AS3O is an open coffee group for entrepreneurs, freelancers, renegade venture capitalists, creative types, developers, etc. – anyone who would like to get together outside of the office/house on a laptop – to work.  We looked around Atlanta for a community of startups, artists, small businesses, etc., and not finding the exciting, entrepreneurial nexus of our dreams, we figured we’d start one of our own.

Wish I didn't have a day job. :) You guys hang out down there on Saturday?

Atlanta Seed-Stage Second Office

If you work in the tech industry you could do worse than to read the testimony at this hearing. I think the advisors did a good job of starting to think beyond the "please reduce our labor and R&D costs" bullshit the tech industry usually presents in the guise of improving our technological competitiveness.

Congressional Hearing :: The Globalization of R&D and Innovation

terratogen wrote:

Back when we wrote about Cramer earlier this year, he was struggling to come up with a measly $20,000 to fund a high-risk experiment that would demonstrate, as he puts it, "signaling, or communication, in reverse time." Cramer could be wrong, but he ain't no crackpot; he's a physics professor at University of Washington who seems sincere in proving (or disproving) this testable idea with a simple experiment. Turns out, a lot of people really sympathized with the guy, and ponied up their own money. And why not? After all, it's going for university research (and this article even tells you how to donate).

If this will work, wouldn't he have messaged himself by now???

He hasn't built the receiver yet...

Communicating backwards in time

Talk to any public service leader and they will tell you not that they become totally demoralised by the completely unbalanced nature of it.

It is becoming worse? Again, I would say, yes. In my 10 years, I've noticed all these elements evolve with ever greater momentum.

It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon. New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media. In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.

I agree with nearly everything Blair says here. And ironically, I think these comments are getting incorrectly respun by the media and bloggers.

Full text of Blair's speech on politics and media | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Recently, we took another important step to improve our privacy practices by announcing a new policy to anonymize our server logs after 18 to 24 months, becoming the first leading search company to publish a data retention policy. We also posted here to explain the factors that guided our decision to retain server log data for 18 to 24 months.

1. Thank you!
2. I'll need to read further and figure out what "anonymize" means.

Official Google Blog: How long should Google remember searches?

I once asked a Japanese friend to explain why so many people on the Tokyo subway wore surgical masks. Are they extreme germophobes? Conscientious folks getting over a cold? Oh, yes, he said, yes, of course, but that's only the rubric. The real reason to wear the mask is to spare others the discomfort of seeing your facial expression, to make your face into a disengaged, unreadable blank--to spare others the discomfort of firing up their mirror neurons in order to model your mood based on your outward expression. To make it possible to see without seeing.

Snitchtown - Forbes.com

America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.

From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water.

In the south-east, usually a lush, humid region, it is the driest few months since records began in 1895. California and Nevada, where burgeoning population centres co-exist with an often harsh, barren landscape, have seen less rain over the past year than at any time since 1924. The Sierra Nevada range, which straddles the two states, received only 27 per cent of its usual snowfall in winter, with immediate knock-on effects on water supplies for the populations of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

But the long-term implications are escaping nobody. Climatologists see a growing volatility in the south-east's weather - today's drought coming close on the heels of devastating hurricanes two to three years ago. In the West, meanwhile, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests a movement towards a state of perpetual drought by the middle of this century. "The 1930s drought lasted less than a decade. This is something that could remain for 100 years," said Richard Seager a climatologist at Columbia University and lead researcher of a report published recently by the government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This is rather alarming. More data here.

The wrath of 2007: America's great drought | Independent Online

Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities.

The Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board, which sets federal accounting standards, is considering requiring the government to adopt accounting rules similar to those for corporations. The change would move Social Security and Medicare onto the government's income statement and balance sheet, instead of keeping them separate.

The White House and the Congressional Budget Office oppose the change, arguing that the programs are not true liabilities because government can cancel or cut them.

And cut they will. I've said before that one of my disappointments in the Bush years is that you had a Republican Congress and President and yet nothing could be done about this problem. Nothing will be done, and my generation will be left holding the bag. When I am an old man there will be tens or hundreds of thousands of people my age who are functionally homeless. Having lots of kids is beginning to sound like a good idea.

Why you'll never retire...

There are links for these in the articles.

Before I go, I want to remind the young graduates, their parents who scrimped and saved to get them there, and anyone else who stuck with me this far that are a few other rules of life worth considering.
Among them are the following.

Never pay a real estate agent a 6 percent commission.

Buy used things, except maybe used tires.

Get on the do-not-call list and other do-not-solicit lists so you can’t be tempted.

Watch infomercials for their entertainment value only.

Know what your credit reports say, but don’t pay for that knowledge: go to www.annualcreditreport.com to get them.

Consolidate your cable, phone and Internet service to get the best deal.

Resist the lunacy of buying premium products like $2,000-a-pound chocolates.

Lose weight. Carrying extra pounds costs tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

Do not use your home as a piggy bank if home prices are flat or going down or if interest rates are rising.

Enroll in a 401(k) at work immediately.

Postpone buying high-tech products like PCs, digital cameras and high-definition TVs for as long as possible. And then buy after the selling season or buy older technology just as a new technology comes along.

And, I’m sorry, I’m really serious about this last one: make your own coffee.

More Advice Graduates Don’t Want to Hear - New York Times

The Our Team coalition is a group of Predator fans, business leaders, and other volunteers who are passionate about Nashville and committed to keeping the Preds in town. The campaign's goal is to help drive Predators season ticket sales within the local business community by personally reaching out to decision-makers within four key business sectors: major corporations, small and medium sized businesses, downtown businesses, and the hospitality/tourism industry.

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