James Siminoff

Jan
27th

Fri

Last Location of New York City’s Legendary H&H Bagels Shut Down

This is really sad. I am shocked that no one took this over, it has to be the most famous brand in bagels.

I lived a few blocks from the H&H on Broadway after college. It was open 24hours and it was amazing at 3am coming home from the bars to grab a warm bagel.

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Jan
26th

Thu

Will 2012 be the breakout year for 3D printing?

So far 3D printing has been having a awesome year.

January 9th MakerBot unveiled thier new 3D printer, the Replicator, which I think for the first time allows the home user to access a “real” 3D printer. The first MakerBot which we use all of the time called the Thing-O-Matic is fun but definitely is a geek kit. I already put in my order for the Replicator which should be delivered in late February. Will put up a review once I get it but from the ones I saw running at CES it is awesome.

January 10th Shapeways put out a awesome report A Portal into the Future: 2011 in Review, and What’s to Come, detailing how their 3D printing business is starting to show some real numbers. If the can keep up the growth rate they are going to be a big business very soon.

Yesterday the PirateBay, known for less noble activities, decided to put up a area for 3D print plans. The easier access to designs should help drive more interest from both the creators and consumers of these pieces.

While it will take time for the market to catch up to the innovation as it always does, it appears that 2012 might be the year when we look back that 3D printing started to become something more important then a way for geeks to print trinkets just because they could…

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Jan
24th

Tue

Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

— President Obama in his State of the Union address. This is the guy I voted for, glad he is back.

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Is Samsung following Blackberry’s playbook?

TechCrunch posted some pretty funny ads from Samsung poking fun at the iPhone. Here is the better of the 2 IMHO:

However while this made me chuckle a little bit it gave me the feeling that Samsung is falling into the trap that Blackberry did when trying to compete with Apple. Last year this was Blackberries swipe at the iPad when they launched the playbook:

Attacking Apple by pointing out some feature like 4G is a waste of time. Samsung is big enough that they need to create a full line of properly designed products that people want and not just be the alternative to Apple. In fact if I ran Samsung I would make it policy to never publicly compare any of their competing products with anyone else’s, especially Apple.

Blackberry tried to “one up” Apple and instead taught the market that doing so is not a good playbook.

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Google’s $300 Million to Mozilla

It is 3am in Tokyo and since I can’t sleep I was thinking about how crazy it was that Google is now paying Mozilla $300 million per year, which is 3x higher then the previous contract, to be the default search for Firefox.

I wonder if the deal included that Firefox will need to go to the format of Chrome with the Omnibox. If you have not used Chrome before you can either type in a domain direct (www.cnn.com) or you can just type in CNN and google will show the results, all in what used to be the address box. Remember since Google makes its money off of paid search results the more search the more money.

So even with Firefox’s market share declining, the $300 million might not be so crazy if a simple tweak could change the ROI dramatically.

Also the obvious here is that this was just a move to block Bing, I was thinking maybe there was another more mathematical way to justify the 3x hike.

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Jan
23rd

Mon

Snowy morning in Tokyo (mount Fuji in the top of the pic)

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In 1975, manufacturing accounted for about 20% of the United States’ economic output, or gross domestic product, about the same as in Germany today. Since then, U.S. manufacturing’s share of GDP has slid to about 12%.

In 1975, the U.S. budget deficit was a manageable 1% of the economy, about the same as Germany’s now. Last year, the U.S. deficit was about 10%.

American families in the 1970s and early ’80s typically saved about 10% of their take-home pay, about the same as in Germany today. The U.S. savings rate these days is in the low single digits.

—

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted- LA Times

Some great articles coming out about why America is really in decline, like this one and the previous on manufacturing in the NYT. Getting to the root of the issue is the only way to really fix our issues.

We are fueled by consumer debt and drunk on cheap Chinese goods. Something has to change as math will catch up with the US at some point (might already have) if we don’t.

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I want to demonstrate that success doesn’t have to come at someone else’s expense.

— David Hornik: Nice guys finish first. Eventually. (Wired UK)

(via hiten)

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Jan
22nd

Sun

Off to Tokyo…

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Jan
21st

Sat

Finished building and planting my new veggie garden today.

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Maxistentialism: New York Times: When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top...

The whole article is really interesting. The craziest part is that Apple employees (through contractors) over 700,000 people in China to make this stuff. That is around a 1/2 of the US population.

maxistentialist:

New York Times:

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to…

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Jan
20th

Fri

Wow

khuyi:

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.

The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.

They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it.

That is terrifying.

never ever.

(via dpstyles)

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Card.io… hey that was my idea

Today a company called Card.io launched it is a mobile payment app that instead of using a dongle like Square it uses the camera to take a picture of the card.

When Square launched I was surprised that they were not utilizing the camera as a alternative method to capture the card and wrote about that here. I have always thought that the dongle was a little crappy.

It will be interesting to see how Card.io does, I think at this point beween the dominance of Square and the incumbents like Verifone, it is going to be a tough market to crack.

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Jan
19th

Thu

superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.

Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.

Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.

Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.

9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!

Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.

Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.

Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

Amazing story of the real power of the Internet

(via fuckyeahamitgupta)

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Jan
18th

Wed

BRYCE DOT VC: Not Everyone Gets a Seed Round

brycedotvc:

On MLK day, I decided to take my kids to the Chabot Space Center to explore and take in one of their amazing planetarium shows. As we were getting seated, our baby, who is notoriously fussy, was doing what she does. Kind of whining, kind of talking, kind of screaming. As parents do, we were…

This is a great post about parenting. The over coddling thing is something that does worry me and I think about it as we raise Oliver.

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