August 2012
“Saudade (Portuguese): The feeling of longing for someone that you love and is lost. Another linguist describes it as a “vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist.” It’s interesting that saudade accommodates in one word the haunting desire for a lost love, or for an imaginary, impossible, never-to-be-experienced love. Whether the object has been lost or will never exist, it feels the same to the seeker, and leaves her in the same place: She has a desire with no future. Saudade doesn’t distinguish between a ghost, and a fantasy. Nor do our broken hearts, much of the time.”
—The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren’t Translatable Into English | Marriage 3.0 | Big Think
July 2012
“Mashape believes that by enabling API providers to easily host their killer APIs and any developers to quickly sign up to consume, it’s bringing some Github to the API space. In doing so, it wants to bring another revenue stream to companies both big and small to help them better monetize their APIs — and if that means it can soon turn a profit itself, all the better.”
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The API Hub: Jeff Bezos-Backed Mashape Launches To The Public With 430 APIs In Tow | TechCrunch
Mashape launched to the public today. VERY EXCITING.
Peter Jackson announces a third 'Hobbit' film →
insidemovies.ew.com
Middle Earth, round three!
“It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran [Walsh], Phil[lippa Boyens] and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie — and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’”
YES.
“We think almost every product is better when you can experience it with the people you care about so over time we expect almost all of these products should naturally become social.”
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Lolzuck.
(via extraface)
Who’s ready for social guilty pleasure shame porn consumption!
cew.georgetown.edu/unem… seems to show that the initial job is hard to get, but the employment rate drops a lot after that, lower than most other fields with higher pay.
Ah there it is. Yeah, seems to go down very quickly.
“A January 2012 analysis from the Georgetown center found 7.5 percent unemployment for engineering graduates and 8.2 percent among computer scientists.”
—
Is Algebra Necessary? - NYTimes.com
Why do I have trouble believing this? I would love to read that study.
Edit: I can’t find this January 2012 analysis, since it’s not properly linked, but there’s an October 11 report on STEM employment and education on the home page of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce and it literally doesn’t use the word unemployment once, and speaks almost exclusively of the demand far outstripping supply.
So what is this January 2012 analysis? I am now doubly skeptical.
“For example, venture capitalists don’t like funding companies that have reporters on staff. In the early days of BuzzFeed, I had several VCs say they were interested in investing if we could figure out a way to fire all the editors and still run the site. I’m not joking.Tech investors prefer pure platform companies because you can just focus on the tech, have the users produce the content for free, and scale the business globally without having to hire many people. Startups that promise this vision have an easier time attracting funding which is why there are so many startups trying to be the next Twitter or Facebook or the Instagram or Pinterest for X, Y, or Z. Meanwhile, companies that employ reporters, editors, and creative people usually struggle to get funding which is why so few publishing companies or agencies are venture backed.”
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BuzzFeed’s strategy - Chris Dixon (via rickwebb)
I used to hear this about Know Your Meme. Traditional tech investors just don’t speak Content. I’d even say that the label “Content” is part of the problem: it’s just “the stuff that users make.”
(via kenyatta)
Lately I’ve been thinking their fear of content sites is pretty comical, given how cheap journalists are compared to developers.
“For example, venture capitalists don’t like funding companies that have reporters on staff. In the early days of BuzzFeed, I had several VCs say they were interested in investing if we could figure out a way to fire all the editors and still run the site. I’m not joking.Tech investors prefer pure platform companies because you can just focus on the tech, have the users produce the content for free, and scale the business globally without having to hire many people. Startups that promise this vision have an easier time attracting funding which is why there are so many startups trying to be the next Twitter or Facebook or the Instagram or Pinterest for X, Y, or Z. Meanwhile, companies that employ reporters, editors, and creative people usually struggle to get funding which is why so few publishing companies or agencies are venture backed.”
—BuzzFeed’s strategy - Chris Dixon
“To participate in the dinner table conversation—to be able to think and talk about businesses and startups today in 2012—we must get a handle on the history of the ‘90s. It is questionable whether one can really understand startups without, say, knowing about Webvan or recognizing the Pets.com mascot.”
—Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 2 Notes Essay
“pre-money valuation = ($1Mn_engineers) - ($500kn_MBAs).”
—Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 3 Notes Essay
How to… start a record label – FACT magazine: music and art →
factmag.com
It’s been almost 15 years since I started my record label, but damn do these sentiments still ring exactly true. Even if I haven’t heard of half the labels in this article.
