The ClosedPrivate Initiative made an appearance on Techmeme last week.
Look for the release of the API in the next week or so. Many interesting people have collaborated on it, but we can’t tell you who they are.
I woke up this morning to Northeastern sues Google over patent. Northeasten University and Jarg Corp have sued Google over a patent granted Professor Kenneth Baclawski in 1997. According to the Boston Globe article:
“The patent covers a method for chopping up database queries into multiple portions and having each part processed by a different computer. This allows for much faster searching of huge databases, like Google’s vast index of Web pages on the Internet.”
I haven’t read the patent, nor do I plan to since I’m sure the entire experience will just annoy me. When I was at MIT in the mid-1980’s, parallel computing was all the rage. At the time, I read several books about parallel computing (I remember one from Danny Hillis of Thinking Machines – it had a green cover and pink letters.) I specifically recall at least one of them talking about how to parellelize SQL database queries so they could be processed on different processors or computers simultaneously. I also remember sitting in the Media Lab with one of my frat brothers (who spent most of his time there) watching the blinking lights on a Connection Machine while he described all the cool parallel processing things he was working on.
The suit was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall (home of the vast majority of frivolous patent suits.) If this doesn’t motivate Google to get after reforming (or abolishing) the patent system, they might end up being the next software patent extortion victim – following in the frustrated steps of their friends at Microsoft.
You hear a lot about successful companies on most VC blogs. It’s a lot easier to talk about success than it is to talk about failure.
Several weeks ago, The Enthusiast Group (a company I have an angel investment in) decided to call it a day. They are in the process of selling off their properties (such as YourRunning, YourMTB, YourCycling, YourClimbing, and YourHorseSports.) If you have any interest in them, give them a shout.
Derek Scruggs – the co-founder – has a very thoughtful interview up on ColoradoStartups describing the experience and some of the lessons that he learned.
I’m proud of Derek and his partner Steve Outing – both for their efforts in starting The Enthusiast Group as well as for having the courage to call the ball when they realized things weren’t working.
Even though I thought Season 6 of 24 was a dud, I am still devastated by the news that 24 is on hold this season due to the writers strike. I guess Kiefer Sutherland can go do his jail time now.
If you have been following Defrag from a distance, Sean Ammirati at Read/WriteWeb has an awesome summary up titled Five Themes From the Defrag Conference.
In addition just summarizing what was covered, Sean has very insightful paragraphs after each one under the heading “My Take.”
Also, a very thorough summary of many of the sessions was blogged by Charles Knight at AltSearchEngines.
That got your attention, right? Actually I am in a place called “The Palace” – a hotel on New Montgomery Street that I always think of as “the Sheraton Commander” (but am not sure that’s right either.) I won’t be here for long so good luck trying to find the physical instantiation of me today.
Two of my favorite bloggers (and people I adore – both working with and just simply as people) have excellent posts up today that are worth reading. I’ll start with Dick Costolo’s post titled Have a Company Voice. Dick is so completely right – I was at a board meeting yesterday and while talking about launch and roll out strategy, I wish I could have simply passed around a copy of this post (jh – hint.)
Fred Wilson has the other great post up this morning (actually – it’s a threesome of posts.) He’s blogging about historical venture capital performance and his latest is The Rise and Fall Of The Venture Business. Actually, read them in order if you are interested.
Now, before you respond and say “why is a venture guy spending all this time pulling this data together”, remember that we have investors also. Fred’s annual meeting is next week and I expect to see some of this information synthesized there. It’s awesome that he’s sharing this broadly and “thinking out loud” as he works through the data.
Every now and then I read a book that is so delicious that I savor it. Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was one of those books. I finished it over the weekend on a run through the mountains. A number of folks have recommended The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It’s up next.
At least two of the people who recommended The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay told me they couldn’t get through The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. This perplexed me. As I read through the Amazon and Shelfari reviews of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, I realized the disconnect. While I read 99.9% of the books, I listened to The Yiddish Policemen’s Union on my iPod over the course of a month while running. I’ve been trying to find the right books to listed to while I go for my long runs (I often run naked – with no headphones) and I’ve only found a few that I really enjoyed. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was one of them.
Amy told me she loved reading the book. I loved listening to the book. I tried to craft a good summary, but I couldn’t top Elizabeth McCracken’s description from the Washington Post so I’ve copied it here (I’m sure this is illegal in some countries, but my guess is that Meyer Landsman would give me a pass on it.)
“Reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is like watching a gifted athlete invent a sport using elements of every other sport there is — balls, bats, poles, wickets, javelins and saxophones. The book begins with the introduction of a hung-over detective to a gun-shot corpse in a fleabag hotel. Classic noir, except that the detective drinks slivovitz instead of bourbon: He’s Jewish, a kind of Philip Marlovsky named Meyer Landsman, though Landsman is a cop — a “noz” in the yiddisher slang of the book — not a PI. The whole local police force is Jewish: The book is set in a present-day alternate reality in Sitka, Alaska, a safe haven set up for Jewish refugees after World War II and the collapse of Israel. Now, after nearly 60 years, the Federal District of Sitka is about to revert to American rule. There are elements of an international terrorist thriller, complicated by religious conspiracy and a band of end-of-the-world hopefuls, and yet the book has a dimly lit 1940s vibe. Maybe that’s just because of what Jews and movie dicks have always had in common: felt hats and an affinity for bad weather.”
Like all good detective stories, there are multiple stories within the story. We get chess, Alaska, Jewish food (shocking, I know), yiddish, love, self-loathing, murder, power, relationships, Alaskans, mysterious deaths, messianic shit, end of the world crazies, and occasional complicated sex written in a way that shows up the craft (writing and sex) magnificently. I thought Chabon’s storytelling was brilliant. On top of it, the reader of the book on tape (Peter Riegert) was ridiculously good.
You don’t have to be Jewish to love this book. It helps, but it’s not necessary.
If you aren’t at Defrag but want to follow along at home, there are two solid summaries up on the web.
There is also now a ClosedPrivate Facebook group. Don’t bother joining.
When I left for home at 8:30 Eric Norlin was nursing a beer at the bar.
Debbie Weil grabbed me at the New New Internet show and made me answer a question about blogging. Even though it is only 60 seconds long, I did manage to get the word “shit” into the interview.
“… likable, rumpled and forthright” indeed.