Here's why Joel Spolsky has one of the most popular blogs in the software world. This post is a must-read for anyone developing a software product (and definitely for all the software engineers and product managers over at Quigo and outbrain!):
Don't let the slow start detract you.
My wife treated me yesterday to the Momix show at the Joyce Theater. And what a treat it was! This is easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. As far as I could tell, there's no deep philosophical layer or storyline (or at least I was too stupid to notice any...), so the highly intellectual among you might find the show disappointing.
But Momix is simply stunning to watch. The dancers are incredible, and the scenes and music are all beautiful. It's really amazing to see how ~8 dancers with a minimal set and minimal accessories (3 sticks, a ball, a hoola-hoop, etc) can create magic. Highly recommended.
Here's a video of one of my favorite scenes in the show:
(if you're reading this in an RSS reader, you may need to click here to see the video)
Momix is showing daily at the Joyce through June 10th. If you're in NYC this week - go get your tickets now.
MomentaryExposure.com is an addictive little experiment from my fellow Quigo'er Yigal. It'll take me more time to explain what this does, than it would for you to check it out. So go and graffiti something, and get your 15 moments of fame!...
This post seems to have been dugg:
My old friend and fellow outbrainer, Ori Lahav, has joined the blogosphere with his new blog - Sea Breeze and Biz. He's writing about his two favorite topics - outbrain and yachting.
If the first few posts are any indication, this blog is well worth subscribing to.
A few months ago I recommended a video cast of Jim Lavoie (Rite-Solutions CEO) speaking about applying wisdom of crowds concepts within a corporation. That video is available here.
Looks like Jim was invited back to speak at this year's BIF (Business Innovation Factory) conference in October. It's taking place in Rhode Island and if you're in the neighborhood, my guess is that this is well worth attending.
Registration for the conference - here.
This post is about one of the coolest startups I bumped into recently called TerraCycle.
A little background - My next startup, after I finish with all this web stuff, is going to be around recycling/reusing. Yup - the business I aspire to get into is - just like Tony Soprano - the waste management business.
My dream is to invent the ultimate contraption that descends upon landfills, chews up all the garbage, and spits out useful products on the other side.
That's why I loved everything about TerraCycle, though I have to admit that I've never bought or used their product which is basically a fertilizer (NYC apartments are not particularly famous for their spacious backyards...).
What they do is basically release a bunch of worms on a pile of garbage, and collect the worm-shit (hmmm... not sure that's the most scientifically accurate term...) and package it as plant fertilizer. In their words:
TerraCycle Plant Food is the first mass-produced consumer product to have a negative environmental footprint.
But obviously there are a bunch of products in the market that claim to be organic/recycled/eco-friendly/whatever. The thing is, that usually these products pay the minimal lip service needed to be able to claim eco-friendliness (for marketing purposes), and then do all the rest in some of the most eco-unfriendly ways.
Here's an example:
Organic Valley produces organic milk. They claim that "Organic dairy farmers do not use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers on their land. This protects our soil, water and air resources and also protects the health of wildlife and people."
So they get all the good will and great eco brand image, but then they go ahead and package that wonderful milk in a box that's pretty much a disaster to the ecology (the embedded plastic cap being the icing on the eco-disaster cake...). It's not recyclable, not reusable, and doesn't degrade elegantly when dumped. Yuck.
And that's where TerraCycle gets really cool. Their product is driven by passion to be eco-friendly, not by passion to gain some PR points or appeal to amateur tree-hugger shoppers. Their whole product, end-to-end, is truly eco-friendly. The full story is on their website, but I'll just point out one feature that I LOVED - their amazing packaging:
Take a good look at the bottles on the right (not sure what I'm talking about?.. scroll down to see the graphical explanation). I can't give enough kudos to the product designer that made the design decisions on the TerraCycle bottles. Simply brilliant!
A few more great podcasts I stumbled upon lately:
1. Paul Graham speaking about What Businesses Can Learn from Open Source at OSCON '05. MP3 available here. Full transcript available here.
Favorite quote:
Meetings are like an opiate with a network effect... You can see how dependent you've become on something by removing it suddenly. So for big companies I propose the following experiment. Set aside one day where meetings are forbidden-- where everyone has to sit at their desk all day and work without interruption on things they can do without talking to anyone else.... You could call it "Work Day."
2. A lecture by Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian on newspapers in the
age of blogs. MP3 here. Transcript here (in PDF)
3. Steve Wozniak speaking at Gnomedex 4.0. Wow! - Seems to me like after all these years of tinkering with computer boards and chips, Steve may have accidentally put his own brain in overdrive... This podcast is fascinating and really gets into how this whole mess started. Steve went on talking for nearly 2 hours, so this podcast is broken into two parts - Part 1 available here, Part 2 here.
(small Quigo tidbit - If you listen carefully around the middle of the 2nd part when Steve talks about how they invented the floppy drive, you'll hear him talking briefly about Randy Wigginton - Apple's first software engineer which we now have the honor of having as an employee of Quigo).
(my previous list of favorite podcasts is here)
New tool from Dave Winer. Highly recommended - go and share your OPML. I especially like the Subscriptions Like Mine, and the Who Subscribes To... features.
TechCrunch does a better job than I could reviewing this.
Cracking the formula that ABC is using to schedule LOST episodes is a bigger challenge than cracking the Enigma.
Finally the solution is here. This site is simply awesome - has all the information you (a LOST viewer) needs and literally none that's redundant. Hats off to this site's designer for keeping the design so clean and effective.
ABC should definitely look into acquiring this company, as it provides an invaluable service to its viewers.
What's up with the forced Windows updates? Did your computer restart on its own last night too?!
It seems like MS assumes that forced restarts are OK to inflict as long as they properly save all un-saved documents. That may have been a safe assumption 10 years ago, but is a ridiculous assumption in 2006.
What's growingly important is all those windows that were simply open - browser windows, word documents I was reading, videos/podcasts I was in the middle of viewing/listening, etc, etc. It's knowing what was open, and in what state, that matters. Heck - Windows is not even 'aware' anymore of most of the un-saved docs I have at any given moment, because most of them are in browser windows which Windows never considers as un-saved.
It seems that Microsoft fails to understand that saving my open docs is solving probably 5% of what's needed before inflicting a restart. If you are going to hit me with a restart, make sure my computer is back to its identical state after the restart.
Thank god I at least have Firefox with the excellent must-have SessionSaver extension...
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