Sorry, no Tech Tuesday today – instead a brief post about need for more dramatic NSA reform than what has been proposed so far. It is already 4:30pm but I still suggest that you call your representative or senator in Washington, DC. Here are what I believe to be important demands. First, to put the NSA under civilian leadership subject to Senate confirmation (instead of military). Second, to break up the NSA into multiple agencies, one focused on actually protecting networks (one of the NSA’s...

Sorry, no Tech Tuesday today – instead a brief post about need for more dramatic NSA reform than what has been proposed so far. It is already 4:30pm but I still suggest that you call your representative or senator in Washington, DC. Here are what I believe to be important demands. First, to put the NSA under civilian leadership subject to Senate confirmation (instead of military). Second, to break up the NSA into multiple agencies, one focused on actually protecting networks (one of the NSA’s...

Susan and I are trying something new: we are offering an online pitch practice aimed at women entrepreneurs. Susan came up with this idea based on working hard to hone her own pitch for Ziggeo (which is also the platform we will be using to power this). We are both big believers in the importance of deliberate practice and feedback is an essential ingredient to this. Giving feedback asynchronously on a recorded pitch is an experiment – if it goes well, we will figure out how to repeat and/or ...

Susan and I are trying something new: we are offering an online pitch practice aimed at women entrepreneurs. Susan came up with this idea based on working hard to hone her own pitch for Ziggeo (which is also the platform we will be using to power this). We are both big believers in the importance of deliberate practice and feedback is an essential ingredient to this. Giving feedback asynchronously on a recorded pitch is an experiment – if it goes well, we will figure out how to repeat and/or ...

I have written a fair bit about inflation in the past, starting with a post about inflation versus deflation during the financial crises in 2008, which I then followed with three posts in 2009. We are now finding ourselves in 2014 and so far there are no signs of inflation. That would seem to say that Paul Krugman had this one right and people who were worried about inflation had it wrong. Then again that would be a classic case of a turkey argument where we confuse an absence of evidence (it...

I have written a fair bit about inflation in the past, starting with a post about inflation versus deflation during the financial crises in 2008, which I then followed with three posts in 2009. We are now finding ourselves in 2014 and so far there are no signs of inflation. That would seem to say that Paul Krugman had this one right and people who were worried about inflation had it wrong. Then again that would be a classic case of a turkey argument where we confuse an absence of evidence (it...

If you are a long time reader of Continuations, you will know that I wrote repeatedly about ACTA, the attempt to strengthen global intellectual property rights that was soundly defeated by the European Parliament. At the time I mentioned that the next attempt at roughly the same would be the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not unlike ACTA, most of the TPP negotiations have taken place in secret and the TPP too contains further extensions and strengthening of copyright and patent p...

If you are a long time reader of Continuations, you will know that I wrote repeatedly about ACTA, the attempt to strengthen global intellectual property rights that was soundly defeated by the European Parliament. At the time I mentioned that the next attempt at roughly the same would be the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not unlike ACTA, most of the TPP negotiations have taken place in secret and the TPP too contains further extensions and strengthening of copyright and patent p...

The last few Tech Tuesdays have all been about computational complexity. One of the problems that we looked at a couple of times was finding a match (eg a word on a page). And for good reason as matching is a very common real world task. One important practical consideration that I mentioned briefly before is: are we doing a one-off match or will we run many matches against the same data? Why is this important? Because if we know that we will do many matches or lookups we can do some or a lot...

The last few Tech Tuesdays have all been about computational complexity. One of the problems that we looked at a couple of times was finding a match (eg a word on a page). And for good reason as matching is a very common real world task. One important practical consideration that I mentioned briefly before is: are we doing a one-off match or will we run many matches against the same data? Why is this important? Because if we know that we will do many matches or lookups we can do some or a lot...

In March we will be going to Africa for a safari. We are all really excited about it. And of course as part of homeschooling we have been spending time preparing for the trip and learning about the countries we will visit (Kenya and Tanzania). In doing so I realized that I learned pretty much next to nothing about Africa either in school or in college. The only thing was a bit about Egypt and the pyramids and then a few words about the slave trade. So it has been exciting to dig in. Given the...

In March we will be going to Africa for a safari. We are all really excited about it. And of course as part of homeschooling we have been spending time preparing for the trip and learning about the countries we will visit (Kenya and Tanzania). In doing so I realized that I learned pretty much next to nothing about Africa either in school or in college. The only thing was a bit about Egypt and the pyramids and then a few words about the slave trade. So it has been exciting to dig in. Given the...

One crucial impact of homeschooling is that you spend way more time with your children (even when you use quite a few tutors as we do). This will test your relationship with your children in new and unexpected ways and in turn becomes one of the ultimate learning opportunities for yourself. Seeing your children as a mirror of yourself is one of the fundamental tenets of the two books on parenting by Dr. Shefali Tsabary. I highly recommend both The Conscious Parent and Out of Control and wish ...

One crucial impact of homeschooling is that you spend way more time with your children (even when you use quite a few tutors as we do). This will test your relationship with your children in new and unexpected ways and in turn becomes one of the ultimate learning opportunities for yourself. Seeing your children as a mirror of yourself is one of the fundamental tenets of the two books on parenting by Dr. Shefali Tsabary. I highly recommend both The Conscious Parent and Out of Control and wish ...

If a picture is a thousand words, then a video is a thousand pictures. Our brains seem built for extracting a huge amount of information from the shortest clips (and even animated gifs). Prior to smartphones capturing video was sort of a pain but now there is a Cambrian explosion of new recordings. This leads us to expect video in more and more places, whether that’s Instagram or a news article. This change in expectation over time will affect all sorts of online services, whether that’s recr...

If a picture is a thousand words, then a video is a thousand pictures. Our brains seem built for extracting a huge amount of information from the shortest clips (and even animated gifs). Prior to smartphones capturing video was sort of a pain but now there is a Cambrian explosion of new recordings. This leads us to expect video in more and more places, whether that’s Instagram or a news article. This change in expectation over time will affect all sorts of online services, whether that’s recr...

Earlier this week I was talking to a group of investment bankers about the process of going public. In particular I was drilling in on the much vaunted need for revenue visibility as a basis for giving quarterly guidance. Every company that is thinking about going public hears this and it becomes an obsession for the team and the board. Why do you need revenue predictability? Because you need to give guidance. Why do you need to give guidance? Because the market expects it. Why does the marke...

Earlier this week I was talking to a group of investment bankers about the process of going public. In particular I was drilling in on the much vaunted need for revenue visibility as a basis for giving quarterly guidance. Every company that is thinking about going public hears this and it becomes an obsession for the team and the board. Why do you need revenue predictability? Because you need to give guidance. Why do you need to give guidance? Because the market expects it. Why does the marke...

One of the many good things about blogging is that one can go back in time and look at one’s own thinking in a more objective way. Without putting it in writing it is all too easy to pretend, as history unfolds, that one had a great understanding way back. Our minds a terrific at rewriting our own thoughts – this tends to come out strongest when we talk about our career paths. One example where I am reasonably happy with my own analysis is acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google. I wrote t...

One of the many good things about blogging is that one can go back in time and look at one’s own thinking in a more objective way. Without putting it in writing it is all too easy to pretend, as history unfolds, that one had a great understanding way back. Our minds a terrific at rewriting our own thoughts – this tends to come out strongest when we talk about our career paths. One example where I am reasonably happy with my own analysis is acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google. I wrote t...