Caterpillar Cowboy

Enneagrams

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:39:13 -0400

My friend Sarah Tavel took a personality test, which made me want to do it. The results came back that I was a mixture of 3 different types. So what I’ve done is taken the results from all three and mixed together the ones that are true.

How to Get Along with Me

Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
Don’t try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
Don’t tell me what to do.
If you want me to do something, how you ask is important. I especially don’t like expectations or pressure.
I like to listen and to be of service, but don’t take advantage of this.
Listen until I finish speaking, even though I meander a bit.
Give me time to finish things and make decisions. It’s OK to nudge me gently and nonjudgmentally.
Let me know you like what I’ve done or said.
Give me honest, but not unduly critical or judgmental, feedback.
Help me keep my environment harmonious and peaceful.
Don’t burden me with negative emotions.
Tell me when you’re proud of me or my accomplishments.

What I Like About Being Me

being optimistic and not letting life’s troubles get me down
being generous and trying to make the world a better place
having such varied interests and abilities
being nonjudgmental and accepting
caring for and being concerned about others
being able to relax and have a good time
knowing that most people enjoy my company; I’m easy to be around
my ability to see many different sides of an issue and to be a good mediator and facilitator
being able to relate easily to people and to make friends
knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better
being generous, caring, and warm
being sensitive to and perceptive about others’ feelings
being optimistic, friendly, and upbeat
providing well for my family
being able to recover quickly from setbacks and to charge ahead to the next challenge
staying informed, knowing what’s going on
being competent and able to get things to work efficiently
being able to motivate people

What’s Hard About Being Me

not having enough time to do all the things I want
not completing things I start
feeling confined when I’m in a one-to-one relationship
not being listened to or taken seriously
not being able to say no
having to put up with inefficiency and incompetence

As a Child, I

prefer being with other children to being alone
finesse their way around adults
tune out a lot, especially when others argue
are “good” children: deny anger or keep it to themselves
try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding
are popular or try to be popular with other children
are well liked by other children and by adults

As a Parent, I probably will be

often enthusiastic and generous
supportive, kind, and warm
a good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren’t)
wonder: “Am I doing it right?” “Am I giving enough?” “Have I caused irreparable damage?”
struggle between wanting to spend time with their children and wanting to get more work done

superamit: Foodzie’s new Chocolate Club will make monthly...

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:07:05 -0400

superamit:

Foodzie’s new Chocolate Club will make monthly deliveries of carefully selected chocolates from around the world!

Chocolate club beta package from Foodzie!

Hey, big boy. I’m happy to see you, too.

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:48:45 -0400

Hey, big boy. I’m happy to see you, too.

2105: Technolog - Dear Valve, ‘Portal 2’ better be awesome....

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:01:36 -0400

2105:

Technolog - Dear Valve, ‘Portal 2’ better be awesome. But no pressure.
After a long hiatus from gaming, I just got set up to play original “Portal”. (It just started to rain again in Seattle and I’ll be spending a lot more time indoors. Plus, my 3-D navigation skills are weak.)

Wait, you’re in Seattle? Want to grab coffee? My email is on my blog…

Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:24:53 -0400

Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant:

Here’s what this means: no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick - and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors. Think about it. When you push a door and it doesn’t open quickly, you push harder. When you try to drive a car up a hill and it doesn’t go as fast as you would like, you step on the gas. Feedback changes your behavior. Google Instant means no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible. Real-time feedback changes people’s behaviors.

Sorry, but I don’t agree at all. This isn’t personalization. Instead it’s: 1) Increasing the number of queries people do, 2) increasing the number of terms per query, 3) reducing the amount of time people spend looking at queries with poor results.

I think it’s a fantastic improvement and will help people sniff out the “right” search terms faster. But to say it’s personalization is stupid link baiting. Google does do personalization (taking into account your past searches, social graph, etc), and this isn’t it.

My New Dream Job

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:05:24 -0400

My New Dream Job:

texturism:

aaroncohen:

Mom’s surgeon, Dr. Wolfgang, still wearing his operating green requested that we take a seat in a soothingly furnished conference room steps from where my mother lay anesthetized with her stomach still open. It was only 3 hours into the procedure. His explanation was comprehensive and clinical. He illustrated the bad news, pecking tiny dots with a ball point pen to indicate the metastases that he had found on her gall bladder. The cancer had begun to spread. Removing the tumor was no longer the prudent course of action.

When I returned to New York, I called Mickey Schulhof a director at AnyClip and told him that my mother had terminal cancer and not very long to live. I had to consider stepping down from AnyClip. “Nonsense,” Mickey responded, “You will need the job more than ever. You need the distraction. And you’ll find time to be with her.” Perhaps he was right. And with that I started riding the BoltBus and the Amtrak very frequently.

In early August I stepped down as the CEO of AnyClip. It’s a complicated story and perhaps one day I will share more of it. For now, I’m no longer distracted by work. I can be in Washington every week. And I still advise the company. My email still works. I’m grateful to my team for continuing on. I believe deeply in AnyClip and its people.

a few passages from a truly touching post. click through to read more.

Wow. Sending my best to Aaron, his family, Nate, and the AnyClip team.

Goooooooood Morning, Seattle!

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:43:27 -0400

I’m here until Saturday, so let’s hang out! (JetBlue AYCJ working vacation #1)

jeninla: I sometimes make lists like this as a reminder of the...

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:50:05 -0400

jeninla:

I sometimes make lists like this as a reminder of the things I want to focus on… but anyone who knows me knows that it doesn’t take a lot of reminding for me to get things done. Within a week of writing it down, I had introduced myself to several startups, begun working on a project for Postling, moved into my temporary NYC sublet (LA was stifling me), and solidified plans to travel to Belize, India, and all over the US in the coming months.

With my goals so rapidly gratified, I quickly forgot that I’d even longed for these things in the first place. But today—almost six months from when I first wrote this—my life satiates these plans far deeper than it did when I first thought I’d accomplished my goals.

My project with Postling has evolved into a huge role at a startup I love with founders and employees that I admire. I rarely stop working or thinking about work—not because Dave is a slave driver, but because I care about and am constantly inspired by what I work on.

I always thought loving where I live would involve leaving LA, but it just took some work and an open mind to really make it feel like home to me over the past few months. This is a direct result of embedding myself in its neighborhoods and communities (mostly for work; coincidentally, for my sanity) and continuing to surround myself with the most forward-thinking, least pretentious, and most fun people in the city. Oh, and the boyfriend-loft-puppy trifecta certainly helps, too. I’ve been on 25+ flights in the last six months, but now I don’t feel that immediate restlessness when I land at LAX. For now, I have a home—and my own little family—here.

There is a whole slew of things I plan on accomplishing in the next six months, but I’ve given myself a great foundation to work from: the beginning of a very fulfilling career, a perfect (for us) home, and more cities in my next few months of travel plans than in Justin Bieber’s concert tour. Six months ago, these were just things I wanted.

Jen, we love you so much. You’re doing a fantastic job right now, and we’re just getting started. And as much as you may have grown fond of LA, we miss you in NYC…

realrealsoft: kelleeeee: breakfast247: Poached Eggs with...

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:46:04 -0400

realrealsoft:

kelleeeee:

breakfast247:

Poached Eggs with Shiitake Mushrooms, Wilted Arugula & White Truffle Cream.

If you want to email or IM

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:34:54 -0400

I’m david.lifson@gmail.com.

Awake.

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:24:13 -0400

Anyone else?

Tech Sector, Slow to Hire, Unlikely to Lead Recovery

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:27:52 -0400

Tech Sector, Slow to Hire, Unlikely to Lead Recovery:

Uh, every startup I know is dying to recruit engineering talent. It’s the safe, boring, 9-5 engineering work that is in danger..

"Sony has launched a new music and video download service as it gears up to challenge Apple’s..."

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:43:05 -0400

“

Sony has launched a new music and video download service as it gears up to challenge Apple’s iTunes…

The cloud-based service will be available on PlayStation 3s, Bravia TVs, Blu-Ray players and Sony’s personal computers.

Initially it will offer movies. Music will be added at the end of the year.

Sony’s online services platform Qriocity has offered video-on-demand in the US since April this year but will now be available in Europe.

The Music Unlimited service, due at the end of the year, will give users access to millions of songs.

”

- Sony rolls out rival to iTunes (via ryking)

Sony always seems to build in some DRM that cripples whatever technology they develop. Apple does too, but they have such a huge market share they’re able to get away with it.

Blu-Ray is a total bust. Playstation is, in the grand scheme of things, a niche market, and Sony has barely made a dent in the PC market.

I think they used to make some of the best designed products in the technology and gadget space but Apple has run laps around them for the better part of the last decade.

The music and movie service is a nice added value for Sony products but not enough to make me want to swap my Mac Book for a VAIO.

This is a move out of necessity. We are seeing every device we own that can play media plugging into some source of content from the cloud. Our computers have had them long ago, our gaming platforms have had them since the invention of XBMC, and with the invention of the iPod and iPhone, our mobile devices are portable media devices pulling media from the cloud.

Sony is way behind, they’re not innovating, they’re simply catching up.

Qriocity is about the worst name for a platform ever.

(via soupsoup)

evangotlib:codeit:jerfrey:-girlinterrupted:ohmeoflittlefaith:iris...

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:20:07 -0400

evangotlib:codeit:jerfrey:-girlinterrupted:ohmeoflittlefaith:irishwristwatches:octopuscanfly:tik-tok-on-my-clock:be-your-teenage-dream-tonight:(via withlovefromsandra, oliverstrange)

yeah, right?

Yeah, but that would require Tumblr to admit that the fundamental inspiration for reblogging — that comment threads are broken UX — is flawed.

"ltcm’s collapse in 1998 was triggered by the Russian default: A country with thousands of nuclear..."

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:57:43 -0400

“ltcm’s collapse in 1998 was triggered by the Russian default: A country with thousands of nuclear weapons and immense oil resources going bankrupt was an unimaginable apocalyptic scenario that was not supposed to happen or be allowed to happen. But in the endgame of the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, with stretched lenders and oil prices cut in half, this unimagined scenario became real. The failure of the imagination then swung to the other extreme as the panicked, coordinated rate cuts of central banks kicked off the final stage of the 1990s technology bubble, with even so-called “macro” funds (like Soros or Tiger) failing to grasp the extent to which the marshaling of liquidity forces would overwhelm the micro facts of poor business models, incompetent management, and expensive valuations.”

- The Optimistic Thought Experiment | Hoover Institution

There is thinking big, and then there is this article. Holy shit. If you’ve got an hour, go read this. I’ll probably need to read it 2 or 3 more times before it all sinks in, but every sentence proves that there are some people who simply think on a higher plane than the rest of us. “Macro” isn’t for kids.

"On the other side, however, there exists one decisive problem. Virtually no Web 2.0 companies have..."

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:39:53 -0400

“On the other side, however, there exists one decisive problem. Virtually no Web 2.0 companies have sold stock to the public through ipos. If one desired to deploy substantial capital into the next wave of internet businesses, this would prove almost impossible to do. Even with respect to venture capital and angel investing, the extreme distribution of outcomes imposes a severe challenge on any positive expected returns.”

- The Optimistic Thought Experiment | Hoover Institution

The recent glut of angel and superangel money has made people forget this fact: IPOs are only for the irrationally brilliant few, and likely acquisition scenarios are blocked by investors chasing illusionary 10X returns.

Until entrepreneurs can raise $5-10M and have 20-75M exits without being called “failures” by the investment community, the next decade is going to look just as bad as the previous for venture capital.

"The 10 biggest advertisers account for less than 5% of Google’s June ad dollars."

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:19:45 -0400

“The 10 biggest advertisers account for less than 5% of Google’s June ad dollars.”

- Here’s How Much Big Companies Spend Advertising On Google Search

Wow.

(via pegobry)

Given how AdWords prices continue to rise, I question how sustainable the distribution is. Already, most very small businesses can’t afford AdWords.

mcdavis: Random Programming Notes: This is a screenshot from...

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:59:07 -0400

mcdavis:

Random Programming Notes: This is a screenshot from Firebug’s timer for AJAX calls. Each call is calling an internal PHP page that pulls an API from one of three different services (Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr). Notice two are almost identical in response time (this happens nearly every time).

The one call that is different of the three (responding over 9 seconds after the call is originally made) is Tumblr.

I’m glad Tumblr has an API at all, but it’s really quite lackluster. I know they could do better if they wanted to. Which brings up an interesting point: when you introduce an API, you are deciding to create a second type of customer - the developer. And that customer should be treated with equal respect as any other customer, even if there are fewer of them. Too often companies will release an API because they can or because they should, and then leave it to rot. If you’re going to do it, do it all the way.

Ube and Cookies & Cream sundae with hot fudge and crushed...

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:26:40 -0400

Ube and Cookies & Cream sundae with hot fudge and crushed peanut butter cups.

Sometimes it’s nice to get away. (View from the backyard...

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:32:43 -0400

Sometimes it’s nice to get away.

(View from the backyard of J’s parents’ house in CT)