Month: December 2004

Neoteny

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Neoteny is a venture capital firm based in Japan committed to helping entrepreneurs build sustainable information technology businesses.

Originally founded in January 2000 as an “incubator”, Neoteny has developed into a focused technology investment team and a consulting practice focused on corporate venture development. The consulting business was spun off as an independant subsidiary in October 2002. Neoteny continues to invest and works with venture businesses in its portfolio. Many of our portolio companies are working together developing markets and products. Our investments are focused on personal communication technologies, networked consumer electronics and enabling technologies. Neoteny invests in all stages with a preference for early stage investments.

Now with McMau

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I was walking to the park from Haight and I passed the McDonald’s- in the window there was a poster for a new product called “Mau.” There was a picture of some fried meat on it.

Mau? Like a mispelling of Mao, the Chinese leader? Or:

  • one half of Mau Mau, a political uprising in 1950s Kenya
  • one half of Mau Mau, an Italian band (okay I looked that one up)
  • Mau the card game. Funny, I always thought the name referred to Mao. You know, given the frustrating secrecy of the game.

Except then I realized the sign actually was upside-down. The meat was just the new chicken thing and the word was “new.” The font it was written in made it read upside-down as well.

Someone call Scott Kim.

PeaceWorks

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We are guided by the Theory of Economic Cooperation which reveals the following:

Profitable economic cooperation initiatives can cement relations between rivals in the same way that common-place business partners profit from exchange in today’s market place.

In this manner, business can enable the conditions necessary to achieve long-lasting social understanding and prosperity in conflict regions around the world. PeaceWorks acts at the catalyst for economic interdependence.

Simply put, If wallets are married, relations can be stronger. PeaceWorks is founded on this theory — and is proving to be a recipe for corporate success.

Web link of note: PeaceWorks
(At http://www.peaceworks.com/)

Birkball

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One of my coworkers was wearing a shirt that said “BIRK CLUB.” Complete with the soap icon.

It was referring to BirkBall. Apparently they used to play this a lot at his grad school.

NOAH: I’d tell you more but… it’s really geeky.

VINEET: The first rule of Birk Club is: Do not talk about Birk Club.

Web link of note: Birkball
(At http://www.birkball.com/)

Yellow Arrow

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Participants place arrows to draw attention to different locations and objects — a favorite view of the city, an odd fire hydrant, the local bar. After placing an arrow, a participant sends a text message (SMS) from his or her mobile phone to 1.646.270.5537 with the unique code printed on the sticker and a short text — messages range from literary quotations to personal commentaries to game-like prompts to action. When another person encounters the arrow, he or she sends the unique code on the arrow to 1.646.270.5537 and immediately receives the message associated with it on their mobile phone. Through this location-based exchange of text messages, the YellowArrow becomes a symbol for the unique characteristics, personal histories, and hidden secrets that live within our everyday spaces.

Web link of note: Yellow Arrow
(At http://www.yellowarrow.org/index2.php)

Stupid SysAdmin Tricks: Uniq

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SHAC: i just remembered one of the silliest sysadmin hacks ever

SHAC: if you have a file that sometimes has duplicate lines

SHAC: and sometimes doesnt

SHAC: and you want to process each line once

SHAC: if file is called foo

cat foo foo | sort | uniq -d > bar

SHAC: so you cat foo twice into sort so EVERY line has at least 2 instances… then you sort them all out… then you use uniq and say “tell me what lines are duplicated”

SHAC: of course every line is duplicated, but uniq only tells you that once

BRAIN: that is brilliant

SHAC: “boss” taught me it like 4 years ago

Make your own harai gushi

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Harai gushi / harai kushi (祓いぐし) are those “lightning wands” you see Shinto priests waving around, made of bundles of folded paper strips attached to a wooden handle.

The strips themselves, called shime, are also used to hang individually

A single one on a tree is a tamagushi (玉串 = たまぐし)

See also:

How-to links:

From David Lister’s
“Zigag Papers in Shinto shrines“:

O-shide are the simplest form and usually have a single zigzag. They may, howevr be double, anging in pairs. Go-hei (御幣) are also like twin O-shide, which re joined at the top. Harai gushi on the other hand are a whole bundle of zigzags tied to the top of a short rod. They look superficially like a cheerleader’s pompoms or “wavers”