On vacation I had an interesting parenting moment. I threw my son in the pool with his clothes on, something I had done a few times before, but this time the reaction was very different. He was really upset and ran off. When I caught up with him he complained about my making him lose his “dignity” in front of others. I was a bit shocked at his use of the word in the first place, but then it ocurred to me that this provided a great opportunity to talk with him about what that even meant. We wo...

On vacation I had an interesting parenting moment. I threw my son in the pool with his clothes on, something I had done a few times before, but this time the reaction was very different. He was really upset and ran off. When I caught up with him he complained about my making him lose his “dignity” in front of others. I was a bit shocked at his use of the word in the first place, but then it ocurred to me that this provided a great opportunity to talk with him about what that even meant. We wo...

$1000 Virtual Bling: Harry’s coverage of the $999.99 glowing ruby app is pretty balanced. Some folks, like Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider, think it simply obnoxious. Personally, I think it’s “really, really f*ing brilliant” (to quote Bono) - would probably work even better if it were a limited edition. Seems to me that most people protesting this secretely wish they had thought of it first.

$1000 Virtual Bling: Harry’s coverage of the $999.99 glowing ruby app is pretty balanced. Some folks, like Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider, think it simply obnoxious. Personally, I think it’s “really, really f*ing brilliant” (to quote Bono) - would probably work even better if it were a limited edition. Seems to me that most people protesting this secretely wish they had thought of it first.

Today was our kids first day of school. It is so much fun to see how excited they are about having new teachers, meeting new friends, and learning new things. Hope it stays this way for many years to come including when they are teenagers. I certainly feel as excited about this fall as the kids do. In politics, we will have an exciting presidential race culminating in the first election that I can vote in. At USV, we are working on fascinating new deals and have tons of things happening in ou...

Today was our kids first day of school. It is so much fun to see how excited they are about having new teachers, meeting new friends, and learning new things. Hope it stays this way for many years to come including when they are teenagers. I certainly feel as excited about this fall as the kids do. In politics, we will have an exciting presidential race culminating in the first election that I can vote in. At USV, we are working on fascinating new deals and have tons of things happening in ou...

One of my father’s favorite sayings is “Tennis, chess and war are lost through one’s own mistakes” (translated from German). Growing up, I used to really dislike this saying, in retrospect mostly because I lost against my Dad at tennis for a long time excactly because of my own mistakes. Yesterday afternoon, I took the kids to the US Open to see some of the first and second round matches on the side courts where you can sit right up close. All afternoon there was only one instance of a player...

One of my father’s favorite sayings is “Tennis, chess and war are lost through one’s own mistakes” (translated from German). Growing up, I used to really dislike this saying, in retrospect mostly because I lost against my Dad at tennis for a long time excactly because of my own mistakes. Yesterday afternoon, I took the kids to the US Open to see some of the first and second round matches on the side courts where you can sit right up close. All afternoon there was only one instance of a player...

Planning to turn this into a top ten list, but here is a start. The order may take some work too.Your name becomes used as verb or noun. Biggest success here in recent memory is of course “google”, but it was nice to see a “Hail to The Twitterer” headline in the New York Times this weekend (print edition, online the article has a different title). Your friends’ grandparents are using the service. Your friends’ parents are using the service. Hackers and spammers are targeting your service. Her...

Planning to turn this into a top ten list, but here is a start. The order may take some work too.Your name becomes used as verb or noun. Biggest success here in recent memory is of course “google”, but it was nice to see a “Hail to The Twitterer” headline in the New York Times this weekend (print edition, online the article has a different title). Your friends’ grandparents are using the service. Your friends’ parents are using the service. Hackers and spammers are targeting your service. Her...

We have three kids in elementary school and yesterday I spent nearly 2 hours at Staples together with a bunch of other dazed and confused parents. The ritual of buying school supplies may have nostalgic value to some, but I find it appallingly inefficient. The ideal solution would be for the teachers to simply go ahead and order the supplies online and have them delivered to school. I suspect that if our entire school district signed up we could get a nice break from Staples. Short of that, i...

We have three kids in elementary school and yesterday I spent nearly 2 hours at Staples together with a bunch of other dazed and confused parents. The ritual of buying school supplies may have nostalgic value to some, but I find it appallingly inefficient. The ideal solution would be for the teachers to simply go ahead and order the supplies online and have them delivered to school. I suspect that if our entire school district signed up we could get a nice break from Staples. Short of that, i...

Of course the big news yesterday was the (one day premature) announcement of Google Chrome, Google’s much rumored browser. I am looking forward to trying it out today. Based on the comic strip Google used to describe it, Chrome has some nice innovations in it. First and foremost are the use of processes to isolate tabs and significant improvements to Javascript execution. The fact that Google released Chrome as open source is positive, but I wonder whether it would not have been healthier if ...

Of course the big news yesterday was the (one day premature) announcement of Google Chrome, Google’s much rumored browser. I am looking forward to trying it out today. Based on the comic strip Google used to describe it, Chrome has some nice innovations in it. First and foremost are the use of processes to isolate tabs and significant improvements to Javascript execution. The fact that Google released Chrome as open source is positive, but I wonder whether it would not have been healthier if ...

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech yesterday at the Democratic National Convention was remarkable in its clarity and delivery. Concrete attacks on John McCain and clear policy statements replaced the at times lofty oratory of some his more recent speeches. Yet it was hard to even look away for the entire duration – that’s how riveting the delivery was. And none of it involved powerpoint slides. The speech managed to be substantive and rousing at once using just words. This was such a welcome ch...

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech yesterday at the Democratic National Convention was remarkable in its clarity and delivery. Concrete attacks on John McCain and clear policy statements replaced the at times lofty oratory of some his more recent speeches. Yet it was hard to even look away for the entire duration – that’s how riveting the delivery was. And none of it involved powerpoint slides. The speech managed to be substantive and rousing at once using just words. This was such a welcome ch...

One of the big contrasts between Germany (where I grew up) and the US has been the approach to infrastructure such as highways, railways and power lines. In Germany these are all ‘gold plated’ with the Autobahn surface so smooth you could run a drag race on it (and people do accelerate almost that fast). In the US on the other hand I never seize to be amazed at the potholes on major routes such as I95. Germany is of course a fraction of the size of the US and more densely populated so this is...

One of the big contrasts between Germany (where I grew up) and the US has been the approach to infrastructure such as highways, railways and power lines. In Germany these are all ‘gold plated’ with the Autobahn surface so smooth you could run a drag race on it (and people do accelerate almost that fast). In the US on the other hand I never seize to be amazed at the potholes on major routes such as I95. Germany is of course a fraction of the size of the US and more densely populated so this is...

Umair Haque is at his usual stimulating and frustrating best in a recent post comparing Apple and Facebook’s third party application strategies. Stimulating because he is looking at an important topic and pointing out interesting differences. Frustrating because Umair’s free wheeling style and usage of otherwise well defined terms leads to conclusions that seem unwarranted (at least to me). There are two important differences between the Apple application model and the Facebook modelApple all...

Umair Haque is at his usual stimulating and frustrating best in a recent post comparing Apple and Facebook’s third party application strategies. Stimulating because he is looking at an important topic and pointing out interesting differences. Frustrating because Umair’s free wheeling style and usage of otherwise well defined terms leads to conclusions that seem unwarranted (at least to me). There are two important differences between the Apple application model and the Facebook modelApple all...