The Mind of an Independent

"In extraordinary times, history is, in fact, a better guide than models estimated with data from..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:17:59 -0400

“In extraordinary times, history is, in fact, a better guide than models estimated with data from ordinary times””

- Economist’s View: The Great Depression in Economic Memory (via jryu)

Wow!! Absolutely love this. Having read “This Time it’s Different” I’d have trouble disputing this one. You can’t model inflection points with history, but you certainly can predict likely outcomes.

"The MiFi released by Virgin Mobile this week ($150) is almost exactly the same thing as the one..."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:11:20 -0400

“The MiFi released by Virgin Mobile this week ($150) is almost exactly the same thing as the one offered by Verizon and, until recently, Sprint — but there’s a twist that makes it revolutionary all over again.”

- State of the Art - Presenting the MiFi of Your Dreams - NYTimes.com

This is really cool. I don’t go anywhere without my Verizon MiFi but this new MiFi from Virgin Mobile is $40 a month, no contract and NO data cap!!!

(via evangotlib)

MiFi is getting more interesting in large part thanks to my WiFi only iPad. This price point feels like it could tip me. Probably a decent example of why it might be a good idea to get our pipe’s a bit more competitive.

spime: Mimicry is a lamp that imitates the colour of objects....

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:35:53 -0400

spime:

Mimicry is a lamp that imitates the colour of objects. It consists of two individual and self contained objects — the lamp and the colour sensing eye. When an object is placed against the eye, the colour is captured and sent wirelessly to the lamp.

unconsumption: “Our car-centric culture has left so many tires...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:23:14 -0400

unconsumption:

“Our car-centric culture has left so many tires in the trash piles of the U.S. that the team at Santa Monica, Calif.–based architecture firm Minarc decided to turn them into something useful: bathroom sinks.”

Award: RUBBiSH (Recycled Rubber Sinks) - Bath, Recycling - Architect Magazine

Via PSFK.

"It’s the mindset that matters: worming inside a system and moving pieces around to make it do..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:08:59 -0400

“It’s the mindset that matters: worming inside a system and moving pieces around to make it do what you want it to. This mindset, which isn’t a hallmark of entrenched media, is why the future will be determined by upstarts who don’t realize — and perhaps don’t care — that they’re reinventing an industry.”

- Mac Slocum

Nice shout out to @alecbrownstein. Totally agreed about hacking advertising - it’s also the reason that you need smart marketers more than ever because smart ideas are the only things with scale. Media doesn’t have scale, impressions aren’t scale. Great ideas have scale - the problem is that the half-life of great ideas is getting shorter and shorter.

The VC-free startup - O'Reilly Radar

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:54:56 -0400

The VC-free startup - O'Reilly Radar:

gross:

There should be an O’Reilly book for business. It would be really short. “Make something people want, charge them money for it. Advanced: charge more money.”

That’s some good old fashion selling.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-29)

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:23:02 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-29):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Wow! This is a jam…and they’re playing Rock Shop...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:48:00 -0400

Wow! This is a jam…and they’re playing Rock Shop tomorrow night.

yvynyl:

The War On Drugs - Comin’ Through

First (sweet) single from the upcoming album, Future Weather (on Secretly Canadian). So stoked for this record! Someone get Tom Petty up in this joint, ‘cuz his 1989 Full Moon Fever ghost is here without him.

(via bbbrendddan)

Why We Struggle: Too Much Housing, Too Little Information...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:37:38 -0400

Why We Struggle: Too Much Housing, Too Little Information Technology

Interesting.

The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:31:28 -0400

The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party: While I appreciate the concern about Glenn Beck powered by the money of the Koch brothers (kind of lame engineering dilettantes if you ask me) and Rupert. The fact is the other side of this conversation is pretty well financed itself. The challenging part is jobs. Solve the jobs problem and you’re a winner. My concern is that none of those in power are willing to do the tough things that solve the jobs problem. The result is the rise of demagaugery across parties.

vruz:

by Frank Rich, The New York Times

… There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.

…

— read more —

woah @foursquare taking over times square thx @baaxpee98 (by Wil...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:31:31 -0400

woah @foursquare taking over times square thx @baaxpee98 (by Wil McDonough) Perhaps my life tracker has a bit more commercial relevance than simply cataloguing my eating and drinking adventures.

"The idea that I would make a pact or a wager with the supernatural, in which I don’t believe, in the..."

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:04:10 -0400

“The idea that I would make a pact or a wager with the supernatural, in which I don’t believe, in the sort or fearful hope of better treatment is, to me, wholely disgusting and suggests that what people must think of their god is that he’s either a fraud or a monster that would smile on that kind of plea and that kind of loss of dignity.”

- Christopher Hitchens on dying of esophageal cancer (via sixtyforty) (via danielholter)

"Harbinger’s gradual metamorphosis from a fund that specialized in distressed debt investing to..."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:39:22 -0400

“Harbinger’s gradual metamorphosis from a fund that specialized in distressed debt investing to a mobile telecom incubator is a stark example of how some big hedge funds are looking more and more like private equity firms or even venture capital shops”

- Phil Falcone’s riskiest trade ever?

Money goes where there’s opportunity and obscurity. As markets get more and more transparent your left with binary outcomes. The smart money doesn’t seem to keen on binary outcomes (see derivatives, et al) so they head to place with multiple outcomes and a range of potential rates of return. Then they use the leverage of having tons of cash to make the returns they need. This is less about a bet on 4G and more about a bet with a wide range of potential outcomes and limited ability for outsiders to know what’s happening.

theunfound: G H O S T W A V E S E P Ghostwaves of Best Coast...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:44:30 -0400

theunfound:

G H O S T W A V E S E P

Ghostwaves of Best Coast remixing fame has kindly sent me his first EP and he has generously made it available to download for free.

Download :: Ghostwaves - Stay Wavy EP

Ghostwaves - Something I Can Reach

Seen On The Streets Of Atlanta

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:27:26 -0400

Seen On The Streets Of Atlanta

2011 Ferrari 458 Italia Nice

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:22:00 -0400

2011 Ferrari 458 Italia

Nice

yvynyl: Games - Planet Party One person’s digital trash is...

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:22:35 -0400

yvynyl:

Games - Planet Party

One person’s digital trash is another person’s treasure. Exhibit A: this Bushwick band’s amazing retro-kitch chillwave vid full of glitched-out 80s and 90s late-nite TV ephemera smashed together in a colorful collage of awesomeness.

Kids are on tha tumblrz too.

(via Pipedown)

Love this idea of one man’s digital trash being another’s treasure. I love remix culture.

"Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that..."

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:26:39 -0400

“Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.”

- Real Estate’s Gold Rush Seems Gone for Good

Timely. My dad and I discussed this last week. Here’s to slow growth.

theunfound: T E E N D A Z E Teen Daze - Wet Hair (Japandroids...

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:25:48 -0400

theunfound:

T E E N D A Z E

Teen Daze - Wet Hair (Japandroids Cover)

I like this Japandroids song quite a bit. The recursive hipsterness of that cover is too much for me and so I offer up Teen Daze’s cover of Wet Hair.

Picture of Saturday’s 10 mile kayak around NY Harbor.

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:55:48 -0400

Picture of Saturday’s 10 mile kayak around NY Harbor.