James Siminoff

"The real lesson may be that companies have to be careful about building too much of their business..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:59:00 -0500

“The real lesson may be that companies have to be careful about building too much of their business on a single, shifting platform.”

- Lessons from TeachStreet, folding into Amazon

via Daryn

"It sounds subtle, but these are the only days where I find myself getting anything done. I either..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:06:47 -0500

“It sounds subtle, but these are the only days where I find myself getting anything done. I either start my day like this and feel normal and productive, or I look up and realize it’s early evening, I haven’t accomplished anything and I can’t bring myself to focus no matter how hard I want to.”

- Start every day as a producer, not a consumer - Journal - Daniel Howells

/via @eric_wvgg

(via pieratt)

jayparkinsonmd: I’m very excited to announce that we’ve...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:16:29 -0500

jayparkinsonmd:

I’m very excited to announce that we’ve officially launched Sherpaa.

Who it’s for: Currently it’s for tumblr’s employees. In the near future, we’ll be signing up other NYC-based companies.

Why: When you’re sick or hurt, figuring out exactly who and what you need and when you need it is difficult. You need an accessible, friendly doctor you can call and email 24/7 who will either solve the problem right then and there or guide you to the highest quality, health professionals with the best personalities who will provide exactly the care you need.

Our wonderful friends at tumblr are our first clients. And that means that all of tumblr’s employees can now email or call our doctors (or Guides as we call them) 24/7 when they have a health concern or question. Our Guides are well connected, in-the-know local doctors. Sometimes they can solve everything for you right away, and other times they’ll collaborate with other New York City specialists to arrange the most appropriate care for you. They make your health simple. And that’s our mission.

We’re starting slow. We’re focusing on working exclusively with tumblr for a while and will soon be signing up other NYC-based companies. If you’re interested in joining Sherpaa, please do let us know.

I’ve been quite busy for the past few months getting Sherpaa started. This is the next big phase of my life. And I’m super proud of it. It’s a service designed and built by us at The Future Well. We’re doing wonderful things and I’m a happy, happy guy.

This is a service that could do amazing things for medicine. It is awesome watching Jay innovate in medicine.

Down to 6% by 1:30. Started at 100% battery this morning and...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:28:38 -0500

Down to 6% by 1:30. Started at 100% battery this morning and have not had crazy usage on the phone.

While I still love the IPhone the 4s seems to be plagued with this awful battery issue.

joesunga: Excited to be tackling big things with this awesome...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:37:57 -0500

joesunga:

Excited to be tackling big things with this awesome team!

GeekWire: Amazon.com buys TeachStreet

(Originally posted by daryn)

Congrats Daryn!

"Critical thinking is difficult to do in large groups. Criticizing in a group setting tends to..."

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:51:30 -0500

“Critical thinking is difficult to do in large groups. Criticizing in a group setting tends to polarize it, and there are immediate and overriding political considerations of doing so. What’s more, some people hate to speak out in a group, while others thrive on so doing. This guarantees that the group will be led by personalities and personal interests more than it will be by the quality of ideas.”

- one of many reasons that a small venture capital partnership is a good venture capital partnership

Cooper Journal: The eye of the brainstorm (via soxiam)

mattgalligan: Flying people in NYC

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:42:50 -0500

mattgalligan:

Flying people in NYC

Wow, congrats to David Karp, Founder of Tumblr for making the...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:47:00 -0500

Wow, congrats to David Karp, Founder of Tumblr for making the front cover of Wired. That’s badass.

david:

Oh hey!

"There are a lot of rich people in the world. There are very few people who have the privilege of..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:28:17 -0500

““There are a lot of rich people in the world. There are very few people who have the privilege of getting to invent things that billions of people use.””

- Interview: David Karp, founder of Tumblr, on realising his dream (via joshuanguyen)

the perpetual goal, second edition.
(via cacioppo)

aimers: We’ve been waiting/wanting to see this for three...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:03:29 -0500

aimers:

We’ve been waiting/wanting to see this for three winters. Pegged. No shit for real pegged.

Okay, we can move now…

This makes me appreciate the 70+ degree sunny day we ate having in LA today.

laughingsquid: Last Location of New York City’s Legendary...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:56:19 -0500

laughingsquid:

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.

Will 2012 be the breakout year for 3D printing?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:00:05 -0500

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…

"Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get..."

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:26:04 -0500

“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.

Is Samsung following Blackberry's playbook?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:07:10 -0500

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.

Google's $300 Million to Mozilla

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:00:06 -0500

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.

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

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:15:01 -0500

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

"In 1975, manufacturing accounted for about 20% of the United States’ economic output, or gross..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:27:58 -0500

“

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.

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

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:59:12 -0500

“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)

Off to Tokyo…

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:23:28 -0500

Off to Tokyo…

Finished building and planting my new veggie garden today.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:21:03 -0500

Finished building and planting my new veggie garden today.