In the age of the mp3, label musicians and the labels themselves are fighting for survival. As the cost of music is driven down to near zero, they’re doing everything they can to reverse that trend — and yet, the trend continues. I’ve been thinking about music costing effectively nothing and the future of the …
Category Archives: ideas
Dwell as economic indicator
While walking back from the mailbox today, I was reminded of the old “number of pages in WIRED closely matches the NASDAQ” thing as I heaved the latest Dwell magazine back to my house. I have about three or four years of back issues in my new bookshelf and just looking at the spines, it …
My new site: fortuitous
When I came back from Austin, I mentioned that I wanted to do a new site focused on business type advice. After a month or so of the idea gelling in my head, I wrote down about 30 ideas for essays I’d like to write, I banged out a mockup, and I looked up a …
Diverse means a lot of things
In the course of two posts, Anil completely nails the problem of gender (and other) biases in the web industry. When I think back to the most interesting talks over the past 3-4 years, it was always from someone outside the norm, something that could bring a fresh perspective instead of the same tired “here’s …
A Proper Churchill Nap
“You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able …
Help Find Jim Gray
Whoa: All Things Distributed: Help Find Jim Gray Amazon is doing what they can to help find a missing sailor (computer scientist Jim Gray) using a combo of satellite photography flights they’ve taken and their Mechanical Turk system to let volunteers check the photos. This is an even better version of the idea I proposed …
Distributed search of a different sort
I drove to the Oregon Coast today and the whole time I kept thinking about James Kim and his family. They have been missing for a week now and since there have been no phonecalls or credit card use, it’s not merely getting stuck in some snow (which we had last sunday or monday). It’s …
Two good bits of eco-friendly news
Two interesting climate crisis-related items in my feed reader today: – The First Solar Powered Biofuel Station Opened in Eugene, Oregon. They’ve got five blends of biodiesel and ethanol available from a solar powered station. Someday soon, all gas stations will be like this but for now it’s a novelty. – Terrapass, the company that …
Vinod on ethanol
The other day I mentioned something that got a lot of feedback over email, the gist of which can be boiled down to: – It’s a Shell executive saying biofuels are bad because they want to sell more fossil fuels – We already make enough food to feed the world, it’s a distribution problem getting …
Lazyweb: accelerometers and MAME, if you please
I keep seeing novel ideas for using the accelerometer in laptops like this Google Maps one but I’m still surprised I haven’t seen anyone port games to talk to the device. Seriously, if anyone knows the ins and outs of gaming applications like MAME, please make me a version that I can use to play …
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A Whole Lotta Nothing 