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Sunday Morning - Beck’s Record Club
A wonderful cover. Original by The Velvet Underground.
July 2009
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Its Up To You - Ben Kweller & Evan Dando
Love this one. From the Brattle Theater in Boston back in 2000.
“The Segway hasn’t delivered on its initial promise, to put it mildly. There are several reasons why, but one is that people don’t want to be seen riding them. Someone riding a Segway looks like a dork.”
—
Paul Graham - The Trouble with the Segway
You gotta read the entire post but Paul’s latest starts with this gem and gets better.
“We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. The only consultants I’ve ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway’s retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple’s retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products.”
— Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research - Bokardo
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Poor Boy - Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound
every once in a while I come across a record from a while ago and am blown away. i wonder how it is possible that i did not hear about it when it came out. 3 Rounds and a Sound from Blind Pilot is that kind of a record. it is amazing. give this a song a listen and if you like it, get the record.
i want to thank David Noel (@david) for the tip. better late than never!
Great song and great record. Fred thanked David and I’ve thanked Daryn
People often ask me where I discover new music.
Now you know.
“Together with those who use it every day, the service has taught us what it wants to be”
—
Biz Stone, Twitter’s cofounder
via Twitter Plays Up Search With New Home Page - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
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He Got Game - Public Enemy feat. Stephen Stills
Listening to the popular page on the hype machine this morning. this is the most popular track at the moment. And with good reason.
Thinking about education
It wasn’t long ago when conventional wisdom believed that building software to sell into the education market was really really hard (at best). School budgets are constantly under attack, infinite sales cycles, suboptimal IT infrastructure & connectivity, teacher training…the list goes on and on.
And frankly, many of those issues still exist.
But there are new models & technologies emerging that break through those old rules. The web once again shows us not to paint with a broad brush. So let’s not count out education either. Education is a critical area with enormous potential for innovation.
I’m excited about all of the possibilities. Few thoughts:
0. Impact of open source (software, courses, textbooks)
1. New learning models (peer-to-peer, virtual worlds, gaming, distance learning, online degrees)
2. New platforms (ebooks/kindle, iphone, cloud, collaboration, digital music, art)
3. Better informed parents & students (peer produced reviews is starting to happen with college and graduate schools - we need more of this and also would love to see it at the middle school & high school levels. I’ll leave it for another post how i picked my high school and college as a kid)
4. New types of funding/fundraising/financing (ie cMarket, Donors Choose)
(it’s just after midnight and I’m starting to fade - pls pardon me as I’m sure I’m leaving out important areas. Please add to this list in the comments and I’ll update this post later)
Many of these new models and businesses do not require a sale to the school or the state. They go direct to the parent and/or the student. That’s a big change and we’re going to see more of that.
Some of these new models are freemium based which make it dramatically easier for the teacher and schools to support.
And some of these new models may require a direct sales effort to the schools. But even that is getting better as everyone involved (teachers, administrators, students, parents) has the motivation to improve our current system and try new things. Plus, more students have computers and schools continue to improve their connectivity.
I’m delighted that our firm, Spark Capital, made an investment in 8D World which is our first portfolio company in the education market. We look forward to making more investments in the future of education so please let us know if you are working in this important area.
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Walkabout - Atlas Sound
Atlas Sound is trending big time on the Hype Machine right now. New record coming out in late October. You can hear Animal Collective all over this.
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Thanks for turning me on to this on Daryn.
Blind Pilot - Oviedo
My co-worker Kat recommended this album to me, I love it.
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There There - Radiohead
A wonderful song from “Hail to the Thief”.
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Just Like Heaven - Dinosaur Jr.
The original version of this song by the Cure is a classic. Here’s a mighty fine cover.
“In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion. We started the year by moving from Albuquerque back to Bellevue, just across the lake from Seattle. By the end of the year we’d doubled in size to 28 employees. Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.”
—Bill Gates: My 1979 Memories - Bill Gates - Gizmodo
“I met up with a few entrepreneurs and investors while I was in town but missed the opportunity to meet with a bunch more that I wanted to see. It’s hard combining work and family vacations. I don’t recommend it.”
—
oh man, so true. I keep trying to pull this one off but it’s too hard.
