The Gong Show

msg: Transcending Moore’s Law Steve Jurvetson thinks this is...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:39:49 -0400

msg:

Transcending Moore’s Law

Steve Jurvetson thinks this is the most important chart in technology business.

(It’s an updated version of Ray Kurzweil’s published work, posted with permission)

In this abstraction of Moore’s Law, Kurzweil plots computational power on a logarithmic scale, and finds a double exponential curve that holds over 100 years (a straight line would represent a geometrically compounding curve of progress).

In the modern era of accelerating change in the tech industry, it is hard to find even five-year trends with any predictive value, let alone trends that span the centuries.

Ray argues that through five paradigm shifts – such as electro-mechanical calculators and vacuum tube computers – the computational power that $1000 buys has doubled every two years. For the past 30 years, it has been doubling every year.

Each dot is the frontier of computational price performance of the day. One machine was used in the 1890 Census; one cracked the Nazi Enigma cipher in World War II; one predicted Eisenhower’s win in the 1956 Presidential election.

Each dot represents a human drama. They did not realize that they were on a predictive curve. Each dot represents an attempt to build the best computer with the tools of the day. Of course, we use these computers to make better design software and manufacturing control algorithms. And so the progress continues.

found via my favorite flickr blogger, jurvetson

Andrew’s $0.02: This chart is most impressive for all the reasons outlined above, but I’d add that it’s wild to see which medium dominated which time period and for how long. When will we grow beyond the constraints of the Integrated Circuit (if ever)? And, how much does a newer medium pull from an older medium in terms of design paradigms?

Remember this game? It was actually pretty good (though I was...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:30:54 -0400

Remember this game? It was actually pretty good (though I was terrible at it).

I looked Moonwalker up on eBay and apparently it has turned into a killer collectors’ item. Of course, I shouldn’t expect anything less based on the box art alone.

"After three days of ducking the press — and telling the Wall Street Journal that Steve Jobs was not..."

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:11:00 -0400

“After three days of ducking the press — and telling the Wall Street Journal that Steve Jobs was not listed as a patient there — Methodist University Hospital in Memphis finally admitted Tuesday that Jobs did in fact receive a new liver at their transplant facility.”

- From a Fortune article on Steve Jobs.

I find this introductory paragraph absurd and completely representative how invasive the recent Steve Jobs’s health media blitz has been. Methodist University Hospital did *not* “finally admit” anything. A better way to phrase Methodist University Hospital’s statement is they “Violated HIPAA.” Steve Jobs’s health is none of our business, and there is a whole world of legislation that intends his privacy should be respected.

What is our business (as public shareholders) is the effect of his health on his role at Apple, and Apple has been forthcoming with that information. We were told when to took a leave of absence, and we were informed about realistic expectations of a return date.

The actual details of his health is his personal matters which are legally protected and should be properly respected.

Geek Porn (via CNet)

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:45:14 -0400

Geek Porn

(via CNet)

Listening to J Dilla’s Ruff Draft this morning.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:24:51 -0400

Listening to J Dilla’s Ruff Draft this morning.

VC Regulation

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:35:00 -0400

Just read in the WSJ (no point in linking since I’m sure it will be behind a paywall in a short period of time) that the VC industry’s likely getting regulated. Comments from the Obama administration indicated that any private pool of capital-under-management in excess of $30M will have to register with the SEC and be subject to regulations and inspections accordingly.

I can see the need for increased regulation of private capital, but I disagree that the threshold for regulation should be an arbitrary capital-under-management number. The common theme amongst all the financial train wrecks we’ve encountered over the past year have been due to debt leverage, not capital under management. Lehman Brothers was leveraged 40-1 according to their final balance sheet, the average American took out (or was duped into) mortgages larger than he/she could afford, even the US Government debt is so high that each citizen’s share is a shocking $37,247.58, which isn’t helped by the fact that in 2007 the average American annual rate of saving dipped negative.

So, instead of regulating private pools of capital in excess of $30M, we should be regulating private pools of capital that are leveraged up past 3-1 (or some other low, arbitrary threshold). I don’t know how leveraged the venture capital industry is on the whole, but a rough guess would be about 1.1-1 or even 1.05-1. Venture debt is a very tiny portion of an early stage startup’s financing plans; typically 95% of capital (if not more) in an early stage startup is raised via equity sale.

Barack, I know you follow my tumblr :) So take a kind word of advice and focus on debt leverage, not capital under management.

Kobe 2008 vs Kobe 2009

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:02:17 -0400

Here is a comparison of Kobe Bryant’s Post-Season stats for 2008 and 2009:

2008 Kobe Post Season (21 games): 30.1 pts, 5.7 reb, 5.6 ast, 3.3 TO, 22.0 FGA, 9.2 FTA, 47.9 FG%, 81 FT%, 30 3FG%, 41.1 MPG.
2009 Kobe Post Season(23 games): 30.2 pts, 5.3 reb, 5.5 ast, 2.6 TO, 23.0 FGA, 8.6 FTA, 45.7 FG%, 88 FT%, 35 3FG%, 40.9 MPG.

Talk about consistency! It’s like he copy-pasted the 2009 season from 2008. If only it were that easy.

(via TheSportsGuy)

The Big Picture is the most engaging form of journalism I know...

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:23:00 -0400

The Big Picture is the most engaging form of journalism I know today. It’s a curation of incredibly photo-journalism from sources like AP, Getty, etc that tell the story of the news much more effectively than text. The coverage on the Iranian election protests is very powerful and well worth a cruise. The picture above is my favorite from the coverage… great angle, well framed, it drives my gaze all over the place as I follow the shapes, lines, and points.

Kudos to Alan Taylor, the developer and editor of the site, who started this project on a shoestring budget as a Boston.com skunkworks project and turn it into the best part of their web property.

Mini Golf in Queens Teaches Astrophysics

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:40:00 -0400

“I want to go to there:” A mini golf course in Queens is opening in front of the Hall of Science. Mini golf in NYC is rare enough that this is excellent news alone, but it gets better. This is no normal mini golf course… From the NYTimes:

This is believed to be the world’s first mini-golf course designed to teach astrophysics. Possibly even to tweens.

Just tweens…? What about twenty-somethings that really dig mini golf and science? I hope the Hall of Science doesn’t frown upon a $2 Nassau to make things more interesting.

Libraries in a Digital World

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:59:27 -0400

I played around with various iPhone e-reader apps today trying to learn more about that market, and it made me wonder: what’s going to happen to libraries? If we’re all acquiring digital licenses and downloading books through the air onto our e-readers, will there still be a library?

I don’t really care about the idea of a big brick-and-mortar building full of books. If the library of the future contains no bound dead tree pulp covered in ink, that would be fine by me. But, I’m worried about the economics that libraries provide people today. If there are no libraries 30 years from now, what is the economic picture of access to information? Is there still a place that people can go and read books for free?

I can’t picture how “library borrowing” works economically in a digital book world. If I’m given the choice between “borrowing” a digital copy of a book on my Kindle for two weeks at no charge, or buying the book on my Kindle, it’s kind of a no-brainer that I’m always going to borrow. So, I’m sure that content owners will not license digital borrowing. But, then where can I consume digital books in the same why I consume library books today?

I know there’s a bunch of library tech conferences out there, I wonder what the librarians of the future think about this subject? I have heard people argue that Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the future librarians of the world, so I guess their answer would be that Google Books is the future of libraries. And, I’m sure Tim O’Reilly has thought about this extensively as a publisher and a net-native; if anyone knows an interview or blog post where it talks about this, I’d love to see it.

I’m (90% likely) going to see The Fiery Furnaces tonight...

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:47:39 -0400

I’m (90% likely) going to see The Fiery Furnaces tonight at Le Poisson Rouge. I’ve been a fan of them since Pitchfork blew up Blueberry Boat — Aside: life is so easy when I don’t have to think for myself and I can just let Pitchfork tell me what I’m supposed to like :)

Here’s a particularly beautiful, more approachable song from them called “Benton Harbor Blues (Again).” Give it a listen and come to the show tonight if you dig it.

(Song found via Everybody Taste)

Despite working in VC, I’m a finance newbie. According to...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:07:53 -0400

Despite working in VC, I’m a finance newbie. According to this chart, the government doubled the monetary base over the past year. Does that mean the one dollar bill in my wallet is half as valuable as it was last year?

from Alley Insider

Pirate Party in the EU Parliament

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:27:17 -0400

The Pirate Party, a political party in Sweden, took 7.1% of the vote in the EU Parliament election, which landed them two of Sweden’s twenty seats in Parliament. According to Wired, the Pirate Party stands for “radical reform of copyright legislation, abolition of the patent system and guaranteed online-privacy rights.”

While two out of 751 seats in the EU Parliament is relatively meaningless in terms of their affect on legislation, this vote signals a larger trend in my mind. There’s a generation of kids (often dubbed Generation Free) that grew up with zero respect for copyright law. A combination of cheap bandwidth consumer Internet plans and Napster showed a whole generation of teens how easy music consumption could be without typical payment or distribution barriers, and that learned behavior was sharpened by illegally uploading, watching and remixing Lazy Sunday on YouTube.

Now, Generation Free is growing up and going to the polls. I suspect subsequent generations will continue to mature with the same disregard for copyright law (nothing I can see is directing them to learn differently…) and vote similarly. Here’s some demographics from exit polls about Pirate Party voters:

12 percent of men and 4 percent of women plumped for the Pirate Party, according to the SVT survey. Among voters aged under 30, some 19 percent are believed to have cast a vote for the Pirate Party.

A combination of publicity from these ballot results and continued aging of Generation Free means to me this party is only going to get bigger. It’s going to be a wild ride to watch IP protection legislation evolve over the next 10 years. And, I’m sure there’s a good investment thesis one could develop as laws change, economics shift, and voids emerge.

The Siren is calling me… the ropes binding me to the mast...

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:05:35 -0400

The Siren is calling me… the ropes binding me to the mast are fraying…

And, my BlackBerry is whimpering in the corner.

"There were many things I loved about college, and among the best was the realization I could have..."

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:00:36 -0400

“There were many things I loved about college, and among the best was the realization I could have Lucky Charms whenever I felt like it: breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack. That’s and, not or. (You can substitute your own forbidden vice here.) It was like being thrust suddenly into the universe of a Charlie Brown television special, where adults make only the rarest of appearances, and when they do, they blat like foghorns for about ten seconds and then promptly leave.”

- Jonathan Zittrain’s Shady Side Academy Commencement Speech

Do yourself a favor and read the whole article, it’s hilarious. This is one of my favorite quotes from the speech.

Self-Induced Placebo Effect

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:26:32 -0400

I’m a big fan of placebo effects. If I can feel better without actually affecting my body, why shouldn’t I do that?

I’m in the middle of Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational, and I just got to the section on the power of price. The key takeaway from a particular experiment was that a $0.10 placebo will be perceived as less effective than a $2.50 placebo. I was not surprised by this result, and I use the outcome all the time in my daily life. I buy brand name OTC drugs: Advil, Neosporin, Robitussin. I am well aware that the physical effect on my body is supposed to be no different from their generic counterparts. But, I am able to give myself a placebo effect by buying the brand names, and I take advantage of that opportunity.

Furthermore, since my feelings are nothing more than a swirl of chemicals in my brain, the brand name drugs actually do work better because they put my chemical balance in a better state. It’s the brand association and marketing that’s giving me the positive chemical boost over a generic drug, not an attribute of the medicine itself, but I’m fine with that.

Anyone else do this? It’s an irrational choice, but it works for me.

Weezer - “Only in Dreams” I went to the Music Hall...

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:16:00 -0400

Weezer - “Only in Dreams”

I went to the Music Hall of Williamsburg last night to see Titus Andronicus. They were great, but the real highlight for me turned out to be one of the openers. It was a Weezer cover band called The Blue Album Group.

The Blue Album Group is a one-trick pony, but they do that trick so well! They play Weezer’s Blue Album in order of the tracklist on the album, and they’ve really got every song nailed, including harmonica lines and all guitar solos.

They were great, and they completely rekindled my love for Weezer (specifically my love for The Blue Album and Pinkerton… the rest of the albums are pretty lame). So, enjoy Weezer’s “Only in Dreams.” It’s one of the best closing songs to any album ever written.

Search Evolution

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:42:55 -0400

In light of Google Squared launching today and all the buzz over M$FT’s Bing, I was delighted by @marcoarment’s tweet today where he said: “Want to see where real innovation needs to be made in web search? Pick a product you need to buy. Search Google for ‘[product name] review’.”

Product reviews are totally broken on Google. I’d love to compile a list of other broken searches on Google. Here’s my start, and please add in either comments or ReBlogs or dashboard answers or emails to me. I’ll aggregate the results and repost later.

- Purchasing tickets for anything
- Finding old concerts
- Finding *good* lawyers
- Finding currently-hiring job openings
- Finding an apartment for rent
- Finding flights (optimal route and optimal price)
- Finding a niche B&B
- Anything regarding SEO

Maybe of these have become dominant vertical search categories, but I feel like Google is copping out by not trying to address these in their main search offering.

Got some others to add?

"The internet used to treat censorship as damage and route around it."

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:02:07 -0400

“The internet *used* to treat censorship as damage and route around it.”

- Tim O’Reilly

He said this in the context of China blocking Twitter with the Great Firewall. And, it’s absolutely true. When a block of servers at Level 3 goes down, it doesn’t crash the Internet, all traffic routes around it naturally by design. Such is the beauty of a truely decentralized architecture. It makes me think that the VPN loophole Chinese users are using to get around the Great Firewall should move down the stack and subvert the Great Firewall without explicit user action. Someone please write this RFC.

PS: the Great Firewall is such a great metaphor… so appropriate, and works on multiple levels.

The Diamond Age Day

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:09:29 -0400

Today my sci-fi nerves were tingling all day. I saw two demos that clearly evoked for me technology described in Neal Stephenson’s book The Diamond Age.

The first one was a demo of a 3D Printer (which are Matter Compilers in The Diamond Age) produced by the guys behind Make: mag. It’s called MakerBot and you can catch the demo here.

I tweeted to @Fraser, “I wondered if the MakerBot could make itself?” He responded, “Hopefully not. The world would fold in on itself.” I’m ok with world implosion… my big concern is mutation as it replicates, and eventually inherits and activates the SkyNet gene.

The next Diamond Age tech demo I saw was Project Natal from Microsoft. I watched this demo video, which I’m sure is partially (if not entirely) a faked mockup, but nonetheless looks really engaging if they can execute anything close to this demo. It’s a “controller” for XBox that watches your body movement and listens to your voice for inputs. The demo is available at the bottom of this Engadget post.

The Diamond Age corollary for Project Natal is the book Nell reads: Nell interacts with the book by performing real world gestures and voice prompts. If Microsoft pulls this off, I could easily imagine interactive textbooks (like the text in The Diamond Age) delivered via educational gaming in this medium.