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Science and Tech
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02.14.07Tired of Early Birds Getting the Worm?the early bird get's [sic] the worm, originally uploaded by thomas23 Here's a piece of marketing copy from the not too distant future: "Tired of Early Birds Getting the Worm? Try <insert treatment here>!" The thought hit me while reading Brad Feld's recent post on morning routine; he writes: Some people are early birds; some people are night owls. I’ve always been an early bird. Actually, this distinction has a bit of scientific history that's worth delving into. In 1976, the Horne-Ostberg "Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire" (MEQ) established a classification system for interpreting variations in human circadian rythms. We all ...
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01.31.07A Tale of Two Food AdditivesFood Supplement Bottle, orginally uploaded by ertessplastic Over the last couple weeks, the New York Times has put out two articles on "food additives" that offer, I think, an interesting case study for what works and what doesn't in what will likely be a growing field. In the first, "Magical or Overrated? A Food Additive in a Swirl," Gary Rivlin addresses Martek Biosciences, a venture-backed entity that has experimented with and marketed various forms of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation. The company has seen success selling the additive to infant formulation companies but has faced challenges in gaining broader adoption. ...
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01.23.07New Google Homepage GUI and Others I’d Like to SeeGoogle just introduced a new feature to their personalized homepage that enables a snapshot view of feed articles. One of my qualms with the all-inclusive homepages (e.g. netvives, pageflakes, goowy, etc.) has been the inability to get more than an article headline at a glance. In coaxing a colleague off My Yahoo!, I ran through the demonstrable alternatives which largely require separate homepage and feed reader apps. I'd love to see Google attempt a meld of their excellent services, but they've come one step closer today with the "+" button to the left of feed headlines on the homepage (see screenshot below): ...
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01.12.07Anonymity Preservation Reaches New HeightsAs a former resident of NYC, where I enjoyed craigslist's enormous popularity and usefulness in all things housing/roommate/classifieds related, it was with a chuckle and a sigh that I read about new service craigsnumber in this morning's FierceVOIP. Taking a page out of craiglist's automated anonymous email system (amongst others that offer similar services including Yahoo! mail), craigsnumber allows one to generate a phone number that auto-forwards to another line - one's own phone presumably, though I'm sure pranksters will have their fun - and expires in a set period of time (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month). The service even ...
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01.02.07A Touch of EcocentrismAfter watching An Inconvenient Truth last Friday, I couldn't sit still. Two very disparate thoughts were coursing through me. First - rarely does the public witness such a positive reboot of a public figure (Gore). Michael Ray's wonderful book, The Highest Goal, came to mind. In it, Ray describes a binary life branching:1) "Do what you don't like, but should -> Get experience doing this -> Become great at doing what you dislike -> Gain opportunity to do more -> Live life empty of meaning," and2) "Do what you love and find meaningful -> Get experience doing what ...
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12.31.06"This Child Is Still You, Simply the Best of You"Some interesting news came in today, buried behind front page Gerald Ford memorials and recounts of the Saddam Hussein hanging and its aftermath. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that all expecting mothers, not just those over 35, receive testing options for Down syndrome. The details are muddied in the Washington Post article on the topic, but if you're willing to pay $20 to read the new guidelines, head to the January 2007 Obstetrics & Gynecology archives for access. At a high level, new testing techniques and improved understanding of prevalence are driving the recommendation. What struck me about the news is ...
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12.21.06Who Needs Doctors in 2030?I'm in the midst of reading Andy Kessler's new book, "The End of Medicine." It's an important read for those building or investing in healthcare services companies. Kessler plays the layman in the industry peering at it behind the lens of a tech/finance junkie. He sets out with the basic understanding that the healthcare system is enormous and bloated with cost, and brings hope that there's a killing to be made in overhauling it with technological intervention. That's an old tune, and Kessler's no geriatric fiddler. His "special sauce" lies in uncovering the diagnostic inventions that will remake the industry. Sure, electronic medical records will help, but Kessler ...
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12.08.06Book Review: NEXTMichael Crichton has a knack for blending reality with what could be or might have been. In Eaters of the Dead, one of my eighth grade world history reads, Crichton tackled the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon man connection and offered a new, somewhat plausible, take on the fantastical Beowulf saga. His newest novel, NEXT, manages the same scientific sleight of hand in today's shrouded world of biotech. One puts the book down wondering whether a mathematically-inclined African Grey parrot or advertising campaigns embedded genomically into sea turtle shells aren't so far out of the current realm of possibility. After all, I ...
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10.29.06Optoelectronic Sensing Cellphones, Part Deuxmouse calling, originally uploaded by Casperonline I've been fretting a lot lately about using the trackpad on my laptop. It's a complete productivity drain, but I haven't yet buckled down and purchased a decent mini-mouse on Amazon. So it struck me in the middle of a board meeting this past Thursday, influenced by the presenting CEO's setup, that a cellphone should double as a mouse. His blackberry was sitting right beside the laptop, nestled exactly where a mouse might be, and in my peripheral vision it appeared he went for the phone to move the cursor. An ah-ha! moment followed. The technology is there: ...
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10.18.06"We’re the Only Species That Looks Forward to a Future That’s Different"TED 2006: Burt Rutan, originally uploaded by curiouslee. Burt Rutan, winner of the first Ansari X-PRIZE in 2004 ($10 million for first privately funded org to launch a manned spacecraft into space twice over two weeks), spoke at the IdeaFestival in Louisville on Saturday night. I'm blogging about it because, while Burt spent a lot of time talking about spacecraft and the history of space travel, he structured the discussion with principals of innovation, specifically "breakthroughs." Here's a guy that all entrepreneurs should know. Salient points included: Breakthroughs are driven by (1) survival, (2) the avoidance of embarrassment for ...
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Welcome to Punctuative! Here you'll find occasionally insightful comments on entrepreneurship, venture capital, technology, and the future, as well as a nifty tool (coming soon) meant to help open doors in the financing world. Go ahead and explore.
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Subscribe to Tumblr FeedNYTimes Gaffe
July 6, 2008“An article today in Sunday Business about missed opportunities to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil refers to a 1990 effort by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, to block higher mileage requirements for vehicles and notes that Mr. Helms did not return calls seeking comment. The section went to press on Thursday, before Mr. Helms’s death Friday morning.” [from today’s NYTimes]
More and more, this kind of thing just feels like a mistake. How can text published on a Sunday be “sealed” on a Thursday? Consumption expectations have changed.
bluetooth baby monitor? oi. [via NYTimes]
June 17, 2008
bluetooth baby monitor? oi. [via NYTimes]"Stento believes the industry will yield better returns in the long run than buyout investments,..."
June 14, 2008“Stento believes the industry will yield better returns in the long run than buyout investments, despite the huge growth of the latter in recent years. “Relative to buyouts, I think of it as the tortoise and the hare. I think the [venture] returns from the 2001-2005 funds will beat buyout returns, but we may not know that for three to four years.””
- Greg Stento, HarbourVest Partners. VentureWire. Friday, June 13, 2008"A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9..."
June 10, 2008“A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.”
- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html"…the success of a Broadway show depends increasingly on the presence of bankable Hollywood..."
May 15, 2008“…the success of a Broadway show depends increasingly on the presence of bankable Hollywood names on the marquee, even for a nonprofit company like the Roundabout. “The reality is that stars sell single tickets,” Mr. Haimes said. “A third of our budget” — about $14 million a year — “comes from single ticket sales, and probably the most important aspect to single ticket sales is the name of the show and who’s in it. There is pressure, no doubt about it.””
- The British Actor Ben Daniels Seduces American Theatergoers as Valmont in ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ - New York TimesThe ride reminds me of the Italian art futurism movement (early...
May 11, 2008
The ride reminds me of the Italian art futurism movement (early part of the 20th century) and the rider, a 50s hipster. Cool asics. [via]
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