Page 56 of 141 (2810 total posts)
What do pig intestines and squid have in common — This is just funny. Ok it’s also a little scary as I love Calamari! > “Calamari is on one side of the plate, sliced hog rectums are on the other. Which is which? We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgangers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.” (from This American Life)
Get someone to clean your gutters for you — I am not being metaphorical, in fact, I am talking about gutters on your roof. A few years ago I wasn’t regularly cleaning my gutters and had a close call with roof leaks when we had an extensive period of rain and freezing that caused ice dams and all kinds of ugliness to many New England residents as well as friends of mine. I had a scare and since then I’ve been paying someone to clean my gutters each year. Here’s a far more 2013 solution to the same problem. Yes, Robots are no longer just for sweeping your living room!
Aaron Swartz Links — If you are in the tech community you’ve likely heard that Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday in New York. I didn’t know him but I was in the same room with him, at conferences or conversations a few times about 10 years ago. I certainly knew of him. I’ve read many things about him in the last...
What happens if you set up an eRoom on the North Pole? — Here’s a new product I just saw, Igloo. It’s very nice and it reminds me of what eRoom might have looked like if we designed it 15 years later. They have a beautiful product. Here’s what they say: > At its core, Igloo is about communication: In your day, you might give updates, have discussions and share files with your team. With Igloo, that all happens in one place. Igloo helps you communicate in an elegant and integrated digital workplace. You get visibility into what’s happening throughout your whole team and your whole office. (From Igloo Web Site tour)
Virtual Assistant advice — I have a regular need for a small project to be done, a little bit of research, some following up on projects and so on. I’ve thought about using a “Virtual Assistant” for this but there is now so much noise in the area that it’s hard to navigate. An example of many many is Zirtual.com My needs are definitely episodic, so I don’t want someone that I pay a fixed monthly amount to unless it’s pretty small, knowing that it can go up and down depending on the work. Any feedback on your experiences or thoughts about this would be really interesting!
Free pdf of Eric Ries: “The Lean Startup” (huh?) — I am a big fan of this book, so I was really surprised to find a freely downloadable copy of the file in pdf form. I snooped around and the site seems legit but it’s odd that a very popular book is made available for zero dollars. Here’s the link to Lean Startup on PdfBook.co.ke If you are wondering, .co.ke is Kenya. I posted a question to them to explain whether this was above board. I wonder…
Teaching at Olin College next yearCollege photo 10842 130x0I’m excited to tell you that I just accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer at **[Olin College](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...
Election Meltdown — I was a volunteer for the Democratic Committee in Arlington Mass. They have an impressive operation, just like what you’ve heard. For example, the systems they used to deploy us volunteers. I walked in the campaign office, untrained and unschooled. Within minutes I was **assigned my...
There’s more to life than Kickstarter (revised) — Everyone (almost) has heard of Kickstarter, right? It’s the best known (I think) of the so-called Crowd Funding services. Let’s say you have a project – it can be anything – a record, a book, some kind of invention – and you need funding. The crowd funding sites giv...
Check out WriteThatName — I’ve been using a app called “WriteThatName” which very helpfully scans the emails I receive for signature blocks with people’s name. It takes that info and correctly parses it and adds it to my google contacts. Super nice. I recommend it!
What happened to Americans Elect? — Over the last year I mentioned “Americans Elect” several times: [Americans Elect: Another Opinion](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.salas.com%2Fimported-20111103233638%2F2012%2F4%2F6%2Famericans-elect-another-opinion.html&ei=_NiXUNKnD8...
Intellectual Property? Copyright? Or just a lot of LOVE? — I was rather proud of the art I designed for a t-shirt this summer. It’s cool but of course it’s a direct ripoff, um, no, I mean, it was inspired by a well known piece. If I show you my design, below: ![JBSlogoonly](https://i0.wp.com/salas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/8c814-jbslogoonly.png?resize...
Epistemological Modesty… What? — I was listening to an interview with David Brooks the other day. The interview was conducted by, of all people, Alec Baldwin on “Here’s the Thing”, a show I discovered on public radio. Alec Baldwin is a good actor for a certain kind of role, and can be quite funny, but [we have learned things about...
History is made — The first personal computer actually made by Microsoft! That’s history. They’ve made mice, and X-boxes, but never desktops, laptops, or tablets.  What impressive me about this computer is that it’s not a me-too. Unlike Android, you can’t pigeonhole it as just another iPhone knoc...
Does Mitt Romney control it all?Another conspiracy story claiming that Romney through several levels of company, controls a company that makes a type of voting machine that is used in many parts of the country: > “Through a closely held equity fun...