Scott Rafer's Blog

"The marriage of Comcast and NBC is bad news. For consumers it spells higher prices, fewer choices..."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:26:10 -0800

“The marriage of Comcast and NBC is bad news. For consumers it spells higher prices, fewer choices and less innovation. But Washington and Wall Street have already bought into the idea that it’s a done deal. We must speak out and stop the merger before it’s too late. Sign on to our call to action and we will deliver a public message to President Obama, who has pledged “to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement,” and to officials at the FTC, FCC and DoJ who have the power to stop this mega-merger.”

- Free Press: media reform through education, organizing and advocacy:

Rafer sez:
I generally support what the FreePress guys are up to, but I can’t get excited about this effort. If Net Neutrality is upheld, the effects they are worried about will be too tiny to measure. If it doesn’t, Comcast has much greater ways exercising control than the Syfy Channel. This will help Comcast’s cash flow and in-fighting with the remains of the cable and broadcast world, but it’s not going to move the needle on Internet video.

"Because they considered that recent decline to be spurious, Dr. Jones and his colleagues removed it..."

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:50:39 -0800

“

Because they considered that recent decline to be spurious, Dr. Jones and his colleagues removed it from part of the graph and used direct thermometer readings instead. In a statement last week, Dr. Jones said there was nothing nefarious in what they had done, because the problems with the tree-ring data had been openly identified earlier and were known to experts.

But the graph adorned the cover of a report intended for policy makers and journalists. The nonexperts wouldn’t have realized that the scariest part of that graph — the recent temperatures soaring far above anything in the previous millennium — was based on a completely different measurement from the earlier portion. It looked like one smooth, continuous line leading straight upward to certain doom.

The story behind that graph certainly didn’t show that global warming was a hoax or a fraud, as some skeptics proclaimed, but it did illustrate another of their arguments: that the evidence for global warming is not as unequivocal as many scientists claim. (Go to nytimes.com/tierneylab for details.)

”

- Findings - Fracas Over Hacked Climate E-Mail Shows Peril of Spinning Science - NYTimes.com

Sawickipedia: So the science isn’t incontrovertible after all.

The models don’t really work without lots of fudging after all.

Making multi-trillion bets based on scientific methodology that would have gotten an F from my high school physics teacher? Lunacy.

(via sawickipedia)

Rafer sez:
Not lunacy. Inaccuracy, but not of the sort you are espousing. Global Warming is as much as misnomer as the Theory of Evolution. Climate Change is real.

kkr: cutest video ever that does not contain baby animals: how...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:01:37 -0800

kkr:

cutest video ever that does not contain baby animals: how google street view works.

"The point that I am trying to make is that some technological innovations are so revolutionary that..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:58:21 -0800

“The point that I am trying to make is that some technological innovations are so revolutionary that they change everything. The Gutenberg Press led to the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, journalism, the Enlightenment, and, arguably, representative democracy. It created what is today a European continent with near universal literacy. Before movable type, Europeans depended on priests to know what was inside of a book. Now they simply open its cover. That is a revolutionary difference. But what is important to remember is that not everyone benefited from the printing press. Scribes all across Europe protested. There aren’t good records of their protests, but I can just imagine their reasoning: that people would be overwhelmed by too much information; that they would become isolated reading at home rather than coming to church; that mediocrity would prevail if publishing was put into the hands of ordinary people. Basically, all of the same criticisms we hear of the Internet today. In the end, the scribes lost and the printing press won. With the benefit of historical perspective, we view the result as inevitable. And we are seeing the same dynamic play out today with traditional journalism and the participatory internet.”

- MediaShift Idea Lab . Changes in Media Over the Past 550 Years | PBS (via gross)

Rafer sez:
Information overload is presumed to be universal by incumbents and vendors but seems to only be felt by enterprise users and old people.

jayneff: Fedex Guerrilla marketing

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:26:20 -0800

jayneff:

Fedex Guerrilla marketing

"Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan War at the same annual..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:23:23 -0800

“Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan War at the same annual cost of universal health care will save more than 45,000 Americans a year (i.e. the number of Americans who die every year for lack of health insurance)?”

- David Sirota: Some Simple Questions After Obama’s Afghanistan War Speech (the whole list is good) (via marco)

"In some ways, opening up APIs means tapping into an army of technologists. Netflix opened up its API..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:06:16 -0800

“In some ways, opening up APIs means tapping into an army of technologists. Netflix opened up its API about a year and a half ago, offering developers access to its movie catalog, and 6,500 developers have registered to use it. Hundreds of apps have been born out of it, including simple things like adding movies to your queue from your phone or watching trailers, said Steve Swasey, VP-communications at Netflix. “It’s stuff we want to get to but just can’t because we’re limited by time and money,” he said.”

- Brands Get a Boost by Opening Up APIs to Outside Developers - Advertising Age - Digital

"We built server capacity for the day before Thanksgiving, then use only 50 percent of it the rest of..."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:32:49 -0800

““We built server capacity for the day before Thanksgiving, then use only 50 percent of it the rest of the year,” said Lisa Sharples, president of the site, which is based in Seattle.”

- Image by spike55151 via Flickr

Butterballs or Cheese Balls, an Online Barometer - NYTimes.com
Also: “How to” is the second-largest category on YouTube.
(via jryu)

Rafer sez:
This is “How Not To” provision server capacity in 2008, never mind 2009. Double the number of your instances in the cloud for that Wednesday and dial them back the rest of the year. Saves money, time, coal, etc.

(via rafer)

Sawickipedia: @rafer - it just hit me - there is going to be a wave of companies/startups that move to the cloud and beat incumbents as a result (much like amazon moved retail to the web). Not sure how to play that investment thesis but it seems like a winner. Given the cost and operational advantages of the clouse makes way too much sense.

(via sawickipedia)

Rafer sez:
I don’t think that there’s an investment thesis, per se. It’s a criteria for all investments.

Goodbye Droid, I'll [be] Back.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:05:09 -0800

Image via Wikipedia

nabeel:

…
[S]omeone should tell Motorola that no one wants a masculine phone. Even guys want something sexy, a sports car not a Hummer.

Rafer sez:
Typo or not, Nabeel has the title just right. What genius decided to copy the look-and-feel of Skynet to market a mobile phone.

Terminator Franchise Rights Up For Grabs (screenrant.com)

The Decline of the Wage System

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:04:18 -0800

The Decline of the Wage System:

/via hackernews

"We built server capacity for the day before Thanksgiving, then use only 50 percent of it the rest of..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:01:20 -0800

FriendDA -- Slightly more than a hearty handshake

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:39:15 -0800

FriendDA -- Slightly more than a hearty handshake:

Rafer sez:
Way to go Rand.

We need: A programmable Twitter client

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:28:35 -0800

rsscloud:

Unix had a shell language. DOS had a batch language. Lotus 1-2-3 had its macro language. Emacs is a programming tool as much as it is a text editor. We have gotten out of the habit of making programmable end-user products, but they are still just as important today as they were a couple of decades ago.
…
What if there were a relatively simple and low-power programming language built into a Twitter client that allowed power users to build their own little apps on top of Twitter. User interfaces for grouping tweets, or flowing groups of ideas to two places, Twitter and somewhere else. So that the bits that end up on Twitter are coherent and useful to people who don’t use the client, but somehow more useful to those who do.

…

For example, it’s been about two years since I first asked for an “unfollow-with-timeout.”

…

I’d also like a “block-with-timeout” feature.

Shouldn’t have to block someone to remove a single tweet from view. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve blocked people just to get a turd they sent to me out of my @replies tab.

Rafer sez:
Please oh please don’t forget “follow-with-mute” so we can DM people without listening seeing their tweets.

"[Google’s ] success is not about whether a lot of people use Chrome OS, but whether a lot of..."

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:01:51 -0800

“[Google’s ] success is not about whether a lot of people use Chrome OS, but whether a lot of people end up using Web applications.”

- VentureBeat | What are Google’s real motivations behind Chrome OS?

"It will be the saddest part of our wide-cast net of human awareness."

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:01:16 -0800

“It will be the saddest part of our wide-cast net of human awareness.”

- These Gentlemen: Facebook and Death

Rafer sez:
Or maybe the West will be forced to take a more reasonable view on Death.

"First lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a gleaming silver-sequined, flesh-colored gown Tuesday night..."

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:17:57 -0800

“First lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a gleaming silver-sequined, flesh-colored gown Tuesday night to the first state dinner held by her husband’s administration.”

- Maybe in retrospect “flesh-colored” wasn’t the best way to describe her dress color …

First lady wears Naeem Khan gown to state dinner [Via Sociological Images]

Rafer sez:
Greetings from the United States of Crayola. Wish you were here.

(via heyitsnoah)

Three things you should never tell a VC when fundraising - Fred Destin

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:09:49 -0800

Image by rsepulveda via Flickr

http://www.freddestin.com/blog/2009/11/three-things-you-should-never-tell-a-vc-when-fundraising.html

DailyMotion Bags €17 million, This Time With The French Government (eu.techcrunch.com)
Upon Hitting Profitability, Dailymotion Raises $22 Million More (uk.techcrunch.com)
Seedcamp Week 2009 Day 3 Highlights (seedcamp.com)

">Three things you should never tell a VC when fundraising - Fred Destin:

Rafer sez:
Like @msuster, Fred Destin’s a VC with a high founder empathy quotient. His pointers are right on the money.

Of course, that doesn’t change just how rarely institutional capital is good for founders. :)

"I reminded them that the Robinson transmission was designed to go 2200 hours without more than a..."

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:05:51 -0800

“I reminded them that the Robinson transmission was designed to go 2200 hours without more than a tiny risk of failure, which meant that it was going to be hugely overengineered and therefore heavy. I reminded them of Colin Chapman’s statement that “the perfect race car falls apart as it crosses the finish line.””

- Philip Greenspun’s Weblog » A day at the airport (via pukomuko)

"I just don’t think it’s possible to be usefully pro-business and anti-science at the same time."

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:05:01 -0800

“I just don’t think it’s possible to be usefully pro-business and anti-science at the same time.”

- Disinvesting In the USA

Rafer sez:
My investment strategy differs greatly from Tim Bray’s, but this analysis of the Republicans is priceless.

Colin Powell's Leadership Presentation

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:04:00 -0800

Colin Powell's Leadership Presentation