Funny Track Photo

Best of luck to China in hosting the Olympic Games.

Minimalizing by following F8, not attending

This week marks Facebook’s week to WOW the web community once again with new features, updates and parties.

I for one, will be sitting out from these activities. It seems like a bunch of hype to me as a user.

Unless you are an apps developer or a Zuckerbergian observer I do not see the point in paying up.

Yes, you will hear it first (whatever it is they are going to announce), but will you really have anything better to say? I think you can twitter it faster than me and maybe have your picture taken with a who’s who of the web 2, but barring a miracle I am sure I can just read about it and follow it online as it progresses.

I’ll be content following the updates on summize (congrats on the buyout).

Thursday Socialmedia is holding an afterparty at Pier 38 (above Om’s office and True Ventures).

See some of you there (and then off to Popscene).

However, I will admit that I am off to see Mike Lazerow (@lazerow) from BuddyMedia to see what they are up to.

Vize Revisited: Sort of…

Not sure if I ever mentioned it to my readers, but I used to work in archaeology back in the college days.

I was reminded of this by my buddy Alex last night.

It got me googling a bit and I found some old websites and photos that I thought were pretty neat.

Below is the Columbia University Art History Department website on the project:

Church Hagia Sophia of Vize, Turkey

Below are some photos I took of the church two years after the close of the survey work we had completed.  It was mid-December 2006

Harvesting the Internetz

You can learn quite a bunch cruising the internetz.

Tonight I am hitting up an old habit - Craigslist.

Its been a fascinating relationship that Craig Newmark’s list and Kristian Hansen have developed over the years.

Some things that I have found/bought/discovered on the site in no specific order:

1. Girls
2. Bed, Chair, Desk, table
3. Bike
4. Track Bike
5. Bike Parts
6. Skateboard
7. Rides to LA, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara
8. Chess lessons
9. Russian lessons
10. Turkish lessons
11. Apartments in Harlem, Brooklyn, West Village, San Francisco
12. Trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Yosemite with 26 year old Swedish girl for $150.
13. Coffee dates
14. Consulting work
15. Startup companies to work with
16. Bartending gigs

I bring this up because I am back on the bandwagon with CL. Tonight I spent half an hour browsing for cool people that might be fun to hangout with in SF. Let me be very clear - this was in the STRICTLY PLATONIC section. I wasn’t in the weird areas where everyone is naked or looking to go skiing in July.

I feel kind of like its been two months of SF now and it would be awesome to meet more people. Why not harvest this social network?

Emails sent out so far include, girl who wants to watch Dark Knight, guy who wants a buddy for watching operas (I want to check out the Ring Cycle next time its in SF), girl who recently moved here and looking for new friends, and I emailed a guy about a vintage track frame.

Will keep this updated as results come in.

Quick and Easy Test : Speakeasy.net

The kind folks over at Comcast Digital installed the internetz at my apartment today.

For $33/month I could get 6mbs or for $43/month 16mbs. I chose the faster connection on a six-month basis. Wonder how much they will be charging in six months.

Anyway, the cable dude - Jerry - took me to a site called Speakeasy.net

Click on the server closest to your city and figure out how fast you can download and how quickly you can upload from your computer.

Here’s my results as recorded from my MacBook Pro wirelessly connected to my Time Capsule:

Last Result:
Download Speed: 21077 kbps (2634.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3078 kbps (384.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

Pretty good if you ask me!

Stuff Today

Heading to a Social Media Party/Luncheon thingee around noon. I think its going to be in some ghetto part of SF, but we’ll have to wait and see about that.

Yoono is a sponsor of it.

Later tonight Laura Tolby will be hosting a San Francisco MediaBistro Party at 111 Minna Street. There are spaces left apparently so, you can sign up through that link above.

Is 111 Minna Street the default location for anything cool/tech related in SF?

I think Laura is single and I know she is worth a couple mill, since she sold out to Alan Meckler at Jupiter Media. Is she a cougar? Too old for me? I don’t know. Lets find out.

Cherrypal: Lets see what this is all about

I was cruising through Craigslist the other week when I saw an ad for Brand Ambassadors or something like that for a new computer called Cherrypal.

Of course when we are discussing brands, I know that I am a brand unto myself. Maybe not the best brand, but most people do not associate Jerry Yang, Enron or WorldCom to my likeness, so I am a good choice.

Cherrypal has made an eco-friendly computer with some awesome cloud computing capabilities (so I have read in press releases). For their OS they have shunned both Windows and Apple, in favor of I think Linux (they haven’t told me yet). But I do know that instead of a massive hard drive they will be depending on the “grid” to supply memory capabilities, instead relying on 5-15 GBs of space built into the computer itself, with additional capacity available via the interwebz.

Next week I hope to be receiving this computer and begin using it as my home desktop. For the last few years I have been all about the laptop. I love my MacBook Pro, but there might be space in my heart for a non-Apple desktop too.

To be determined…

Quake City Rumble V

Tonight I am riding the San Francisco Fifth Annual “Quake City Rumble” its starting at One Post Street (at Market) and ending at the Benders Bar (S. Van Ness at 19th Street). This is my chance to break into the alleycat scene. I am really missing the races and parties in Brooklyn and NYC.

Not really sure what I am getting myself into with this one. I still don’t really know SF all that well. I guess an alleycat is a great way to get to know the city.

Can’t wait to finally do a race out here!

Tomorrow there is another alleycat with location to be determined. I know they want to keep all the hipsters out of the loop. So I am actually looking forward to tomorrow’s race not allowing anyone with brakes of any kind on their bikes. It keeps it more of a purist sport.

A the Parkside Bar at 5pm on 4th of July will be Goldsprint Finals, Skids, Stands and Freestyle Comp.

I will be wearing a helmet, but the rest is up to the good graces of the gods.