It was a good weekend
Now Playing: Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?
Topic: Personal or Reflective
Friday night was the Sabres vs. Wild pre-season hockey game at Blue Cross Arena and yesterday afternoon was Custom Brewcrafters Fall Festival of Ales.

For those lucky enough to be at John and Becky's wedding, he finally posted a link to the official wedding photos. Well he did it on 9/7 but I only noticed it early this past week and haven't posted since. It was a long week (two all-nighters, mostly my own causing), tiring but productive.

I turned on AM 1370 at 6pm specifically for This American Life but had already the current episode so I scanned their archives and listened to two of their recent Hurricane Katrina-related shows.

The end of the second show, "This Is Not My Beautiful House" (9/16), featured a song perfect for New Orleans but also perfect for the mood of a late Sunday evening at home: Louie Armstong song, "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?" (mp3 download). Turn up the volume a little, make sure that you're in your comfortable corner chair with the reading lamp on and close your book for a second. Tap your foot and whistle along for a little bit.

Photos from The Mexican
Now Playing: Nada Surf - Concrete Bed
Topic: Personal or Reflective

After emailing a cousin in CO the photos from funny moving weekend back in July, I noticed the Flickr blog posted on The Mexican, who I stumbled upon and posted a few weeks ago.

The photo still gives me pause; I hope that it always will.

Best analysis of Web 2.0 so far
Now Playing: TimG - Bloc of Nails (NIN & Bloc Party mashup)
Topic: Web 2.0
Fred Wilson's VC Blog has been one of my new favorite blogs lately, not the least of which is his "Positively 10th Street" podcast that he does with his family. I've have quite a few good music suggestions from listening to his podcast (including Josh Rouse, Bloc Party, and M. Ward) and have to compliment Fred and family on their musical choices. I've never met him but given his taste in music, he must be a cool guy). I hesitate to use the word charming because that sounds too quaint; refreshing and inviting may be the best ways to describe the podcast.

Fred continued with his eBay/Skype post, referencing Reed's Law, which I've never heard of. Dig deeper by reading and looking at Umair's graphs at Bubblegeneration, which shows Metcalfe's Law (a linear network-value relationship) and Reed's Law (a exponential network-value relationship). I wonder if John Furrier at Podtech.net has read any of this material?

Fascinating ideas I think, wish I had made the connection myself. This analysis is still a work in progress but its exciting and energizes me about what's coming on the tech/internet horizon in the next couple of years.

Oh yeah, the word on AJAX is out (was I the only who didn't know this?), read a blurb on it in Business2 magazine. And here I was thinking that I'm ahead of the curve, oops. At least I'm still cool, though, because now my blog has this neat ribbon making fun of people using Internet Explorer. Ahh, I feel better now...now it's time for bed.

Bloc Of Nails (Nine Inch Nails vs BP bootleg by Tim G) mp3

WSJ's MBA Survey & Rankings
Now Playing: Podtech InfoTalk series (Podtech.net)
Topic: MBA, B-school
The WSJ's MBA Survey & Rankings came out today, including this podcast (iTunes link) by their MBA writer, Ron Alsop. Here's a quick summary:

1. Huge proliferation of part-time, Executive MBA or online programs, has increased the options for obtaining an MBA, resulting in decreased application rates for regular full-time MBA programs

2. WSJ’s survey asked recruiters to rate the success of part-time vs. full-time MBA students and the recruiters believed that full-time students have much better skill sets & experience:

30% said executive not as good as full-time was more effective

35% said part-time was not as effective as full-time

40% recruiters said online MBA programs are not effective at all

3. Ron Alsop, the WSJ’s MBA writer, has found that schools with a collegial atmosphere, which develop team and communication skills, are more successful:

Recruiters want the communication skills (the distinguishing factor), the soft skills (how one relates to others, works in teams, and has leadership skills)

4. The University of Rochester’s Simon School MBA program is seeking to raise application rates through an experimentation with an online scholarship contest, trying to create a sense of innovation around its MBA program.

Grand prize is one $70,000 full-ride scholarship

Why Simon needs help: a survey of students found that less people were applying because of the U of R’s location, upstate NY: the weather and other factors surrounding its location discouraged applicants

5. People still have sticker shock over the cost of an MBA program (just this year, Stanford and Wharton broke $40,000 a year)

6. There are still questions over the value of a MBA program (and how good is the school?) and the criticism is coming from within, professors at MBA programs themselves are questioning their peers.

And for my grocery store reading roundup (yes, the magazine aisle is my favorite aisle in the grocery store-- I see a great name for a website there, hmmmm...), it's time again for The Economist's Technology Quarterly and their tech cover story, "The meaning of free speech" discussing eBay's acquisition of Skype. Here's their take on Web 2.0 (I've seen it called AJAX, the newspaper-- The Economist is a newspaper not a magazine--calls it mashups).



If anyone is out there, let me know if I'm glossing over the differences between "mashups" and AJAX, I'd be interested in someone explaining the differences.

Posted by cph19 at 9:39 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 24 September 2005 3:26 AM EDT

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Screenshot Love
Now Playing: Boozoo Bajou - Take It Slow
Topic: Personal or Reflective
First, behold the power of BitTorrent for distributing large files quickyl and efficiently: that's 340KB/sec for a 130MB file, download speeds that I've never even come close to via my cable modem connection. I was excited with 100KB/sec back when I downloaded the Jon Stewart on Crossfire video. The file is a new Creative Commons album by Try^d, "Public Domain." Here's Lessig's post on it and here's the torrent for the music file.


Second, look at this Sage Art, compliments of my Sage RSS reader in Firefox acting up when I went to the CIO feed, it rendred the entries as this cool upside-down pryamid shape. I like it

(link to the Boozoo Bajou - Take It Slow mp3 file)

Free Techie Books
Now Playing: Bloc Party - Two More Years
Topic: Personal or Reflective
What a combination, two of my favorite things, free and techie: FreeTechBooks.com (hat tip LifeHacker)

While we're on the subject of free, go grab Bloc Party's new song, Two More Years, from Fred Wilson's A VC blog. I've been listening to this song for over two weeks now, mostly on repeat while doing work at night, and it's great. Wish I had found the song sooner.

Griz Mauling
Now Playing: Daily Source Code Podcast
After Pyszka told me about his trip to Glacier and being on the same trail at about the same time as the father and daughter mauled by a grizzly bear, I stumbled upon this interview (need IE to view video) of the two. I'm amazed that the two survived given Mike's description of the attack.

And I'm not sure why spawned my interest in posting these covers, but maybe it was this Brian Williams story on electricity temporairly coming back on for the presidential speech Thurs. night. The Economist's scathing review of our response to Hurricane Katrina, summed up by these two covers:

The Brownie Song
Now Playing: The Brownie Song (You're Doing a Heck of a Job)
Listening to Harry Shearer's Le Show on KCRW, I think the blogsphere needs to christen this mp3 The Brownie Song ("You're Doing a Heck of a Job."). Let's make the number one listing for The Brownie Song on Google a link to the mp3.

And check out Lessig's post on Fox News Channel's great reporting from New Orleans. Yes, the words "great reporting" and FNC don't often go hand in hand but this video mix shows the raw emotion that sometimes makes great reporting.

I first saw this amazing FNC video from New Orleans when checking out the Geraldo Rivera has never struck me as a great or serious journalist but look at the video and it's hard to not be struck by his raw emotion and sincerity.

Stop, Look, Think, & Post
Now Playing: Juliet Lloyd - Ordinary World
Topic: Personal or Reflective
The combination of listening to Juliet Lloyd (iTunes link) covering the great Duran Duran song, "Ordinary World," and looking at this photo, "Mushroom Vendors," made me stop, look, think, want to post about this. Stopping to smell the roses, something that the late Chief Justice Rehnquist stressed to his law clerks.

Look of the eyes of the children, especially the one of the left, the oldest and reluctant leader of the trio. Those faces have seen a million things and lived through a million hardships that most people on this world will never experience.

The photos are by Mexican Pictures, which I stumbled upon through Lifehacker linking to SLOWER.net that linked to the photo via Del.icio.us. This combination of music and imagery is one of those eye opening and unexpected travels that I stumble upon when surfing the web, bouncing from one area of interest to something completely unknown but mesmerizing. The music and the photo make me pause and contemplate things.

Look at "Mushroom Vendors" again and imprint the image of the kids' faces in your mind; keep it with you, when you drive to work or are out for a run and your mind is wandering, and think about your life versus the life of those kids.

Defining Great Leadership
Now Playing: Talib Kweli - Lonely People (on repeat w/ the Bose headphones rockin')
Topic: Leadership
I've posted before about Collins' book, Good to Great, (and who hasn't honestly, the thing has been on the NYT bestseller list for a long time), and this quote below led me to back to Collins' mantra of getting the right people on the bus:

Here's a definition of leadership that has stuck with me: Leaders are "people who leave their footprints in their areas of passion." (HBS Working Knowledge)

Sounds very similar to the Five Patterns book I posted on a couple of weeks ago.

And I'm back from the Labor Day road trip, 1700 miles in ~28hrs. Here are a few photo highlights, or the only crappy shots that turned out from my camera phone. Remember, though, driving across Kansas isn't usually a highlight unless you stop to see the world's largest prairie dog. Maybe next time.

Uploaded my Desktop Wallpapers
Now Playing: Talib Kweli - Lonely People
Topic: Personal or Reflective

Photos to Motivate
Now Playing: Since U Been Gone - Jason Nevins club mix
Topic: Personal or Reflective
I hesitated on installing the newest Google Desktop software because I wasn't sure that I need the enhancements, including those that would serve up content based on my browsing habits. Privacy and anonymity are important so maybe this newer version wasn't my cup of tea.

But Pogue and Mossberg convinced me otherwise and seeing the photos plugin when the sidebar is docked to your screen, that did it for me. I've been using WinPix to rotate my desktop's wallpapers every 15 minutes b/c seeing the photos reminds me what life is about: having fun with your friends & family, being happy.

Rather than only seeing the photos change on my desktop (which isn't that often b/c when you're working on the computer, you have all of your apps open and never see the desktop wallpaper), now I see them on the screen all the time. [As Pogue or Mossberg pointed out, Apple has had these "new" Google-enabled features for some time, including the changing wallpaper for your desktop. We won't bother asking why Microsoft never put these features into Windows...too busy creating Clippy.] It's like a digital scrapbook docked to my screen, reminding me and motivating me to stay focused and continue cranking on whatever I'm working on at the moment.

Yet again, I have to say thank you Google.

Decompressing through Experimental Uses of RSS
Now Playing: Coldplay - Clocks (Royksopp trembling remix)
Topic: Personal or Reflective
I spent the weekend decompressing (which I've called detox in the past but decompression is a more accurate word) by re-reading The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.

I've been adrift the last couple of weeks (maybe it's been months) at work and knew that I needed some focus on what I've been doing and what I should be doing. Nothing in any of these career (or self-help books for that matter as well) is profound but you have to stick with it and over time we all lose that sharp focus on being successful, motivated, and happy.

And thinking about the future is usually what reinvigorates me, especially the confluences of the internet, politics, culture, & communication. What do I see as cool apps stemming from the trend called Web2.0?

How about using RSS to syndicate different CSS templates that would allow websites to change their look and feel automatically, almost a cross between the CSS Zen Garden and podcasting.

Or how about using RSS/XML and APIs from Amazon to automatically cross-reference your public library's book catalog. I googled to find this post referencing Jon Udell starting the LibraryLookup Project that aims to bridge the gap between your Amazon wishlist and your public library.

Last but not least, my dad just returned from an extensive road trip covering Montana to New York and I had to share this highlight: pig races at the Bear Creek Saloon & Steakhouse in Red Lodge, MT. Yes, you can bet on little pigs running around in a circle behind the restaurant (reminds of Mike's stories of turtle races in Chicago).

Now before you ask yourself why the hell you would ever do this, you must know that all proceeds from the races (over $61,000 to date) go to scholarships for local kids in the area. What a great way to raise money for a worthy cause and bring in people to your restaurant. I chuckled and had to smile as my dad described it so here's a quick sequence of one of the races.

It's Google This, Google That
Now Playing: KCRW via iTunes
At least according to the busy Monday postings by the Engadget guys, they should have just called it "Google This, Google That" Day.

1) Google building a national broadband/wi-fi network?

2) Google hooking up with iTunes?

God these guys are good. As I've said, I'm still trying to get over the personalized Google homepage and ability to add RSS feeds (including one for your Gmail account).

Thanks to KCRW Yet Again
Now Playing: Harada Ikuko - Twinkling
Thanks to Chris Douridas and his show, New Ground, on KCRW for one of my new favorite songs, a nice, mellow one for an overcast/drizzling/dreary yet slightly energizing Sunday afternoon here in Rochester, NY.

The song is by Harada Ikuko - Twinkling (mp3). I heard it played on the July 30th show. Hope you enjoy it as much as I've been.

There's No PayPal for Web 2.0
Now Playing: Podtech.net InfoTalk podcast // Wayne Wonder -
I've been listening to John Furrier's Podtech.net InfoTalk podcast for a couple of weeks now. I can't remember where I first heard about it, maybe it was through Always On but he's been having great discussions on high-tech, venture capital, entrepenuers, and evrythign in between. One of the most common themes has been the emergence of Web 2.0, where cheap bandwith and OTS hardware and open-source platforms via the web, combined with bottom-up generated content via blogs, Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio.us, are creating a "perfect storm" for innovation and start-ups involved in high-tech.

There's been a fair amount of talk (nostalgia maybe?) about the good 'ol pre-bubble days thanks to the 10th anniversary of the Netscape IPO but I think the Web 2.0 idea is more than mere blog chatter. When Adam "the Podfather" Curry is talking about podcasts being the start of something new we could be skeptical. But then listen to John Furrier and his podcast guests and this theme of Web 2.0 begins to take form. This VC, as is true of almost all VCs ( don't know any personally, yet), is a comp-sci person and worked at McKinsey before entering venture capital so he knows what he's talking about. He's at the frontlines of technology, innocation, and the entrepenurial spirit. We realize that this Web 2.0 movement involves blogs and podcasts (that's all the mainstream media seems to see) but it is a much larger phenomenon than these two ingredients and its taking place right in front of eyes. Do you see it?

Okay, okay, what spawned all this crystal-ball thinking? The 8/11 podcast with venture capitalist Andreas Stavropolis of Draper Fisher Jurvetson may be one of the most insightful and forward-looking discussions of the future of the high-tech industry that I've ever heard or read. I'm usually as reluctant to use the the 'wow' as I am to use exclamation points or emoticons in email but wow may just be the best word.

Nothing that I haven't heard other guests say on the InfoTalk podcast, except for the bit about transcations via RSS (look out PayPal), and it it was this comment that made my gears starting turning over. I had just read Fortune's "Cashing in on RSS" (thanks to my new customized Google homepage for the RSS feed on this article, damn Google is good) and Kirkpatrick described "that companies will begin to figure out how to perform tasks, such as tracking inventory, using RSS feeds."

That's cool stuff and then damn, I hear this VC on the podcast say transactions via RSS and it all clicked. As part of the InfoTalk podcast's tradition is asking guests to make a prediciton on the future of the market five years out, here's Stavropolis' first of two predictions:
"You will be able to transact, you will be able to consume, and you will be able to publish across mutliple media and mutliple devices, anytime you want, where you want, what you want."

It's getting late and Wayne Wonder is on repeat in iTunes- that means it's time for bed.

Hooked on Kronik Worked for Me
Now Playing: Off the Hook podcast

If anything was worthy of a blog post, this is it: my recent discovery of the energy drink called Kronik.

I had stayed up late Wed. night reading, writing, researching on the internet (I call this work but others call it wasting time on the internet) and knew that Thu. morning at work was going to be rough without a little energy boost. I'm a Red Bull person for their original sponsorship of the Air & Style snowboard event in Innsbruck, Austria, but only for that reason, not for taste or anything else really.

But when I walked up to the cooler in the back of the 7-11 and didn't see the Red Bull at first glance, the Kronik drew me in...who the hell would name an energy drink Kronik? I couldn't resist and bought the $2.10 can of blue Kronik and proudly paraded it around at work, making all the obvious jokes of course.

It tasted all right, like all of the other energy drinks out there, and it was blue colored, not green.

The Slo-Mo Blur of Mid-Summer
Now Playing: KCRW's Morning Eclectic // Queer Eye & Engadget podcast
It's been awhile since my last post and while so many great things have happened I've been in a bit of a funk. I'm coming out of now so let's keep the momentum going. I have a list of things I've been meaning to blog (and wrote down on a scrap of paper somewhere) but for now here's the most recent musings:

Becky and JK married back in May and their wedding thank you note just arrived tonight. Becky referenced the funny NPR story that I forwarded them about a Chrysler LeBaron (which she used to have, see pg. 2), so here's the NPR audio. Funny stuff.

Good 'ol Genesee Hospital, where Dad faithfully worked for over 20 years and had hoped to retire from, shuttered it doors over 4 years ago. It stands dormant and hollow on Alexander St. down from the nighttime buzz of Alexander & East, doing nothing but rotting and crumbling. News is that someone may be interested in buying it. Let's hope that someone uses the building for something productive, residential or otherwise.

Political words of wisdom from my cousin
Now Playing: This American Life - via WBEZ & NPR
In his book, "The Angels' Game: A Handbook of Modern Diplomacy," Billy Macomber, a cousin on my mother's side of the family, wrote on the importance of bipartisanship in developing foreign policy and the final section is valuable wisdom in our current political landscape (emphasis added):

"For, as has been noted earlier, predictability and stability of direction, especially on the part of the great powers, are key ingredients in the effort to produce a more stable world, and nothing can be more destabilizing than for the whole course of American foreign policy to hang in the balance every time there is an American presidential election. American diplomats should therefore always seek to persuade the leaders of the administration they currently serve of the importance of seeking bipartisan understanding and support for the fundamentals of the course it pursues- knowing full well that in the inevitable rhythm of American political life, the minority party will become the majority one day."

Imagining the technological future
Now Playing: NPR's Weekend Edition via KCRW's webcast
I've been trying to tie together some of the ideas about technology and the future that have been swirling around my head recently. More accurately, I want to see the future but not let current trends or hype affect that vision. Where is the strategic inflection point (SIP, from Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive) with mobile devices, wireless internet, RSS and consumer-driven communication. The difficulty is in distinguishing between signals and noise and that's where I am with the current landscape. Here's a SIP diagram:

Here are my technology observations that I want to combine into something new:

Hacks with Google Earth

Podtech.net's infoTalk Podcast with VCs Accel Partners: "Harnessing the users to generate the content or to help refine the content"-- That means having consumers help generate content and even assist with more relevant searching capabilities (we talked about harnessing the power of Wiki to create the next generation of search even more powerful than Google...maybe)

Reading Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Bible at Barnes & Noble's cafe and seeing two different groups of three pre-teens come to hang out and grab some Starbucks. What caught my eye was how quickly each group started playing with their mobile phones, whether is was chatting with someone on the phone while real life human beings were sitting right next to them or simply playing with them, checking call histories or text messages. The potential of talking with someone else, who might be more exciting than your present company, seemed to drive both of these pre-teen gatherings. I watched for 5 minutes with quiet interest, wondering what the future hold for mobile devices as pre-teens like this are using them so critically to their social lives.

Finally, thanks to NPR for further popularizing the Brazilian Girls by interviewing them on today's Weekend Edition. JK and I have been excited about Brazilian Girls for some time (yes, I mean the musical group too) thanks to the great radio station KCRW (which I've posted on many times before). So check out Brazilian Girls and KCRW.
It will be interesting to see how this story affects the number of "Brazilian Girls" references on the web and on the blogs. I wonder if Technorati can help us determine that impact...

As of 12:36 EST, 7/16/05:
"Brazilian Girls" had 4,812 posts. Here's the most recent number. Let's see what happens after a couple of hours and the NPR story has settled in.

Updated: Looks like Richard's Pig Sty blog at MSN Spaces beat me to it accoridng to Technorati.

Posted by cph19 at 12:40 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 13 August 2005 2:57 AM EDT

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