Terry Jones

Archive for October, 2007

Stagnant email address arms race

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 Posted under tech. | 2 Comments »

I like arms races. But in an interesting arms race there's frequent movement on both sides. So I'm often surprised that the measures people and programs take to obscure email addresses ... Read more..

Risk and reward, from the investor POV

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 Posted under companies. | Comments Off on Risk and reward, from the investor POV

I'm very curious about the correlation of perceived early stage (seed, series A) startup risk and the eventual reward. That is, if you plotted a set of well-informed potential investors' ... Read more..

Succinct Python

Monday, October 29th, 2007 Posted under python. | Comments Off on Succinct Python

Apropos of nothing... Having passed beyond the macho need to write obscure code, I'm not fond of coding constructs that make me scratch my head. But I found this yesterday in the ... Read more..

More old-fashioned telephone confusion

Sunday, October 28th, 2007 Posted under tech. | Comments Off on More old-fashioned telephone confusion

My 7-year-old daughter was here the other day and needed to make a call. She decided to use my landline, but found the old-fashioned phone (the one Telefonica installed, new, ... Read more..

Cereal, coffee, bread

Saturday, October 27th, 2007 Posted under me. | Comments Off on Cereal, coffee, bread

My company is fueled in large part by 3 ingredients: cereal, coffee, and bread. Mainly cereal. In my kitchen there are 6 empty boxes of cereal stacked end to end. Kelloggs ... Read more..

On Andreessen on platforms

Friday, October 26th, 2007 Posted under companies, tech. | 2 Comments »

[This taken from my comment on Fred Wilson's posting Andreessen on Platforms, in which he discussed Marc Andreessen's posting The three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet.] I think ... Read more..

The value of APIs to startups

Friday, October 26th, 2007 Posted under companies, tech, twitter. | 2 Comments »

[This pulled from my comments and questions on Fred Wilson's posting Every Product Is A Platform on September 10, 2007] My question to VCs and others is where you see ... Read more..

Promoting comments

Friday, October 26th, 2007 Posted under me. | Comments Off on Promoting comments

While this blog was out of action July-September 2007 I made some apparently "long" comments on other blogs. I'm going to pull them and post them here. While a comment ... Read more..

Twisting the towel

Friday, October 26th, 2007 Posted under companies, tech. | Comments Off on Twisting the towel

Russell and I met with Esther Dyson (a Fluidinfo investor) recently. After she'd listened to our presentation and seen the latest demo, she said that we'd "given the towel another ... Read more..

The opposite of shared nothing?

Thursday, October 25th, 2007 Posted under tech. | 2 Comments »

Shared nothing architectures are all the rage. And so, a little geeky joke to lighten the mood around here: Q: What's the opposite of shared nothing? A: Shard nothing. Look it up. Read more..

Target cheat sheet

Thursday, October 25th, 2007 Posted under python. | Comments Off on Target cheat sheet

B O H C N K R E W I have a friend who sends me the Target puzzle from the Sydney Morning Herald every day. I've loved doing anagrams for as long as I can remember. I used ... Read more..

Pocket battleship

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 Posted under me. | Comments Off on Pocket battleship

Last night I dreamed that Peter Roebuck, my cricket coach in 1981, had written an extremely long article about me, full of color pictures. Weirdly though, he had spelled my ... Read more..

Live from the Gatwick Express

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 Posted under travel. | Comments Off on Live from the Gatwick Express

I've flown in to the UK probably 30 times over the last 3 years. Here's how to cut a few corners: It should go without saying - don't check baggage unless you ... Read more..

Nova Spivak really gets it

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 Posted under tech. | Comments Off on Nova Spivak really gets it

Usually when I hear about the thinking behind new web technology I dismiss it pretty quickly. That's not because I don't like what people are doing or find it interesting, ... Read more..

Orwell on intellectuals

Monday, October 22nd, 2007 Posted under books. | Comments Off on Orwell on intellectuals

One of several things I admire about Orwell is that he doesn't pull any punches and he turns his guns on all comers. Here's a nice passage from a 1943 ... Read more..

Resurrection

Monday, October 22nd, 2007 Posted under me. | 1 Comment »

Today I resurrected as many of my old postings as I could find. I think I have about half. I’m still saddened by the loss of all those words. I ... Read more..

I’m back

Sunday, October 21st, 2007 Posted under me. | Comments Off on I’m back

Well, I'm back. The previous instantiation of this blog was washed away in a storm in early August. A server got hacked and in my hurry to have it decommissioned I ... Read more..