Click here to check if anything new just came in.
October 17 2011
“ Being young is supposed to mean you have the luxury of time. But in hard times, a few fallow years can become a lifetime drag on what you earn, sort of the opposite of compound interest. Because the average person grabs 70 percent of their total pay bumps during their first ten years in the workforce, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, having stagnant or nonexistent wages during that period means you hit that springboard at a crawl. Economist Lisa Kahn explained to The Atlantic in 2010 that those who graduate into a recession are still earning an average of 10 percent less nearly two decades into their careers. In hard, paycheck-shrinking numbers, the salary lost over that stretch totals around $100,000. That works out to $490 or so less a month, money that could go, say, toward repaying student loans, which for the class of 2009 average $24,000. Those student loans (the responsible borrowing option!) have reportedly passed credit cards as the nation’s largest source of debt. This is not just a rotten moment to be young. It’s a putrid, stinking, several-months-old-stringy-goat-meat moment to be young. ”—
Why the Current Crop of Twentysomethings Are Going to Be Okay — New York Magazine
I think, and this is an unfinished thought, that we are starting to see the consequences of the stratification of extreme growth. Innovation seems to naturally create extreme status differentials, which seem to be counter-balanced by cultural tendencies towards revolution for equality.
The next few years is going to be a bad time to be a slow track of personal improvement. If those that excel, invent, and innovate don’t find compassionate motivations, I fear there will be real societal upheaval.
Given the crunch we will feel from energy, food, and water shortages — and the fact that the workforces opportunities will continue to shrink through mechanization — a successful revolution could bring us our own version of the dark ages.
October 15 2011
“ Ontologies supply a structure for relating information to other information in the semantic Web or the linked data realm. Ontologies thus provide a similar role for the organization of data that is provided by relational data schema. Because of this structural role, ontologies are pivotal to the coherence and interoperability of interconnected data. ”— Siri (product): Is Quora important to Siri? - Quora
October 13 2011
“ [7] Why does society foul you? Indifference, mainly. There are simply no outside forces pushing high school to be good. The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise. Businesses have to deliver because otherwise competitors would take their customers. But no planes crash if your school sucks, and it has no competitors. High school isn’t evil; it’s random; but random is pretty bad. ”— What You’ll Wish You’d Known
“ Do you think Shakespeare was gritting his teeth and diligently trying to write Great Literature? Of course not. He was having fun. That’s why he’s so good. ”— What You’ll Wish You’d Known
October 09 2011
“ The most important thing about power is to make sure you don’t have to use it. ”— Edwin Land
“ Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible. ”— Edwin Land (founder of Polaroid)
“ Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity. ”— -Edwin Land (founder of Polaroid)
“ An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. ”— Edwin Land (founder of Polaroid)
“ If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it and don’t think anything of personalities, or emotional conflicts, or of money, or of family distractions; it is amazing how quickly you get through those 5,000 steps. ”— Quote from Edwin Land, the Founder of Polaroid.
October 06 2011
“ When I first met Steve Jobs nearly 25 years ago I was struck by him explaining to me that NeXT was what he “wanted to do with his thirties”. At the time, I thought it was a bold thing to plan one’s life in decades like that. And—particularly for those of us who spend their lives doing large projects—it’s incredibly inspiring to see what Steve Jobs was able to achieve in his small number of decades, so tragically cut short today. ”— Stephen Wolfram Blog : Steve Jobs: A Few Memories
Two weeks ago I got a call from my doctor, who I’d gone to see the day before because I’d been feeling worn out and was losing weight, and wasn’t sure why.
He was brief: “Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia. You need to enter treatment right away.”
I was terrified. I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.
—
I have a couple more months of chemo to go, then the next step is a bone marrow transplant. As Jay and Tony describe below, minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help.
A few ways to help:
- If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.
- If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event my friends are putting on.
- If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point ‘em to the links above. Thank you.
My friend Amit Gupta founded my favorite photography site Photojojo. A few weeks ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Amit is one of the nicest, most genuine, most creative people you could ever meet. Prior to founding the awesome Photojojo, he also co-founded Jelly in 2006 in NYC, a coworking community, that’s now spread to 60 cities across the world and helped spark the coworking revolution. It looks like Amit will need a bone marrow transplant quite soon. We can help him with that.
Unlike blood transfusions, finding a genetic match for bone marrow that his body will accept is no easy task. The national bone marrow registry has 9.5 million records on file, yet the chances of someone from South Asian descent of finding a match are only 1 in 20,000.
This is where we come in. We’re going to destroy those odds.
How? By finding and registering as many people of South Asian descent as we possibly can.
Tests are easy– a simple swab of the cheek. If you’re a match, the donation involves an outpatient procedure. It’s not fun, but it’s not dangerous either. And doing it could save a life.
We are encouraging anyone of South Asian descent to take a test to see if you’re a match.
You can get a free test by mail, or, if you’re in New York, you can join us Friday, October 14th for a special party to rally support.
We’ll have test kits on hand at the party, as well as music, booze, and maybe even a photo booth. It will, for the first time, combine a House 2.0-style party with a New Work City-style party, and if you’ve ever been to either, you know they are always something special.
Please spread the word and please do everything you can to help Amit beat leukemia. He’s a superstar.
Much thanks to Tony and pals for organizing this event, and EVERYONE who’s been tweeting and reblogging.
Please help get the word out any way you can. My life quite literally depends on it.
October 05 2011
“ it is a particularly valuable thing when the atmosphere around you encourages you to do something that would otherwise seem too ambitious. In most places the atmosphere pulls you back toward the mean. ”— Why Startup Hubs Work
“ If you judge Apple’s products by the reaction of analysts and the press, you’re an idiot. Pure and simple. Apple doesn’t make products for analysts and the press. They make products for everyone. ”— Apple’s “Fall From Grace” by parislemon
“ Most people who do well might go spend $100 million buying a yacht. And I’ve known plenty of people who have done that,” explained Khosla. “My yacht is 100 little $1 million startups…. That sounded a lot more fun, backing 100 young entrepreneurs than buying a yacht and sailing it once a week…. These startups are my yacht. ”— Vinod Khosla on failure, thinking big and why the best entrepreneurs are under 25 - GeekWire
October 03 2011
September 27 2011
Adventures in Capitalism: "Is there anything connected with this accelerator that involves the security of the country?"
"Is there anything connected with this accelerator that involves the security of the country?" http://t.co/Ds7dlWV5 > Amazing response....– Chris Yeh (chrisyeh) http://twitter.com/chrisyeh/status/118550926805057536
How to hack industry economics when no one wants to help you — the curious entrepreneur
[New blog post] "How to hack industry economics when no one wants to tell you." Feedback / RTs mucho appreciated. http://t.co/EzL2tZC6– Andrew Skotzko (askotzko) http://twitter.com/askotzko/status/118541001446014976
Spotify introduces music to your social life - Spotify
FYI: “@Mattjsrules: @ischafer I found out how to stop Spotify from auto-posting every song to Facebook! =) http://t.co/gtsg7SrC”– Ian Schafer (ischafer) http://twitter.com/ischafer/status/118534260775862272
New Spotify users must have a Facebook account too - The Next Web
Fb/spotify issue is overblown. FB login requirement will soon seem like "needing" a credit card to order from Amazon. http://t.co/n0GDrvTg– greg cohn (gregcohn) http://twitter.com/gregcohn/status/118482882242162689
September 26 2011
@KatieBaynes @imsosorry this is relevant: http://t.co/GcYhVRDm
@KatieBaynes @imsosorry this is relevant: http://t.co/GcYhVRDmMaybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...


