April 2009
101 posts
Move to Ease 'Mark' Rule May Subvert Treasury Plan... →
I don’t get this move at all. Why in the world would we revert back to opacity given what came of our last bout of opacity. I understand that there may be flaws in mark-to-market, but the idea of banks setting their own prices on “hard to value” assets is insane. Value is in the eye of the buyer not the holder, so it is absolutely absurd that we’re reverting to accounting...
“I might look successful but I’ve had many failures. People take failure...”
– Tadashi Yanai
March 2009
147 posts
How Do You Feel About the Economy? →
NY Times rules. This is totally awesome. I mean talk about a great visualization…this is totally brilliant, I love it.
This is “Pogo” from Digitalism. I...
“The benefits of communication often don’t kick in until ubiquity is...”
– Kevin Kelly
This is a cover of the Talking Heads “Road...
Have We Seen the Last of the Bear Raids? →
Illuminiating to say the least.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-29) →
Geithner Deals Wall Street a Can't-Lose Hand
This is a must read Geithner Deals Wall Street a Can’t-Lose Hand: Margaret Carlson March 26 (Bloomberg) — I feel like Rush Limbaugh now, because I really want certain people to fail: George W. Bush’s former economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, Nobel Prize-winning economists Paul Krugman and Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz. All of them say the U.S. Treasury’s plan to buy troubled...
Jeff Bezos Works In Kentucky Distribution Center... →
Curious why Amazon has been among the top performing companies in this miserable economy. Well there is the innovation factor (web services, free shipping, Kindle, etc.), the institutional acceptance that failure is part of growth and there’s this. A leader going into the trenches and finding out how the rank-and-file experience Amazon.
Jeff Bezos continues to inspire.
“Unless we rebalance things here in the US, we are in a lot of trouble. When we...”
– Matt McCall-Managing Director, DFJ Portage
This is “Did you Miss Me” by Tortured...
This is “My Mistakes Were Made for...
RIM Building BlackBerry TV Service No One Wants... →
We need to stop with the TV via phone stuff. People don’t want TV. They have internet and that’s what they want. It’s just absurd that they keep trying to push this as an upsell. Spend your cycles on improving network performance. Thanks.
This is “Transparency” by White Denim....
Liberals and tax cheating →
Awesomeness with statistics and a revealing insight into why President Obama can’t seem to staff up the Treasury.
Vane for Sebago →
I am pretty sure that the mix of high and low in fashion is a good thing, though I do wonder if it is sustainable or if it it devolves into a bunch of pretentious noise.
“When you put more boots on the ground, you not only augment your army’s firing...”
– David Brooks- “Combat and Community”
Note to the Administration: The AIG Flap is... →
Not sure that I’ve linked to much Roger Ehrenberg on this blog. Well here is a little for you and I would encourage you to make a note and continue to read him. I’ve been reading Roger for the past 4 years and he has been at least 9 months in front of everything that’s happened and therefore is essential reading. This particular post breaks down the absurdity of keeping alive an...
Cash-Strapped States Are Rethinking Prison... →
More question’s that 4% annual GDP growth on a multi-trillion dollar GDP allowed to go unanswered are rearing their ugly heads.
Today is a shout out to my hometown peep, Liz...
Obama Sides With RIAA, Supports $150,000 Fine per... →
Lame moves from President Obama and his team on this one. Not that this is going to change anything, suing your fans is an F-d strategy, but it would be nice to see some inspired leadership instead of more incremental crap.
Why Storage Needs More Structure →
Key quote:
“These solutions deliver rapid access to individual records within extremely large data sets — all aim (or claim) to reach petabyte scale and up to billions of rows and millions of columns. Combined, these projects represent a turn in the tides for companies relying on big data — success will be based not on how much data they can retain, but how quickly and efficiently they can...
How the Kindle will change the world
→
Got up close to a Kindle 2 this weekend thanks to my brother in law…and I got to tell you, it’s amazing. The e-ink technology makes reading really easy and both my wife and I decided that it is definitely something that we’re going to add to our collection of gadgets. Still work to do on pricing, but the form factor is right on.
Dirty Tricks: Newspapers Demand Google Welfare →
The charity business model is so gross.
Reading Test Dummies →
I just had a discussion Friday night with my wife and some friends about No Child Left Behind. As usual this elicited quite a bit of discussion. All of which leads to this terrific op-ed which pinpoints one place where we can make things happen. Use technology to make tests environment specific. Thanks to my buddy Dave for passing this along.
Last time I posted a Frightened Rabbit track I got...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-22) →
“When people reach a certain level of success, there are a lot of people...”
– Brian Eno
This is “Dull to Pause” by Junior...
It's a Great Time to Start a (Disruptive) Bank
I tend to do a lot of reblogging of Albert, but he’s thinking about some smart things. If any of my friends in banking are thinking about a little reinvention, Albert would be a good guy to talk to.
continuations:
The WSJ recently ran a story titled “It’s a Great Time to Start a Bank” which talked about a couple of recent local banking startups. It’s definitely true that when the...
Contrail Biking Community Tool →
Absurd, yes. But kind of cool.
Mass Hysteria Over AIG Obscures Simple Truths →
good stuff