May 2012
1 post
April 2012
3 posts
It's not death of conversation, its death of small...
This is part of an ongoing conversation I have with my girlfriend as well as a response to a recent op-ed in the New York Times: The Flight From Conversation.
The crux of the argument is that technology and always being connected is killing real conversation, and even as we become more and more connected online, we are becoming more isolated and alone in an absolute sense.
The quality of...
The accessibility of eBooks
The debate between Dead Tree books and ebooks has been waged since before the first Kindle was released, and I’m not going to be able to convince anyone one way or the other. I’ll just add one more point to the debate.
Accessibility.
I have Stargardt’s desease, which means over the next few years it’s going to be harder and harder for me to read.
For printed books this...
It's time to level up headphone tech
As we are eagerly awaiting tech for augmented reality, the tools already exist to merge another of our senses discreetly and completely. Headphones.
Headphones?
Yes, headphones, well more specifically hearing aids.
Right now there is a big gap in technology between hearing aids and the shit you buy from best buy. Beats by Dre anyone? Existing hearing aids have directional microphones, can...
March 2012
3 posts
My new gig: Product Manager at Klout.com
Klout.com is a very, very interesting company. Not only as a place to work, but of what they might be able to do in the next few years. What now looks like a Social advertising company can in the next few years evolve into the reputation mechanic for the social web.
I’m very excited to be a part of the team that is working towards bringing that future about. Here’s hoping...
What if there were a $1 fee to post to HN?
What would happen?
First, there would clearly be fewer posts. But, would they be better?
I think that they might be.
Here are the rules: 1. $1 to post an article/comment 2. $1 to up vote, which goes to the OP.
Charging to post increases the cost of submitting an article, and forces the less serious from creating crap content.
Charging for up votes functions like flattr. It still allows for...
You don't go to McDonalds for the Chicken...
Picking a restaurant sucks. It sucks so much that even after the success of Yelp, there are still dozens of apps trying to make it better:
Urban Spoon Foodspotting Forkly Ness
Just to name a few..
All of these fail to solve the largets remaining problem: What do I eat once I get there?
Menu’s are big, they have dishes you or the people at your table have never tried before. The waiter...
February 2012
2 posts
Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor
I was walking around downtown Philadelphia earlier today and seeing all the people walking around with nothing to do or panhandling, it got me thinking.
How can we inject money into this ecosystem in other ways than welfare or charity? For all the success that micro-lending has had in India and other countries, we haven’t really seen those benefits in American Urban areas. This can...
The Rise of the Subcultural Economy
This is a response to Venkatesh Rao’s post Peak attention and the colonization of subcultures. It’s a great article, a long read that I recommend everyone take a look at.
The TLDR of the post is that the Internet has connected subcultures to such an extent that in the near future we’ll see a corporate takeover of even the smallest cultural entity.
***
I don’t entirely...
January 2012
4 posts
If you want to beat hollywood...
Shocking that I would be writing about hollywood in the wake of SOPA?PIPA. AMIRIGHT?
No, but seriously. If the world is to defeat the monolithic behemoth that is Hollywood, who spends so much money on lobbying, more than the marketing budget of Fuck Buddies Two: Birth Control, they are going to have to do something drastic.
Paul Graham says its not about content, but if you’ve been to the...
Being a Star Wars fan has jumped the shark
It pains me to say it, but it’s true. Quoting Star Wars is no longer the secret hand shake between geeks that it once was.
Star Wars references have become so pervasive that they have lost all meaning.
Where once a witty “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” showed that someone shared the same interests as you, and wasn’t afraid to share them in...
My Newest app: ClinicalTrialsHQ.com
I’ve been working on a new project, ClinicalTrialshq.com. It’s still a work in progress, but It’s coming along.
ClinicalTrialsHQ allows patients to search over the National Institute of Healths database of open clinical trials across the world. Additionally, patients can provide their email and receive notifications when new trials become available for a given condition.
The...
October 2011
2 posts
Airbnb + Springstar: A new model for international...
Last week we saw AirBnB announce a partnership with Springstar, a relatively unknown incubator (at least in the US) to help with international expansion. I happened to be in Berlin with BASES and EBS visiting Springstar when they made the announcement (crazy, right?).
Here are two insights I gleaned from the trip:
First of all Springstar is not an incubator; at least, not like the ones here in the...
Anonymous asked: how do I download your Google reader extension for chrome? My computer can't recognize what to open it with?
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Making Google Reader Easier on the Eyes
Google Reader hurts my eyes.
It could be the fact that I’m looking at it the majority of the time that I’m awake, but I like to think its because it’s not the most readable website.
12 pt font; black on a white background. It hurts.
So, rather than cut back my Google Reader time, and spare my eyes, I made a Chrome Extension.
Inspired by Readability, the extension...
June 2011
4 posts
Fair Use?
I finally found a store to sell my design! A Little expensive though… Sorry.
Follow the link below:
README
I Like to Make things.
You could say it’s what drives me.
To have an idea and see it made is a pretty solid feeling.
It’s why I made this shirt. This website. This Blog.
What’s an even better feeling is seeing someone else use what you’ve made, to see someone’s life made better by the work of your hands (One can dream, right?).
Making things isn’t easy...
What if your iPod could read your mind?
IT CAN!
Well, it could.
There is a company that makes headphones with a built in EEG reader. What’s even better is they have an Software Developer Kit (SDK) for people to build applications for them.
I have an idea.
Combined with the Echonest APIs, the Mindset can be used to play music depending on your mood. Angry? The app will #mce_temp_url#play the perfect song to calm you down....
May 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Why I Made Answers.MD
From white board to launch, I’ve spent 100+ hours putting together Answers.MD. It’s been a great learning experience, but I didn’t just do it for the kicks.
I did it becuase Med students deserve our support, and here’s why.
A brief outline of what it takes to become a doctor:
Take SATs
Apply for College
4 years of Pre-Med (all those hard science classes)
Take MCATs...
WatchGithacking is a concept I made for Stanford ACM hackathon May ‘11. It is a community based approach to creating full-featured applications and not just code libraries. It is not related to githacking.com, I just used the name to help describe the concept.
April 2011
2 posts
WatchMy 1 minute pitch for Answers.MD at Founder’s Soup - Stanford.
Answers.MD is officially launched!
After 2 months of hard work and tons of procrastination Answers.MD is finally making its debut. It’s an amazing feeling to finally put something in front of users.
I feel kinda like a chef who’s spent hours slaving over a hot stove to make a delicious dinner for a group of close friends. Finally serving the food, waiting to see if their faces melt in ecstasy or cringe in...
March 2011
2 posts
1 tag
3 tags
How to Form an LLC in 5 easy steps
Image via WikipediaThis is a repost from my old blog, saving it for posterity.
Alan wrote a post on setting up an LLC for Abroadcare.com and why we chose Delaware. Here I’m going to lay out the actual steps we took in registering, so that if you ever need to incorporate you can do it much more easily than we did. It took quite a while to understand all the steps involved, but once we figured...
June 2010
4 posts
AR glasses. →
AR cant take off until these (or something similar) is on the market.
Chegg, the local library killer. →
Amazing case study on Chegg.com, the college text-book rental service. At the end of the article Carpenter gets into Chegg’s strategy moving forward, saying they should focus on expanding the university market. I disagree.
They should expand to regular book rentals the way that Facebook expanded from college to the general public. This would solve their seasonal demand issue, as well as...
May 2010
1 post
Obama should have done more than just visit New Orleans. He should have had BP sign a contract paying for the cost of the oil spill clean up.
April 2010
1 post
Things I've learned part I
I was catching up on some childhood cartoons this weekend. Some muppet babies and some Doug Funny. Im proud to admit that I remembered the chorus to the Muppet babies theme song.
Anyway, when I got around to watching Doug, my mind was blown. When Doug grew up he became the person we lovingly know as Fry from Futurama. This of course after briefly experimenting with psychedelics as the Red...