Giancarlo Angulo's Blog
This was beautiful prose.
The second is an expedition into largely uncharted territory: yourself. You are in unfamiliar surroundings, among strangers; your comfortable assumptions do not operate here. We could argue that this is the natural, stripped-down, real version of you. Meet yourself. A mildly terrifying prospect, if you think about it: What if you don’t like you?
via The uncharted wilderness of your mind | JessicarulestheUniverse.
It was the first public denial of a salacious document masquerading as fact. By disclosing our sources without naming names, we gave our viewers a glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes.That is why this story is important. Events are never isolated so context defines the story’s value.Three days earlier, the Nacionalista Party used the word “topak” to describe Aquino.“Ano yung TOPAK ni Noynoy? Ito po yung Trapo, Oportunista at Kamaganak Inc na pumapaligid kay Noynoy Aquino,” said Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, secretary-general of the Nacionalista Party. This statement echoed earlier remarks by Villar spokesman Gilbert Remulla on ANC.The context of this fake document story seems to show an NP campaign to question Sen. Aquino’s mental health, something its standard-bearer, Sen. Manuel Villar publicly did on DZMM on Saturday, April 10.The Nacionalista Party denied they gave the documents to ABS-CBN and challenged us to name our sources. They publicly declared we are biased for Sen. Aquino.Yet, earlier, party representatives thanked us for airing our exclusive video of Baby James Yap saying “Villar” at a campaign rally of about 15,000 people. That video has since been replayed by another network and spread online by Sen. Villar’s supporters. Airing that video ruffled feathers within the Liberal Party and our own network.Nacionalista Party representatives also thanked us for disclosing two weeks ago that sources from the Liberal party gave ABS-CBN the documents questioning Sen. Villar’s ad campaign. Although the documents are authentic, the intent to demolish is the same. The Liberal Party also denied giving those documents to ABS-CBN.Frankly, it’s shocking to see such blatant distortions of the truth. Oh, how I wish we could disclose our sources, but those are the standards we live by.In other nations, news organizations routinely report on demolition teams and black ops as part of the election landscape. Negative advertising is part of the game. When candidates use this, they are transparent and accept the risk that it could backfire against them.In our country, candidates prefer to hide behind – and manipulate – journalists.To the political parties, we do not write stories because we are for or against you. We aim to tell it like it is. After all, how you run your campaigns gives us an idea of how you will run our nation.
via Black ops and the nature of the 2010 campaigns – Maria A. Ressa | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.
I take this as another indication that I am correct in my suspicion that when computers finally pass the Turing test it won’t be because computers have become smarter; it will be because humans have become dumber.
lol
via Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: TuringCraft.
soo true.
It’s time to finally put the performance review out of its misery.
This corporate sham is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. Everybody does it, and almost everyone who’s evaluated hates it. It’s a pretentious, bogus practice that produces absolutely nothing that any thinking executive should call a corporate plus.And yet few people do anything to kill it. Well, it’s time they did.
Don’t get me wrong: Reviewing performance is good; it should happen every day. But employees need evaluations they can believe, not the fraudulent ones they receive. They need evaluations that are dictated by need, not a date on the calendar. They need evaluations that make them strive to improve, not pretend they are perfect.
via Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews – WSJ.com.
Joel shouldn’t talk of things he doesn’t understand.
When I was in college I took two intro economics courses: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macro was full of theories like “low unemployment causes inflation” that never quite stood up to reality. But the micro stuff was both cool and useful. It was full of interesting concepts about the relationships between supply and demand that really did work. For example, if you have a competitor who lowers their prices, the demand for your product will go down unless you match them.
Joel shouldn’t talk of things he doesn’t understand.
When I was in college I took two intro economics courses: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macro was full of theories like “low unemployment causes inflation” that never quite stood up to reality. But the micro stuff was both cool and useful. It was full of interesting concepts about the relationships between supply and demand that really did work. For example, if you have a competitor who lowers their prices, the demand for your product will go down unless you match them.
via Strategy Letter V – Joel on Software.
Every start-up is in a furious race against time. The start-up must find the product-market fit that leads to a great business and substantially take the market before running out of cash. As a result, the top two priorities are always to:
1. Find the product that 1,000 enterprise or 50 million consumers want to buy and grab those customers before your competitors do.
2. Raise enough cash and spend it intelligently so that you don’t go broke along the way.
Clearly, you can’t succeed if you don’t achieve both priority No. 1 and priority No. 2. So why is taking the market more important than not running out of cash? Because the only thing worse for an entrepreneur than start-up hell (bankruptcy) is start-up purgatory.
via The Case for the Fat Start-Up | Ben Horowitz | Voices | AllThingsD.
But again, it's a mistake to judge men's interactions by assuming we need to be like women. Research shows that men often open up about emotional issues to wives, mothers, sisters and platonic female friends. That's partly because they assume male friends will be of little help. It may also be due to fears of seeming effeminate or gay. But it's also an indication that men compartmentalize their needs; they'd rather turn to male friends to momentarily escape from their problems. The new buzzword is “bromance.”
via Why Men’s Friendships Are Different – WSJ.com.
Every summer for 25 years, Mark Vasu has gotten together for a weekend getaway with old friends from Duke University. The 15 men, who graduated in 1984, gather in the same cabin in Highlands, N.C.
“It’s a judgment-free, action-packed, adventure-based weekend,” says Mr. Vasu. “We go hiking, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, fly-fishing.”
What they don’t do is sit around as a group, the way women do, sharing their deepest feelings.
Male friendships like these are absolutely typical, but don’t assume they’re inferior to female friendships. “If we use a women’s paradigm for friendship, we’re making a mistake,” says Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work, who has studied how 386 men made, kept and nurtured friendships. Men might not be physically or emotionally expressive, he says, but we derive great support from our friendships.
Researchers say women’s friendships are face to face: They talk, cry together, share secrets. Men’s friendships are side by side: We play golf. We go to football games.
For several years, I’ve reported on the friendships women share, first for this column and then for “The Girls From Ames,” a book about the 40-year friendship of 11 women from Ames, Iowa. And though I envy women’s easy intimacy, I also know it wouldn’t work for me and my friends.
via Why Men’s Friendships Are Different – WSJ.com.
Interesting anecdote on the value of Ron Conway on the linked site .
Why Ron is Unique
Now that we understand Ron’s value, a good question is why don’t more people run a network like Ron? Why is Ron unique? In my view there are four key ingredients to Ron’s business:
1. A ridonkulous work ethic—If Ron’s awake, he’s working. He can be at a party, in his pajamas, or at the Super Bowl. Ron is always on the job and the network is always on.
2. Pure motives—Ron does what he does, because he likes helping people succeed in business. He gives most of the money that he earns away to charity, so greed never clouds his vision or his mission. In fact, the investment component is almost an aside to his primary purpose.
3. Super human courage—Ron fears no man and he definitely fears no phone call. When you ask Ron for help, you don’t have to wait a week while he warms up a connection. Ron’s network is always on.
4. A way of doing business—This is the unspoken key to Ron’s success. He’s not judgmental in the conventional sense, but he acts with extreme prejudice when it comes to the proper way to conduct oneself in a relationship. If you behave below Ron’s standards in this respect, you will not be allowed to participate. As a result, Ron’s social network is a fantastic place to conduct business. Everyone is courteous, timely, and straightforward. Ron gets rid of the friction and enables his business partners to focus on what’s important.
So, the next time somebody asks you: “why should I try to get an investment from Ron Conway?”, let them know that (as The Game would put it) “if they are slipping in Silicon Valley and they get their deal snatched…”
via Ron Conway Explained // ben’s blog.