Seaside living – “doesn’t anybody around here work?”

As a coastal resident I found this piece humorous and apropos:

 

Seaside living and the illusion of leisure

…in short, we work. This is the dirty little secret of seaside living. Everyone around us may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean we get a holiday. People move here imagining that life is just one long afternoon under a beach umbrella. They stop for lunch and look out onto our sidewalks and think, “Don’t people here need to earn a living?”

Yes, we do. Those window-shoppers? Other tourists.

 

This rings even more true for me since I work from home. I set my schedule around the crowds and that means I tend to work on Friday nights and all weekend long. I have my fun on a Tuesday afternoon and run errands at 10am on a Wednesday.

It beats the hustle and bustle, but also prompts the question, “Don’t you work?”

 

 

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Financial aid per student has grown 37% (or $5,000) over the past decade

An interesting graphic from NPR’s Planet Money series on the cost of college. That’s a 37% increase in financial aid per student since the 2000-2001 school year. The increase is largely paid for by more federal loans, with smaller contributions from federal grants and private loans. Everything else seems unchanged.

 

Have you heard of Social Advertising? — It’s the next big thing in online ads

A possible shift in the advertising landscape?

From an email Jonah Peretti, the CEO of Buzzfeed, sent out to employees and investors:

 

This same lucky shift made our business model work for the first time.  A couple years ago, we were trying unsuccessfully to sell social advertising to a market that only wanted to buy banners but things have changed dramatically since then.  Now many agencies and brands are refusing to buy banners, companies that rely on traditional display units are suffering, and budgets are shifting rapidly to social advertising. One of our board members, who was initially skeptical of our decision to not run banners, recently said that “social advertising will be the biggest media business since cable television.” Times have changed.

 

Which begs the question, what is social advertising?

 

“In social advertising, ads are targeted based on underlying social networks and their content is tailored with information that pertains to the social relationship.” – Catherine Tucker, Cornell

 

“Whereas in traditional, non-social, advertising the ad is targeted based on what it knows about the individual person (cookies) or the individual page (keywords).” – Wikipedia

 

 

Examples of Social Advertising from Facebook, Buzzfeed:

 

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A hundred million dollar exit in blogging means mixing Pulitzer Prize content with photos of kittens

One of the hardest decisions a writer makes is “who to write for,” also known as your audience. For this blog I have chosen to assume that my readers are smart rather than dumb, well-educated, and interested “good” stories (not controversy and bad-mouthing).

Sarah Lacy wrote an interesting piece on the audiences that both the Huffington Post and Bleacher Report have catered to. Made even more scintillating because both blogs are the only ones to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars:

 

Huffington Post bifurcated its site between very high end content — celebrities who didn’t blog anywhere else, and more recently very highly paid poaches from organizations like the New York Times– and the rest. Pulitzer Prize material and photos of kittens. The two might seem like they don’t belong on the same site. But having high notes and low notes, is far more effective (and only half as soul crushing from a journalism point of view) than a site that maximizes just for the middle of the spectrum– which is far more common in professional blogging.

 

I like to think that I come down somewhere above the middle, just short of Pulitzer Prize material.

Does that mean I need a few more animated gifs of kitties?

 
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Easy homemade mozzarella made with 1 gallon of milk – combine with tomatoes for Insalate Caprese

The full heat of summer is here and I’m drowning in tomatoes. I’ve been searching for new ways to use my bounty, beyond the basics of salsa, marinara sauce, and jarring for winter stores.

Next on my list is homemade mozzarella with a surprisingly easy recipe:

 

Mozzarella is one of the easiest cheeses to make, it only takes 30 minutes and the taste can’t be beat!

The ingredients are simple although a couple of them you may have to search a bit for, but the end result is worth it–especially when you can say “I made it myself!”

 

All the recipe calls for is 1 gallon of milk and tiny amounts of citric acid, rennet tablet, and cheese salt (though one recipe said you can skip the salt).  Extremely simple and cheap ($2.50) when it comes to making cheese and when combined with tomatoes and basil becomes:

 

Insalata Caprese

 

Insalata Caprese (salad in the style of Capri) is a simple salad from the Italian region of Campania, made of sliced fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, seasoned with salt, and olive oil. – Wikipedia

 

Now off to find those interesting ingredients!

Starbucks turns to venture capital, invests big in game-changer Square

I’ve been a big fan of Square from the beginning, mostly because I hate the cashier’s line. I even gave a talk at Ignite DC called, “The Future of the Queue”, though I spent all my time bashing the very old, and expensive technology that cashier’s use:

 

 

Lol, $300+ dollars just to read a credit card! Did you know that Square gives away this technology for free?

I repeat “gives it away for free.” It’s no wonder that the company is rumored to be valued at $3.2 billion.

How do they make their money, through fees, of course. From Square:

 

Transparent Pricing

  • 2.75% per swipe.
  • Free app, free Square Card Reader and free shipping.
  • No merchant account, monthly fees or set-up costs.

Next-Day Deposits

  • Payments in your bank account the next business day
  • Payments automatically sent for deposit to your bank with email confirmations.
  • No limit to the number or amount of payments you can take.

 

I’ve done some small business transactions and I know that these fees are big business. If you think about skimming off nearly 3% from every credit transaction we are talking about billions of dollars. In 2006, a study found that we spend nearly $1 trillion on credit each year (pdf).

That may explain why Starbucks, a coffee company, is playing venture capital by investing in Square. Though, many are speculating that the reason is to improve the “Starbucks experience” which I guess means giving baristas iPads and smartphones like the Apple Genius have.

It’s possible, but I’m very skeptical, it’s more likely that Starbucks is looking to cut back-end costs associated with credit transactions and that is something Square does very well. A few pennies per transaction is a lot of money for the big corporation.

Not to mention that Starbucks already has a strong mobile payment solution that “about 1 million people a week are using” out of 60 million transactions a week. 

It’s definitely an interesting story and one that spells big changes for the payments industry. Some good articles on this topic:

 

 

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Ford Focus Electric – now all major manufacturers sell EV’s – comparison of the basic specs

Note these specs are the most hotly contested in the industry. The price is based on MSRP excluding tax credits and all those crazy option packages (for Tesla you can get the base model for $50k and the same car with options for $100k).

Battery power and range are based on EPA estimates (though, those vary a lot too).

 

Ford Focus Electric

  • $39,995
  • 23 kWh
  • battery range – 76 miles

 

Nissan Leaf

  • $35,200
  • 80 kWh
  • battery range – 73 miles

 

Tesla Model S

  • $49,900
  • 40 kWh
  • 160 mile battery range (+$10k for 230 mile range)

 

 

Hybrid Plug-In

These two cars are marketed as Electric Vehicles (EV) even though they have a gas engine. What separates them from other hybrids is a larger battery pack that requires a charge (plug-in) to function.

 

Chevy Volt

  • $39,145
  • 16 kWh
  • battery range – 35 miles
  • 1.4L 4-cylinder gas engine

 

Toyota Prius Plug-in

  • $32,000
  • 4.4 kWh
  • battery range – 11 miles
  • 1.8L 4-cylinder gas engine

 

Photos of each EV:

 

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The Key To Winning Gold, In Anything

The 2012 U.S. Womens Gymnastics Team

As the Olympics begin to wrap-up and I take a Yoda-moment to reflect on the dedication and drive required to, not only be an Olympic athlete but to win gold in such prodigious company, my thoughts gravitate to an interview I watched with Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman.

Bowman revealed how during training, he would create unexpected challenges for Michael to navigate, including stepping on the Olympic athlete’s goggles before a swim so that the eyewear would fill with water and Michael would have to accommodate the new circumstances. In 2008, Phelps encountered this exact scenario in the 200-meter butterfly, but because he had prepared for it, he knew exactly how many strokes he needed to touch the wall and was able to swim without disruption to win the gold. If you look up the definition of sang-froid in Wikipedia, it links to this exact event. Okay, not really, but it should.

This ability to practice and execute, no matter what the circumstances, is the key to excellence, the difference between “nailing the landing” — or not.

As a writer, I can cite every distraction in the book, from noise to lighting to the “comfiness” of a chair, to keep me from getting the pages written. But these are just excuses, and weak ones at that. As Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.” What he was really saying to Luke was, “I don’t want to hear your frickin’ excuses!”

There’s a Buddhist saying: If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained. Champions are made, not in spite of the distractions, but because of them.

The Sikh’s have their own ferocious martial art – Shastar Vidiya – among the oldest in the world

Yesterday, after hearing a lot about the shooting at a Sikh temple, I spent some researching what the Sikh’s are. A fascinating people in many respects, one which is on the verge of extinction, the Sikh Warrior.

I poked around a bit and learned that the Sikh’s once had a great empire in India. It existed for a few centuries, with a great army, until two bloody wars with the British empire left them subjugated. It is during this time that the famous Sikh warrior came about, both as native Sikh fighters and as fighters in the British army after their defeat.

Apparently, they were so fearsome that the British had to outlaw various aspects of their culture. One of those was their martial art, Shastar Vidiya, a fighting form thought to be older than any Chinese and Japanese form. And, by outlaw, I mean anyone caught practicing will be put to death.

Today, this martial art is all but extinct. Only one master remains and he is hoping to pass on the martial art before it dies out. Ironically, he is British and hoping to convert British Sikh’s.

Here is an excerpt from The Independent:

 

Surrounded by hostile Hindu and Muslim empires who were opposed to the emergence of a new religion in their midst, the Sikhs quickly turned themselves into an efficient and fearsome warrior race. The most formidable group among them were the Akali Nihangs, a blue-turbaned sect of fighters who became the crack troops and cultural guardians of the Sikh faith….Astonished by the ferocity and bravery of the Akali Nihangs, the Punjab’s new colonial administrators swiftly banned the group and forbade Sikhs from wearing the blue turbans that defined the Akalis.

 

The full article – Ancient but deadly: the return of shastar vidiya.

 

 

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Google puts its self-driving cars to use as commuter vehicles

Technology is at its best when it makes people’s lives better, and that’s precisely what we’re going for with our self-driving car project. We’re using advanced computer science to try and make driving safer and more enjoyable.

Our vehicles, of which about a dozen are on the road at any given time, have now completed more than 300,000 miles of testing. They’ve covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn’t been a single accident under computer control.

We’re encouraged by this progress, but there’s still a long road ahead. To provide the best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter. As a next step, members of the self-driving car team will soon start using the cars solo (rather than in pairs), for things like commuting to work. This is an important milestone, as it brings this technology one step closer to every commuter. One day we hope this capability will enable people to be more productive in their cars. For now, our team members will remain in the driver’s seats and will take back control if needed.

With each breakthrough we feel more optimistic about delivering this technology to people and dramatically improving their driving experience. We’ll see you on the road!

 

Source: Google – The self-driving car logs more miles on new wheels

 

 

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