January 2012
13 posts
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If Stanley Kubrick made a movie about the Internet, it would look like today.
Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take On Two Piracy... →
I’m glad to see this getting NYT coverage, but the writing of this article is rather shameful. Referring to Tumblr’s censorship awareness raising as a “stunt”, lumping the resistance into “Internet firms like Google and Facebook” (despite Facebook’s lack of activism) and minimizing Wikipedia’s blackout’s effect to “no doubt causing panic...
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SOPA Strike
Tomorrow, all of the sites we run at A022 Digital will be going dark in support of the Fight For the Future and #SOPASTRIKE.
The fact that the biggest, most influential innovators in the online ecosystem have come out against SOPA and PIPA, yet Congress has made no movement towards mitigating its most egregious aspects shows a complete disregard for understanding the underlying concepts which...
Watchcaterpillarcowboy:
section9:
Wish I had a Portal Gun.
Fantastic. Simply Epic.
Wish I had a Portal Gun
Laughing so hard.
Just. Epic.
barackobama:
“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
- The White House, responding this morning to a petition on SOPA and online piracy
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Oh The Places You'll Go... [2011 Edition]
Since January 2009, I’ve posted a list of all the cities I visited the previous year and this list promises to be a bit much. I spent about 4 months traveling through Eastern Europe from Turkey to Italy and everywhere in between. A map of that trip along with a selection of photos can be found on mine and Nick’s travel blog: Tabula Rasa.
These are the cities I visited in 2011 (not...
3 Short Stories from 3 NYC Startups →
It’s great to have smart people around to ask for help and feedback, but it’s far more important to see how hard those people are working and to be inspired to keep up.
I’ve been saying this for awhile. Working from coffee shops filled with college students is one of my strongest motivators.
Answer to Quora question: "What is it like to... →
You are comfortable with feeling like you have no deep understanding of the problem you are studying. Indeed, when you do have a deep understanding, you have solved the problem and it is time to do something else. This makes the total time you spend in life reveling in your mastery of something quite brief. One of the main skills of research scientists of any type is knowing how to work...
“The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The...”
–
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #64: Tiny Beautiful Things - The Rumpus.net (via hello-amber) (via thestateimin)
This post is one of the most stirring things I’ve read in a long time.
December 2011
14 posts
nycdigital:
“Venture capital funding in the metro region topped $890 million in the third quarter, a level of investment that hasn’t been seen since the last days of the dot-com bubble…That put New York in the No. 2 spot behind Silicon Valley—and ahead of Boston—for only the second time in a decade.”
-Matthew Flamm, “NYC startups get snapped up”
Booyah.
“The way I look at it, things are always happening. Sometimes things that nobody...”
– Steven Hall - The Raw Shark Texts
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New Marketing Strategy
My brilliant idea to harness both the power of viral marketing and the echo chamber of tech blogs for evil my own good:
Write a press release/blog post saying that Alumni Spaces has been acquired by Google/Facebook/Microsoft/whoever for some fantastic amount of money. (Alternatively: we raised a fantastic amount of money from Andreessen Horowitz/Union Square/Greylock/whoever - worked for...
Frank Chimero: The Hyperlist: A List of Desired... →
viafrank:
Suggested Names for the Dogs I See in the Neighborhood All the Time
Elvis Costello Albums We Should Pretend Do Not Exist
Grievances Against America, Volume XII
Books We Should Collectively Opt Out of Believing We Should Read
Cheese Rank Index
Preferred Pirate Nicknames
List of People I…
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Voyager 1 Exists Our Solar System →
It’s a good week to be a nerd.
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Scott Kurnit’s AdKeeper Pivots to Keep.com, Where... →
caterpillarcowboy:
I don’t curse much, but are you fucking kidding me?
The original idea — to “keep” a folder full of your favorite online ads — raised $43M at an alleged $100M valuation? How are people completely unable to understand that to build something valuable you need to start with the customer and work backwards?
In case it’s not obvious, the new idea is awful too. This just reeks of...
Life Lessons
Never send your laundry down to get washed at the Marriott in Bucharest.
Just file this away for your future self, you will thank me the next time you end up in Romania.
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Long Roadmaps →
That is the power of a visionary founder leading a team to build the things that are only in his or her mind. I recall Mark Pincus, in the early days of Zynga, tell me about a game he wants to build someday. Zynga still has not released that game. When Jack Dorsey came back to Twitter, he said he was finally going to build Twitter 1.0. Think about that. And think about what Twitter 5.0 is in...
November 2011
15 posts
mattatastic:
Lazy web: Easiest and fastest way to Newark airport from Manhattan - taxi or train?
Almost always the train. It is only $12 from Penn and the transfer to the AirTrain (AirTran?) is really easy + another $4 or so. Cab is always a crap shoot with tunnel traffic.
I once got into Newark at 1am after 12+ hours of delays and flying, so I got in a cab back to my old apt in Astoria....
Caterpillar Cowboy: Notes from Yelp's S-1 IPO... →
caterpillarcowboy:
Some quick thoughts after skimming Yelp’s S-1. Read it in the raw here.
22M reviews of 19M businesses, averaging 100 words per review.
529k businesses have “claimed” their page.
19k local businesses pay for advertising, spending an average of $234/mo.
Yelp made $40M in local…
I think the Yelp/foursquare concern is the opposite. Foursquare has a direct connect...
Apparently andrews37thtestaccount@gmail.com is not available.
a) wtf
b) I guess I just tried to register it, so there must be some other guy named Andrew staying up all night testing user registrations
The 7 Closet: A022 Digital Blog: Censorship Sucks →
a022:
Hi there. Unless someone thought this was so well written that they printed it out and handed it to you, you are currently using the internet. Yep, it doesn’t matter if you are reading this on your phone, iPad, computer or TV and it doesn’t matter if you are reading it on Tumblr, Facebook, Google…
We over at A022 Digital (and basically every company that operates online) are a bit...
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Who the hell is Herman Caine and where did he come from?
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Eddie Murphy Drops Out of Oscars Telecast →
In an industry in which relationships can fracture quickly, Mr. Ratner’s connection to the show at least lasted longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage.
Even the Times is getting in on the Kardashian jokes.
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Creative Things
My best friend/business partner and I spent an afternoon last February watching Seven Years in Tibet and decided that our lives needed to be more awesome. So, we did what all rational mid-20s entrepreneur types in NYC do…
We bought 1-way plane tickets to Istanbul and 3 months later we were on a Russian airline, departing North America for the very first time. What followed our landing at...
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Mistakes Are There to be Made →
When you’re wrong, you’re learning, you’re discovering something about yourself, you’re growing. When you’re right though, that’s when the trouble starts. That’s when the business grows. That’s when the phone rings. When you’re right it’s a call to arms, it is life asking you to step outside your comfort zone. You can of course ignore the call, and stay being right, but who aspires to a lifetime...
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Google Reader
I, for one, love the new Google Reader design. Much cleaner, less distracting and finally focused on the content. I’ve been using the Re-Reader script for a few years to improve the reading experience, but now I dont think it is really necessary.
Except for the ridiculous amount of white space in the top nav row from the Subscribe button over… tighten that up and give the content more...
“And perhaps this is why we look so wistfully at entrepreneurs. They seem to...”
– America’s Healthy Infatuation With Entrepreneurs - Atlantic Mobile (via entrepreneurwisdom)
October 2011
15 posts
Know Your Landmarks: Bridges of the East River -... →
My latest post for BecomeANewYorker.com!
BK Bridge? Supervised by a woman. Manhattan Bridge? Designed by a guy whos last bridge collapsed. Williamsburg- rebuilt with cars on it. Triborough- Biggest construction project int he history of New York City. Now you know.
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viafrank:
Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?” Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.” Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?” Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”
Maurice Sendak, thinker of tender thoughts.
Obama to offer plan to aid students buried in debt →
onemoretimewithfeeling:
I’m linking to this because the article mentions a current program, the “Income-Based Repayment Plan.” How have I never heard of this?? I think my life has just been changed!
Say wha?! Check it out: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/IBRPlan.jsp
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Mizzou on Apple.com! →
a022:
We are super proud of our alma mater, the University of Missouri, for being featured as a profile in education by Apple. When we were there, the culture of going after new technologies was just starting to really permeate and it is really exciting to see that grow.