Rocket-Powered Lincoln Fails to Fly

I don’t know what I adore most about this video: the sassy, jovial soundtrack; the stubby, ineffectual wings on the car; the revelation that the driver has broken his back many times before, almost as if it were part of his workaday routine; his pretty banging wife; the slow flutter of disintegrating Detroit iron barely one sixth of the way across its intended jump?

If the dude would have made it across, what was he expecting to happen? That the car would land on all four wheels, axles intact, as he sped off into the sunset? I mean, he had a parachute built-in, so perhaps he thought he’d launch across the river with such force that by the time he got over land he’d still have enough clearance to deploy and float gingerly to the ground.

No matter how you slice it, this is one for the ages.

The Rapture – Pieces of the People We Love

The Rapture wasn’t the first band to revisit the clanky dance-punk sounds of bands like P.I.L. and Gang of Four. But with its DFA-produced debut, 2003’s Echoes, and the accompanying underground hit, “House of Jealous Lovers,” the Brooklyn quartet proved itself to be the most worthy. On its follow-up, the group makes a dramatic left turn with a new crew of producers (Ewan Pearson and Paul Epworth, plus a pair of tracks recorded with Danger Mouse of Gorillaz and Gnarlz Barkley fame) and a more sophisticated sound that yields pop gems like “Whoo! Alright Yeah… Uh Huh” and “The Devil.” Reassuringly, the saxophones, cowbells and singer Luke Jenner’s unintelligible yelps are still present, as is all the manic energy that goes along with it.

Man Smokes Pipe Through His Eyes

Scientifically speaking, the tear ducts connect the throat through a passage. But who cares about the science of this, just sit back for the next 30 seconds and watch a man smoke a pipe through his eyes.

A World of Free Online Apps

he browser is the new OS. Yes, we’ve heard this before, and if you’re quietly groaning right about now, I can understand why.

It’s been 10 years since a barefoot Marc Andreessen graced the cover of Time magazine and trumpeted how the browser would make the operating system irrelevant. By uttering the unthinkable, he brought the ire of Bill Gates down on Netscape. Now, Netscape as a Web powerhouse is gone and Andreessen is no longer a magazine cover boy. Yet his vision of computing through a browser window turns out to have been prescient, if premature.

After puttering along for a decade, browser technology is about to undergo a major upgrade, which could once again make the browser the center of the Web action. The biggest change: Soon you’ll be able to take your Web applications “to go” and work offline.

The Web as workplace

What’s making it possible is a new generation of browsers. Early next year Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple are expected to release enhanced versions of IE, Firefox, and Safari, the first ones specifically tuned for Web applications. (For those who haven’t been following along at home, these are programs that run on the Internet rather than your hard drive.)

What this means is that you’ll be able to write your documents in Writely (who needs Word?), e-mail them via Gmail (who needs Outlook?), and arrange appointments to jointly edit those documents via Google Calendar (again, who needs Outlook?). And while you’re at it, a Google Talk chat window running inside these applications could let you collaborate (who needs AIM?).

No software will be downloaded to your hard drive, and everything is free. You could be working on a document on an office computer, hit “Save,” go home, and resume work. You could be using Windows, Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Linux; the application is agnostic, so long as you have the latest browser.

It’s the best of all worlds: Your data lives on the Web (in online storage), and it’s still accessible offline in your browser.

Say goodbye to laptops

Of course, that problem is moot once we have seamless broadband connectivity. But for now, the ability to work offline is crucial to overcoming consumer resistance to Web-based applications. The new offline mode will doubtless help with the adoption of many Web-based applications that are debuting right now – and not just from Google – such as DabbleDB and RadiusIM.

Things will get more exciting for entrepreneurs when we all start walking around with new Internet-ready portable devices such as the Nokia 770 Internet tablet or smartphones such as the Motorola Q and Nokia E61.

These pocket-size monsters with keyboards, luscious displays, and brisk 3G connections will soon replace laptops. All they need are browsers that can access Web-based software as easily as your desktop can. (I already use a Nokia E61 to help manage my website and write short blog posts from within the phone’s browser. Soon I’ll be able to run the whole site from my phone’s browser.)

If you’re a developer or startup, you are suddenly free to write a browser-based application and quit worrying about which operating system, chip, or device your consumers are using.

It’s a scary thought for anyone who built a business around proprietary formats. But for the end user, this is the kind of future that Andreessen on his best days – and maybe Gates on his worst – had envisioned.

Drug Dealers vs. Software Developers

Drug Dealers	Software Developers
Refer to their clients as “users”.	Refer to their clients as “users”.
“The first one’s free!”	“Download a free trial version…”
Have important South-East Asian connections (to help move the stuff).	Have important South-East Asian connections (to help debug the code).
Strange jargon: “Stick,” “Rock,” “Dime bag,” “E”.	Strange jargon: “SCSI,” “RTFM,” “Java,” “ISDN”.
Realize that there’s tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market.	Realize that there’s tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market.
Job is assisted by the industry’s producing newer, more potent mixes.	Job is assisted by the industry’s producing newer, faster machines.
Often seen in the company of pimps and hustlers.	Often seen in the company marketing people and venture capitalists.
Their product causes unhealthy addictions.	DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke Nukem 3D. ‘Nuff said.
Do your job well, and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you.	Damn! Damn! DAMN!!!

Neat Trick With Javascript

Very cool trick with javascript. Paste the following in to your address bar while looking at a page with a lot of pictures. (google images works good like this one: Google Images)

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

Kick Ass Movie Pitches

These are movie pitches written by a guy named Erik Blevins sent to Patton Oswalt. the story according to Oswalt: ” On Valentine’s Day, 1998, I received the first of many letters from a Staples employee named Erik Blevins. He is an aspiring screenwriter. He’d spotted me for the eight seconds I was onscreen in a film called Down Periscope and became convinced that I can ‘get movies done.’”

This guy is truly brilliant. Tell me you wouldn’t throw down 10 bucks to see “Black Jaws” on the big screen.

(Click image for the pitches!)

The American Look

This 1958 short film, sponsored at the time by Chevrolet, was a tribute to men and women who design in America. It offers an extensive glimpse of architecture, interiors, furniture, product and technology that is iconic 1950s. Watch and see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

The Best Line Rider Video, Ever!

Check out the Line Rider video. The detail is incredible. Our friendly neighborhood “Sled Rider” flies through the mountains at breakneck speed and ends his run in the safety of the ski lift.

In case you were wondering, the song is Bloc Party’s Banquet (download it here).

Interesting Stats About Startup Success

This weekend I read a recent paper titled “Skill vs. Luck in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Evidence From Serial Entrepreneurs” by Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner and David Scharfstein from Harvard. It’s hard to find good, reasonably well supported writings on the topic of startups and this particular paper stood out for me.

I’ve done my best to capture the essence of some of these points, but there may be errors (unlike the authors, I do not have the burden of academic rigor here).

Interesting Stats About Startup Success

Failure Increases Chances Of Success: Entrepreneurs who succeeded in a prior venture have a 30% chance of succeeding in their next venture. First-time entrepreneurs only have an 18% chance of succeeding. Interestingly, those have previously failed have a 20% chance of succeeding.

So, it seems that you’re better off having started a company and having failed — then not having started one at all. If you’re considering kicking off a startup, it seems that you should just go ahead and do it (even if you’re going to fail). Getting the first failure out of the way (assuming you learn what you should from it) will increase your chances the second time around.

VCs Really Do Invest In The People: Failed serial entrepreneurs are more likely than successful serial entrepreneurs to get funding from the same venture capital firm that financed their first ventures.

This doesn’t make complete sense to me, but I believe it. VCs are “relationship” investors and I can see how they might lean more towards the entrepreneur they know (even if their original startup was a failure) rather than take a chance on a successful serial entrepreneur they don’t know. On the other hand, if I were a limited partner and had a choice of VCs, I think I’d pick those that have a demonstrated history of backing successful serial entrepreneurs. But, I have a bias.

Serial Entrepreneurs More Likely To Raise Funding: Entrepreneurs are much more likely to receive first-round funding at an early stage (60% of the time) if this is their second or subsequent venture than first time entrepreneurs (which receive such funding 45% of the time).

Though the numbers seem a little high (this is probably because they’re talking about all funding, and not just VC funding), this makes sense. Nothing to talk about here.

First-Timers and Non-Successes Benefit More From VC Expertise: First-time entrepreneurs have a 17.6% chance of succeeding when funded by more experienced VC firms and an 11.7% chance of succeeding when funded by less experience VC firms. Failed entrepreneurs who are funded by experienced VC firms have a 22.1% chance of succeeding compared to a 14.7% chance of succeeding when they are funded by less experienced VC firms. So, first time entrepreneurs and failed entrepreneurs are more likely to benefit from VC firm expertise..

Better VCs Provide Better Deals: Venture capital firm experience is positively related to pre-money valuation. More experienced firms pay more for new ventures — likely because they have higher success rates.

This seems like one more reason to pick the top-tier, experienced VC (if you have the choice). Overall, you’ll likely get a better deal. Not only is this “smart money”, it’s more money too.

Serial Entrepreneurs Get Better Terms: Repeat entrepreneurs receive more favorable terms for vesting, board structure and liquidation rights, but do not receive greater equity ownership percentages. So, though serial entrepreneurs may extract greater value from VCs, this value is in the non-price terms of the investment.

I don’t like this particular data point as I’d hope to get better pricing terms from a VC as a “repeat” entrepreneur. But, then again, things outside of pure valuation are often just as important so I’m not going to complain.