harryh

marsbot: foursquare conference room: herbivore

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:06:32 -0400

foursquare conference room: herbivore

"Again, I’d gladly pay for it. But I have no way to do so, outside of forking over an obscene amount..."

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:21:55 -0400

“Again, I’d gladly pay for it. But I have no way to do so, outside of forking over an obscene amount of money on a monthly basis to a cable company, and/or waiting a year. I’m just not willing to do that. My hand is being forced.”

- Help! I’m Being Forced To Pirate Game Of Thrones Against My Will! | PandoDaily

I’d gladly pay for it. Just I don’t want to pay for it. Gah. Come on.

Pay or wait. It’s not that hard. Or go to a friend’s house. If you’d gladly pay for it, you would. Your hand is not being forced, you are being given consumption choices. Why is it their job to give you exactly the choice you want, exactly, when others are perfectly happy to pay a higher price for that? It’s like saying I should get a BMW for free because I want it for free. I’d pay for it, but I wouldn’t pay $50k for it. Well, other people will, and they are setting the price, not you.

It’s not even a particularly bad deal. I pay $110 a month for ridiculously fast internet, HBO, a phone and hundreds of other awesome channels. It’s a great deal. Shit, it’s cheaper than my entire internet connection just 4 years ago, and three times as fast. Effectively I am getting HBO for free.

Just because the internet made it so we can get some articles for free online without subscribing doesn’t mean every other bundled thing in the world will or should unbundle. Republicans are still going to have to pay taxes that go to health care and I’m still going to have to pay taxes that go to the military. I still can’t buy a single chapter of a book, and that is fine. You still can’t buy a Mac without RAM. You can’t buy a home without insurance.

Even ignoring the cost, you’re not paying an absurd amount to see a show. You’re paying an absurd amount to see a show now, to be first, to see it as it airs, to be a part of the cultural conversation. You don’t have to. You can wait. It’s like paying $10 to see a movie in the theater. It’s more than you’ll have to pay to see it later on a plane or on Netflix. You paid to see it sooner.

I don’t pretend to know the economics of HBO’s business. I don’t know if the cable companies are subsidizing part of my HBO payment. I don’t know if HBO would get its ass handed to it by the cable companies offered it to me a la carte. I assume they would. But even if they offered it a la carte, I wouldn’t turn off my awesome bundle with all these other awesome movie channels, on demand, and my rockin’ internet. I’d keep the bundle. The only complaint I had before was that I couldn’t watch the shows when I wanted, where I wanted. That has been obviated by HBO Go (except where the cable companies won’t let them do it, but, again, that’s not entirely their fault).

This whole argument is based on “hollywood” being dumb and not understanding why people pirate. I don’t think it applies to HBO. HBO has record profits right now. Piracy isn’t hurting them. Plenty of people are able to pay. It’s adding subscribers. I wouldn’t change a thing if I were them. What would it do to their revenue to let anyone buy any show for $40 when it came out? How many people would do that vs. now, when they pay for a monthly subscription? Does anyone really think their profits would go up?

(via rickwebb)

THANK YOU RICK.

caro: I love the wallpaper in this room. (Taken with Instagram...

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:02:02 -0500

caro:

I love the wallpaper in this room. (Taken with Instagram at The 5th Floor Library)

We’ve got the same print in the bathrooms at foursquare hq.

mattlehrer: werdsmiffery: The 20 Most Beautiful Bookshops in...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:16:51 -0500

mattlehrer:

werdsmiffery:

The 20 Most Beautiful Bookshops in the World

Foursquare list waiting to happen.

https://foursquare.com/harryh/list/the-20-most-beautiful-bookstores-in-the-world

buzz: The absolute best moment in the entire three season run...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:23:48 -0500

buzz:

The absolute best moment in the entire three season run of “Deadwood.” Al Swearengen is my hero. “The world ends when you’re dead. ‘Til then you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man and give some back.”

Words to live by.

"To do this, we are starting 2012 with a renewed sense of focus. This means discontinuing certain..."

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:33:00 -0500

“To do this, we are starting 2012 with a renewed sense of focus. This means discontinuing certain features that are not core to our product or that haven’t resonated with you. Since the upcoming new experiences will either require, or work significantly better, with modern browsers, we will also discontinue supporting some of the older browsers that only a very small percentage of people are using with Flickr.”

-
Start the New Year Fresh! « Flickr Blog

Good. (It’s always hard to blog about your old companies. Like picking at scabs.) Curious to see what Flickr IS going to focus on.

I’ve loved Flickr since back in the day and have been saddened by the lack of innovation in the product so I’m happy to hear that there’s someone at Yahoo! that still wants to make it a better. Also, hooray for focus.

(via arainert)

I am skeptical. Someone needs to buy Flickr and save it.

(via rickwebb)

FTFY: ~~Someone~~Rick Webb needs to buy Flickr and save it

Video

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:49:23 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Codeshal: Dear Google, Please Stop Hitting Yourself

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:54:39 -0500

Codeshal: Dear Google, Please Stop Hitting Yourself:

codeshal:

I’m really rooting for Google.

I believe in Android as a bulwark against iPhone’s greedy closed system of iTunes and its hypocritically Orwellian “freedom from porn” (and its “we’ve already solved podcasts” (and its love of Hitler (and its intolerance for satire))). (Plus Android’s Gmail,…

Do you deploy directly from github to your...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:55:43 -0500

Do you deploy directly from github to your ISP?

noupside:

OATV.com is now hosted on Github pages!

brycedotvc:

Let’s make one more addition to GitHub’s Box of Fact:

Number of VC websites with a GitHub repo: 1 (well, the only one I know of at least)

When we launched the new OATV.com there were a number of folks asking how we did what we did and whether they could use some of the same parallax effects.

So, Renee came up with the idea to put it all up on GitHub. Phoebe was game and the two of them got to work. It’s now live at github.com/OATV.

It’s unlikely to be the next big open source project but we love what github is doing and their values resonate with ours. If we can share something that ends up being helpful to someone there, we should. So we have.

Now have at it.

Spiersblr: The Riches; They Buy Things!

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:12:26 -0500

Spiersblr: The Riches; They Buy Things!:

spiers:

(Or at the very least, bet against it with me on the other side of the wager so I can make some money off the deal. Any takers? Rex? Felix?)

No way I’m taking the other side of a bet against spiers, but I hope that someone does so I can watch!

App Makes Complaining About the Cabbie Who Wouldn't Take You to Brooklyn Even Easier

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:52:07 -0500

App Makes Complaining About the Cabbie Who Wouldn't Take You to Brooklyn Even Easier:

peterfeld:

bestrooftalkever:

This is very helpful since when I curse the cabbie who won’t take me to Brooklyn I always forget to get their name, medallion number, or really any other helpful information.

Better idea: argue for a fairer pricing structure that doesn’t obligate hard-working drivers who operate on a thin, diminishing margin (thanks to rising gas prices not offset by fare increases) to make long, non-lucrative trips with no hope of a return fare, thus personally subsidizing the lower cost of living in the outer boroughs. (Doubling all fares from Manhattan to the other boroughs would come closer to covering the true cost to the driver.) And a phone dispatch system (or an app!) to match Brooklynites headed into Manhattan with cabs returning empty.

For once, I 100% agree w/ Mr Feld. If cab drivers are refusing to take your money than clearly the pricing system is broken.

"It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th..."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:06:00 -0500

“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”

- Man with multiple degrees fails standardized test for children

We need more of this.

(via mattlehrer)

Honestly, it sounds to me like the guy taking the test was an idiot. He knew none of the answers to the math questions? A 10th grade exam is what? Algebra, geometry, and maybe some trig? An adult should be able to do these things.

caro: fek: “In the startup community, there’s a real stigma to depression. Every time someone...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:16:00 -0500

caro:

fek:

“In the startup community, there’s a real stigma to depression. Every time someone comes around and asks ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ you’re always like ‘Best day ever, man! Killing it! We’re crushing it!’ You have to do that.”

+1

I dunno, when people ask me how I’m doing I routinely tell them “God, it’s killing me.” I think the rigors of a leadership position at a startup (or really any position at all) are a pretty common topic of discussion these days. Pretty much everyone understands that working at a successful startup is likely to have a strong negative impact on your life, health, relationships, and overal mental state. I’ve also had quite a few discussions on the importance of combatting this and methods to do so.

Relavent to this discussion is Ben’s post on Managing Your Own Psychology.

parislemon: I’m still holding out hope for my last remaining...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:53:24 -0500

parislemon:

I’m still holding out hope for my last remaining gaming feature request: Mayorships amongst friends. You basically can’t get mayorships in popular spots in major cities. Too many people are playing. But if you could just battle your social graph, I think that would drive interesting combative social behavior, hearkening back to the early days of Foursquare.

This is a challenge as not everyone has the same view of what a group of friends is.

mattlehrer: The floods in Thailand, where one quarter of the world’s hard drives are manufactured,...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:44:58 -0500

mattlehrer:

The floods in Thailand, where one quarter of the world’s hard drives are manufactured, have caused prices to spike but the problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Anyone who thinks they’ll need a hard drive in the next six months is best off buying it now.

(via HDD Pricewatch: You know where it’s going — we tell you how much it’s going to hurt | ExtremeTech)

-10 pts for you Mr Lehrer for spreading an evil graph where the X-axis is set to something other than 0 to make the spike seem much bigger than it is. Shame!

Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:52:57 -0400

emptyage:

Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this stall we’re in has the look of something nastier. Social Security and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks to be the normal order of things “going forward,” to borrow the business-speak. Economists are warning that even when the economy recuperates, full employment will be lower and growth will be slower—a sad little rhyme that adds up to something decidedly unpoetic. A majority of Americans say, for the first time ever, that this generation will not be better off than its parents.

— New York Magazine

Generation X is sick of your bullshit.

The first generation to do worse than its parents? Please. Been there. Generation X was told that so many times that it can’t even read those words without hearing Winona Ryder’s voice in its heads. Or maybe it’s Ethan Hawke’s. Possibly Bridget Fonda’s. Generation X is getting older, and can’t remember those movies so well anymore. In retrospect, maybe they weren’t very good to begin with.

But Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs, and actually had to pay for its own music. (At least, when music mattered most to it.) Generation X is used to being fucked over. It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George Bush, and 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generation X bore the brunt of all that. And then came the housing crisis.

Generation X wasn’t surprised. Generation X kind of expected it.

Generation X is a journeyman. It didn’t invent hip hop, or punk rock, or even electronica (it’s pretty sure those dudes in Kraftwerk are boomers) but it perfected all of them, and made them its own. It didn’t invent the Web, but it largely built the damn thing. Generation X gave you Google and Twitter and blogging; Run DMC and Radiohead and Nirvana and Notorious B.I.G. Not that it gets any credit.

But that’s okay. Generation X is used to being ignored, stuffed between two much larger, much more vocal, demographics. But whatever! Generation X is self-sufficient. It was a latchkey child. Its parents were too busy fulfilling their own personal ambitions to notice any of its trophies—which were admittedly few and far between because they were only awarded for victories, not participation.

In fairness, Generation X could use a better spokesperson. Barack Obama is just a little too senior to count among its own, and it has debts older than Mark Zuckerberg. Generation X hasn’t had a real voice since ~~Kurt Cobain blew his brains out~~, ~~Tupac was murdered~~, ~~Jeff Mangum went crazy~~, ~~David Foster Wallace hung himself~~, ~~Jeff Buckley drowned~~, ~~River Phoenix overdosed~~, ~~Elliott Smith stabbed himself (twice) in the heart~~, Axl got fat.

Generation X is beyond all that bullshit now. It quit smoking and doing coke a long time ago. It has blood pressure issues and is heavier than it would like to be. It might still take some ecstasy, if it knew where to get some. But probably not. Generation X has to be up really early tomorrow morning.

Generation X is tired.

It’s a parent now, and there’s always so damn much to do. Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account. It wonders where its 30s went. It wonders if it still has time to catch up.

Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?

Whatever. It’s cool.

Generation X is used to disappointments. Generation X knows you didn’t even read the whole thing. It doesn’t want or expect your reblogs; it picked the wrong platform.

Generation X should have posted this to LiveJournal.

Amazing.

"Urs’s most significant accomplishment, however, was building the team that built Google. “Your..."

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:44:37 -0400

“Urs’s most significant accomplishment, however, was building the team that built Google. “Your greatest impact as an engineer comes through hiring someone who is as good as you or better,” he exhorted everyone who would listen, “because over the next year, they double your productivity. There’s nothing else you can do to double your productivity. Even if you’re a genius, that’s extremely unlikely to happen.””

- - Urz Hölzle in Douglas Edwards, I’m Feeling Lucky: Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 (via rickwebb)

alicetiara: spangley: I will forever covet Harry’s Loveless...

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:57:40 -0400

alicetiara:

spangley:

I will forever covet Harry’s Loveless tshirt.

(Also, this was taken at my Tahoemaggedon 30th birthday weekend!)

osakasteve:

Alice’s post of Harry and Megan from the Observer features the Man in Purple wearing the very same shirt as the day I met him. Love it.

Hahahah! I love this photo. It is Harry’s Teen Beat picture. JD is an amazing photographer. Ali, that weekend was fantastic.

I still think I should make this into a poster. Who’d want one?

parislemon: kevindavidcrowe: The Defualt Avatar Or, as I have...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:07:40 -0400

parislemon:

kevindavidcrowe:

The Defualt Avatar

Or, as I have been calling it, Annonyman.

They have always been of interest to me. Every web company with a community has had to solve the same problem of designing one, and here at GroupMe, I’ve been working on our version of the ever ubiquitous graphic.

While researching, I put together this image of as many as I could find.
The Vimeo avatar is a favorite of mine, as well as CollegeHumor and Flickr.
*Bonus points for being able to spot them above.

Here is a great post by Dan Meth, talking about how the Tumblr Avatar may be the most veiwed drawing he has ever done.

Love these. I think I have to go with the Vimeo one being a favorite as well. Though the Unabomber one is pretty great.

Would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a key for this.

Also, no love for and ???

mikehudack: zachrose: I love the costuming in this...

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:06:00 -0400

mikehudack:

zachrose:

I love the costuming in this movie.

This is killing me. What movie is this?

Dude! Jurrasic Park! One of the top 5 best “Sunday Afternoon on TNT and/or TBS movies.” Also in the top 5: Days of Thunder, Waterworld, Gladiator, and of course Shawshank (the undisputed all time champ).