The Get Down Guy

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:21:01 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7):

The Hardball Times Projections

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:37:49 -0500

The Hardball Times is releasing their first player forecasts. I already get the Baseball Prospectus (PECOTA) projections, and there are plenty of free options, but I’m looking forward to what THT can add to the mix.

NPR's Austin 100: A SXSW Mix For 2010

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:35:57 -0500

NPR's Austin 100: A SXSW Mix For 2010:

msg:

In preparation for the 2010 South by Southwest music festival (March 17-20), NPR Music’s staff has spent weeks sampling songs by more than 1,000 of the acts in attendance. Some reaffirmed our pre-existing love, a few came out of nowhere to stake at least a momentary claim on our affections, and many made us want to superglue our index fingers into our respective ear canals.

===

Loving this awesome mix.

Monsters of Folk channeling their inner Gram Parsons. This...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:29:40 -0500

Monsters of Folk channeling their inner Gram Parsons. This album has been growing on me the last few weeks.

We got hit pretty hard last night.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:19:34 -0500

We got hit pretty hard last night.

Preparing for fantasy baseball 2010. This is the only way to do...

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 12:33:05 -0500

Preparing for fantasy baseball 2010. This is the only way to do it.

bijan: This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) - Arcade...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:44:13 -0500

bijan:

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) - Arcade Fire

Original by the Talking Heads.

What are the chances?

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:15:56 -0500

What are the chances?

Why You Should Start a Company in Austin.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:05:00 -0500

Why You Should Start a Company in Austin.:

I love Austin and am glad to see it getting recognized as a great place to start a company. I’m a bit biased as I was born there after my dad and his friends started a software company there in the 70’s. Besides the fact that Austin is wonderful, there are two takeaways:

The last paragraph about successful entrepreneurs who take the quality of life upgrade and disappear is not a positive for Austin’s startup scene. Jeff Bussgang talked about this same phenomena in Boston.
No mention of Rackspace which is a major startup win for Austin. I believe it was the only 2008 venture backed IPO.

(Found via Wyomingirl)

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-7)

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:54:55 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-7):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

This is Yahoo Fantasy Baseball’s “Commissioner...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:00:31 -0500

This is Yahoo Fantasy Baseball’s “Commissioner Corner” which is supposed to be a helpful tool for commissioners to set up new leagues among other things.

It’s a message board. You can rate the posts. Most people have to post their email address to get the leagues set up. This is bad, but Yahoo! is not unique in having terrible tools for their most important fantasy customers.

whitneymcn: pieceofthesky: Hank Williams playing his Martin...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:00:13 -0500

whitneymcn:

pieceofthesky:

Hank Williams playing his Martin D-28 to Hank Jr in 1949. Hank Williams Jr later sold the guitar to a friend for some shotguns. A few owners later Neil Young tracked the guitar down and he’s now owned it for more than 30 years.

“I’ve got a Hank Williams’ guitar, but I play it all the time. It’s an old Martin D-28. I bought it from Tut Taylor. It’s always great when someone understands what this is that they’re holding, who understands the effect Hank Williams had on all of us. They are sort of awestruck by being in the presence of anything that he touched - to the point that to actually play his instrument elevates them to another level. It’s a wonderful thing to have a guitar for that reason. A lot of people who should have played it, have played it. I’m careful about it, but I use it all the time. It’s not on a wall in a museum.”

Wilco covering Steely Dan’s Any Major Dude Will Tell You

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:24:00 -0500

Wilco covering Steely Dan’s Any Major Dude Will Tell You

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24)

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:02:27 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Looking forward to this. Although I don’t get why Will...

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:26:45 -0500

Looking forward to this. Although I don’t get why Will Leitch is leaking the final copy of his book about the war on terror.

leitch:

We are just more than three months away from book launch. Here’s what the cover’s mostly going to look like. It’s important to Hyperion that you know it is “not final.” In case you missed that.

By the way, I am happy with that title, even though, devoid of context, it sounds like a book about the war on terror. (It’s not a book about the war on terror.)

Carl Sagan's Apple Pie

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:13:39 -0500

Carl Sagan's Apple Pie:

Found via Digg

It's Been Tried Already...

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:47:31 -0500

thegongshow:

I’m reading The Victorian Internet on the recommendation of Sam Lessin. What a terrific book. Only 30 pages in, I can tell already that I’ll be blogging about this book a number of times. So, here’s the first of many.

Samuel Morse invented the concept of an electric telegraph and his system of encoding messages, Morse code, during a 6 week journey across the Atlantic. When he sketched out the ideas for this invention, he was oblivious to the fact that many European inventors had been working for nearly a century on the idea of sending electric telegraph messages, and all of them failed when it came to testing the concept over large distances.

Morse had no idea how many people had failed before him and the improbability of his idea at the time. He thought he was the first person to come up with this idea. And, if he had been aware of the wasteland of failed attempts behind him, he likely would have resolved it was impossible and given up himself.

Sometimes ignorance is a great thing to have in entrepreneurial endeavors. People (myself included) often dismiss an idea or market because “it’s a landscape littered with bodies.” The knowledge of past failures justifies being dismissive about the prospects in a idea/market as the rational choice, but I love the entrepreneurs (like Samuel Morse) who prove that being dismissive is not necessarily the right choice.

Warmed up enough this morning to run across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:07:34 -0500

Warmed up enough this morning to run across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Julian Casablancas at Terminal 5

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:49:06 -0500

Julian Casablancas at Terminal 5

Patents are just Nukes

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:24:47 -0500

siminoff:

There has been a lot of patent discussion today, starting with Brad from Union Square Ventures post, “We need an independent invention defense to minimize the damage of aggressive patent trolls”

Bijan’s follow on post had the best tidbit, “Trolls are just one end the spectrum. On the other end, patents also favor big companies. In 2007 IBM proudly announced they received 3000 patents for the year.”

I think the best way to look at patents is to think of them as Nukes. Every big company like IBM/ATT/GE, etc., needs to have a arsenal to protect themselves from each other. It is very rare to see the big boys sue each other over patents, because they are each stepping on the others patents, so like nukes if you fire them at someone else that has them you both die.

Enter the terrorists. The people you need to be scared of with patents are those that have one patent or “nuke” and nothing to lose, also called trolls. By not having any operating business themselves that could be infringing on someone, they are impossible to squash, so they can sue at will.

In my mind, when it comes to software patents, we just need to put in some reform that if you are not operating on the patent in a significant way then you can not sue enforce it. Like anything I am sure this would not 100% fix the problem but it would be a great start.