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We Pay Our Rent By Buying Coffee
Wired is running a story on Delicious Monster, a startup Mac software company whose main office is a Seattle coffee shop. Hope they're drinking decaf.
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As long as it's not Java.
for the price of their "coffee", you could get a 1000sq ft spot in the downtown district cheaper I'd guess. Internet would likely be better too.
Their website is run on a Motorola 68000 chip embedded in a biscotti. Try not to spill, fellas!
> it generated $250,000 worth of sales in its first month
Wow, I must have contributed to some of that.
Delicious Library is cool, if a little bit slow. But it's still new, so that's not surprising. The attention to detail is really amazing. When you add artwork to a catalog item, the application adds a screen to the item image to make it look like it's in a DVD case, or the cover of a book. If you say it's a hard cover or soft cover book, the size of the book changes, too. I wrote a nearly pointless review of it for Gadget Madness.
Scanning in your books, DVDs, games, or whatever into the system is actually a kind of fun. It's one of those Mac OS X applications that when you show someone who doesn't have a Mac, they get that comically jealous look on their face.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Why-ever not? A start up has to start up somewhere, and if the company does not require a fixed premises as such, these guys are free to meet in the park, in the high street, in coffee shops. It's really just an extreme example of how decentralised business is becoming these days.
Quoth the server, "404."
Except it's in Seattle and it's for a niche market. I worked for a virtual company. Our "office" was our customer's offices. About ten of us.
Nothing very special about this except it's got insufferably precious Mac-Seattle-GraphicDesginer disease.
Wouldn't it be easier to work from home? That's what I do.
http://www.biolifeplasma.com
I'd wonder about security though. These guys are working on wireless internet on a public network while developing proprietary software. What's to stop one guy with a snooper and a latte-wielding disguise from stealing all their work? Yes, it's quirky. And I'll be damned if I wouldn't love to pay my rent in coffee... but I'm just not sure it's good business. Of course, this is all speculation on my part. We only have a Starbucks here.
How much coffee will they have to buy to pay for the bandwidth bill?
can be found here
Now you've done it, you slashdotted the coffee shop!
Just want to throw a kudo their way.
I find Delicious Library a great product for being so new. Many customer empowering features and overall refinement. It also leverages the best of what Mac OS X has to offer developers.
Good job and keep it up!
Ton of software at there site. Solo shareware authors have wrote more ware than that. There has been alot of Apple headlines lately, and this ones boring. New Mac Mini, new iPod, new Xserve. New software conpany with one software title.
its really a shame they don't have Wi-Fi at my local bar. Paying rent in beer sounds like a much better option.
ill stick with tea thanks.
I bet they drive to work on their Segways.
While I like this product (I especially think the barcode thing is spiffy), I don't really like some of their ideas for the next version. They state that you will be able to see other peoples profile with the same taste... Well I think marketeers are going to have a field trip with this... a fully free accessible database of online contacts already sorted by the profile you make... all that for only 40 bucks. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea in principle, but it's just too easy to be taken advantage of.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Here I thought that mac developers would be drinking hot cocoa
Sean.OutaHere()
I can see it now, a guy walks in to have a cup of coffee and relax a bit and the Delicious Monster guys jump him and slap him with a rolled up printout of the DCMA asking him to cease and desist trying to steal their code by means of shoulder surfing. He was just trying to have a cup of coffee, for Christ's sake!
Co-founder of OmniGroup in Seattle.
http://www.omnigroup.com
I had no idea Wil left his baby, OmniWeb to do a start-up. With his almost 15 years of Cocoa programming experience I'm sure they'll make it.
And you know what? They're ordinary, hard-working developers, and they're quite creative. Apple should be hiring them.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Pff, real coders drink caffeinated coffee!
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
At the bottom of the
... also a complete, utter waste of time.
I have to admit that I bought the software because I am a Criterion collector and because the developers did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. So I scanned hundreds and hundreds of DVDs in there and now I can see them sitting on gorgeous virtual shelves on my fully loaded PowerBook G4. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.
The fact that useless software (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is beyond common sense. But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.
Especially in the financial centres of big cities it seems that Starbucks et al are not really a "coffee company", but are in fact selling very on-demand temporary office space ("Regus Lite") with free coffee as an incentive and informal time-billing system.
Anyone who's worked for a large investment bank and has tried to book an office for a quick meeting will know this is true (especially if the meeting rooms operate as a "profit centre" and so you have be recharged the costs). It's amazing how much you can find out about the state of the IT dept of a large company just by hanging out in the nearest coffee shop - are they hiring or firing, are the staff excited or bitching, what new projects are they working on.... industrial espionage was rarely so cheap.
Similarly, airports are now in the business of selling multi-day car parking and short term entertainment for an hour or two.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Who wouldn't want this? I simply have no need for it. I do not see a need for it. But hey, that's me.
If you're linking to a story doesn't it make sense to use those words for the link to the story?
I started a company with a friend of mine three years ago. We each worked out of own homes, and met twice a week in person (at a coffee shop, natch') to be sure we were synched up. But after a while it started to become difficult for me to stay in the same damned room all day, then move over a few feet into the kitchen for dinner, a few feet over to the living room to watch a movie, and then a few feet again to go to sleep. I felt like a freakin' hamster.
When we got the chance to share office space with a couple of other guys who ran their own small companies, we jumped at the chance. Splitting the money three ways makes rent much cheaper, and we get human contact. Sometimes you don't need to have specific interaction. You just need to be around people.
That's part of the appeal of working in a coffee shop. You can focus on what you're doing, but there's enough human activity that you can also get that feeling of connectedness. When you work alone at home by yourself it's easy to feel disconnected from the rest of humanity, no matter how many IMs you get from your buddies.
But maybe it's just me. I haven't yet transcended meatspace.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I run four companies from my local coffee shop. Sit in the back with my powerbook and always look like I'm waiting for someone to show up. But the downside is that you can easily be tempted into vanilla lattes every hour, which costs as much as a 15th-floor corner office, and will likely get me a kidney transplant in five years.
Now if only I had products I sold that earned money, I'd be breaking even...
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Unfortunately Starbucks 'office-space' sucks as much as their coffee, the sofas are always filthy, the tables rarely cleaned and the decor is er.. shit. But its good enough when you're in a shopping street and desperate for somewhere to sit inside and more comfortable than McDonalds..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Anyone know if this will work with a cuecat barcode reader? Got a couple of them sitting here collecting dust.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Uh oh, now that it's been slashdotted we can expect a lawsuit from Monster Cables any time now...
"Office building?! HR Manager?! What horrors we suffer in the name of success...."
The slings and arrows, of the outraged, who don't share our fortune.
Dont forget the hardworkers get a dime, while the CEO/leader walks away with millions because his equity was 95%+.
Its one thing to have controlling interests (>50%) share, but its another quite evil thing to USE your employees to make yourself filthy rich, then sell out, sack the employees and leave em to dry while the CEO walks away super uber rich with 10 lifetimes of assets/money.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Sorry offtopic -5
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
"But maybe it's just me. I haven't yet transcended meatspace."
Actually it is you. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Simply everyone's requirements are different. Something to keep in mind as the internet (and it's 'new business models') intrude ever more in our lives.
Many customer empowering features and overall refinement. It also leverages the best of what Mac OS X has to offer developers.
You don't happen to work in marketing do you? Or did you just read that on the side of the box?
I have to admit that I bought the powerbook because I am a developer and because Apple did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. I did some coding work on it, and it is no different then if I would have done it on my previous computer. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.
The fact that a useless shiny computer (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is beyond common sense. But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.
badness 10000
Delicious Library is one of the few applications not created by Apple that I've purchased. There have been others, but none have been nearly as amazing a purchase as DL.
Honestly, it doesn't matter to me in what fashion they create the software, just that they create it. I actually visit that Zoka's quite a bit, but usually later at night or early in the morning. Aren't they scared of crazed fans pestering them with The Next Big Thing (tm)?
The famous Lloyd's of London insurance group started out in Lloyd's coffee house in the late 1600s. This bodes well for Delicious Monster. :)
Excerpts from the book "Against the Gods" by Peter Bernstein:
"One afternoon in 1637 * a Cretan scholar named Canopius sat down in his chambers at Balliol College, Oxford, and made himself a cup of strong coffee. Canopius's brew is believed to mark the first time coffee was drunk in England; it proved so popular when it was offered to the public that hundreds of coffee houses were soon in operation all over London.
What does Canopius's coffee have to do with * the concept of risk? Simply that a coffee house was the birthplace of Lloyd's of London, which for more than two centuries was the most famous of all insurance company's. *
The second half of the seventeenth century was also an era of burgeoning trade. The Dutch were the predominant commercial power of the time, and England was their main rival. Ships arrived daily from colonies and suppliers around the globe to unload a profusion of products that had once been scarce or unknown luxuries-sugar and spice, coffee and tea, raw cotton and fine porcelain. * Information from remote areas of the world was now of crucial importance to the domestic economy. With the volume of shipping constantly expanding, there was a lively demand for current information with which to estimate sailing times between destinations, weather patterns, and the risks lurking in unfamiliar seas.
In the absence of mass media, the coffee houses emerged as the primary source of news and rumour. In 1675, Charles II,
suspicious as many rulers are of places where the public trades information, shut the coffee houses down, but the uproar was so great that he had to reverse himself sixteen days later. Samuel Pepys frequented a coffee house to get news of the arrival of ships he was interested in; he deemed the news he received there to be more reliable than what he learned at his job at the Admiralty.
The coffee house that Edward Lloyd opened in 1687 near the Thames on Tower Street was a favourite haunt of men from the ships that moored at London's docks. The house was "spacious, well built and inhabited by able tradesmen" according to a contemporary publication. It grew so popular that in 1691 Lloyd moved it to much larger and more luxurious quarters on Lombard Street. Nat Ward, a publican whom Alexander Pope accused of trading vile rhymes for tobacco, reported that the tables in the new house were "very neat and shined with rubbing." A staff of five served tea and sherbet as well as coffee.
Lloyd had grown up under Oliver Cromwell and he had lived through plague, fire, the Dutch invasion up the Thames in 1667, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was a lot more than a skilled coffeehouse host. Recognizing the value of his customer base and responding to the insistent demand for information, he launched "Lloyd's List" in 1696 and filled it with information on the arrivals and departures of ships and intelligence on conditions abroad and at sea. That information was provided by a network of correspondents in major ports on the Continent and in England. Ship auctions took place regularly on the premises, and Lloyd obligingly furnished the paper and ink needed to record the transactions. One corner was reserved for ships' captains where they could compare notes on the hazards of all the new routes that were opening up - routes that led them farther east, farther south, and farther west than ever before. Lloyd's establishment was open almost around the clock and was always crowded.
Then as now, anyone who was seeking insurance would go to a broker, who would then hawk the risk to the individual risk-takers who gathered in the coffee houses or in the precincts of the Royal Exchange. When a deal was closed, the risk-taker would confirm his agreement to cover the loss in return for a specified premium by writing his name
I'm a Starbucks geek. (Yes, I think there is such a beast.) I go there almost daily. I bring people in to try new products. I have a card. I even read Howard Schultz's book. So, I was pretty excited when my wife and I visited Seattle about three years ago. We saw the original site, of course. We even visited the huge headquarters building. (Does anyone else find that Starbucks figurehead peering over the building just a little creepy?)
;-)
For those of you who haven't read Schultz's book, Starbucks and Peet's are linked in their history. Many folks say that it was really Alfred Peet who introduced Schultz to the darker, Full City roast that Starbucks finally used for their coffees.
Well, having read the book about the history, I wanted to see Peet's, too. There weren't any in New Orleans, where I lived at the time.
I visited one near the city center and I was immediately struck by the similarity in decor and layout between Peets and Starbucks. I mentioned this to the attendant.
It's true! Icy glares do send a chill down your spine.
I came to understand later the local rivalry between the companies that harkens all the way back to when Peet left Starbucks. Somehow Schultz didn't mention this. I can't believe it!
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Remember the CueCat? That which scanned items and barcodes and transmitted them out over the 'Net to marketers? No offense, but I really don't think that open profiles with scanned barcode data for individual people won't be exploited somehow.
Good idea, guys, but unless the profile information is inaccessible to robots, the consumer gets the shaft.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
OMG! They don't have an actual office! And this is worthy of the front page? I mean, seriously.. There are countless small companies out there who don't have an office. Or is it because they're in the Seattle area, the home of over-priced coffee and pastries. that this is considered so cool?
What is your penile percentile?
0xDECAFBAD
http://siokaos.org/
Is that the Delicious Monster booth was empty on the last day of Macworld, looks like they got bored and packed up a day early so no one was there on Friday.
Delicious Monster ? hehe :LoL:
I got a Laplander for a gift. It is available from Levenger. One of the best tech related gifts I have ever gotten. No nut burning going on here.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
"We work eight hours a day."
Damn, I want their job. Only 8 hours a day? Do they mean 7 days a week?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
The Apple developer site has an interesting article on how Delicious Library's use of the Cocoa bindings framework.
get a telecommuting job, move to an island off Athens.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
If you really think about it.. there's quite a few software developers without an office.
The Mac community has some great shareware developers. Some work out of their own homes. No office, no staff. Just their own place.
Some collaborate online. Look at all the open source products now. Not all have their own office (like the Mozilla Foundation). Quite a few projects are 100% virtual.
I think this model will have even more of an impact in the next 10-15 years. It's not really necessary for someone who programs all day to have an office to themselves... it's wasteful.
It's perfectly acceptable for such an employee to work from home, or any other environment, and perhaps spend 1 day, or perhaps 2 afternoons a week in the office. You can then used shared work space and cut down on costs.
With the availability of high speed connections, VPN's for secure network access, VoIP providers providing cheap phone access....
the only thing is human interaction. And even that. Think about how often your actually "need". A few meetings a week. Now how many of those can't be done over the phone?
Really, only a much smaller sum of work needs to be done at the office.
Provided good management skills are used, to keep employees on target, and on time... there's nothing wrong with a virtual company.
In fact... it's much more efficient.
Don't forget the time you save people. If you work 1 day in the office a week, that's only 2 commutes (one each way). With an average commute time of a little under an hour (being generious). That's several hours a week that an employee can then use to either conduct work, or extra family time (or time at the strip club).
Why not hire the guy who lives in Kansas when the office is in NYC? If he's good, it's great. You can teleconfrence him in, and fly him in for a day or two every several weeks. He can work from home, and code just like the guys in the office. You don't need office space (which in a city like NYC, just a few square feed for a cubicle is expensive). Just pay his office phone, DSL/Cable line, and send him some hardware.
Wiki's, Bugzilla-like systems, Intranet Portals, Email, VoIP, they all make it much easier to do.
Virtual Companies will be playing more and more of a role in the future. Especially true for IT jobs. Since they are very easy to do remotely.
A product like this seems ideal to me for making an inventory of stuff for insurance purposes.
I do wonder just how comprehensive the data lookup is. If you have a lot of stuff from other countries or that's out-of-print, I wonder if it would still show up with this software.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
It looks like "Delicious Library" is doing some astroturfing here. The reason this made the news was because of the Apple connection, now if this involved a Windows developer we wouldn't have been posted.
Decaf is the witth's brew. Or 'near' beer or sex without touching.
Fight Spammers!
Don't you worry, as soon as they have serious money in the bank, they'll be sued by Monster Cable for everything they have or licensing fees.
moo.
A few people have mentioned that Mike Matas and Wil Shipley used to work for OmniGroup (event though the picture on the wired article calls him Shipman... I've met him a few times and I'm pretty sure it is Shipley). Tim Omernick also worked for OmniGroup. He went by Tim2 because there were 2 Tims ;-) Back when I met him at WWDC 2001, I think he was only 18, and he had been at Omni for 3-4 years. As for the fourth member, Drew Hamlin, he's not an Omni alum as far as I can tell... he's some RB coder / web designer turned tech support person for the company. All three of the developers are straight from OmniGroup though. I'm glad to see them working on more awesome software, but that raises an interesting question - what is to become of Omni with all of this talent leaving, and why are they leaving?
Usage Note: Kudos is one of those words like congeries that look like plurals but are etymologically singular. Acknowledging the Greek history of the term requires Kudos is (not are) due her for her brilliant work on the score. But kudos has often been treated as a plural, especially in the popular press, as in She received many kudos for her work. This plural use has given rise to the singular form kudo. These innovations follow the pattern whereby the English words pea and cherry were shortened from nouns ending in an (s) sound (English pease and French cerise), that were mistakenly thought to be plural. The singular kudo remains far less common than the plural use; both are often viewed as incorrect in more formal contexts. It is worth noting that even people who are careful to treat kudos only as a singular often pronounce it as if it were a plural. Etymology would require that the final consonant be pronounced as a voiceless (s), as we do in pathos, another word derived from Greek, rather than as a voiced (z).
Like it or not, the language is evolving, and I would hardly consider /. to be a "more formal context," so if we take the poles out of our wordnazi asses we'll have to admit that kudo is now a word, even though it sounds more to me like an idiotic bite-sized ice cream treat than an accolade. Never did like the word. If we ignore it, do you suppose it might eventually go away? (Even still, I'd rather see kudo granted official word status before thru, lite, nite, or any such awful bastardization.)
doesn't this sorta feel like dead like me?
"You win again Gravity!" -Futurama (Zapp)
... companies who buy Macs can't afford office space.
Back in 1994, I hung out a lot at a Chicago coffee house. I asked the owner for, and received, permission to do something super geeky.
I bought a NeXTStation mono, and stored it in the basement office of the shop. I'd bring in an external SCSI drive, haul the slab and its 17" monitor out of the basement, and set up on a wee little cafe table that was just big enough for the slab, keyboard, mouse, the hard drive, and a mug of coffee.
Didn't have any cool Delicious Monster apps to work on, though...
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
(BTW, lending out some titles from your vast DVD collection to [friends] might be one way that the software could help make you nicer. Just a thought...)
We have a fulfillment center in Olympia for the scanners and we have a FedEx Kinko's a block away for other shipments.
I used to think that software companies were exuses for drinking coffee...but by the time I got through installing a burr grinder and $400 espresso machine next to my terminal at work, I realized that it would not be so odd to have a coffee shop that was an excuse for writing software...hope they succeed because I can apply for work there.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Is to have someone riding shotgun to watch your laptop while you hit the bathroom and vent some of that coffee.
It looks dorky (at best) and perverted (at worst) to be walking into a public bathroom carrying a laptop.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I have a question - if you have regular meetings with people that you are doing consulting projects with, and want to meet with a prospective client or possible supplier of some component, how do they react to meeting yourself and colleagues in a coffee house insted of a "regular office"?
Does anyone (the subjects of this article, or anyone else with experience) have any comments? I am genuinely interested.
Thank you,
Sam
I hope they're related somehow.. otherwise one of these is a total ripoff.
This looks exactly the same without the fancy wood panelling.
Can anybody give a brief compare and contrast between Delicious Library and Readerware? They sound very similar, perhaps DL is pretty much the same with a much better UI?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
1.Common Sense generator Ver 0.2
This software will allow all people around you to get an amazing level of common sense and their common sense will rub on you too
2.Nice man combo pack
This software will make everybody call you the "Mr Nice guy". Every where pretty ladies will come and give you little kisses and say "oooooh what a nice guy".
3.Knowledge puppy Ver 1.0
This software will directly link your brain to major encyclopedias and make you a storehouse of information. Watch the awe and admiration of people when you pull our totally useless facts which have no relevance to the conversation. Watch the ladies as they swoon as you tell them the eating habits of Boa Constrictor.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I've spent an inordinate amount of the last decade sitting around in coffee houses of varying degrees of corporateness (Starbucks obviously being on one end of the scale). Quite frankly, one of the reasons that I've stopped spending time at coffee houses are people using coffee houses in exactly this way.
I don't mind people working in coffee houses. I don't mind people meeting in coffee houses. What I do mind is when people start doing things like presentations to enough other people that they have to raise their voices, talk loudly and endlessly on their damn cell phones (not to mention taking endless calls), and blather away like they own the whole place. Guess what - it's not your office, guys. It's really not.
Tech nerds are usually fairly good about this. Some of the local business types are just complete pricks about this, though. It's like they've never considered the idea that the whole place isn't interested in the unique, dynamic work environment that their chain restaurant is going to provide.
I'm not under the delusion that coffee houses should be some sort of library-like atmosphere, or that no-one should ever conduct business there, or anything like that. I'd just like (for a change) for people who are doing business in a coffeehouse to recognize that they aren't in their own office.
Back in 1999, two guys who'd come up with a dot-com startup idea and managed to raise seed funding, recruited me to be the technical guy (CTO, if you like) for the company. Right at the beginning, the company consisted of the two founders, me, a business plan and £800k in a bank account.
At the time, I didn't have a computer and, besides, dialling into the Internet from home during the day in the UK at the time would have incurred a not-inconsiderable phone bill so, until we got ourselves an office, I worked out of the easyEverything cyber cafe opposite Charing Cross station in London and I used to meet people in the Starbucks just up from Embankment tube station.
Jack
why the hell would click a link to a picture called peniscut.jpg?
You'd think the CueCat could have been used for this... :)
I have found that a micro recorder, obviously on and recording, placed on my table and then turned in the appropriate direction does wonders. Works for cell phone calls as well.
Took a look at your software--I'm impressed. Now, referring back to the prior post, I also thought the same thing when I read the article--namely a company can't be a "real" company without an official mailing address. However, I'm assuming that for official mail, you're receiving it either via one of the creators' home, via PO box, or via a box at Mailboxes, etc. (well, formerly mailboxes, etc., now "The UPS Store"). Also, I don't know about Seattle's laws, but here in MD you are required to have a non-PO box address to incorporate. How did you get around that?
Linux at home
We use my house as a base of operations -- extra scanners are stored there, along with our MacWorld booth, and, if I have my way, that giant TV we had at MacWorld.
All these assets are guarded by two fierce attack-cats, so don't try looking up our address of incorporation and breaking into my house! You will emerge fuzzy, my friend. FUZZY!
"Hey did you see the ass on the blonde?"
"Which one?
"Where?"
"Over there!"
"Hell she's blond? I didn't get past her ass.
"Now where were we again?
"Oh yea. I'm having trouble with my retain release count."
*silence*
"Hello I said I'm having trouble with my..."
"Holy crap look at that brunette! Hey this is great coffee by the way.
"Do you need a private moment? Here have a cup go jerk off in the bathroom so we can get back to work, okay?"
The VC guys thought our phone bills where high but were impressed with the rent numberss.
We eventually got an office for administrivia.
Google was formed when two college kids decided to set up a new-form of search engine with page rank algorithm on their school computers, linux was form in a kid's computer and now this website. Find any similarities?!
Heh. Cool. Where is Zoka, BTW? I thought I knew all the coffee shops here in the UD. I usually hang out upstairs at Allegro so I can suck my cancer sticks. Roma used to be my place, but I got tired of all the fucking AveRats bothering me with "Spare Change? Got an extra cigarette? Wanna buy some heroin?" Bleh.
With the ever growing usefulness of the Internet, the office is becoming less and less useful.
I do allot of work from home and our customers never have an idea thanks to VoIP and Asterisk. I also have a VPN into our data center so I can access all of our data. Now we just need to implement smart cards and I will be perfectly happy.
I've always wanted to expand my force of attack cats. Now I know where to get additional recruits!
But why in the heck are coffee servers now called "Baristas"?!? They serve coffee. McDonalds people serve burgers (or at least something resembling a burger), yet they have no special name (McServerista?). Not to offend any "baristas", but you serve coffee; I do lawn work- shall I make up a title of "lawnista" to make me sound refined? "Hello, I'm Bryan your lawnista, would you like your lawn regular or really fried?"
Your friendly lawinsta,
Bryan
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
It would certainly help them "think different"
I must admit I've got Mac envy here because of what 'Delicious' can do. I spotted it of oreillynet a while ago. Like most developers I collect lists of information both electronic and physical. Having a tool that allows you to join disjoint sets of information and find them fast is pretty desirable. It makes for less searching. If I can find things faster it gives me more time to read/learn.
What I like also about this company is the ideas its coming up with. Aside from software what about the work environment. Food, drink, places to sit/talk, Internet connection. All at a low cost. Bet you will not find ideas like running your operation from a tech laden coffee shop in any Ivy League BS (Business School) case study.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
. . .
"Hey did you see the ass on the blonde?"
"Which one?
"Where?"
"Women are the fount of the craziest, most remarkable projects"
Me. This Day. Sometime in 2005.
Don't underestimate the motivating power of a great ass.
Please exclude any subliminal references to fascist PHBs in above statement.
. .
Sounds like you want something more out of life than the regular sheep. I can heartfully recommend Art of Living.
When you begin to see the emptiness in the world around you. You are very lucky. It's the only way out of habitual patterns and endless search for self-gratification.
In time, the emptiness will seem full of life, because space has the biggest potential and energy-level. So go into that empty feeling, instead of trying to fill it with more objects and events. It's different to what we're used, to really go into every feeling and situation 100%, so it's only for those who are bold enough. To flee from it, creates those patterns that you have started to recognize, and patterns limits our options.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
The fact that it links to IMDB is important, not that IMDB is an Amazon site. See I like seeing IMDB pages about movies more than pages on Amazon trying to sell me the movies with basically no description and little linked information that isn't relavant to buying things. IMDB has the INFORMATION I want, reguardless of its amazon ties.
My startup is run out of a cocktail lounge.
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
If you are interested in Delicious Library, I would also recomend looking into DVDpedia before you purchase. I must admit that Delicious Library is highly polished but is pretty much a straight catologer. DVDpedia offers some features that allow you venture into the media center mac arena. For instance you can link to media files straight from 'pedia for trailers (.mov) or the movie iteslf (.vob). This allows you to launch a movie straight from the dvdpedia interface. Also, I like to add the original posters to dvdpedia instead of the often ugly dvd package image which DL requires you to use. Finally 'pedia allows for smart collections - like all movies which I have rated five stars or movies from the 80's or movies by speilberg. These are just a sample of the extra features in DVDpedia that I like and I thought you might like to so download both and give em a try.
Here's one for Mac afficianados and tea drinkers: The Japanese just released a paper via the Italian Journal IL Nuovo Saggiatore. Dr. Arata just received an Award from the Emperor of Japan(true). His second in 50 years of physics. ...it further states in the conclusions:
This team claims a new form of "Solid deuterium", basically deuterium that adheres to Nano sized pieces of Palladium metal in larger amounts than possible in a solid chunk of Palladium.. Lots of heat + lots of Helium4 (clear unmistakable fusion signature in HUge amounts) released via an Ultrasound mechanism. Here's the actual claim this paper makes [www2.sif.it]:
"as a consequence, in our experiments, for the first time in the world, we succeeded in producing intense nuclear fusion reactions inside metals, and generated a significantly large amount of He4 and thermal energy by using "solid deuterium" as a new fuel."
In other words large amounts of pure deuterium gas (a) reacted to convert into He4, that is, the reactor tank converted the tank deuterium into He4. In addition, it is an ideal energy source in that no neutrons nor gamma rays were produced" Details are sketchy to protect patent claims I imagine after tracking this field for years.
Mac users, figure out how to make power sources out of this ! -JChan
-J Chan
OOps! forgot to post the link to the Italian paper... Click Here -JChan
-J Chan
...or of a lawsuit?
I hope all of the connections in their office are wireless!
I haven't been to that location but it appears to be over in the U Village area near the Burke-Gillman trail.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Cool product. We're downloading it tonight to try it out. I don't know the legal issues involved, but it seems like a product like this could be ideal for insurance cataloging. You have a fire, get robbed, what have you, everything is right there, values and all. Could be really cool.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
This is a great looking piece of software. The moment it can track comic books, it will have my money.
I'm thinking of training some squirrels to attack. The real beauty of attack squirrels is that most people will never see it coming!
So fight back. Organize the other customers in a sing-along, or hold a wet t-shirt contest.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Perhaps an alternative solution would be to petition Apple to add OOo format compatibility to their new office suite.