February 2011
“Founded by Django creator Simon Willison and his wife Downe after finding...”
– Meet The People You Follow On Twitter With YC-Funded Conference Directory Lanyrd
Rafer sez: Ummm. Honeymoon. Morocco. Oh, baby, let’s code?!?!?
January 2011
“Any website that encourages unsophisticated investors to buy specific stocks is...”
– cdixon.org – chris dixon’s blog / How to disrupt Wall Street
“In a remarkable display of protest and challenge by oppressed people against...”
– Haitian Farmers Burn Monsanto ‘Aid’ Seeds (via thetart)
Rafer sez: Go humanity, go.
“I’m in the “ho hum” camp. Y Combinator is great, the Valley is great, consumer...”
– Information Arbitrage - Start Fund: No big deal. Business as usual.
“The terms? $150,000 in convertible debt. With no cap and no discount. If you’re...”
– Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer EVERY New Y Combinator Startup $150k (via rafer)
I don’t like the sound of this very much. Seems like they’re trying to take over every bet at the roulette table. At best it sounds unsporting. At worst it reads as they being d*icks. Not healthy for the overall...
“The terms? $150,000 in convertible debt. With no cap and no discount. If you’re...”
– Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer EVERY New Y Combinator Startup $150k
Mike Hudack: Egypt, the Internet, and the Second... →
continuations:
We live in a time of amazing transformation. Nowhere has this been more apparent recently than in Tunisia and Egypt where people are fighting against entrenched regimes and for democracy. In both places the Internet has played a critical role as an organizing, information…
mikehudack:
squashed:
If Egypt’s government falls, Saudi Arabia’s government is in serious trouble. If Saudi Arabia’s government is in trouble, we’ll have a serious oil crisis. My guess? Gas breaks $5.00 a gallon. Easily.
I’m still for it. Bad for us. Good for the world.
And good for us long term. No better way to accelerate energy independence.
Rafer sez: About seven years ago, I had...
Why can't we watch Al Jazeera? →
vruz:
by Julia Dahl, Salon.com
Donald Rumsfeld called the channel “vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable.” On November 13, 2001, during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, a U.S. missile destroyed Al Jazeera’s offices in Kabul. And in November 2005, Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper reported that in an April 2004 meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, President George W. Bush floated the...
CHART OF THE DAY: Microsoft Incinerates ANOTHER... →
Rafer sez: Now that all the senior execs that really buried M$’s web properties work at Yahoo!, M$ has turned the corner.
4 tags
I'm listed in Tumblweeds under startups, travel,...
I’m listed in Tumblweeds, a user-generated community directory that rates Tumblr bloggers by their number of followers. Find me listed in #startups, #travel, #progressivepolitics
“Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said the United States was founded on racial and...”
– Bachmann: Founding fathers ‘worked tirelessly’ to end slavery | Raw Story (via nickdouglas)
“As I mentioned above, we released Flickpad on the day the iPad launched. We made...”
– iPad App Marketing Case Study: Flickpad
“Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped, South Korean...”
– Barack Obama
Obama to Propose Extending Partial Freeze on Domestic Spending - NYTimes.com
(via fred-wilson)
Rafer sez: @fredwilson Obama’s broadband statement falls under the category of Lies of Omission. We haven’t been #1 in a decade. And, we’re not #2. According to the...
It it just email, or is Amazon re-positioning into...
siminoff:
I blogged about moving PhoneTag to the Amazon Cloud in 2008. At the time we were told by many less-forward thinking people in tech that we can’t use the Amazon cloud to do what we needed, they were wrong. Once we were on the cloud I said in March of 2008, “I think it is one of the bigger innovations of the Internet”, I am not always right, but on this one I would say that time has...
“Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To...”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Purpose of Education,” an article written by King as an undergraduate in the Morehouse campus newspaper (1948)
vruz: perfect response to that ode to mindless speciaisation that azspot posted the other day.
(via vruz)
Rafer sez: I find it interesting that...
“• iPod: 19.45 million units, down 7.3%
• iPod touch: More than 50% of total...”
– Inside Apple’s numbers | Monday Note
Rafer sez: I have to respectfully disagree with M. Gasse (who I finally had the honor of meeting briefly in December) with regard to his praise of Apple’s rising gross margins. To perpetuate its dominance, Apple needs a new entry-level, cheap product that...
A Year without New Common Stock
Image via Wikipedia
Last January 20th (2010), I posted the text of an email in which I turned down a Board of Advisors slot and said that I was done with taking non-employee Common Stock. It’s one of the best professional decisions I’ve made in a long time, and I encourage every Advisor-ish person who reads this paragraph to immediately join me. It clarifies and streamlines every...
Matthew Dearden brings a 'can-do' culture to Clear... →
Rafer sez: I can’t even count the number of lulz this “article” provided in spite of itself. It’s just another reminder of how badly Terran society needs 20th century industry to be digitally disrupted, as if the FCC’s damp-disraggedness on Net Neutrality and NBC weren’t enough.
“It’s tempting to equate what Beck does to yelling fire in a crowded theater. But...”
– Techcafeteria Blog » How Glenn Beck Incites Violence (via minorjive)
vruz: in other countries we have a criminal figure called “apology of crime”, including but not limited to assassination. the act of calling for the death of a person is punished with jail, for being the intellectual framer...
“And, according to sources, the rise of Zuckerberg has been especially hard for...”
– Is Larry Page the Consummate Anti-Social CEO? | Liz Gannes | NetworkEffect | AllThingsD
Rafer sez: These folks need some real problems to worry about.
“Even Dick Cheney wants to ban those expanded gun ammo clips—“and HE shot a man...”
– Bill Maher (via vruz)
A Third Of UK Adults Can't Read A Basic Road Map →
“12:15 a.m. 3300 20th St. Faux Amour
Officers Lovrin...”
– Rafer sez: Selected bits from the weekly local police email blotter. The author must be a gem. I particularly love how all (hetero) domestic abusers are referred to as ‘alleged’ men. And then, there’s always that fourth entry.
“Some math: 200 million minutes a day / 60 minutes per hour * 365 days per year =...”
– I have found the cognitive surplus, and it hates pigs » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism
Doc Searls Weblog · What if Flickr fails? →
I have a proposal to address the Y! sunsetting panic and similarly valid fears. Part of the inspiration comes from an email thread I had with @davewiner last month. I was looking at building what amounted to Feedburner 2011. Dave pushed on me to avoid creating another data chokepoint that could be abused or simply fail. And he’s right.
I’m unlikely to pursue the idea for completely...
Hi. My Name is James Gross: Why I will buy Demand... →
gross:
Since reading the Wired article over two years ago, I’ve been very critical of Demand Media as it relates to the health of the Internet Economy. Even this post last month by Business Insider seems to show they are pushing the envelope for how they account for paying writers in a controversial way
Rafer sez: Please buy it 6+ months after the IPO. You don’t want to get caught up in...
The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet →
vruz:
—via rafer:vruz:
Rafer sez: Tough to boycott companies that I don’t buy from.
vruz: well yes and no. the thing is that in the business models of some companies like the NBA, MLB and Viacom you’re not paying them directly. you’re paying them attention, and that, in turn indirectly translates into advertisers who pay them.
indirectly for example, when you watch jon stewart or stephen...
The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet →
vruz:
via Techdirt
Nike - Beaverton, OR
Achushnet - Fairhaven, MA
Curb Music Publishing - Nashville, TN
NBC Universal - New York, NY
Viacom - New York, NY
Callaway - Carlsbad, CA
Cleveland Golf - Huntington Beach, CA
Rosetta Stone - Arlington, VA
Activision - Santa Monica, CA
Adidas Group - Portland, OR
Xerox - Norwalk, CT
Hastings Entertainment, Inc. - Amarillo, TX
...
“As for “corrective” orthotics, he says, they do not correct so much as lead to a...”
– Orthotic Shoe Inserts May Work, but It’s Not Clear Why - NYTimes.com
Rafer sez: Like any other crutch. #barefoot