May 2010
27 posts
O'Reilly Open Books →
About Open Books
O’Reilly has published a number of Open Books—books with various forms of “open” copyright—over the years. The reasons for “opening” copyright, as well as the specific license agreements under which they are opened, are as varied as our authors.
Perhaps a book was outdated enough to be put out of print, yet some people still needed the...
Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution... →
Lessons learned as a print and online publisher:
Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
Piracy is progressive taxation.
Customers want to do the right thing, if they can.
Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy.
File sharing networks don’t threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers.
“Free” is...
Banned Books and Censorship, A Letter to the... →
I’ve enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn’t have any money, either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations,...
“As opposed to traditional firms where public relations is controlled by...”
– http://archrecord.construction.com/practice/business/1004practice-1.asp
User innovation →
User innovation refers to innovation by consumers and end users, rather than suppliers. Eric von Hippel (von Hippel 1986) of MIT and others observed that many products and services are actually developed or at least refined, by users, at the site of implementation and use. These ideas are then moved back into the supply network. This is because products are developed to meet the widest possible...
The Oracle of Silicon Valley: Tim O'Reilly →
O’Reilly began to see starting a company as an interesting way to live life on his own terms. “I wanted more control of my life,” he explained in a company newsletter in 2002. “I wanted work to fit in, not to dominate; to support, not to lead the pattern of my life.”
“There is a wonderful rigor in free-market economics,” he wrote in an early company...
Will Real Estate Developers Build Our Mass...
In his piece “Here Comes the Neighborhood,” real estate developer Christopher Leinberger (who also wrote the lauded 2008 piece “The Next Slums?”) brings up a point that’s in his frequently mentioned, but definitely important in the discussion of the long slow death of suburbs and the urban renaissance: “Two-thirds of all households today consist of singles, childless...
Some interesting thoughts on education
http://davetroy.com/posts/how-education-is-ruining-your-life
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=18167
http://gyanpedia.in/tft/Resources/books/DESCHOOLING.pdf (haven’t read it yet)
http://davetroy.com/posts/learning-by-accident
http://gyanpedia.in/tft/Resources/books/teachyourown.pdf (haven’t read it yet)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02engel.html?emc=eta1
...
Want to be an entrepreneur? Drop out of college →
“College works on the factory model, and is in many ways not suited to training entrepreneurs. You put in a student and out comes a scholar.”
“Entrepreneurship works on the apprenticeship model. The best way to learn how to be an entrepreneur is to start a company, and seek the advice of a successful entrepreneur in the area in which you are interested. Or work at a startup...
Kaspersky
Anna: On my way to pick [my new laptop] up right now :) we bought it plus antivirus plus microsoft office
Cody: Antivirus? Which
Anna: Didn't pay.. Free for 6 months. Kaspersky. Apparently geeksquad uses only that.
Cody: Kaspersky? What the heck is that?
Anna: Some guy who loves shutting hackers down and has ninjas working for him 24/7
poor people
One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, ‘How was the trip?’ ’It was great, Dad.’ ’Did you see how poor...
Kaspersky
Anna: On my way to pick [my new laptop] up right now :) we bought it plus antivirus plus microsoft office
Cody: Antivirus? [...] which one and why [did you] pay [for antivirus]?
Anna: Didn't pay.. Free for 6 months. Kaspersky. Apparently geeksquad uses only that.
Cody: Kaspersky? What the heck is that?
Anna: Some guy who loves shutting hackers down and has ninjas working for him 24/7
Consulting for Local Businesses
Today’s Inquiry:
I used to work for a large consulting firm and was on the road a lot. Now that I have my own firm and would rather spend time with my family, how do I build a solid base of local business?
Building a local base takes experimentation. Try some of these strategies, including a new approach to any of these strategies that “didn’t work before.” Join the local...
“…a certain amount of insurance in the form of proprietary technology,...”
– The Coming War Over Innovation
Copy machines - security risk →
Watch
Concerned Students + God
Why I went into Computer Science originally →
the modern era of data-driven science. “Science is becoming data-intensive and collaborative,” noted Ed Seidel, acting assistant director for NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences directorate. “Researchers from numerous disciplines need to work together to attack complex problems; openly sharing data will pave the way for researchers to communicate and collaborate more...
Entrepreneurship in Drexel Smart House
http://davetroy.com/?p=1136
“critical elements of successful entrepreneurship…. acquire key initial customers, product development, building a team and staff, operational infrastructure, raising capital, etc.”
Sounds like the top roles within Drexel Smart House (just replace “customers” with “supporters” or “granting agencies”, and note that our...
Flickr.rb
If you’re just starting with flickr.rb and are getting an error like
ArgumentError: File does not exist: .
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/xml-simple-1.0.12/lib/
xmlsimple.rb:984:in `find_xml_file'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/xml-simple-1.0.12/lib/
xmlsimple.rb:168:in `xml_in'
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/xml-simple-1.0.12/lib/
xmlsimple.rb:203:in...
Rails Select Tag (Undocumented)
I just spent a half-hour trying to figure out the easiest way to build an HTML select form using the Rails FormBuilder. Various tutorials suggested rendered a partial with a collection, or writing a custom FormBuilder. Its really just this easy though.. give the name and an array of options:
<% form_for @service_account do |f| %>
<%= f.select :service, [:tumblr, :flickr] %>
...
Today's Inspirational Message
Never piss off a woman who can drive a backhoe…
Happy Mother's Day
As we approach Mothers Day, I would like to display motherhood in action. Enjoy!
On the riverbank …
In the Arctic …
In Africa …
In India …
within the ocean…
SOMEWHERE NEAR WALMART
Puts a lump in your throat doesn’t it?
