I had a very strange conversation earlier this week. On the other side of the table was someone trying to figure out how to use local weblogs and podcasts to build pre-release buzz for a movie no one’s seen yet. If we assume this site and other bloggy publications are extensions of our everyday word-o-mouth, …
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
First Crack 84. Rich Huelskamp on Making an Energy Efficient Home
Rich Huelskamp built a 100% off-grid, renewable-energy home down in Red Wing, MN. He and I talk about how he got his home down from the average 25kWh/day to 6. Along the way, he goes through the steps to making a urban/suburban home more efficient. If you’re looking to replace your home’s appliances, Rich recommends …
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Are You the Croncast’s 300th Newest Listener?
If so, there’s a 30GB video iPod waiting for you. Croncast 300 by 300th iPod contest
Sunday Morning Dot Connection
“Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it’ll catch the sloppy and the stupid — and that’s a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely — but it won’t catch a well-planned plot. We can’t keep weapons out of prisons 1; we …
Moved Servers
This means the heavy lifting of moving garrickvanburen.com to a new server, and the firstcrackpodcast to it’s own domain is complete (finally). If anythings not working as expected, please drop me a line. Thanks. Two things I’ve noticed already: The forums haven’t migrated yet, I thought I’d take this opportunity to try and solve the …
How I’m Getting Things Done
After years of using Apple’s Stickies as my standard To Do list organizer, I’m a month into an entirely new productivity system. It’s working out pretty well. With David Allen’s Getting Things Done as a foundation, here are the modifications I’ve made: Next Actions:This is a stack of index cards. One thing per card – …
First Crack 83. Chris Dykstra, Zanby, and Social Networking
As part of my ongoing effort to highlight Minnesota-based internet startups, Chris Dykstra and I talk about the strengths and weakness of various social networks (evite, yahoo groups, meetup, linkedin), and how his Zanby is aiming to solve them. Namely – how a single person easily manage dozen of disparate and related groups. Listen to …
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No Passengers Equals No Threats?
A terrorist threat is thwarted in London. The reaction here and there – making flying more uncomfortable for everyone else, heighten the ‘threat alert’ to ‘red’ (because something might happen we’re not aware of? – hmmm. I felt more secure). Seems that with the plot foiled, we should be _safer_ in the immediate short term …
Corn Soda
Good conversation over at Marginal Revolution on how corn subsidies and sugar quotas have contributed to the fattening of America with a secondary debate on the superior soda sweetener.
Free and Open vs Not – At a Glance
Steve Borsch weighs free & open against for-fee and closed. In in he brings up some great points – namely, if the problem you have is solved – good enough – by a hosted, for-pay service, then installing and setting up a “free”, open-source system isn’t worth it. Personally, I’m not keen on SurveyMonkey’s presentation …