happy chaos freedom machine

  We do not think you’re different. We are not confident in your ability to establish strong relationships with companies. And we will probably not think of you when we need funding later on.  Particletree » How Not to Pitch to a Startup . For years I’ve talked to VCs when I’ve met them, and I [...]

[Read more →]

Not sure why the fact that Jesus’ day of birth was likely in June is considered to be some kind of shocking revelation.  Newsflash: “Christmas” is a co-opted pagan festival, not the birthday of some charismatic Jew with disputed paternity. You don’t have to look particularly far back to find pre-Christian traditions, either. What is amazing to [...]

[Read more →]

 Virtualization is hot (or was, until VMWare’s stock took a beating — nevermind, it’s still hot in IT departments, where it counts), Web 2.0 is hot, and “Cloud computing” is hot. Together these trends must be sending cold chills down the collective spines of the giants of the IT industry.  This article on Forbes.com captures [...]

[Read more →]

 The work of Duncan Watts, described in this article at Fast Company, has truly profound ramifications. In the past few years, Watts–a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo NASDAQ:YHOO –has performed a series of controversial, barn-burning experiments challenging the whole Influentials thesis. He has analyzed [...]

[Read more →]

 Over at Mutating Pictures, Philipp Lensman started wit a pool of 1000 randomly created images, and is asking people to rate how much each image looks like a face. He put the site up yesterday, and look how far it’s come. There’s also a forum at Google Blogoscoped, where technical details and the implementation  are [...]

[Read more →]

 Fascinating article in  New Scientist Tech  about the increasing utility of “evolutionary algorithms” across a wide range of engineering disciplines. Engineers create a simulation of the context of the problem for which they are trying to create a solution, then allow the components of the solution to be rearranged randomly and tested by computer software. [...]

[Read more →]

Goldman Takes ‘Private’ Equity To a New Level – WSJ.com: “It represents the latest step in the creeping exclusion of individual investors from a growing proportion of financial-market activity. For instance, giant private-equity firms are busy buying public companies and delisting them from stock exchanges. The growing importance of hedge funds — which are generally [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been thinking that the enterprise was a wrong-headed notion for years, but my new friend Sig has not only been thinking that, he’s been doing something about. I love his metaphors for what’s wrong with how we manage the enterprise and do business, but I think I love his software even more. Written in [...]

[Read more →]

This report from IBM’s Business Consulting Services on algorithmic trading evokes the world of Neuromancer or Snow Crash, talking about an arms race among financial services firms that trade. They even lay out the three imperatives for these kinds of systems: Shoot straight – the ability to define a trading strategy that adapts dynamically not [...]

[Read more →]

There is yet another technology-driven disruption brewing – this time in the realm of stock trading. The shift towards “algorithmic trading” is accelerating – in fact, according to this Reuters article, “About a third of U.S. equities trading is already being done using algorithmic trading, with that figure expected to soar to more than 50 [...]

[Read more →]