Wardrobe Malfunction

Powerset disappoints

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:27:48 GMT

Looks like Powerset is debuting to decidedly negative reviews, e.g. see NY Times article at
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/powerset-debuts-with-search-of-wikipedia/index.html

I think there are a number of factors working against Powerset. First, the media had been billing them as a "Google killer" -- makes a great story, but the claim wasn't ever backed up by any concrete reasons to believe. So, they were set up by the media to disappoint. Second, there's no evidence that natural-language search is better than keyword-based search for most queries. Never has been. Third, it's really hard to start a search engine -- consider how much money, engineering talent, and computing power Microsoft put into Live Search, and it sucks. Fourth, the existing players are so well established -- Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask.com -- that Powerset had to be not just better than the incumbents, but *significantly* better than the incumbents if it was going to pull any market share.

If I were doing an Internet startup, search and web-based email are absolutely the last things I would try. (Email has unique challenges because nobody wants to change their email address just to use a new service.) Seriously, it would be easier to unseat eBay/craigslist, or AIM/MSN Messenger, or Facebook, than to try to beat the four major search engines. (Of course, if you're really smart you go into a completely new area, but my point is just that of the old-and-established areas, search is about as bad a choice as you can make.)

NY Times says Seattle is the next Silicon Valley, UW the next Stanford

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:48:51 GMT

The article might be going a bit overboard -- I don't think anywhere will *ever* replace Silicon Valley for the computer start-up culture -- but there's definitely a lot of positive momentum in Seattle, and UW is truly second only to Stanford in turning out outstanding computer scientists and entrepreneurs(and I say that having gone to Berkeley!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/technology/08nation.html

Downtown Berkeley is a godawful pit

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:35:40 GMT

And this isn't going to fix it. Too many restrictions on what can be built. Look at Emeryville and Fourth Street in Berkeley for areas with fewer restrictions and correspondingly much more vibrant business districts.

There's a part of the curve where more zoning restrictions make a community nicer, but then you pass the inflection point (and Berkeley is WAY past the inflection point) and the restrictions create an atmosphere where nobody wants to build or start a business.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/17/BALCTUP9R.DTL

Shuttles galore

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:42:45 GMT

Is there any Bay Area tech company that *doesn't* run shuttles between San Francisco neighborhoods and their corporate headquarters anymore? These days I routinely see buses from Google, Yahoo, Genentech, and Apple roving around my neighborhood. I'm really glad the idea has taken off, since it's tons better for the environment than having all of those people driving their individual cars. It would be great if the city of San Francisco could do more to encourage these company shuttle programs.

North Berkeley post office

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 03:06:58 GMT

Ah, shoebox-sized, interminable-wait-inducing North Berkeley post office, how I do not miss thee!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/07/DDQSTO22K.DTL&feed=rss.entertainment

(see second mini-article on the page)

Best. Video. Ever.

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:58:12 GMT

Here comes another bubble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi4fzvQ6I-o

Lou Dobbs to get his own radio show

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:06:02 GMT

So apparently Lou Dobbs, the narcissistic, pea-brained xenophobe who spews idiocy nightly on CNN, is going to get his own three-hour radio show. I hope he fails miserably, and quickly. One article I read pointed out that he is trying to sell his show/himself as a moderate/populist (to contrast himself with the host he will be competing against, right-winger Sean Hannity) but it really wasn't until Dobbs started adopting far-right views (like his extreme position on immigration) that he started to get good ratings on CNN. So, it's really just one more right-wing nutjob with his own radio show. Oh joy, just what America needs.

The story behind Facebook

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:35:51 GMT

A fascinating read. Things never are as they seem.

http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1724.html

LiveJournal sold to Russian company

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:12:37 GMT

First the founder leaves, now the entire company is sold to a Russian company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/technology/03deal.html

Russian Firm Buys LiveJournal

The owner of LiveJournal, a blogging and social-networking site, agreed yesterday to sell the company to SUP, a Russian online media company, in the latest example of deal-making in the social-networking sector.

Financial terms of SUP’s deal with Six Apart, which owns LiveJournal, were not disclosed.

[...]

Though its biggest user base is the United States, LiveJournal has become exceedingly popular in Russia, finding about 28 percent of its audience there. Last year, SUP struck a licensing deal with Six Apart to manage LiveJournal.ru, the site’s Russian component.

LiveJournal Founder/Chief Architect leaving Six Apart for Google

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:09:19 GMT

This is pretty big news -- Brad Fitzpatrick is leaving LiveJournal/Six Apart for Google.

http://valleywag.com/tech/brad-fitzpatrick/livejournal-creator-leaves-as-six-apart-fails-to-spin-286218.php
confirmed in
http://brad.livejournal.com/2334177.html

Insignificant Others (containers spoilers)

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:51:43 GMT

(contains spoilers)

I saw the musical "Insignificant Others" here in San Francisco last night. It was great; I highly recommend it. I think that if it can re-localize some of the San Francisco-specific references (you really have to have been to Rainbow Grocery to truly appreciate it), it will be a great success in other cities as well. I regret not having seen it earlier as a workshop production, as I assume some changes were made, and it would be cool to watch the musical evolve.

(again, spoiler upcoming!)

On the subject of evolving, I was left with a feeling that there must have been an earlier version--perhaps when it was workshopped, or perhaps earlier than that--in which Luke dies and never appears in Act 2. The reactions of Luke's friends in Act 2 struck me more as those of someone whose friend has died, and ever so slightly exaggerated for someone whose friend has simply moved out of town. I suppose the point might have been that these friends had *such* a strong bond that that was truly how they felt, but I saw echoes of some of the scenes in Rent when Angel dies, and felt like there must have been a version of Insignificant Others in which Luke dies.

In any event, this certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the musical. If you get a chance to see it, definitely do so! You won't regret it.

San Francisco shuts down Halloween in the Castro

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:52:22 GMT

This is ridiculous...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/01/state/n211009D90.DTL

City officials shut down annual Castro Halloween bash

Friday, June 1, 2007

Halloween revelers in San Francisco will have to find a new place to haunt this year after city officials decided to shut down the Castro district's yearly street party.

The section of Market and Castro Streets usually blocked off for the costumed extravaganza will remain open to traffic. There will be no portable toilets provided and no stages erected for entertainment, officials said.

Merchants are being asked to close early, said Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the Castro, and some have already agreed to do so.

Moving the famous street party — a decades-long tradition in the gay enclave — has been an annual discussion since violence has increasingly defined the event. Last year a gunman shot nine people, and in 2002 four people were stabbed.

San Francisco officials tried to start an alternative party at the Civic Center from 1996-2001. But party-seekers went to the Castro anyway, and police had to patrol both events.

City officials have proposed moving the party to a parking lot at AT&T Park, and luring a top-name entertainer to help private promoters recoup the costs of the event.

"People are still going to go to the Castro," said Ted Strawser, founder of the San Francisco Party Party, a group that opposes the move. "Without services, they're just going to pee in the street, and without entertainment, mischief will occur."

JetBlue followup: Barbara Boxer on JetBlue's "passenger bill of rights"

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:11:42 GMT

I certainly don't always agree with Barbara Boxer, but this is great stuff. Quick audio clip from NPR's "All Things Considered."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7501289

Some thoughts on JetBlue

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:05:24 GMT

The media in the United States loves bandwagons. Instead of exercising critical thinking, they constantly ride the latest bandwagon, under the assumption that articles extolling the latest fad will sell newspapers (or attract viewers to the television, or what have you). As a result, they are frequently wrong. Examples abound, from the run-up to the Iraq war, to the "housing boom" which was supposed to go on forever (but didn't), to the "housing bust" which was supposed to hit (but hasn't).

The latest mea culpa from the media is the media's perennial second-favorite airline (after Southwest): JetBlue. Until this week, the media couldn't say enough good things about JetBlue. Yet anyone who has flown JetBlue frequently or who reads any of the myriad airline message forums on the Internet knows that JetBlue's media image has always been a far cry from its reality. The airline is chronically late and is unable to handle "irregular operations" like weather problems, mechanical problems, and the like. This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands anything about the airline--they rely on a single hub (JFK), they do not have inter-line agreements (like the major carriers do) that allow them to put their passengers onto other airlines when flights are canceled, they have no call centers, they have a reservation system that was put together on the cheap (rather than paying the big money for a system like SABRE), they are in the business of transcontinental flights yet they use an aircraft type (A320) that when fully loaded cannot fly westbound transcons during strong winter headwinds without stopping to refuel, and the like.

So the events of this week came as no surprise to those who had been watching JetBlue with an independent eye over the years rather than just soaking up the media love-fest. Indeed, something very similar happened to JetBlue last year around this time when very bad weather hit JFK. It just wasn't as widely reported.

Unfortunately I think the media is still missing the boat, when they blame the problems on weather. While weather was the proximate cause of the failure, the real villain is JetBlue's structure and operational choices that I mentioned earlier. People who fly JetBlue frequently know that this causes problems on a daily basis, not just during a once-a-year snowstorm.

Simply put, JetBlue provides a comfortable on-board experience, but their reliability is terrible -- it always has been, and unless they completely revamp their business by addressing the problems I mentioned earlier, it always will be.

Silicon Valley booming due to globalization -- a fact you're not likely to see Lou Dobbs ever report

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:41:22 GMT

Wait, I thought that the inept luddite retard Lou Dobbs told us that immigration and globalization was going to take away jobs and ruin the country! How can it be that these forces are actually strengthening the economy and adding jobs?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/28/BUGDANPQFM1.DTL

Silicon Valley booming again after 5-year slump
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer

...

Globalization is helping to expand the valley's economy, rather than threatening it, according to the 2007 Silicon Valley Index, produced by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a public-private partnership.

One of the study's principal findings is that the area is thriving as it both competes and collaborates with tech centers around the world. Despite some predictions that Silicon Valley would lose out because of globalization, the region is keeping its lead as a capital of technology investment and employment.

For the first time since the dot-com collapse, Silicon Valley added a substantial number of jobs in the year ended June 30, the report showed.

The 33,000 new payroll jobs -- a 2.9 percent increase -- spanned a broad range of technology sectors. They reflect a significant turnaround in a business cycle where employment had been declining or stagnant since 2000. Meanwhile, the region's unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent, and its share of U.S. venture capital continued to grow.

"We've reinvented ourselves for at least the fifth or sixth time since the 1950s," said Russell Hancock, chief executive officer of Joint Venture, in a preview of the report.

The study will be released Friday at a State of the Valley conference featuring former Vice President Al Gore and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

...

[T]he valley's ties to the rest of the globe have strengthened. With 36 percent of its residents born abroad, the San Jose area has supplanted Los Angeles for having the second-most international population in the country. Miami remains No. 1. The immigrant impact is particularly strong in the arena of science and engineering: 55 percent of valley workers in those occupations are foreign-born.

The global flavor extends to the flow of ideas and capital.

International co-patenting -- patents with co-inventors from Silicon Valley and abroad -- increased sixfold in the valley from 1993 to 2005. India, China, Italy, Hong Kong, Finland and Taiwan are the countries providing the most co-inventors.

Venture capital from around the globe pours into Silicon Valley, with the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Japan, Israel and Singapore investing the most.

...

New York Times article rips UC Berkeley for admitting the best students, if they're Asian-American

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:57:43 GMT

I almost always agree with the political slant of the New York Times, but I (as a non-Asian UC Berkeley grad) was really offended by an article this week in the Times called "Little Asia on the Hill." The premise of the article--which is cast as a news article but is really nothing more than a diatribe--is that there are too many Asian undergrads at Berkeley, because they make up 41% of the student population but only 12% of the state population.

While my feelings about Proposition 209 are mixed, my main complaint is with the article itself. It is entirely one-sided and completely neglects to mention the contributions that Asian-American students make to campus life, both academically and extracurricularly, at Berkeley.

Ironically, it looks like the New York Times is now pushing the same absurd "culture war" crap that Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, and Lou Dobbs are -- namely, that native-born Americans are discriminated against, that minorities are overrunning/invading/ruining our country, etc. Sure, Fox News and Lou Dobbs hate the Mexicans and the Times seems to hate the Asians ("About 95 percent of Asian freshmen come from a family in which one or both parents were born outside the United States"), but it's still the same xenophobic bottom line: we can't let outsiders compete (for jobs, education, or what have you) or the country will collapse. On the contrary, I'd argue that it is exactly these "outsiders" who have proven throughout our country's history to be its best assets, and are our only hope for remaining competitive in the global economy -- something that benefits ALL residents of our country, regardless of their race or national origin.

Article is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/education/edlife/07asian.html

Major reorg at Yahoo, COO fired

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 03:27:28 GMT

If they'd just fire Semel, they'd be so much better off, but I guess this is a start. I think this is a promotion for Decker, who people say is being groomed to replace Semel sooner or later.

Edited to add: A followup announcement says that Lloyd Braun is also leaving. He, along with Semel, spearheaded the attempt to turn Yahoo from an Internet company into a Hollywood-style media company. It obviously didn't work, so this is further good news for Yahoo.

Yahoo reorganizing, COO Rosensweig to leave
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:16 PM ET Dec 5, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday evening that it is reorganizing in a move that will see the departure of Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig at the end of March.

The Internet company said Susan Decker, who has served as chief financial officer since 2000, will become the head of the Advertiser & Publisher Group, one of the three operating groups that will emerge from the reorganization.

The Internet company said its goal is to align operations with "key customer segments audiences, advertisers and publishers," and to more effectively leverage strengths "to capture future opportunities for growth."

Under the new structure, Yahoo will have two customer-focused groups, which will be the Audience Group and the Advertiser & Publisher Group, and a strengthened technology group led by Chief Technology Officer Farzad Nazem.

Yahoo!'s "Peanut Butter" Manifesto

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:39:18 GMT

Very interesting reading from today's Wall Street Journal. (Sorry, subscription required, but I must say that the WSJ is one of the few subscription-based services on the Internet that is actually worth the money.)

As Yahoo Falters, Executive's Memo Calls for Overhaul
'Peanut Butter Manifesto' Seeking Focus and Cuts Makes Waves at Web Titan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116382323602227236.html

"Can I show you my new iPod shuffle?"

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:12:38 GMT

This is a hilarious CNN piece that was supposed to promote the Microsoft Zune but went horribly, horribly wrong, and turned into an advertisement for Apple.

I'm sad to say that the general consensus is that the Zune is Dead on Arrival. This is traditional for the first version of any product from Microsoft, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with something substantially better in 6-12 months.

http://spicygadgetroll.blogspot.com/2006/11/cnnzuneno-love-can-i-show-you-my-new.html

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:32:31 GMT

Best news of the night: Santorum lost. What a disgraceful, disgusting excuse for a human being he is.

Yet another article on why tech entrepreneurship lives in Silicon Valley

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:29:39 GMT

The NY Times seems somewhat obsessed with this meme about Silicon Valley being the only place where tech entrepreneurship can occur. (Which is odd, considering that they're a New York newspaper.) Today's article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/business/yourmoney/22digi.html

is called "It’s Not the People You Know. It’s Where You Are." Part focuses on the Venture Capital part of the equation, explaining why most VCs balk at funding startups that are located outside of Silicon Valley (you'll have to read the article to find out). Part of the article focuses on the talent pool being much better in Silicon Valley than anywhere else.

Among the cities dissed in the article: Boston, New York, and LA. ;-)

Why computer innovation happens almost exclusively in Silicon Valley

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:05:59 GMT

Today's NY Times has an interesting article about the multitude of companies that the original employees of PayPal have gone on to create. It reminded me of a great Paul Graham essay I had read some months ago, so I thought I would post them.

Both of these articles revolve around the question of why, despite the ease of communication, online collaboration, and physical travel these days, almost every successful computer company starts in Silicon Valley. If anything, this trend has become even stronger in the past decade, as the companies of the first and second Web booms have been so numerous and so concentrated in Silicon Valley.

Rather than try to summarize the articles, I'll provide links and let you read them yourselves.

It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley (NY Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/technology/17paypal.html

How to be Silicon Valey (Paul Graham)
http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

Yahoo! looks to extraterrestrials to save its business

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:05:42 GMT

I never realized they were this desperate!

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/10/09/mexico.yahoo.reut/

Is Yahoo! finished?

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 06:56:19 GMT

...as a growth company, at least?

Interesting article in today's NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/technology/11yahoo.html

The thing that was most interesting to me was the observation in the article that there's nothing that Yahoo! is the BEST at. All the other guys are the best/most popular at something (though rarely more than one thing) -- Google is the best at search, AOL is the best at instant messenger, Microsoft is the best at web-based email, YouTube (now Google) is the best at video, CNN is the best at news, ESPN is the best at sports, MySpace is the best at social networking, etc. But Yahoo! is the best at...what? If there is something they're the best at, it's not a high-impact service like the ones I've mentioned.

So while no one is predicting that Yahoo! will disappear, one does wonder how Yahoo! is going to get out of its current rut.

One possibility: as Yahoo's stock continues to tank, it becomes an increasingly affordable takeover target for Microsoft. Could we see Yasoft (or Microo!) in the upcoming year?

60 Minutes Expose on the No-Fly List

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:20:53 GMT

60 Minutes did a great expose on the so-called "No Fly List" this past Sunday. You can read about it here
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/main2066624.shtml

Among the "interesting" findings:

1) There are lots of people on the list who very obviously shouldn't be. For example, 14 of the 19 9/11 hijackers are on the list as of spring 2006. (Hint: they've been dead since 9/11/01). Also, there are various heads of state on the list, like the President of Bolivia and the head of the Lebanese parliament (who has met with Condi recently).

2) The US government intentionally leaves some terrorists' names off the list, because they don't want them to find out that the government knows they're terrorists. I'm not making this up.

3) Anyone with a first and last name that matches someone on the list is assumed to be a terrorist. They interviewed a group of people named Robert Johnson. One of them was forced to take off his pants for the security screening. Needless to say, none of them are allowed to check in online, but that's the least of their worries -- it's the abuse they are forced to take at the TSA screening checkpoint that seems to be driving them crazy.

4) You cannot get off the list once you are on it.

Any frequent traveler already knew all of this, and about the general incompetence of the TSA, but it's good that the message is finally getting out to the general public.