Midway

February 28, 2013
Environment
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This video does not required much commentary.  Plastic is a wonderful material but it shouldn’t be ending up anywhere but the recycling facility.  Our oceans are full of it.  I believe it was Paul Hawken in The Ecology of Commerce who questioned why we use a packaging material that takes 300 years to decompose for a product that sits on the shelf for 3 weeks and is consumed in 3 days?  The answer is because its cheap – but is it really?  When you factor in the costs that are currently “externalized” (e.g. polluting our oceans) it doesn’t seem so cheap.

More details of the film here: http://www.midwayfilm.com/about.html

Geosocial Universe

February 26, 2013
Infographics, Startups, Technology
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A little surprised to see only 10% of Yelp’s users are accessing via mobile.  Actually really surprised especially considering how awesome the Yelp monocle is.  Skype also seems a bit low to me but I guess if you’ve got a mobile phone you’ll just use the embedded phone functionality (unless like me you have AT&T and routinely have to use skype + wifi to make calls).

JESS3_GeosocialUniverse31

Found via Cool Infographics 

Outbox

February 26, 2013
Startups, Technology
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This looks like a pretty awesome service.  I would love to have digital copies of my snailmail and not have to deal with all the crap.

They’re just kicking off their national roll out starting in San Francisco.  Check ’em out.

 

Wasting Away Again

February 25, 2013
Adventure, Culture
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Just got back from a week long vacation to Key West, FL.  If you’ve never been there, this poster for Capt. Tony’s sums it up nicely (the oldest bar in Florida and one of Hemingway’s favorite hangouts, back when it was Sloppy Joe’s).  Oh yeah, this guy also became mayor of Key West from 1989 – 1991.  He was a true swashbuckler, one of the last.  You can read his full bio here.

An Ode To Books

February 17, 2013
Culture, Technology
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Carl Sagan:

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

Found via Value Investing World

February 17, 2013
Business, Startups, Technology
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Somewhat narrow version of Disruption of you ask me but an awesome article. I tend to think of disruption as anything that pisses off / scares the incumbents and makes them revise their game plan. That definition is broad and not very helpful. Andy Rachleff’s definition (based on Clay Christensen’s definition) is much more structured and useful.