Blog Posts

Snow Planet Winnipisaukee

Zero Dark Thirty

I saw this movie last night and really thought it was great. I had read somenegative commentary about Zero Dark Thirty: > “At the same time, a number of journalists and public official...

Amazing: 400ms makes a difference

Under the header “Natural Gas News Leak” (funny) there’s a story about how the securities market reacted 400ms before a bit of news came out of the government and they reacted by trading on the news. The article has lots of charts and graphs which may say whether or how much money was made or lost. The article says:  > “It is worth pointing out that the EIA Natural Gas Report comes out weekly (every Thursday at 10:30) and the market reacts within a few milliseconds. This is because the report centers on one number which makes it easy for machines to process and take action.” (from Nanex.net)

N.E.A.T. Product from Gruve: Fact or Fiction?

There’s something about this Gruve product that bugs me: > “The Gruve Solution is a new, completely revolutionary approach to weight management that incorporates the landmark discovery of N.E.A.T. (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) which is al...

How do you fit a 365 day calendar on an index card?

[](Y.Squarespace.Utils.lightboxAsset()I designed the calendar to the right to help me keep track of my piano practice. As you know, maybe, to learn piano you need to practice every day. Well ...

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...

Harvard Business School: No Women Entrepreneurs

I was surfing around preparing for my class and happened to look at this page on the Harvard Business School web site. The page is called “Entrepreneurs” and it says, among other things: > “A video archive that captures insights from learning members of the...

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…

What is the cellphone equivalent of a hat rack?

I am just as guilty as anyone of being overly addicted to looking at my cellphone, and that’s not an original observation! It’s a cli...

Good tips for building products that people want

Here is a good cheat sheet on how to build products that people really want. It is cribbed from this article on TechCrunch. > - Draw On Previous Experience and Understanding – Th...

Teaching at Olin College next year

I’m excited to tell you that I just accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer at **[Olin College](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

These icons are too similar to be coincidences

One of these two is from Apple and one is from Google. They both contain  coupons and cards. Which is which?               

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...