A friend of mine wrote me the following email about the economy from the trucker/trucking point of view. Interesting:
While traveling around the country by Jeep, I spent a little time
listening to Trucker Radio. The current diesel costs and the impact on
the economy were hot topics of discussion. I had a bit of revelation
that there are probably 1000s of business models that are only viable
due to cheap fuel. The interesting thing about fuel is that the costs
compound for every material/ingredient in a consumer good or
manufactured food.
Some questions that are stuck in my head is… How expensive does fuel
have to become before locally produced goods become competitive? Will
there be a return of the “family farm”? Could local micro-factories
inspired by web economics and sustainable practices be profitable?
The tools that I’m missing are ones that help me as a entrepreneur
identify niche goods and markets that are ready to be brought home.
How do we identify the commonality of goods and services in our
everyday lives? Can we use modern concepts of software engineering
like DRY and YAGNI to identify potential business ideas?
If we could analyze incoming goods and their contents like data
packets, we should be able to perform some interesting compression.
There are those among us who deserve our admiration and respect because they stand tall. These are the obvious candidates for greatness.
There are also those among us whose greatness lingers behind the scenes, shining in the dark corners of our world. Their greatness peers through the challenges of life to surprise and to inspire us.
Those who stand up for what they believe in.
Those who are curious about the world around them.
Those who raise their hand to help a friend.
Those who contribute without an expectation of return.
Cal was one of those people, a great person, a great mind, and a great friend.
Cal forged a life of friendship in the face adversity. He built a world where his friends were his family. He had our back. He gave selflessly. He inspired us. He is an original.
I will always have your back, my friend. I know where you have gone.
Welcome home.
Welcome back.
Rest in peace.
Another warrior has fallen, and your time has come too early for this world.
Tonight, starting around 9 PM EST, the JudgeCal Memorial will be broadcast live from New York City. The live video alone is embedded below. If you would like to chat, you can go to the event video page here. For information on the various memorials, please visit the more-JudgeCal group here. RIP.
[UPDATE] Below is the recorded LIVE memorial service. The video and audio quality are mixed, possibly due to poor wireless signal, but you can hear various memorials.
The Memorial Program
09:00 - 10:00 > The Casket of Memories Ceremony
10:00 - 10:05 > Welcome
10:05 - 10:35 > Friend Eulogies (2 minutes each)
10:35 - 11:15 > JMorton will DJ
11:13 - 12:00 > Hungry March Band
12:00 - 12:05 > Toast
12:05 - 12:15 > Hungry March Band (”Taps”)
12:15 - 01:00 > DJ Orion
01:00 - 02:00 > DJ Conrad
At 3:00 AM in a lounge while listening to live music on July 31st, 2008, my friend, Pierre, leaned over and said: “I have some bad news. JudgeCal is dead.”
In shock, and asked what happened, and I learned that he had been found dead in his apartment. A terrible sinking feeling came over me that he was alone, and I ran downstairs and hopped in a cab. After getting home, I called the morgue, which was closed, and then called the police precinct near his house.
“There are no reports, sir, of a Mark Chamberlain being brought in since July 20th anywhere in the city,” the officer said. Mark was the name that he had given up as a 15-year old kid on the street. JudgeCal matched his Judge Dredd tatoo and image as judge, jury, and executioner.
Of course, I was now hoping that this was all some type of bad hoax or new show. Awaking fully clothed and in shock the next morning sprawled on the bed, I grabbed some coffee and called the morgue. It was finally open, and I got transferred around a couple times as I asked for Mark Chamberlain.
“Nobody by that name has come in.”
I was about to hang up with the morgue when she asked, “maybe he was unidentified. Can you describe him?” I responded that he had a lot of tatoos on his arms and blond hair. She said, “platinum blond?”
A lot of people contribute to who you are, some in big ways, some in small ways, and some in other ways. Cal, as I liked to call him, was an “other way” contributor for me. He opened my mind. He helped me get back into gadgets and technology by showing his favorite video games or his radio frequency scanner. He always told the truth, and he always had your back. My first ride on the Nautilus at Burning Man was with Cal, just like my first all night video game deathmatch.
Across the thousands of people that come through my life, I have many great memories with JudgeCal. We were friends for just under 15 years, and I regret not having seen him in about a year.
IN MEMORY OF =JUDGECAL=
Born April 21, 1968. Passed July 25, 2008. =JUDGECAL’S= mission and GREAT WORK has been to awaken the sleeper in all of us. It is time to take up THE cause and BE responsible for our collective actions in an individual way.
FOR ANYONE THAT WANTS TO ATTEND FUNERAL SERVICES, PLEASE JOIN THIS MAILING LIST.
Most people do not realize that (a) I have some VCs that are friends and (b) I actively work towards private space exploration. Here are some links from a recent tour designed to introduce the Silicon Valley business to NASA. Enjoy!
“I Have Seen the Future of Space Exploration…And It Looks Like Web 2.0″
The gloves are off, the great monopoly formerly known as Microsoft.
Almost every day since the publication of an article titled, “Microsoft, You Suck”, I have received ignorant comment SPAM from Microsoft employees posting using Microsoft IP addresses and Hotmail accounts. These “comments” come in two forms: (1) calling me stupid and (2) pointing out the many “great needs” for Microsoft products. Despite a flood of poorly worded and insulting comment SPAM, I remained silent, even approving some of the corporate drool to appear as comments on the site.
Hey, Microsoft, I may be stupid, but you are the “stupidester,” using the language from one of your unpublished comments. Why?
FIRST: You actually have minions crawling the internet to post idiotic comments using words like “stupidester” INSTEAD OF FIXING YOUR BUG-LADEN, OVERWEIGHT, AND POORLY DESIGNED PRODUCTS! In case you missed it from your ivory tower, “the customer is king,” and, by the way, the have a lot of better options that your bloatware: Apple and Ubuntu are two. Every single person at Microsoft should be focused on fixing the products, not defending a mistake. Smart people apologize, fix the mistakes, and move on. Stupid people don’t even realize that they made a mistake…
SECOND: It is possible that the remaining smart Microsfters know that Vista and Office 2008 are both bloated mistakes, harping to a forgone era like the landline in telecom. These “smart people” can justify all mistakes by showing the vast sums of money these ghastly error-prone products generate, which they do, since they are produced by a monopoly, just like the phone companies of old. So, given ALL of the great sums of money that your crapware generates, your stock must generate equity returns, right? Wrong. Microsoft stock has not generated equity value in approximately 10 YEARS! It’s like you added no value to the world since 1998, joining a sad cast of characters that includes the artist formerly known as Prince. The great monopoly formerly known as Microsoft. Embarrassing.
THIRD: Let us not forget the awe-inspiring intelligence behind the product itself: Vista and Office 2008. We can all agree that writing software is hard. One would hope that you would be the BEST IN THE WORLD AT IT. Sadly, a loose federation of volunteer programmers has kicked your ass in the operating system world: Ubuntu. It works with most hardware, has a lot of whizz-bang features, but, best of all, the entire operating system and every application that you would ever want are 100% free. Even if it were bloated and crash-prone, which it is not, the fact that it is free makes it better than the overpriced Vista. But, wait, Ubuntu even runs Windows application for FREE using Wine. Go ahead. Comment SPAM me with messages pointing out the many problems with a UNIX based operating system, but add a little more consumer-facing polish and you have the Leaopard OS, which is also kicking your ass. It’s not about numbers, Mr. Softie, it’s about trend lines, and your trend lines suck.
FOURTH: So, according to trend lines, you’re losing the browser war. So, you’re losing share in the operating system market. You can’t seem to get your online offerings off the ground. BUT, great companies would still want to be acquired by this monopolistic cash hoarding beast, right? Wrong. Struggling public companies (Yahoo!) and start-ups alike (Xobni) are turning down your acquisition offers paid in cash at a premium. Hey, you did manage to acquire “the Enron of Scandinavia.” But, I digress, a little start-up turned you down for a cash offer. Huh?
The sad and scary part of all of this is that there is so much more to say about the stupid mistakes that you have made. Call me stupid all you want, but I have a really low bar to cross with you as a role model before your insults will really concern me.
Now, instead of diving into more obvious tales of stupidity, let’s take a look at your “smart” arguments defending Microsoft bloatware, which all circle around “needing to work offline.” You need to work on an airplane, right? Professionals need to work in the field, right? Of course they do, but that is a terrible argument to defend bloated local applications that store files in giant proprietary formats.
Using Google Gears, FireFox 3, or the new Adobe products, any developer can easily create web applications with a healthy offline experience to serve professionals in the field. But, architecting applications with offline access is not even necessary in the vast majority of cases. When was the last time that the average working professional traveled to a region where there was absolutely no cellular access? AND, where there is cellular access, there is ultimately connectivity. Soon enough, this will include planes. Soon enough, laptops will have chips that provide them with access to the cellular networks everywhere else. Technology evolves. Microsoft does not, apparently.
I know many smart people at Microsoft, and I respect them, too. Before you insult me, make a good product and build a half decent company. Back to the work of building great things… You should join me, Microsoft.
Here is a copy of a presentation made at the Space Investment Summit in Washington DC discussing, space, venture capital, and building a funding environment. Enjoy!
The blog post about the Microsoft Bloatware has generated some interesting comments, including on which said: “you are an idiot” (not published). Let me be clear: Windows Vista and Office 2008 are a disaster that will require a major recovery effort on the part of Microsoft. These two bloated and dysfunctional programs are the equivalent to GM making the strategic decision in 2008 to shift all production to SUVs, trucks, and Hummers. Microsoft, WAKE UP!
A revolution has begun to make something better. Every piece of software that you need is 100% FREE. For example, I am running a MacBook AIR with all open source applications to do my real business. A better operating system than Vista is also 100% FREE, Ubuntu. I have run Ubuntu for months without a crash, whereas Vista can barely stay on for a week without a crash. The nail in the coffin is someone who makes great and cheap hardware with all open source software. Imagine a MacBook AIR for $750, and everything is free.
To argue the importance of badly engineered operating systems and poorly crafted business application suites as “necessary for offline work” is like arguing the importance of the Cassette Deck for “the business of music” in 2008. You need a good browser with offline storage, a lightweight operating system, and a strong cloud. Microsoft, welcome to the Web 2.0 and Open Source worlds. The writing is on the wall, and your name is not there.
Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also serves as a Trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation, which inspires radical human achievements through competition. TheFunded.com is the seventh start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating. The last company, Game Trust, Inc., was acquired by Real Networks, Inc. (RNWK) at the end of 2007.
