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All posts for the month February, 2009


Wow, what an odd mysterious BarrelEye fish! The BarrelEye Fish has a snow globe like transparent head allowing it to flip it’s eyes upwards to see prey. Very cool!

“A very bizarre looking deep-water fish called a Barreleye that has a transparent head and tubular eyes. LiveScience has an article about the fish which explains that even though the two spots above the fish’s mouth look like eyes they are not.

Watch the video above or here!
LiveScience Article

Really interesting discussion if your into the future in digital mobile social networking.

http://www.weforum.org
01.30.2009

The Next Digital Experience
Social networking applications and sophisticated mobile devices are combining elements of the real and virtual worlds, and delivering an augmented experience of reality.

How is this digital experience changing consumers and communities?

Hamid Akhavan: Chief Executive Officer, T-Mobile International, Germany
Eric K. Clemons: Professor of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Chad Hurley: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YouTube, USA
Craig Mundie: Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation, USA
Shantanu Narayen: President and Chief Executive Officer, Adobe Systems, USA
Mark Zuckerberg: Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Facebook, USA

Moderated by
Michael Arrington, Founder and Editor, TechCrunch, USA”


I stopped by Brown Univesities EP (Entrepreneurship Program) this weekend in providence and was plesantly inspired by the 4 speakers who spoke. A few mental notes:

Kiva.org: I learned from co-founder Matt Flannery that he worked at Tivo before, wrote down an idea a day for about a   month, then quit his job to work at a donut shop, while starting up Kiva, with several people saying you can’t just loan money to outside countries legally. Anyone can be your business partner! Kiva now get over 1Million dollars in loans every 10 days! via BrownEP

– Starbucks: Ted Garcia (Ex VP). Starbucks went from having 17 stores total to 5 stores opening each day up to an astounding 16,000 stores total in about 10 years! Starbucks success comes from 3 things. Performance, People, and Luck. Starbucks success was in having a constant open dialogue with all employees, and bringing up issues when employees did not perform as needed. via BrownEP

Mark Victor Hansen: Spend, create ideas, do ideas, only you can make something happen. Don’t wait for it to come to you. Don’t do something to make money, or save the world. Do it to make the world better.  via BrownEP

– David Shrier: old school marketing techniques still work and can easily be measured in all channels. Some of the best examples are Ronco and Proactiv. Advertising money is not just to get to consumers, but also to reach largers distributions. I’m not a huge believer in older techniques, but David gave some very convincing examples.  via BrownEP

I wish you would use all means at your disposal — films! expeditions! the web! more! — to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”
– Sylvia Earle

This is the TEDwish that made me promise to cut back on seafood (and sushi consumption) this year, though I’ve learned it’s better to eat smaller fish that reproduce faster from a previous lecture on ocean life as well. Also helping out will be the free release in the astonishing documentary OCEANS (youtube) by Jacques Perrin (Winged Migration) to help educate people about the ocean sometime this year.
via TEDprize


Unbelievable story! Multiple standing ovations occurred during Jose’s story and performance at TED. I’ll be helping out with this TED wish with my time this year and I just might be picking back up my violin of 15+ years experience for a bit. Come join the wish! Watch the above performance with your sound blasting!

“Jose Antonio Abreu is the charismatic founder of a youth orchestra system that has transformed thousands of kids’ lives in Venezuela. Here he shares his amazing story and unveils a TED Prize wish that could have a big impact in the US and beyond.” via TED

Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.” via TED

Also watch his other talks here or buy his awesome book “Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less


Snow is melting, birds are chirping, and warmth is near. Hello spring, bye bye winter.

Gaming: Real air pilots race simulated pilots.
Art: Matthew Chambers sculptures. Pretty neat.
Art: The drawings of James Jean.
Tech: Storytlr.com, recompiling your feeds to make sense.
Object: A pretty cool scale with large text!
Tech: Spreednews.com, reading text fast without page turns via your pda.
Tech: DingItUp.com, be informed when a  webpage is up or down!
Science: Visualizing Invisible Magnetic Waves. Very cool!
Art: Toilet roll cutout art work by Yuken Teruya.