admin My answers are usually quite – shall we say realistic – when people ask me what it is like to live in NY. It’s tough here, but the quality which I realize and now appreciate more. True of all big cities and all wide open places, is the ability to create your own reality and … Read more
Isn’t it strange that we need to consume life in order to live…. Even the strictest vegans will need to eat things once alive to gain their energy. The simplest grains, beans and vegatables were all once alive. You can survive only for so long with eating rocks, mineral salts and solar power (like trees … Read more
For improvising to. Enjoy.
Here is my loan repayment history so far on Kiva. This has all been from a $100 loan. 13/16 loans already 100% paid back, 3 loan’s in the process of being paid back. I am choosing the loans and try to lend to institutions who have a great repayment history / low risk for housing, … Read more
In February – I took a trip to Mountain View as a ‘3rd Rounder’ for their recruitment process. Although I didn’t get the position, it was certainly interesting to see the Internet Giant up close (and to a limited extent – to view its day to day operations from within). In preparation for my interview, … Read more
It seems very clear to me that the origins of human intelligence was selective pressure, especially at the group level. That unwritten history is likely bloodier than written history seems almost certain. Inter-species warfare created the ever larger brain, much like deer’s antlers or any other tool in a virtuous feedback loop. That is what … Read more
Blast from the Past!! http://murmurtoronto.ca/place.php?277649 Circa 2003.. Interactive Cell Phone Audio Tours. Was recently contacted by a tourism dot com and reminded about what people like Gabe Sawhney were up to in 2003. Ahh… I recorded one for Future’s Bakery, a hang out of hangouts where my roommates used to work. A ton of chess … Read more
Another Great One from Michel Gondry. Metronomy – Love Letters from Partizan on Vimeo.
Paradigm shifts, Creative destruction, call it what you will. The end of store in America, how can an employee hourly model compete with an online no-rent/no-brick model. Commercial landlords in malls must be scratching their heads as my beloved Barnes & Noble is. What survives will likely be a hybrid -> commission sales based / … Read more
The French own the great terms of love….the Germans seem to own all the good terms for longing: Fernweh Schadenfreude Sturm und Drang
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/nyregion/17hustlers.html In my opinion, they missed Rebecca, The Professor, GM William Lombardy, Red, Nate and a few others…..though none – except for Red were full time Hustlers. This is the world down at the Chess Shop (when it was there) and less fun imho… ==>Union Square. The talkative world and world of cigarettes, 2$ blitz … Read more
Congrats Janet Yellen on your appointment to the Fed as Chairwoman. Akerlof and Schiller are your inner-circle, pretty sweet. That’s a lot of Nobel laureates over for dinner at one time. I am very glad the most qualified candidate is female – that is you! Less joyous regarding the dovish stance on rates however. Being … Read more
I went to France recently and visited Arles. Will write more but thought to post these photos.
Finance ‘storming’ here… Is living on the top of a 10 story building exactly as safe as the 2nd floor? Can you say that 100 oranges are equal to 200 christmas cards. Is paramount pictures worth as much as a mining company? Is there true fungibility. Is one slightly riskier than the other and is … Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/nyregion/eight-charged-in-45-million-global-cyber-bank-thefts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 This was an interesting article, there is a certain meritocracy in people using information more adeptly and cleverly than others, likely in this case the others being gulf banks, with laggard security systems and high networth Emirati accounts. Brainstorm time:: Reading about quantum computing stuff right now ::: we are close but still far … Read more
Well… natural scientists smash together particles to discover how things are fundamentally made… Perhaps there is a bit of that in this cooking show by Anthony Bourdain while in a conflict zone – not sure what else to say, but it is an interesting episode of great range. … Read more
Have been working on this tune… Thinking about the ‘essence’ of circles versus triangles, in the geometric sense. Related to each other too in some stranger, fundamental way. A circle can be inside a triangle and vice versa, there are trigonometric relationships, Conic Sections,, etc etc… Hope you enjoy.
Luckily the world is mostly full of ‘white hats’ as the term is used. In a day to day / data form driven world. The sweet spot of rigorous authentication while allowing people to forget passwords doesn’t really take into account the ‘systemic’ risk of standardizing authentication questions and other unique ways to identify you … Read more
After several years in Music/Media, I finally made it to the big annual show! South by SouthWest A photo from our Spinner Showcase concert (3.13.2013) at Austin City Limits.
Some recommended Design and Media docs if you are looking to check out. Press Play Pause – Quite the anthem for possibilities of New Media. Indie Game – One or two people (which is a very small number) join forces to create a video game. Specifically for the XBox. Given the amount of … Read more
Found an old pic from Montreal Barcamp… Sneaksend was a steganography app which embedded images by appropriating the least significant bits in an octet of an image. For eg. 11110101 and using the last digits (0101) to encode information. Ran on Django+Chery.py — will have to recreate one day. Sneaksend from guest779445
Our CEO quoted Andy Warhol today. That is awesome “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art” -Andy Warhol
This came in my email today. Undoubtedly a push for Linkedin, but it was also good to celebrate and look back at all the hard work these past years. Now back down to earth :) Hurray! You have one of the top 5% most viewed @LinkedIn profiles for 2012. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/profile/6/185/665
Some new Business terms I would love to insert into the lexicon. Network Value: It’s close to Metcalfe’s law, but basically mentioning that something is valuable greater than the sum of its parts – if and only if – it is connected. Metcalfe’s law is N^2 to the value, where N is users. Dead Man’s … Read more
For Tomorrow’s – Infinity For Today’s – A Dollar For Yesterday’s – Nothing
The watchmaker analogy as it is known, made by William Paley states that a complex design, such as an eye, implies a designer…. For whatever reason, this thought popped into my head one day while in the shower*. The role of ‘feature level’ in discussing how a machine is naturally selected and evolves is critical. … Read more
Some Photos of Disrupt 2012, SF – where Zuckerberg made an appearance to speak. It was interesting, I learned a lot, most notably about the media news cycle but also (i think) about some of the in-the-room vibe of one M. Zuckerberg. Here is a person who could of cashed out many years ago. Empirically, … Read more
Dear World, Here is a version of Ravel’s Tune in lead sheet format. Useful for improvisation. Wasn’t able to find one and just ended up writing it out. Jpeg Version http://www.alwinian.net/sheetmusic/Ravel_Pavane_(Lead_Sheet)_arr.alwin.jpg PDF Version http://www.alwinian.net/sheetmusic/Ravel_Pavane_(Lead_Sheet)_arr.alwin.pdf No restrictions on use. Can be copied + modified, rearranged, deranged freely. Enjoy! A
The cord juts out on the current model in a not-so-subtle way that makes it prone to break. A. This version would wrap the cord around a middle groove. B. The cord coming out would be angled in such a way that it never needs to point in any other direction.
Don’t have this figured out.. but what is the relationship between america’s first founders and silicon valley, when it comes to self-governance. There seems to be one, but it is across so many different ‘dimensions’ that its tough to describe. Successful self-governance between many parties is almost landing a bowling ball on a pin. The … Read more