Thursday May 08, 2008 at 14:08

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The 2007 Forbes Fictional 15

Fun roundup of the 15 richest fictional people in 2007 as ranked by Forbes.com. They also ranked them in 2006 and 2005. They also cover why certain people were dropped off between years. Example: Santa Claus and his infinite wealth was taken off the list in 2006 due to doubts of his existence.

Here’s the full 2007 list for you lazy readers.

  1. Scrooge McDuck - $28.8b - Mining, Treasure Hunting
  2. Ming The Merciless - $20.9b - Technology
  3. Richie Rich - $16.1b - Inheritance, Conglomerates
  4. Mom - $15.7b - Technology, Conglomerates
  5. Jed Clampett - $11.0b - Oil & Gas, Banking
  6. C. Montgomery Burns - $8.4b - Energy
  7. Carter Pewterschmidt - $7.2b - Inheritance, Steel
  8. Bruce Wayne - $7.0b - Inheritance, Defense
  9. Thurston Howell III - $6.3b - Howell Industries
  10. Tony Stark - $6.0 - Defense
  11. Fake Steve Jobs - $5.7b - Apple Computer, Pixar
  12. Gomez Addams - $2.0b - Inheritance, Investing
  13. Willy Wonka - $1.9b - Candy, Aerospace
  14. Lucius Malfoy - $1.6b - Inheritance
  15. Princess Peach - $1.3b - Inheritance

Thursday May 08, 2008 at 13:47

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SF needs a BBQ Festival like the Big Apple BBQ in NYC

Apparently there was one in Justin Herman Plaza in August 2007. No updates for 2008 though. I’ve emailed the contact address for that Guardsmen Barbecue Festival to see if they’re doing one this year.

(via dazzlingdelta)

This post was reblogged from It's a goddamn beautiful day, shut up!.

Thursday May 08, 2008 at 13:27

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Citysearch = Irrelevant, right?

Yep, it’s completely irrelevant. Citysearch is still stuck in the dotcom-era and developing its service as a portal. But portals only work when they hook into useful services - they’re actually pretty uninteresting for presenting pages of content. People prefer the casual, review-oriented blog+game+social network of Yelp.

Yelp is really brilliant and its popularity works on the same mechanics that make Wikipedia popular. No one has done a study of Yelp but I’m certain that it also relies on a elite group of 1000 or so reviewers in each city that write reviews of every restaurant, club, and store. Those are the ones you see with 500+ reviews and tons of compliments and “firsts”. And getting those compliments requires writing an entertaining but thorough entry, like writing a good blog post. To these elite, Yelp is blogging as a game and a de facto diary of what they’re doing, ie. “my life on Yelp.”

Citysearch is automatic FAIL because it lacks any incentives for people to spend time writing reviews.

mascarah:

Is it just me or is Citysearch totally irrelevant? The “customer” reviews of places are total shills. They still list places that aren’t open. Why does anyone use it?

This post was reblogged from adventures of mascarah..

Thursday May 08, 2008 at 12:57

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I saw the new Iron Man movie over the weekend and instantly thought of designing a shirt with the arc reactor in the chest. It could have two variants: one with the arc reactor coming out from the chest with the shirt torn around and a second variant with just the glow of the arc reactor beneath a gray heather shirt. This guy on eBay went one step ahead and made a shirt that has a working, glowing LED module in the chest! And it even turns on and off by touching the center! His first shirt sold for $148. I’m gonna post this to Etsy’s Alchemy and see if someone can manufacture it for $40-$60.

I saw the new Iron Man movie over the weekend and instantly thought of designing a shirt with the arc reactor in the chest. It could have two variants: one with the arc reactor coming out from the chest with the shirt torn around and a second variant with just the glow of the arc reactor beneath a gray heather shirt.

This guy on eBay went one step ahead and made a shirt that has a working, glowing LED module in the chest! And it even turns on and off by touching the center!

His first shirt sold for $148. I’m gonna post this to Etsy’s Alchemy and see if someone can manufacture it for $40-$60.

Detail of glowing LED arc reactor in T-shirt

The arc reactor in the T-shirt when turned off. You can see the LEDs

Thursday May 08, 2008 at 12:39

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Etsy has a bunch of watch cufflinks. These are beautiful specimens ranging from $40 - $85. I need my tailor to make me some more French cuff shirts.
Etsy has a bunch of watch cufflinks. These are beautiful specimens ranging from $40 - $85. I need my tailor to make me some more French cuff shirts.

Friday May 02, 2008 at 9:09

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“Once a King, never a Prince. True entrepreneurs are basically unemployable. Nobody wants a former boss as an employee. They don’t just fade away, they start new companies.”

— A commenter in Paul Kedrosky’s post about the age breakdown of US entrepreneurs.

Tuesday April 29, 2008 at 8:57

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Twitter becoming the Midas Touch?

The influential Twitter mini-universe is going completely gaga over Brightkite. It’s nearly identical to the mobile geolocater service Plazes with a single exception: Twitter integration. Somehow that’s been sufficient to kick off a firestorm of signups and Brightkite is struggling to keep up with the influx of new users.

For now, it seems Twitter is firmly secure as the bleeding edge communication tool. Any new social networking/geolocating/shiny web 2.0 app would be wise to latch on Twitter’s position as a crucial piece of infrastructure. Oh, and showing off a screenshot of an iPhone app that doesn’t exist yet doesn’t hurt cough Brightkite.

UPDATE: If you want a Brightkite invite to check it out, I have 3 of em. Send me a reply at twitter @junesix, I’ll friend you and then you can direct message me your email address.

Monday April 28, 2008 at 17:17

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“I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.”

— An excerpt from Clay Shirky’s speech, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, at the Web 2.0 conference about the increased productivity via “cognitive surplus.” Clay told this story to support his belief that this is more than just an idea and that people are growing accustomed to interacting with media and not simply consuming it.

Monday April 28, 2008 at 14:45

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Bracelets made from discarded camera lens components by Oye Modern. I’m not a jewelry guy but these would be great gifts for photo-geek friends/loved ones. Too bad about the price ~US$215. (via swissmiss.com)

Bracelets made from discarded camera lens components by Oye Modern.

I’m not a jewelry guy but these would be great gifts for photo-geek friends/loved ones. Too bad about the price ~US$215.

Wide Focus Cuff

(via swissmiss.com)

Monday April 28, 2008 at 13:21

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Evan Shaner does amazing “re-imagined” illustrations of other cartoon and comic figures. The above is Dennis the Menace’s family re-imagined as the Fantastic Four. Below is Charles Schultz’ Peanuts Gang re-imagined as The Watchmen. (via laughingsquid.com)

Evan Shaner does amazing “re-imagined” illustrations of other cartoon and comic figures.

The above is Dennis the Menace’s family re-imagined as the Fantastic Four.

Below is Charles Schultz’ Peanuts Gang re-imagined as The Watchmen. Charles Schultz' Peanuts gang x Watchmen

(via laughingsquid.com)

Monday April 28, 2008 at 13:12

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“As an industry — as a business model — health care is winning. It is taking everyone’s money with an amazingly low level of accountability for the product it sells.”

— George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente (via jayparkinsonmd.com)

This post was reblogged from JAY PARKINSON + MD + MPH.

Monday April 28, 2008 at 13:08

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If Microsoft goes fully hostile on Yahoo

Great read at Marc Andreesen’s blog on how a potential hostile takeover by Microsoft of Yahoo could happen. The attorneys who compiled it drop a lot of hints to the finance departments other big dot-coms on what they should do to avoid a similar predicament.

Monday April 28, 2008 at 0:16

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Sara, have you tried Remember The Milk? It’s a great to-do list app that integrates right into the sidebar of Gmail. Screenshot here. And it’s free! saramcpherson: I just realized that I’m not very nice in the To Do lists I e-mail to myself.

Sara, have you tried Remember The Milk? It’s a great to-do list app that integrates right into the sidebar of Gmail. Screenshot here. And it’s free!

saramcpherson:

I just realized that I’m not very nice in the To Do lists I e-mail to myself.

This post was reblogged from Sara McPherson {procrastinatrix}.

Friday April 25, 2008 at 15:23

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Fleming: Inside the Life of James Bond’s Creator

I had no idea Ian Fleming was such a renaissance man. Not only did he write the James Bond novels, earlier in his life he had worked as assistant to the British director of naval intelligence and later wrote a series of memorandums and letters to Col. William Donovan describing what a US intelligence agency should look like. In essence, he wrote up the blueprints for what would become the CIA.

After suffering a heart attack, he changed directions and wrote a book about a magical flying car for his son, Caspar. That book was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, later made into the classic 1968 children’s film.

Thursday April 24, 2008 at 18:52

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“I find myself thinking of a checklist Wozniak wrote a few years ago describing how to become a genius. His advice was straightforward yet strangely terrible: “You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired.”

— Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm (via jakoblodwick)

This post was reblogged from Jakob Lodwick's blog.

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