Tag Archive for 'General'

Impossible is Nothing

Great Wed morning reminder ;-)
_ Greatest Ad Campaign ever: Impossible is Nothing « David Adewumi

“Some people listen to themselves rather than listening to what others say.These people don’t come along very often, but when they do, they remind us, that once you set out on a path, even though critics may doubt you, its ok to believe, that there is no can’t, won’t, or impossible. They remind us, that it’s OK to believe, impossible … is nothing.”

Checkout the debt post “Buy now, pay more later” from Peter

As usual, Peter put’s it into perspective…

_ Buy now, pay more later

So this week I’m going to have a look at what has been going on in America. I think the decade of 1999 to 2008 is going be one of the most popular case studies in future economic papers. An interesting time and a complicated time.

Currently in America there is a massive debt crisis, everyone has gone on a massive spending spree lately, racking up huge amounts of debt, buying lots of houses and now no one can afford their credit bills and everyone is defaulting. Right? WRONG! Here is the surprise – I was seriously expecting to see a surge about 5 years ago in consumer spending and debt in America, but it is not there! Consumer debt has been steadily rising, yes it might be getting to be too large a percentage of their income, but the rate of increase has been constant for over a decade. There has been no large jumps in consumer debt. Now I am going to say this in big bold letters – the current crisis in America is not due to a change in consumer behaviour! If anyone tries to accuse the man on the street of being irresponsible and causing the current crisis, they are wrong. The man on the street is doing nothing different.

;-)

The London Startup Scene

Good article from Sarah Lacy on UK startups…

Web Startups: The London Scene

London has never been considered a center of entrepreneurship. As TechCrunch UK editor Mike Butcher notes, Europeans are encumbered with the well-worn caricature that they’re too lazy and well-fed by the state to exhibit entrepreneurial hunger. More to the point, he says, many are just seduced by the more lucrative and certain path of investment banking. The play-it-safe ethos has long permeated the London scene.

Of course, the dot-com excitement of the late 1990s reached across the Atlantic. But London seemed to catch on late and produced very few home run exits in the form of IPOs or sales. Conservative local investors quickly turned on budding entrepreneurs, and computer science and engineering students at Cambridge retreated to the safety of banks, law firms, and consulting companies. U.S.-based venture funding receded and investments in Europe plummeted.

Good thing I’m not British!! ;-)

Dodgy dealing and risk peddling

If you’re thinking about the credit risk stuff going on, then Peter’s article is a good place to start (if you’re an economical luddite like I am that is…)
_ Dodgy dealing and risk peddling

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the economic problems that America and other place have been experiencing – the infamous ‘sub-prime’ debacle. I have a lot to say, so I’m going to split this into two parts, first: what is sub-prime and what actually happened? The second part will be about the responses and reactions to the crisis and promises to be a goody – yes I will be calling Alan Greenspan an idiot who doesn’t even know basic economics :)

Nice one Pete - keep it coming ;-)

Photo of Chicago at night, from 36,000 feet

The size of Chicago really hit me when I was on the way back from SxSW this year… this photo kinda puts it into perspective.. ;-)

Chicago from air at night

Get it from Flickr:
_ Chicago at night, from 36,000 feet

SxSWi08 Panda Bears Day 1 on Flickr, check it out

Had lots of fun last night taking photo’s of peeps, using the “you’re a Panda bear” theme to break the ice ;-)
_ SxSWi08 Panda Bears Day 1 on Flickr

Profile in a kindo family tree dating back to 1702

Pretty cool to know that we’re developing something that can do this, for people in 9 languages spread across 116 countries ;-)

_ Kindo - Profile in a kindo family tree dating back to 1702

We recently had a posting on our forum where one of our users, Rudolf Hager told us that he and his uncle had built a family tree dating back to 1702.

And we’ve got so much more coming!

1 week without coffee based caffeine

It’s been a week now since I’ve stopped having “proper” coffee, and to be honest I’m feeling a little more tired than normal during the day (sleep patterns haven’t changed much), but not bad enough to make think it’s having an adverse effect on me..

Psychologically I am drinking decaf for the placebo hot-drink-effect ;-)

Anyways, lets see what happens over the next month or so - am curious to see what happens when I do have a coffee, and what effect that has on my nervous system.

Drinking decaff coffee is like eating vegetarian sausages….

Says Andrew while walking up the stairs this afternoon, “it’s just not the same thing”…

I’ve made a pact sealed in spit with a special friend, to wean myself of coffee, and today at day 3, it’s starting to feel like I’m coming off of it. But my body don’t like it!!

Community Contest 2007: Putting Others First

Check this out - great idea! ;-)
_ Community Guy - Jake McKee » Community Contest 2007: Putting Others First

It’s Day 3 of our quest to learn about the impact of sharing on communities. We’ve learned the value of trust and we’ve been reminded of the importance of opening ourselves up, so what’s next?

Great results come when communities and companies share openly. In order to encourage a sharing culture, you need to work to create conditions that allow for that culture to flourish. Creating these conditions are easy - focus on putting others first.

No more stealth startup - Kindo is born today!

Right now there are lots of proud moms and pops here at our Putney offices! Today we’ve just released our first public version of Kindo [www.kindo.com], along with some nice improvements to our baby:

  1. Pruning is better (and you can use your keyboard to move your family tree around)
  2. Invitations are smoother (and we’re playing nicer with Hotmail)
  3. Your profile page has more information for your family (more status updates, and a better calendar)

Since we’re no longer in “beta”, you can be sure that your tree and pages will work as expected. So continue to build your beautiful trees, and share it with your whole family. And tell your friends to start their own tree too!

We feel we’re far from the finished article - Kindo will grow up, evolve, and get bigger and better all the time. We’ve launched a new Kindo forum [http://forum.kindo.com] too, which is a good place to ask questions if you need any help. Please tell us what you do and don’t like about Kindo, and also tell us how you want it to grow too!

Bye for now! ;-)

SA vs England Rugby World Cup theme song?

I reckon the Bokke are gonna be nice and revved up…

Sing low sweet Chariot… ;-)

Rugby World Cup 300 advert; Brian Habana vs Cheetah video

300 (the movie) theme:

The famous Cheetah VS Brian Habana race:

The woman who gave birth to 69 children

From the Kindo blog:

pregnancy.gifMrs Vassilet (1816-1872) holds that record and she deserves it! This Russian lady was the first wife of Fyodor Vassilet, a farmer from Shuya, and went through no less than 27 pregnancies! But the most impressive fact is that she had twins 16 times, triplets 7 times and 4 times quadruplets, which brings us to a total of … 69 children!
And, what is even more impressive, the majority of them lived up to their adult age, which wasn’t that common in those tiemes.
Mrs Vassilet’s fecundity made her so famous that she even met tsar Alexander II.
So it looks like Mrs Duggar, with her 17 children, has a long way to go…

If you want to read more curious stories about fecundity