Chuck Taylor and I are working on an early stage business idea. Wanting some help to move it forward, we submitted it as a proposal to Y Combinator. Per their instructions, the application included videos, which Y Combinator required to be submitted through Posterous. (A reason why they required the use of Posterous might be that Y Combinator funded Posterous…)
In the end, they didn’t select our application. (Oh well.)
Between my experience using Posterous, positive ink on ReadWriteWeb, and reading a few glowing articles and tweets, I’m left scratching my head. Posterous is an OK service, but I don’t understand why would someone use it instead of systems like WordPress or TypePad.
47.631545
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Tagged: blogging
I’ve enabled geotagging on this blog. That is all.
47.631545
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November 4, 2009 · 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Microsoft
Yesterday on ReadWriteWeb, Mike Berkley penned an article about Comcast’s impending battle with Hulu. He also gave a succinct description of the TV Everywhere ecosystem. There have been other articles about TV Everywhere, but in the spirit of less is more, Berkley’s well-chosen few words nicely summarized it.
Without defending the specific plans of Comcast and Time Warner, technology will soon give rise to TV Everywhere or something like it. Here’s the television landscape of the near future:
Maybe TV Everywhere won’t entirely succeed. Maybe the associations (i.e., the columns in this graphic) won’t have exactly these entities, or the payment systems won’t work quite as envisioned. It can be hard to forecast what consumers will or won’t accept, or precisely how money will change hands. Still, a new distribution model with this general shape is “duh” obvious. And every entity here will be happier with fewer hops between the content and consumer, because fewer hops means fewer slices in the money pie.
There’s a reason you don’t see any television affiliates, such as KOMO or KING, in the TV Everywhere ecosystem. It’s because television affiliates become road kill. They don’t have a place in this brave new world. And they have no allies. In fact, they’re already dead, but their fearless leaders don’t yet realize it.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: television
For sale, a Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo 2TB NAS. Contains two drives, and can be configured as a 2TB storage, or a 1TB RAID storage. 1.5 yrs old.
Features:
- Share and access your files over the Internet without additional software using Web Access
- Active Directory support
- Supports RAID 1 Mirroring, RAID 0 Striping and JBOD (two individual drive letters)
- Access data from any Windows or Macintosh computer
- Expand storage by adding a USB 2.0 hard drive
- 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet with JumboFrame support
- Minimal power consumption
Located in Seattle. Asking $125 $110 plus shipping. Happy to answer any questions.
I have sold the NAS.
Categories: Uncategorized
October 15, 2009 · 1 Comment
I’ve wanted to replace EMC Retrospect 8 as my home backup application for some time. Seven months after its release, Retrospect 8.0/8.1 still has atrocious performance, buggy behavior, and no user manual.
I’ve decided on a simple solution. The primary backups will be Time Machine to a Drobo USB disk hanging off my Airport Extreme. The secondary (off-site) backups will use a online backup service, such as Jungle Disk.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Mac
Fall is here. Pumpkins are here. And from pumpkins comes pumpkin pie.
I sure *cough* Joe Heck *cough* hope I get to eat some *cough* Joe *cough* pumpkin pie soon. One of my *cough* Joe *cough* good friends makes a pretty mean pie. He’s not under any obligation *cough* sure as hell he is *cough* to make me a pie or three, just because we’re friends. *cough*dammit I’m waiting.*cough* But I’m just sayin’. *cough* hungry for pie *cough*
Categories: Uncategorized
September 29, 2009 · 2 Comments
Cleaning the mental loft of some odds and ends…
An ex-colleague torpedoed my reputation with a start-up. I uncovered this from the timing of the company’s backing out, a LinkedIn update, and a third party’s casual comment. It gets better: I had been neutral about them, due to doubts about the company’s technical direction and market opportunity. OOTB they said TBNT, and a few days later I discovered the torpedo in the water. The epilogue: I’ve since learned things that confirmed my earlier qualms about the company, so it’s just as well (good for me, actually) that our talks are off. So to my anonymous known admirer: Thanks for helping me dodge a bullet! And, Bitter, party of 1: Your table is ready.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: career, Mac, Seattle
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: blogging
I’m grumpy about the local Seattle media’s self-serving Web 2.0 / blogosphere circular hand-tugs.
I’m grumpy about obvious toot-your-own-horn tweets on Twitter. (Hint: If I’m interested in your blog, it’ll be in my RSS reader. Tweeting that you just wrote a blog post is inane.)
I’m grumpy about how the main stream media writes about the stock market. It’s up, it’s down, investors are bullish or bearish. Here are two news flashes: Investors are clueless. And an index of 30 stocks doesn’t represent the economy, or even the rest of the stock market.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Microsoft, politics, Seattle
Clearing the mental attic of some odds and ends…
A little bird told me that Fisher Communications is up for sale. I have no idea if this is true. But interestingly, Fisher filed an 8-K on August 24, notifying the SEC of changes in its top executives’ Change of Control agreements. From its preamble:
The Board believes it is imperative to diminish the inevitable distraction of the Executive arising from the personal uncertainties and risks created by a pending or threatened Change of Control, to encourage the Executive’s full attention and dedication to the Company currently and in the event of any threatened or pending Change of Control, and to provide the Executive with reasonable compensation and benefit arrangements upon a Change of Control.
IANAL, but the document indicates that in the event of a change in control, Colleen Brown will receive 2x her annual salary plus any optional bonuses then in effect, and other execs will get 1x their annual salaries plus their optional bonuses. These terms are generous, in my experience.
If you know anything about this, drop me a line at john at seeknuance dot com. Or if you prefer, tack on a comment to this post.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: cms, Mac, Seattle, television
I recently read Plone 3 Theming, a new book by Veda Williams. Although not presently working in Plone, I like to keep up with the Plone ecosystem. Should I find myself working on a new CMS, Plone will be one of my preferred technologies, so I need to nourish what few Plone neurons I’ve got.
Obligatory caveats
I bump into Veda at Seattle Plone Gathering meetings. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but we are friendly.
BTW, the book has an online errata list.
Snap review
Buy this book if you’re working on any aspect of developing a Plone-based site. Even if you aren’t doing theming work, its informational goodies will come in handy. It’s written for the newbie-to-intermediate level, but I’ll wager that even advanced Plone site developers will learn a thing or two from this book.
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Plone
When I lived in Massachusetts, I enjoyed an amateur astronomy hobby. At night, I could walk out to my central Mass backyard and easily see the Milky Way. And that was without any dark adaptation.
I sold all my astronomy gear (an SPC-8 with the de rigueur slew of stuff) after moving to Seattle. The sky quality I had in my Massachusetts backyard was now at least 30 minutes away by car. This increased hassle factor, and some other personal matters, made jettisoning the hobby the right call. There are probably billions of dollars of telescopes, microscopes, boating gear, camping gear, fitness machines, etc. in America’s attics, and I’ve never been inclined to add to the collection. I’m a big believer in discarding or selling something if I haven’t used it in the past year – or don’t intend to in the coming year.
Well… The astronomy bug resurfaced in May! I don’t know why, but it did. And I’m thoroughly enjoying it!
Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: astronomy
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