J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert complete double alley-oop dunk: Pistons at Knicks (by nbavideosnow2)

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J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert complete double alley-oop dunk: Pistons at Knicks (by nbavideosnow2)
I just backed the rails.app project on kickstarter, check it.
The day Miami Heat saved Twitter.
Dear Twitter peeps, make note of yesterday, February 23, 2012. This is the day the Miami Heat saved twitter. Miami saved twitter from complete and utter collapse. It was not an easy task stoping Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks. The win required the Heat's best effort. A monster defensive game from their undersized center, Joel Anthony. Miami's Big Three playing like the Big Three instead of The Big Two. Before thursday's game, Super Lintendo was breaking everything. He was breaking NBA records, breaking down stereo types of Asian male. If the Knicks had won with Lin being Super Lintendo, he would have broken twitter too. The underdog Knicks taking down the villied reigning Eastern Conference Champs, the Miami Heat. The feel good story beating the team everyone loves to hate. A knicks win would have flooded twitter with Linsanity streams. Fans were questioning whether Jeremy Lin, Carmelo Anthony, and Amar'e Stoudemire would mesh and play well together. They've been competing together for only three games, compared to Miami heat team who competed for a full seasons plus. Could everything come together so fast for the Knicks ? A Knicks win yesterday would have been against all odds and would have smashed twitter. All rising stars have bad games, all rising stars have their challenges to overcome. Jeremy Lin ceiling is still high. So Knicks fans look on the bright side, your team lost, but at least you still have twitter.
Will it be a Giants vs Patriots Super Bowl rematch ?
In a few hours we will know the answer to that question. I think we will have a rematch of New York Giants vs New England Patriots. Baltimore Ravens defense is good but they don't have a great pass rush, they got a great running defense, but the Patriots don't run much. It's been said before by many analyst it's going to be hard to cover the Patriots receivers and tight ends. Anquan Bolden is good but Joe Flacco does not have enough weapons. In the Giants game, as long as Eli Manning is healthy, I don't think this is going to be as close as some people are expecting. The Giants have the most balance offense out of all the teams remaining in the playoffs and the defense is peaking at the right time. The 49ers struggled against a Saints team that had 4 turn overs. A better defense would have double teamed Vernon Davis and let someone else beat them. Well that's my pick, let see what happens.
jmak:
Thanks, Steve.
Posting designs like this one makes me paranoid, because I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not original. I enjoyed the process regardless, but please let me know if somebody else beat me to the idea!
Thoughts?
The Toyota Corolla of tablets.
Amazon Fire tablet just made Apple ipad more desirable. If you're saving up for an ipad you're not going to say I'm getting the Fire tablet instead, you'll keep saving. All this talk of it being an ipad killer was all hype. Most consumers will see it as a cheap tablet. Very few will perceive this as a better tablet than the ipad. Amazon fire is smaller and cheaper, but not better. It's not even a viable alternative if you want 9.7" tablet. Amazon obviously think Apple has made the best 9.7" digital tablet money can buy. Amazon's offering is definitely not more appealing to musicians, especially guitarist. As a guitarist It's great that I can use Apogees jam with Garageband on the ipad and create music with it, you can't do that with a Kindle Fire Tablet. To say Amazon's Kindle Fire touch is a direct competitor to Apple's ipad is like saying a Toyota corolla is a direct competitor to BMW's 5 series. It may sell well like Corollas, it serves a want, but It is not an ipad killer. Amazon essentially made the Toyota Corolla of tablets.
Don't Blame Technology.
Too many people are blaming technology for the lack of jobs. No doubt technology is killing some jobs, but it has also added many jobs to society as well. Now people are making the argument that technology is killing net jobs as a result shrinking the economy.
Our new economy is shrinking because technology leads to efficiency over growth.
-Jeff Jarvis
This argument is wrong because it ignores the impact of war and corruption has on our economy. The economy can't grow when trillions of dollars are lost to fighting wars and bailing out wall street. Inefficiency does not add value to society, technology never killed a job that is of great value to society. Advance technology has not replaced the highly skilled worker, craftsman, engineer or artist.
....Just when you thought you couldn't take "journalism" lower than the work of article chop shops like Demand Media, it sounds like Narrative Science has figured out how to do a good job of having a computer generate timely news stories for sporting events, stock market news, and company announcements. Throw in self-driving cars, even Foxconn replacing factory workers with robots, automated stock trading, and you have to start thinking about the future of work....at some point, we're going to have to start thinking about how to put people to work, rather than how to put them out of work.
-Tim O'reilly
Although I agree with Tim O'reilly assessment that we should be thinking about how to put people to work, in general this quote is an overreaction to technology killing jobs. Narrative Science software only has the potential to kill the simplest and routine part of journalistic work, simple reporting of available data. What Narrative Science does not do is replace the writers and journalist who break stories, do investigation and research, journalist who provide their own unique and refined delivery and writers who provide their own interesting opinions.
All the other jobs Tim mentioned are not great jobs, these are not the jobs we were told to aspire to attain as kids in school. Factory work is a boring job that pays the bills, If people had more creative options that pay as well, they would do it. Stock trading may not be boring but people in general lose money trading stocks(see: reasons why should never own stock again), If current software can do a better job at trading stock and not lose money, then we should use computers.
Foxconn may eventually replace all the factory workers with machines. But foxconn only manufacture the tech devices for companies like Apple. Apple won't replace their engineers and designers with machines. Because Apple understands the value of human creativity and ingenuity.
Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing. - NY Times quoting Steve Jobs.
The whole range of human consciousness and experiences is integral to the best work we do. We don't fully understand every single aspect of our consciousness so we cannot compile what we don't know into a software algorithm. Technology is only good at killing dull and repetitive jobs that requires no creativity, ingenuity or problem solving. Technology is great at killing jobs people really don't want to do. Developed countries require their young people to study humanities and the sciences for at least 12 years in public schools. Yet the best society could offer a high school graduate is a $12 an hour job, stacking books at borders ? Did we take all those tests, did all that homework so we can work at boring and repetitive jobs at factories ? Jobs that are being killed by Technology are jobs that can be accoplished by an adult with a 5th grade education. The public school system and higher education has a problem because we have a deficient work force with limited options.
But even if we fix education, we won't fix the job problem as long as the Government is spending trillions of dollars on war, billions on fraud and even more billions bailing out banks and wall street corruption. People are making a mistake blaming technology. We have less jobs for many reasons beyond the scope of this blog. Blaming technology is not going to solve the job problem, technology never killed a job worth keeping.
#Winning
The tech scene is abuzz with the Startup Genome Report. The report found that "In 90% of failed startup cases, 70% failed because they scaled prematurely." But that did not surprise me, insightful but nothing new here. If you're one the many attentive and bright readers of signal vs noise you'll remember that 37signals have been writing about premature scaling for years.
I keep hearing about “scaling” issues. Will this scale? Will that scale? Our software is scalable. Etc. But there’s another kind of scaling — human scaling. And that’s the expensive kind. A lot of these new companies that are springing up already have 10, 15, 20 people on board (or are headed there soon). Those are big payrolls for companies generating little to no revenue. And when you have little to no revenue and you have 10, 15, 20 people on board, you have to start borrowing. And when you start borrowing you start going into debt. And when you start going into debt, you can’t continue to innovate or take chances. And then decisions are made that aren’t in the best interest of your customers. It’s a slippery slope. A slippery downward slope.- Jason Fried
Jason Fried said the above in 2004. It should be obvious, when you're in a startup you want to make decisions that are in the best interest of your customers. Based on the study, typically inconsistent startups, (startups likely to fail) had 3 times more employees and more money in the efficiency stage than those who succeed. The effiencey stage is defined in the report as a time period where startups refine their business model and prove the inefficiency of their customers acquisition. Some say having millions of dollars is a good thing, it gives startups time improve on their business model, however the study showed the opposite. The research showed inconsistent startups had more than enough employees and cash and still failed. Speaking about startups with more cash than insights, David from 37signals said:
When you have a lot of cash, you can delude yourself for a very long time and still pay the bills. There’s nothing that will bring realism into your world as quickly as realizing that you’re out of cash. That is a smack of real life that will instill sense in almost anybody. - David Heinemeier Hansson
A Visual.ly infographic based on the Startup Genome research study.
Having more money in the efficiency stage and a large team to start did not prove to be an advantage for internet startups.
You don't need tons of money or a huge team or a lengthy development cycle to build great software. Those things are the ingredients for slow, murky, changeless applications. Getting real takes the opposite approach. - Getting Real by 37signals
37signals thoughts on product development are also accurate. Startups who wrote more code and spend most of their time on product development were more likely to fail.
We believe software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much to learn. Our products do less than the competition — intentionally. We build products that work smarter, feel better, allow you to do things your way, and are easier to use. - 37signals
The report notes that inconsistent startups write 3.4 times more lines of code during product development. A competent coder who writes simiple software with less features won't write unnecessary code.
Now it appears that 37signals is in the so called scaling stage and they are adding a lot more employees and spending a lot more money, like the study suggest successful internet companies would do. They started with a handful of craftsman now they are approaching forty in head count. They use to share an office space now they are using a custom built modern and beautiful office space. So for those who think of 37signals as just being lucky, for those who think they can't learn from them, think again. Internet startups can learn how to win from 37signals.
discuss on hacker new
edit: The original article title was a total fail so I changed it.
startupquote:
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
- Steve Jobs
The things you do more often are the things you’re going to get good at. So if you get really good at spending money, you’re going to be really good at spending money. If you have to work on making money from day one, you’re going to get really damn good at making money. And that’s what you need to be as an entrepreneur… The problem I have is when companies’ business model is free only. And then they say, “We’ll figure out how to make money later.” As if there’s going to be this magic switch they can flip…If you’re not practicing making money, you’re not going to be able to flip that switch and just know how to do it really well. You need to have some time. You need to have some experience at making money.
Jason Fried
Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we have less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.
Steve Jobs
Why Myspace Tom Anderson's TechCrunch Article on Building an Audience is Mostly Irrelevant.
I recently read Tom Anderson's TechCrunch article about building an audience on the Internet. It's an interesting read with a few great observations, but it's so subtle and coded it becomes irrelevant to most content creators. You are probably wondering, "What the fudge do I know about building an audience on the Internet? Myspace was huge, man!" You are right, but Tom Anderson skimmed over the important parts about building an audience. To learn from a shrewd and financially successful businessman like Tom, you have to read between the lines. Pay more attention to what he is doing, because you'll learn far more from his actions than his words. In the article, Tom, my first friend on Myspace, describes two methods for building an audience online. He describes the methods as "schools," then names one "The Kevin Rose School" and the other "The Fred Wilson School." If that wasn't enough link bait, he then uses the ever-effective "popular dude" vs. "popular dude." Kevin rose quickly retorted in the comments, "This headline scares me, I never want to be against Fred Wilson." Even better for Tom, Fred Wilson addressed the article on his own popular blog. Fred wisely explained his thoughts on the issue, not letting Tom speak for him. So what do we learn from Tom actions? Writing a guest post about tech celebrities on a popular tech site is one way to get people to pay attention, and if you're wanting to build an audience, people have to pay attention to you. He actually confirms this observation briefly in two paragraphs and a sentence. Tom writes:
"In the offline world, most writers would never think to publish their own magazine or newspaper. A writer uses the distribution of a larger platform/brand (WSJ, NYT, Time) to get his story and name out. But on the Web, some have argued that technology has changed all that. Has it?
That model of posting everything on your own domain might have worked in the earlier days of the Internet. But who is so interesting that they can get a large enough audience to keep a bookmark and check their website?
. . . A blogger needs a mechanism to notify people of his posts . . . (and) guests posts on largely trafficked sites (such as TechCrunch)."
Tom is correct, which is why most of what Tom goes on to write is coded and irrelevant. He starts writing about personal brand, SEO, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, but somewhere among all the marketing lingo he writes, "Guest posts on largely trafficked sites (such as TechCrunch)" are crucial -- you need to be where people go for new information. Discovery on Facebook and Twitter and other social networks is not primarily driven by you trying to be some random stranger's friend. Discovery on Facebook and Twitter is driven by popular media sites such as TechCrunch, Mashable, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN, and Yahoo. And you can only get on these site if you do or build something truly novel or clever. That is, you have to be newsworthy in some way. They just don't give anyone an opportunity to guest blog. When people read news on these sites, they share it with their friends. Telling your friends the news you read amplifies the message from the news sites. There is an echo effect because more people will go to the site that reports the news, followed by going to the actual person/organization making the news. Both parties benefits. But Tom does not go into detail about that. You have to read between the lines to figure things out. The rest of Tom's post, in relation to building an audience, is mostly filler, and the bulk of the work is done in the two crucial paragraphs I quoted -- the headline and getting on TechCrunch. This is why Tom Anderson's MO, which involves guest posting on TechCrunch, his headline, is far more relevant to building an audience than the bulk of the article. The words on social media are mostly irrelevant because just using these tools is not enough to build an audience. Anyone can use these sites; just being on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ or having a WordPress blog won't help you build an audience. Spamming people or following them is not going to be enough. You'll be ignored if you don't 1.) have an audience prior to joining or 2.) don't borrow the attention of someone else's audience. Moreover, a lot of noise exists on these social networks. Just because people are following you, have become your friend, and see your feed does not mean the majority is paying attention. Remember the good old days on Myspace? A band could have hundreds or tens of thousand fans, but how many of those friends actually brought records or went to shows? From experience, I can say not many. What about having a million followers on Twitter? A million Twitter followers does not guarantee financial success (see: Why Soulja Boy's 2.5 mil followers didn't make a hit). It is easy for people to follow you on social networks, but that also means it easy for the same people to follow hundreds if not thousands of other people, too. This means it would be a good idea for most content producers to have their own sites along with one or two social network profiles. There's no need to pick one over another. Tom Anderson guest blogs on TechCrunch, despite having many followers, because he knows thousand of people will read it. There is less noise on TechCrunch. That's how you build an audience -- less noise means more signal. Is it any wonder that TV continues to drive a great deal of traffic to both offline and online destinations? And if you manage to get consistent press from big media, make sure you are using a service that can handle the traffic and the occasional traffic spike. You will frustrate your audience if your site is constantly down. To prevent this, you could be on Twitter, Google+, or running your own WordPress blog through traffic spike-proof services such as WP engine. The fact remains that if you are famous, you have people's attention, and they will follow you wherever you are on the Internet. It's attention economy -- you need to garner attention to build an audience. If I'm on Google+, what is the chance you'll follow me? You don't even know who I am. Steve Jobs doesn't Tweet, blog, or have a public Facebook account. But if he decides to start tweeting, millions would follow him, and not just on Twitter -- they would follow him on Tumblr, Posterous, Google+, a personal WordPress blog. People would follow Steve Jobs anywhere online and down whatever rabbit hole he choose to go. Charlie Sheen doesn't own a platform. He was kicked off a TV show he helped popularize, yet people followed him. They followed him to Twitter, they followed him to Ustream.tv. People followed him to standup shows, and they paid cash for it, despite him never being a standup comedian. It's sad to say some people were so drunk off tiger blood they would probably follow him off a cliff if it meant #wining. The lesson is, you build an audience by building something people love. If you do that, they will follow you wherever you go.
So what are some ways to build an audience ?
Keep in mind it takes time to build an audience. There are no shortcuts, there is no overnight success. Just following people on Twitter in hopes they will follow you back won't work to build a real audience. Creating content, a product, or service people will love requires great skill and proper experience. I talked about Steve Jobs and Charlie Sheen, but they did not become world-famous overnight. As talented and unique as these men are in their professions, they still had to overcome challenges and work to get to the level they are at today. Charlie Sheen was expelled from high school a few weeks before graduation for poor grades and attendance. Even worse, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. He was not rehired until about 10 years later. If these gifted and resourceful men had to overcome challenges and persevere to succeed, should we not expect to do the same, even just to get some modicum of success? Not every movie Charlie Sheen was in was a hit, and not every product Steve Job produced was a financial success.
Most people will never reach their levels of success but we can learn the value of overcoming challenges to build a product or hone a skill people will love. Building an audience is a challenge we can overcome. If you have not read Jason Cohen article on how "I got 6,000 subscribers in 12 months" you should read it now. He has many examples of how he built his audience for his blog. He gives a number of great suggestions on how to go about guest posting on popular blogs. For example, he writes:
"Get to know the blogger first. Meet in person, link to that blogger a few times, send genuinely useful stuff to them over Twitter, review something that blogger is doing, mention a blogger in a different guest post, etc. All this opens the door to a real relationship. Remember that popular bloggers get guest-post offers all the time, so it helps to make yourself known. I’ve done all of the above."
There's a good chance you won't develop a relationship with the editors at TechCrunch, although if you're in New York City it's easy to find Erick Schonfeld at a cafe via FourSquare. There are still other popular tech blogs such as Venture Beat, Business Insiders, and TheNextWeb that you may consider. Those may even be a long shot, so perhaps less popular but still popular blogs like Onstartups.com, which can help you build your audience if you're genuinely interested in building a relationship with the blogger. It should be obvious: Only try to to get to know the blogger you enjoy reading. The goal shouldn't be to just sell stuff but to make a valuable contribution to their blog.
Guest blogging is just one way to get ink and media coverage. There other ways to get media coverage that are also covered in Jason's article. 37signals also has many great suggestions in their book Getting Real and Rework. Take, for example, in 37signals' 10 ways to "get ink," the No. 10 way is:
10. Be undeniably good. Steve Martin was on Charlie Rose last week. At the very end, he gave his advice to someone who’s trying to make it in any field: “Be undeniably good.”
When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them—and nobody ever takes note of it 'cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this—but I always say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” If somebody’s thinking, “How can I be really good?” people are going to come to you. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.
Read the rest of 10 ways to "get ink" here : http://37signals.com/svn/posts/741-ask-37signals-10-ways-to-get-ink
Discuss the post on hacker news here: news.ycombinatior.com