Blog Posts

March 2008

• 2008-03-05

  Do I need yet another site doing life streaming?

  First it was Facebook, then (I think) it was Plaxo, then LinkedIn, and now MyBlogLog is offering me a way to publicize all the fascinating stuff I do on other sites. I dunno, there must be 100 other ones that do it too.Check out this post from ReadWriteWeb: “The smartly reorganized profiles let you look at an individual’s opt-in exposed activity on sites like Del.icio.us, Last.fm, YouTube and LinkedIn or click over to a view of all their friends’ recent activities as well. From yo...

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• 2008-03-04

  Anyone notice Google going off a cliff?

  

• 2008-03-02

  Another interesting post at the ‘TSA’ Blog

  Another really interesting post from TSA Blog: Evolution of Security: (which should be called ‘The TSA Blog’! ** "Behavior analysis is based on the fear of being discovered. People who are trying to get away with something display signs of stress through involuntary physical and physiological behaviors. Whether someone’s trying to sneak through that excellent stone ground mustard they bought on vacation, a knife, or a bomb, behavior detection officers like me** are trained to spot certain suspicious behaviors out of the crowd. Once we make our determination, we refer these passengers for additional screening or directly to law enforcement." (from: The Truth Behind the Title: Behavior Detection Officer)

• 2008-03-01

  Brad Feld: “Why Am I Passing?” – At least you are passing

  Brad Feld, famous Venture Capitalist writes an interesting post about how he might get to the point of telling an entrepreneur “we are passing” in this post from Feld Thoughts: “We always try to be respectful of the entrepreneurs and pass as soon as we hit the “this isn’t going to happen” point. There are different triggers for each company and it’s not predictable. I imagine this can be frustrating for an entrepreneur because it feels like you are making process with us when we suddenly say “we are passing“, but I’d like to think it’s an efficient way for you since...

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  #business #blogging

February 2008

• 2008-02-29

  From Demo 2008: Silobreaker – A unique new research tool

  Joining the ranks of the growing number of news aggregation and research sites is Silobreaker, which I first met at Demo 2008. Two things catch my interest with Silobreaker – try it by clicking here for a search on the topic ‘Google’

  The result displayed for a search is mult-dimensional or multi-media or whatever you want to call it. In addition to the usual top stories about Google (for example) you find the top Videos about Google, a histogram showing article volume about Google over the last week, a concept network around Google. a map showing where in the world people are writing about G...

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• 2008-02-26

  Quickbase on steroids?

  Here’s a new online light weight database product that picks up where QuickBase leaves off and goes crazy. It’s called blist. It has a far snazzier (and more complicated) user interface than Quickbase. In good old SAT fashion, Quickbase is to Blist as Google Docs is to Buzzword, which by the way, you should check out also!

  I am not taking sides, but next time you need a web based, light weight, list or database, you should check out both QuickBase and blist.

• 2008-02-25

  Giving till it hurts

  Do you get fund raising / spam phone calls from very persistent, insistent callers asking for money to ‘Support our Veterans’? I’ve gotten them more than once, and have even donated. For some reason it has stuck me that these particular calls were unusual in the high-pressure tactics they used. So I was interested when I came across this: “The public has rightly shown its empathy with wounded and troubled war veterans, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to private charities that claim to have the veterans’ best interests at heart. A new study details rampant abuses of the money flow.” (from The New York Times)

  I don’t know what to make of it, but it does feed into my suspicions.

• 2008-02-24

  Oldish news, but interesting

  I came across this note that the fairly famous spat between Apple Gossip site Think Secret and Apple Inc. has been settled:

  “We understand that Nick Ciarelli, the journalist who ran Think Secret, is “very satisfied” with the settlement. While it is sad that Think Secret will be closing its doors, since it was a valuable news source, Ciarelli is now free to move on to other things…[snip…]” from Electronic Frontier Foundation

  It’s too bad. Think Secret was a valuable resource. I wonder where Nick will turn up next.

  #computing
• 2008-02-23

  Summing up the history of human affairs

  In the context of the current Wall Street excitement, I received a letter of assurance from a mutual fund manager saying, among other things:

  *“Dear Investors, *

  *While the recent downdraft in worldwide equity markets may be unsettling, there is a great deal in our investments to engender optimism. In fact, we believe that we are witnessing an incredible investment opportunity for those who are able to exhibit some fortitude. *

  *We have endured similar experiences in the past. *

  If the history of human affairs can be summed up in simple terms, it would be by the phrase: “This too shall pass.” In our opinion, the current crisis will end sooner rather than later.”

  I don’t know, in my opinion a significant part of human affairs can be summed up in these simple terms:

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time”

  #business
• 2008-02-22

  Chris Herot on RulesBase

  Chris Herot writes about a new product called RulesBase: Check out this post from Christopher Herot’s Weblog: “I had a visit yesterday from Steven Ginzberg and Jack Schatz of Gray Box Software. They showed me a new financial analysis and modeling tool – RulesBase.

  A mutual friend had noticed a resemblance to a product from my first start-up, Javelin Software, and suggested they seek my advice. I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently advising startups on other technologi...

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  #business
• 2008-02-18

  5 Questions to ask when deciding whether to rely on S3 et al

  Several products I’ve worked on recently have relied on Amazon’s really impressive web services. I’ve written before about how much I admire services such as S3 and EC2, solid, commercial quality infrastructure services. They address (and? or? solve) a big problem that application builders have:

  “How many servers will I need, how many users will I have, how much storage will I need … and in the end, how much will all that cost?”.

  They solve this by offering key components of infrastructure as a “software as a service”, SAAS. Starting with permanent storage, which is delivered by S3, followed by ...

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• 2008-02-16

  The downside of free software

  Yesterday the New York Times had an interesting article about our expectation that software (and web sites and web applications) all should be free. I’ve written about this before so I won’t belabor it again. From the article: A growing number of consumers are paying just that — nothing. This is the Internet’s latest phase: people using freely distributed applications, from e-mail and word processing programs to spreadsheets, games and financial management tools. They run on distant, massive and shared data centers, and users of the services pay with their attention to...

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  #business
• 2008-02-13

  From Demo 2008: Cool research site – SiloBreaker

  Take a look at SiloBreaker (don’t ask me why it’s called that; is it supposed to break down silos?) Try typing something into the search box, say “Pakistan”. You will see that it identifies it as a country (it would also identify companies, people, and who knows what else.) Right off that’s interesting, right?

  Scroll down and in the right margin you see boxes with some rather unique perspectives: maps, article volumes, concept network, hotspots, trends, quotes, and lots of semi structured analysis.

  It’s a hard site to describe but looks like a unique and useful research tool.

• 2008-02-12

  Who’s your friend?

  I just looked through my friend list and I see some people who’s name I recognize but don’t know exactly the context where I knew them from, and then there are mysteriously who I really don’t think I’ve ever known, so I can’t remember how they got there. I was discussing with some people at the party how we are going to soon have a new word to distinguish a ‘real’ friend from a ‘facebook’ (or other social network) friend, as well as a term to distinguish a ‘real’ social network from one on the computer. See one of my favorite new terms, Retronym).

• 2008-02-09

  About Yahoo / Microsoft and an easier way to get $2B in revenue annually

  You can read all about the potential acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft, here for example, where Marc Andreessen writes: “I think that a Microsoft/Yahoo merger would have practically no impact on any high-quality Silicon Valley startup.” (from Silicon Valley after a Microsoft/Yahoo merger)

  You should read his whole paper to get his 5 point argument. And I definitely agree with this conclusion:

  “Build something of value — something that people want, and something that will be profitable at the appropriate point — and the world is yours. [snip…]

  Or, reduced to a phrase: the best way to get bought is to not be for sale.” (from ...

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  #business
• 2008-02-09

  Amazing story about Virginia Postrel’s kidney

  This is a dramatic and well told story of one patient’s patient search for a kidney donor. Also notable is that the donor turns out to be a pretty well known blogospherian, Virginia Postrel. And that she, as far as I can tell, has not really talked about this touching and generous act herself.

  #life
• 2008-02-06

  Mr. Spock reveals the origins of the Vulcan greeting

  Huh? Don’t know who Mr. Spock is? Don’t know about the Vulcan greeting? Please! How dare you to be reading this blog! Anyway for the other 99.999% of you, here’s Mr. Spock’s great revelation!

• 2008-02-05

  Great magazine articles

  I was going to wait until I had read each of these great articles that all won the “Sidney Awards” but this post was getting stale. And then part two of the Sidney awards article came out, and I still hadn’t published this. So, enough already. If you appreciate really excellent non fiction writing, you owe it to yourself to read some of these. All the ones I’ve read so far, about topics I didn’t know I would find interesting, have been excellent.

  ...

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• 2008-02-04

  Virtual Cable takes your GPS and raises you a heads-up display

  This is really cool! Check out this post from Autoblog: Filed under: Safety, TechTwo things plague GPS users: being forced to deal with dubious direction vocalizations and the amount of time spent looking at the screen when you should be paying attention to the road. MVS is developing a solution and it’s likely the most revolutionary concept to date.

  The system is comprised of a series of mirrors that project a three-dimensional line onto the windshield giving drivers a heads-up display of their intended path of travel.

  (from: ...

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  #blogging
• 2008-02-02

  Australian police testing super cruiser

  Check out this post from Autoblog: Filed under: Concept Cars, Government/Legal, Holden, Police/EmergencyThe transformation from police cruiser to police destroyer is almost complete. Researchers at Australia...

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