05.30.03
Hi Craig
Nice webboard.How’s life?
05.25.03
Bill G joins the fray
Welcome Mr Gates to the fight against spam. He has written a letter to the Senate commitee on Commerce, Science, and Transportationg laying out his thoughts on how to deal with the spam problem. Larry Lessig has a response to his proposal, which talks all about how Bill’s proposal is not the same as Larry’s. This is not the basis of my problems with Mr Gate’s messages.To make matters worse, spam often preys on less sophisticated email users, such as our children, posing a genuine threat to personal security and privacy and threatening the very utility of email as a viable communication tool.
Excuse me? Spam often preys on children? Maybe it’s just because my daughter’s not born yet, but I’ve never seen spam which was targeting children. Seems to generally be advertising porn, or carrying instructions on making money fast, or asking you to come visit lovely Nigeria – all activities which I suspect are much more aimed at adults. Perhaps I just am not getting the “urge your parents to buy the new Spongebob video” spam. Next problem with this sentence: let’s assume Mr Gates is correct and that spam often targets children. How does this pose a genuine threat to personal security or privacy? Child gets spongebob spam. Direct consequence: armed bandits invade your home. Oh no, Spongebob spam -> FBI pulls your library checkout records and publishes them on the internet. Hmm, maybe Spongebob -> videotaped snuff movie which is then posted to the internet, personal security and privacy all in one. Problem number 3 in a single sentence: Spongebob spam to children threatens the very utility of email? Ok, I think Mr Gates has gone off the deep end.
Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt though – let’s say that he was referring to all spam generally as leading to these problems, one of which is getting stuff into the hands of children which their poor sensitive eyes and psyches can’t deal with. Horribly written, but maybe that’s what he means. In that case, it’s still a bit of a stretch. The only sentiment I can agree with is that the utility of email is indeed being compromised by the flood of noise. Reception of spam does not invade privacy though (unless they found your special secret email address, and sending to that is considered a privacy invasion), and doesn’t lead to a personal security problem, unless you are flying to Nigeria to meet friendly Gen. Kaduna and putting your life in his hands…
Off to breakfast now, but will append when I return.
05.21.03
New puppy photos
Just uploaded some new photos of the puppy. He is now somewhere around 2-3x as big as when we first got him, about a month ago.05.20.03
Anti-spam bots
Chris Barton sent me a link to one of our competitors’ sites: SpamButcher sponsors battlebots with an anti-spam theme. Quite amusing. Just remember while on this page: Don’t click on the “buy SpamButcher” links! What you really want is a nice anti-spam product from McAfee Security.05.19.03
Warm weather at last
Finally, the sun has come out. It’s so much easier to get stuff done when it’s nice outside — particularly jobs which are more easily done out of doors, like sanding/assembling/sealing new furniture for the house. Yesterday I got around to finishing building the two Fröjsta coffee tables from Ikea, then sanded the tops and polyurythened them so they’re now water/paint/crayola proof. Those are now in the family room downstairs. I built a Bekväm kitchen cart thing too, but I wanted to use it outside with my barbeque. So, I got a sander, sanded it down, then applied some all-weather sealant to it, and presto! One fantastic barbeque cart. Then also picked up an outdoor Acacia-wood table, and 6 chairs, plus a sun umbrella, and last night had the Loeser-Hugheses over for a grilled dinner. Our porch is so lovely now that the weather’s nice.In the house, we’re redoing the “Au pair”’s room, re-sheetrocking and re-painting, plus sanding the floor of the baby’s room to refinish it before the baby arrives. Also, will be repainting the baby’s bathroom to make it a little cheerier. On the list of tasks to be undertaken a bit later: fix my office so it’s nice (probably will involve knocking much bigger windows into it than are currently there; fix the whole family room/boiler room/craft room/downstairs bathroom layout; rebuild/move the carport; replumb/redo heat pipes for the dining room and master bedroom. Then I’m sure there’s more still to do after that as well, but that’d be a good start.
One short-term goal which is increasingly pressing: get broadband in here. SBC has decided that we’re not going to see anything from them here until likely at best 2005; the cable company is in no hurry either. A neighbor has a T1 though, and has mentioned being willing to share via 802.11b relaying. Must investigate…
Selby Day
Thursday, I spent the day at Cordevalle, south of San Jose, being presented to by the general partners and portfolio company excecutives of a seed-stage venture fund called Selby Ventures in which I’m a limited partner. Interesting to see how a smallish venture fund is weathering out the economy, and to hear how people are thinking about the last 12-24 months, and what thye see in the future. While there appears from the startup execs who where there to be a pickup of sorts in IT spending by corporations, there do not seem to be strong signs anywhere of a robust recovery. In what appears to be a mark of over-bullishness, a handful of folks were saying that they believe this could be the beginning of a return to growth. My personal opinion, for what it’s worth, is that there’s too much consumer slack out there. While corporations might have gone through a spate of cost-cutting in the last year or two, and may now be in a position to be able to spend a little again to try and grow the top line, I fear that consumer demand won’t be there to fuel that growth. Unemployment appears to be rising, and people seem to be remaining unemployed for an increasingly long time. Can substantial economic recovery any time soon happen in the face of this?Well, in any case, I think privately held companies will be somewhat less affected by this than large public companies for a little while at least. And so, from the Selby portfolio, the companies I think are the possible big winners:
- Clairvoyante Labs: Some neat technology for pixel layout in flat panel screens (well, all screens, actually)
- QuickSilver Technologies: Wow.
There are some others in the portfolio which have potential too, 3ware among them. But those 2 are my picks.
