Category Archives: Personal

Free Speech is Academic

An untenured professor in Boston, apparently directed by college administrators to “engage” students about the massacre at Virginia Tech, did exactly that. As he relates the story, he “opened the discussion by summarizing nonviolent philosophies before holding up a marker and asking the class to acknowledge that it was not a weapon.”   Nicholas Winset went on to re-enact part of the shooting, using his marker to ‘shoot’ people.

The result? He got fired. I’ll be the first one to say that Emmanuel College can fire whomever it wants to. In the same breath, I’ll say that any college that stifles non-conforming and/or controversial ideas is, in fact, not a college at all.

Pearls Before Breakfast

My friend Jeff pointed me to this article in the Washington Post. I think it’s a great read, but it’s long, and the videos are worth watching – it will take you 10 or 15 minutes to get through.

As a stunt, they put a world-class violinist in a Washington DC subway station to see if anyone noticed. The reporters interviewed dozens of people for a “commuting story,” and the whole thing was filmed. The question is whether or not he distinguishes himself. The classical music critics say that he is great. Is that validated by the subway crowd? Does his greatness come through? Can he create a crowd, just by being there and being very good?

The short answer is essentially no: pretty much nobody notices or cares. But there are exceptions, and they are interesting. Kids are fascinated. A couple people know they are getting something special, even if they don’t know what it is. Looking at the video I strongly suspect I’d be one of the people blowing past without a thought. I’m certain I wouldn’t be paying $100 to see him in person, either. But still, if you told me I who I was walking past, I would stop and listen. I’d be affected by the “name” more than the music.

There is some interesting commentary in the article about how great art is defined. The whole experiment made me think about New Orleans Jazz Fest. I go to the fest headliners because they’re headliners, and sometimes they’re great and sometimes they’re iffy. I also wander around and stop for a song or two from a few dozen artists. Sometimes those snippets reel me in. I have entire sections of my music library that I found stumbling around the New Orleans Fairgrounds. Of course, it’s still a question of context – it’s a jazzfest afterall, not the subway, and I’m ready to listen. But still, the headline didn’t matter. The music did.

Opening Day at Fenway

Opening Day at Fenway today. It was a great game – not in the baseball purist sense, but great for the home team. Lots of runs made it almost academic early. Beckett pitched pretty well, too, thought it was overshadowed by the offense. … See my Tabblo

Matsuzaka says: Just Do It

After months of hype and excitement, tomorrow Dice-K takes the mound. I’m really looking forward to it. Of course, I’m not the only one. Lots of people in Japan are going to be awake at 2AM their time to see his first pitch. Me, I’ll just be at work, trying not to be too distracted.

I got a kick out of this new Nike ad that’s running in Japan. It has all the hype and hope condensed into 30 seconds.

Web 2.0 Goes Jock

Co-worker Matt pointed me to BallHype, found via TechCrunch.

I do my share of sports watching. But I don’t read/watch much sports reporting. I find it too repetitive. I mean, how many times can one person hear about Terrel Owen’s latest meltdown? Once is plenty. Even sports writers that I enjoy, like Bill Simmons, are a bit hit-or-miss.

BallHype looks like it will help me filter. I’m going to let it show me what is interesting and what isn’t. I get to help shape what is seen as important and what isn’t. Neat twist: I can pick games and get to have my record tracked and matched against others.

I think Web 2.0 mavens look at this and say “boring, it’s been done, look at Digg.” I think everyone else will be a bit confused at first. But this is one of those websites that can jump from the first 50,000 users up to 500,000 and maybe even 50,000,000. They’re combining some of the social website dynamics that have flowered in the last couple years with an audience that has been proven to be loyal and lucrative in other areas. I think it could take off.

If you register, search for ‘dunster‘ and add me as a friend.

Warren Buffet’s Annual Shareholder Letter

Back in the day, you had to know someone to get a chance to read this.  As the internet progressed you’d find someone who scanned it and posted it on the web.  Nowadays, all you have to do is just click.  I think it’s an interesting read.  Buffet is such an interesting character, and he’s been so successful for so long – it’s just fascinating.  It doesn’t hurt that his writing style is clear and engaging.

HP Buying Tabblo

This morning Hewlett Packard announced that it was buying Tabblo.

It’s a pretty interesting acquisition. Tabblo has been been building a business by converting an online experience into a real-world experience; we take your pictures and your words and we put them on paper. HP makes a lot of money in that real world, putting those pictures and words on paper. HP stands to make even more money by doing that more, on more websites, with more partners, in more formats. Tabblo is going to help HP do that. GigaOM covers it well.

If you want to see our very first run at the problem, check out our PhotoCubes. All you need is a printer and scissors. It may be the slickest Tabblo experience yet. Very simple, very easy to get started, and a satisfying, physical result.

At Abuzz, a previous company I worked at, I’d often get a pop-up warning that the printer was out of paper or ink. When I went to the printer I’d find that it had hundreds of pages spilling out of it, all web pages, and had hundreds more in the print queue. When I talked to coworkers about it, they reported similar experiences. We blamed the interns. It became a running joke: “They’re printing out the internet, just in case it crashes.” Here we are, 8 years later, and it’s my corporate mission to be “the print engine for the web.” I am amused.

What does this mean for me personally? A longer commute, for sure. But having met our new bosses today, it looks like it will be an interesting trip as we learn the “HP Way.” This may turn out to be the company that I stick with. Only time will tell.

For those of you who are keeping score at home, this is my 6th time being acquired in less than 10 years. I might as well have titled this post “HP Puts Itself On the Auction Block.” They are a mortal lock to be bought by someone else now that I work for them. Let’s review my email addresses. None of these are corporate name changes; they are all acquisitions or job changes: @planetall.com, @amazon.com, @abuzz.com, @nytimes.com, @eroom.com, @documentum.com, @emc.com, @imlogic.com, @symantec.com, @tabblo.com, and now, @hp.com.

As Kent Brockman might say: “I for one welcome our new corporate overlords.”

Jeremy’s Birthday

Afterwards, Jeremy and I went to Mom’s house. You can see that she has a very large puddle in the front yard. Water in the front yard tends to go into the basement unless it is piped into the back yard. The problem is that the drainage pipe was still frozen solid. The front yard’s pond was growing.
… Read and see more at Tabblo