January 2011
“The biggest design decision I’ve made is more of a continuous philosophy: do as...”
– Rands In Repose: Interview: Marco Arment (via Instapaper)
The counter argument here is that you end up hill climbing to local maxima*. Disruptive improvements oftentimes require major changes. Netflix from physical DVDs -> Streaming. Amazon with Kindle. Facebook with Newsfeed.
*This is also a...
Myers-Briggs Dating Field Guide
mar-see-ah:
philolzophy:
INFJ- Why you want one: They’ll sit-inside-and-read-Dostoevsky-with-you-on-a-rainy-day, they’re good curators of interests and they’ll find something interesting to do and plan the whole date out (to the second). Spoiler Alert: Icy-cold exterior. Where to find one: Any independent or used bookstore in a trendy neighborhood on a Friday night. Typically they’ll be there...
Mark Suster's ideas on entreprenuers
likesandlaunch:
“I’m sure everybody has their own definition of the attributes of an entrepreneur. Some of the ones I would identify are:
* Not very status-oriented * Doesn’t follow rules very well and questions authority * Can handle high degrees of ambiguity or uncertainty * Can handle rejection, being told “no” often and yet still have the confidence in your idea * Very decisive. A bias...
Epic Sunday
section9:
Shelves, wall decorations, cleaning, un-boxing… oh and some cooking thrown in for good measure.
It also means epic music day.
The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra - Basle, 1969
Count Basie - The Complete Atomic Basie
Weezer - Hurley
Audiolux - Transit Transit
Jean Thielmans - Man Bites Harmonica
Robert Randolf & The Family Band - Live at the Wetlands
Girl Talk - Feed the...
More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race -... →
My father is white (Jewish) and my mother is Chinese (born in Taiwan). Growing up, I never quite fit in with either group. I went to Chinese school on Saturdays to learn Chinese language, but I was never as good as the other kids because we didn’t speak Chinese at home (since my dad didn’t understand). At times, I felt I identified with white culture, but I was raised by my mother in...
Amazon rolling out Netflix-like unlimited video... →
Assuming this is true, this is brilliant. LTV of a Prime subscriber » cost to stream videos to that user.
Jeff always said, don’t get into new markets unless you can do something radically different. I’d say Free is different. Kudos.
An Offer You Can't Refuse. Or Could, But Probably... →
parislemon:
A fascinating move on a number of levels. Though it’s important to note (as Y Combinator’s Paul Graham does) that this deal has nothing to do with the Y Combinator organization itself. It’s simply between the investors and the startups coming out of each class.
This means that YC LP Sequoia (or anyone else) could do the same thing if they wanted to.
Of course, most firms would not...
“Others have sharper criticisms. “You go because it has good backdrops to get...”
– The Man Behind the Ace Hotel Empire - NYTimes.com
Don’t you also aspire to be labelled “Internet gadfly”?
I’ve Found A New Baby - Hanna / Fontana,...
Wikileaks Reveals U.S. Backed Egyptian Uprising →
machines-repaired:
The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
This is conspiracy-theory enough to make me believe it to be true.
Advice for travelling to Hawaii
My friend AdamIss wanted some advice on the Big Island.
Here’s my take on the Big Island:
1. Rent a car and make sure it has 4 wheel drive. You’re gonna go off-road on this sucker.
2. Kayak + snorkel in Kaleakakua Bay / Captain Cook Monument when you are on the Kona side. Kona is very beachy / good for surfing and great coffee. There’s a few great cafe’s just south of...
Amazon.com Security Flaw Accepts Passwords That... →
Title is a bit misleading, but the article explains more clearly. If you have an old password, you might want to change it. If your password is new as of a few years ago, you’ll be fine (or as fine as you thought).
The speculation is that Amazon was using an old version of crypt() which would truncate passwords to 8 characters and accept different cases as equivalent.
Parasite - G. Love & Special Sauce, Electric...
2 tags
“Vengroff, however, has come up with a novel solution: He’s created a “black box”...”
– Beyond Amazon: How to Make Recommendations Smarter | Fast Company (via mopostal)
This is huge. I remember representing Amazon.com at the 2007 ACM conference on Recommendation Systems and hearing the excitement from academics when they were playing with Netflix data to win the Netflix Prize. This...
“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...
Is there anything wrong with eating peanut butter...
I didn’t think so.
Amazon SES
malcolmong:
So after looking through a ton of 3rd party services to handle our transactional emails, I pretty much narrowed our options to SendGrid and Postmark.. with Postmark being the first I planned on trying due to some great feedback from some friends / tech entrepreneurs.
But, as you may have already heard, Amazon recently released their own service, dubbed Simple Email Service (SES)....
NYChiliFest 2011 - Chili, Bands, & Beer at Chelsea... →
Really, really wish I was going to this.
Onward & Upward
jesseddy:
2010 was a fantastic year. So many great things happened involving so many good people. I launched my first public facing app, http://tweat.it in May with my friend Joel. In the same month, Crista and I debuted some of our ice cream flavors at the Brooklyn Lyceum Fair to a great public reception thereby kicking off what has turned into a new and exciting ice cream start up venture for...
Groupon Rejects Google: What Local Businesses Need... →
Click over to read a post I wrote on 3 things local businesses need to know now that Groupon has rejected Google’s $6B offer.
Here’s a quick summary:
Expect Google to acquire LivingSocial or BuyWithMe. They are currently using a startup called Adility to run door-to-door sales (dressed up as Google employees) but I think they’ll want a stronger core competency around sales.
...
“A lot of people don’t know you can share your Amazon Prime membership with up to...”
– Amazon’s free-shipping secret | Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews (via willw2)
Oh man, I totally forgot about that. And all this time I’ve been hogging it.
