entrance in Soho. The scene felt JUST like this almost every day. Fashion-saturated and chaotic. [via]

The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years 30. Anti retroviral treatment for AIDS (Health Care)29....

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:04:00 -0500

The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years

30. Anti retroviral treatment for AIDS (Health Care)
29. SRAM flash memory (Electronics)
28. Stents (Health Care)
27. ATMs (Finance)
26. Bar codes and scanners (Retail)
25. Bio fuels (Biotechnology)
24. Genetically modified plants (Biotechnology)
23. RFID and applications (e.g. EZpass) (Electronics)
22. Digital photography/videography (Electronics)
21. Graphic user interface (GUI)    (Computer Science)
20. Social networking via internet (Media)
19. Large scale wind turbines (Energy)
18. Photovoltaic Solar Energy    (Energy)
17. Microfinance    (Finance)
16. Media file compression (e.g., jpeg, mpeg, mp3)    (Computer Science)
15. Online shopping/ecommerce/auctions (e.g., eBay) (Information Technology)
14. GPS Systems (Electronics)
13. Liquid Crystal Displays           (Electronics)
12. Light emitting diodes (first real devices in 1960s; in products in mid-70s)    (Electronics)
11. Open source software and services (e.g., Linux, Wikipedia) (Media)
10. Non-invasive laser/robotic surgery (laparoscopy)    (Health Care)
9. Office software (Spreadsheets, word processors)    (Computer Science)
8. Fiber optics (Telecommunications)
7. Microprocessors    (Computer Science)
6. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (Biotechnology)
5. DNA testing and sequencing/Human genome mapping (Biotechnology)
4. E-mail       (Computer Science)
3. Mobile phones         (Telecommunications)
2. PC/laptop computers    (Computer Science)
1. Internet/broadband/WWW (browser and HTML)     (Telecommunications)

Source:
The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years
PBS, February 16, 2009
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/top-30-innovations_home/

A list worthy of debate. Would like to see those that just missed the cut.

“Viewing of video on television, Internet and mobile...

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:42:00 -0500

“Viewing of video on television, Internet and mobile devices — the Three Screens — continues to increase and has hit record levels. Nielsen’s fourth quarter A2/M2 Three Screen Report reports that the average American watches more than 151 hours of TV per month, an all-time high. They are also watching several hours of video on other devices: those who watch it on the Internet consume another 3 hours of online video per month, and those who use mobile video watch nearly 4 hours per month on mobile phones and other devices.” [via]

Workday hours are turning out to be “primetime” for Internet video. Not unlike e-commerce, where weekends tend to be nadirs of activity, inversely related to brick and mortar behavior.