Archives / April, 2008

Billions and Billions Served

As long time readers of my blog know, I like to reflect from time to time on the relentless growth of processing capacity and storage density in the computing world. I’m about a week behind on the news, but felt compelled to comment on the story I saw on Slashdot last week, that Seagate announced…

Self-Assembling Modular Robot

With a tip of the hat to Marc Andreessen (whose excellent blog is a part of my daily regimen), check out this video of a robot that gets kicked apart and then reassembles itself without human intervention. This is a (very) early alpha version of the T-1000. Cool today, scary tomorrow. Gadgets, Robots

VC Perspective on Intellectual Property and Patents

My partner Jason Mendelson and I did a podcast last week with Larry Nelson of W3W3 and our conversation covered both the intellectual property and patent issues we’ve faced as investors in high-technology companies. We definitely have a love/hate (ok, mostly hate) relationship with patents, so if you are interested in hearing (or reading) more,…

Seven Days, Culturegraph

My friend Jeremy Toeman turned me on to a site called Cuturegraph a few weeks ago, and I’ve been laughing on a regular basis ever since. Basically, they publish charts and graphs that make amusing pop-culture references. And they crowd-source their content. I was inspired and submitted one of my own, shown above. You’ve got…

My New Guitar

Every January, my friends Jason and Carl and I go to the NAMM Conference in Anaheim, which is, more or less, the CES for music gear. While I’ve been tempted by cool gadgets and incredible guitars every year, this is the first year I actually bought something I saw at NAMM — a walnut solid…

Fire in them thar Hills!

Yesterday afternoon there was some excitement in my neighborhood. There was a two-acre brushfire in Settler’s Park, located in the hills just above my house, several hundred yards away. We even got a reverse-911 call from Boulder Emergency Services “recommending but not requiring evacuation”, which was a bit unsettling. I had a good vantage point…

United’s MadLibs Menu Planning

After giving credit where credit was due last week when United recovered my MacBook Air, I’m afraid I must now lodge yet another complaint against United AIrlines. The food. Of course, complaining about airline food is an easy and unoriginal target, but the last couple of meals I’ve had have struck me as particularly odd….

What’s That?

With a tip of the hat to Steve Jurvetson’s ongoing “What’s That?” photo puzzle series on flickr, here’s four shots I took of the same object (from various levels of zoom) while sightseeing with my family in Northern California last week. Fame and public recognition go to the person who can identify what this is….

Oh Kindle, My Kindle

After a few weeks of use, I thought I’d share my thoughts on Amazon’s Kindle. The Kindle is my second electronic book reader, my first was the Sony Reader, which I previously touted as my new favorite gadget. Now I must apologize to Sony and my lovely wife Katherine, who gave me the reader for…