Aaron's Life

Content Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:06:09 -0500

This morning, I woke up and read Nick Bilton’s weekly New York Times’ column. Nick is a friend and one of the best bloggers/writers/journalists out there. But with today’s column, he was way off base.

Having already said what I wanted to say about the Path situation, I debated if I should weigh in again. Then I read Nick’s column again. There’s a way to say what he wants to say, but he goes about it the complete wrong way. I felt like I had to respond.

But before I could, my CrunchFund partner Michael Arrington wrote almost exactly what I would have written — but in a more effective way. As a dog owner/lover, Michael thought up a great analogy: “So the belly is shown.”

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The Rise of Internet Media: Clean Dictionary

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:40:01 -0500

The Rise of Internet Media: Clean Dictionary:

This was done by A student in my NYU class: The Rise of Internet Media.

nethistory2012:

I thought I’d start our class tumblr off with a project that my partner Charles and I just launched in beta today: cleandictionary.com

Clean Dictionary was already well on its way to completion by last Tuesday’s class, but some of the ideas we discussed helped influence and sharpen…

The 2011-12 NBA season has been entertaining, but it could be even better - Grantland

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:46:38 -0500

The 2011-12 NBA season has been entertaining, but it could be even better - Grantland

"I don’t think nostalgia is a healthy modality. But nostalgia and a sense of history are not..."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:17:38 -0500

“I don’t think nostalgia is a healthy modality. But nostalgia and a sense of history are not the same thing. Nostalgia is a dysfunction of the historical impulse, or a corruption of the historical impulse.”

- William Gibson in TheVerge

Mike and the Mad Dog Afficonadoes Rejoice

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:40:49 -0500

From Bill Simmons’ weekend mailbag:

Q: I was watching a shortened Mike Francesa show on YES today. Giants fans only wanted to talk about the blown call on Greg Jennings’ fumble. Mike went on to use the phrase “under the hood” a ridiculous amount of times over the next hour to describe the action of the ref looking at the replay. I finished watching the show but it was bothering me how many times I heard “under the hood”. I was sure it was 40 times at least. I decided to go back and figure it out. Mike used the actual phrase “under the hood” 36 times. Callers used it twice bringing the total to 38. This is where it gets dicey. Mike once said “blew the call under the…” before trailing off. I counted that as 0.75 times . He also used “…before the hood” once. I counted that as 0.25 times bringing the total to 39 and that was it. I missed my theory by one “under the hood”. Now I know how you feel after not covering that Texans-Ravens game. So close. Notes from my study: Mike used the phrase “underneath the hood” once which I counted in his total and all but 1 of the “under the hoods were said in a 60 minute time frame. For the entire 2 hour show Mike’s UTHPM (Under the Hoods per Minute) was 0.65 narrowly edging out Dog’s 0.63 “Unbelieveable”s per minute from 1999 about Darryl Strawberry’s recovery from cancer. If Mike had done the full show he would have been at 195 “under the hoods.” This may or may not be a cry help.
— Mike Z, Decatur, GA

amazing infographic on facebook

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:34:56 -0500

Created by: Accounting Degree Online

What should I read into this targeted advertising on Pandora?

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:56:35 -0500

What should I read into this targeted advertising on Pandora?

mattlehrer: svpply: “Since moving to New York I’ve been...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:10:41 -0500

mattlehrer:

svpply:

“Since moving to New York I’ve been continuously hunting for what I like to call the “10-year parka.” Basically an unassuming, non-technical, weatherproof coat that will hold up to a decade of near daily winter use. It should eschew fads, break-in like a proper pair of boots, and keep me alive should I find myself huddled overnight at a gusty abandoned bus terminal.

The Isle of Man parka is the best option I’ve found.”

An epic product review by Jace.

Freemans Sporting Club — Isle of Man Parka ($200-500) - Svpply

I hope you get a cut of all the extra sales this review is going to produce, Jace.

An Aaron Dispatch

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:35:45 -0500

I’m having a day where my mind can’t keep up with my typing. I need to bullet point it out.

@eisenberg’s this am I listened to an NPR podcast about a woman in Wheaton, IL who lost a good 75k enviromental mgmt job and now works at Target for minimum wage. She’s 45 and doesn’t know what to do and sounded smart.
#Occupy has all kinds of challengers and supporters. VCs @bijan, @fredwilson, @aweissmann have all embraced it very publicly on twitter, tumblr and at last night’s tech fashion show.
Speaking of fashion show, a very glitzy fundraiser held last night for a non-profit dedicated to bringing more engineers to NYC. Essentially Evan Korth and Chris Wiggins created an economic development corporation to support the Internet scene here and everybody turned up to donate money to create more interns for our startups.
Meanwhile my 6th grader son is using google docs in school to do group work with his classmates, but nobody is teaching him to code even though a zillion articles like this one say he must.

There seems to be a massive disconnect between the tech industry and the rest of the world. SOPA is part of this. Media companies have been furious for years. Frankly, non-tech people have been confused, initimidated, resentful, angered and envious of the wealth creation that started with MSFT and has continue through Twitter. With the exception of Hedge Funds, nobody has made more money so quickly and easily.

BETABEAT just published a list of the 20 most poachable executives and most of these non-founders were making 200k plus. The industry sometimes feels like the only one we have awash in capital and open to experimentation. Most normal Americans are grinding it out in a tough economy but @arrington and Kleiner Perkins are investing in high end time share plays.

Something feels Delilloesque to me. It’s like things are slipping away a bit.

That said, here’s some good news. I’m sending my kids to codecademy to preserve their futures. At least somebody is spending time hacking education instead of that brutal problem that so much of the world faces: renting the right mansion in Cabo or Gstaad.

Priceless

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:29:49 -0500

Priceless

How I'm working on my film

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:15:23 -0500

I’m getting ready to launch my Kickstarter campaign for the Aaron Cohens. This morning, I realized I spend very little time sharing what has influenced me during the writing and production process. So here are a handful of creative products that are influencing me.

Before I was 20, 4 films had a huge influence on how my sense of humor developed. You should check them all out: Annie Hall, This is Spinal Tap, and Sherman’s March, and Swimming to Cambodia.
Here are some others worth considering as well as they pop into my mind: Manhattan, Better off Dead, Delirious, Raw, Life of Brian. Richard Lewis concerts.
Philip Roth — in particular The CounterLife.
I go the movies some mostly to watch cinematography. Lately I’ve loved Tree of Life and Tower Heist.
I listen to a huge number of Podcasts. I’m working my way through WTF by the very talented comedy nerd, historian and comic Marc Maron. In particular, I’ve been blown away by Andrew Dice Clay, Norm MacDonald, Chris Rock, Judd Apatow, and Richard Lewis. Long way to go though. I’m learning a lot about the comedy craft. See all the stuff here.
Aaron Cohens influence me a lot. In particular, I work closely with AFC and Chris.
Kickstarter has broadly influenced me. I don’t support as many projects as I would like, but probably up to about 6 or 8.
I think this writer Jonathan Tropper is pretty smart. You should check him out.

I’ll add more to list as it evolves.

Emptyage: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:07:59 -0400

Emptyage: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It:

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…

The Jeffersonian Steve Jobs

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:35:00 -0400

18 Months ago, I bought an IPAD at the Apple store on 14th and 9th and raced to catch an Amtrak to DC. Acela’s wifi was acceptable and I managed to download a few goodies onto my new device as well as play with Ibooks and other native applications.

By the time I arrived at my mother’s hospital room, I had already made my first purchase —Predictably Irrational — with Ibooks. My mother was a prominent bookseller in Washington and, as a family, we always worried about the rise of electronic books.

But playing with this new beautiful and intimate device, I realized that Jobs had done it again and e-reading was here to stay. I showed my Mom and told her, there’s really good news for authors. They will sell many books electronically. People may read more. Books will cost less and be greatly more abundant.

I’ve bought and read almost 100 books during my first 18 months . I’m convertiing all magazine subscriptions to the Tablet. My days of reading the newspaper in print are probably winding down.

Steve Jobs and Apple saved the business models of culture. When we write the history of the digital revolution’s first 20 years, it will show that these decades, like the birth of our republic, were fragile times. Jobs was the Jefferson and Adams of our digital revolution. His federalist streak was legendary given his proclivity for rigorously controlling his technology stack. However, with the release of the IPhone and IPad, Apple changed. Steve finally allowed his tribe to help him build an enormous business and massively expanded ecosystem.

While we remain in the very early stages of this transformation, Steve Jobs left his imprint as democrat with that small d. Today our news and media are created by millions of people to serve billions. Apple and a handful of other companies have set us free.

What remains for all of us to see is what we will do with this opportunity?

National Debt Infographic

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:48:38 -0400

I love Bill Simmons and his take on NBA Lockout

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:33:44 -0400

I love Bill Simmons and his take on NBA Lockout:

If I showed this line to Colts fans six weeks ago and said, “This will be the line for your Week 2 game against the Browns,” they would have asked things like, “Are the Browns about to trade a 2012 third-round pick for Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy and DeSean Jackson?” and “Did our entire team get malaria?” Speaking of catastrophes, I’m launching a new segment in the NFL picks column this season: the NBA Lockout Watch, sponsored by Anusol. That’s right, Anusol, the cream you should buy for your itchy anus. If you’re clawing at your anus like a bear trying to break through a camper’s tent, it’s time for Anusol. Anyway, here’s this week’s edition of the Anusol NBA Lockout Watch (feel free to skip four paragraphs to the next game) …

After wasting nearly the whole summer pointing fingers, leaking stories to reporters and doing everything except getting in a room and negotiating, Billy Hunter’s side finally came down a little … and, of course, instead of just agreeing on a better revenue split (right now it’s 57/43 for the players, but both sides know it will land somewhere around 51/49), four-year maxes for guaranteed contracts (easily achievable, and absolutely necessary because teams literally can’t stop themselves from overpaying players and being crippled by their deals) and a slightly harder salary cap — three moves that would have gotten us 87 percent of the way there — a few of the newer owners (Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert and Phoenix’s Robert Sarver are the biggies) are now pushing for even more stuff and that’s bogging everything down. This faction believes the players’ side is crumbling because a few of the biggest NBA agents (Jeff Schwartz, Arn Tellem, etc.) lost faith in Hunter and are investigating the decertification process (which would be THE dumbest thing they could do). These owners don’t just want to win this lockout, they want to take a hatchet to 65 years of progress by NBA players … who, by the way, did nothing wrong other than continue to cash in on the ridiculous contracts that owners kept giving them.

Let’s take a step back and consider the stupidity of this. Sarver and Gilbert both overpaid for their teams and hope to blow up the system, then create a more favorable one that would cover up the fact that they overpaid for their teams. In Gilbert’s case, he coddled LeBron for years, overpaid just about every player on his team (did Daniel Gibson write his deal himself?), showed no roster savvy whatsoever (his front office was really the Bizarro Sam Presti), crippled his own cap season after season, then flipped out when LeBron finally said, “I gotta get out of here, I need to play with better players”⁵ … and now he blames “the system” for what happened because there are apparently no mirrors in his house. Sarver overpaid for the Suns, realized it about a year later, then spent the next few years pinching pennies … which would have been fine if he didn’t have a legitimate chance to win the title from 2005 to 2008 and also in 2010. He’s the kind of guy who watched Steve Kerr build a team that came within a couple of breaks of making the 2010 Finals, then offered Kerr a pay cut. His fans hate him; hell, his own players hate him. When I made a few Sarver/Gilbert tweets yesterday, Steve Nash retweeted one of the anti-Sarver tweets.

Why do two owners with CLEAR AGENDAS like Sarver and Gilbert have any input here? It’s a great question. The NFL had three of its best and most ruthless owners (Bob Kraft, Jerry Jones and Jerry Richardson) handling its lockout; the NBA has the likes of Sarver, Gilbert, New York’s James Dolan and Minnesota’s Glen Taylor involved. Have you watched how they run their teams? For god’s sake, Taylor just splurged on a coach (Rick Adelman) who told him in no uncertain terms, “I am not answering to your current GM,” so instead of firing that GM (David Kahn, the least respected GM in the league by a landslide), Taylor decided, “OK, you don’t have to answer to him” AND KEPT BOTH GUYS!!!!!!!! And Dolan is Dolan — he’s basically the train from Unstoppable at all times. Why should I expect those four owners to have great insight into solving something as complicated as a labor dispute?

And are we really missing games over this? You should have labor stoppages only because of real issues — like what we had in 1964, when the players nearly sat out the All-Star Game in Boston because they were being treated so badly, or in 1998, when the players were suddenly making so much money that the owners needed a better way to protect themselves. We’re not even close to that. I can tell you right now where we’re ending up: 51/49 split, four-year max deals, slightly harder cap. So effing get there already. Enough with the posturing. And by the way, both sides could mention the fans once in a while, or show at least a little urgency that they’re about to blow all momentum from one of the best seasons in the history of the league. If they think anyone except for die-hard basketball fans will care that there’s no NBA in October, November and December — when we’ll be focused on the baseball playoffs, the NFL and college football — then they’re even more delusional than I thought. I hate everybody in this. Seriously. Both sides make me want to throw up. That was your Anusol NBA Lockout Watch for this week. Back to football.

Grantland is so good. Barnwell is amazing.

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:23:00 -0400

Grantland is so good. Barnwell is amazing. :

Romocalypse

You saw what happened in the Cowboys-Jets game on Sunday night. For the sake of Cowboys fans with heart problems, we don’t need to rehash it. What is worth noting, though, is the specific height from which the Cowboys fell. To measure that, we can use the win probability charts created by Brian Burke at his Advanced NFL Stats site. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, it’s simple to explain: Given a particular scoreline, field position, down, and distance to go with a certain amount of time left in the game, how often does the team in the lead win?

This is where those aforementioned Cowboys fans might want to skip ahead a paragraph. When Felix Jones ran the ball in from a yard out with 14:50 left in the fourth quarter, it gave the Cowboys a 24-10 lead and a win probability of 96 percent. Ninety-six percent! A Jets touchdown brought those odds down a bit, but as Tony Romo took the snap on third-and-goal from the two-yard line with a one-score lead and 9:15 left, the Cowboys were still at 94 percent. And even after the two teams traded turnovers, the Cowboys were still at a win probability of 95 percent during the third-and-long that immediately preceded the game-tying blocked punt. After the Cowboys moved the ball into the red zone on the opening drive, their chances of winning did not dip below 60 percent until the Cowboys punted with 2:16 left. They were at 66 percent when the Jets punted the ball away, but Romo obviously threw that down the drain with his mystifying throw to Darrelle Revis.

Did Romo blow the game? Probably. But we would have suggested the same thing about Mark Sanchez if things had gone slightly differently. Sanchez really hung in well during a tough first half that saw the Cowboys’ pass rush barrel down on him, and he made some great throws during the team’s comeback. But he fumbled inside Cowboys territory with six minutes left in a one-score game, and it came on a play in which he simply held the ball for too long. After the blocked punt tied up the game, Sanchez took another sack on third-and-long that set up the Cowboys for a game-winning drive, only to get the ball right back. Once Romo decided he wanted to lose the game more, Sanchez threw a would-be pick that went right through a defender’s hands. And this all came against a secondary that was down its top three cornerbacks for part of the second half. We remember all this stuff now, but two months from now the Jets’ win will get thrown in Sanchez’s file as a comeback victory without any of the context or in-between happenings. It’s absurd. Sanchez deserves credit for the late drives he’s led (the drive against the Texans from last season comes to mind), but giving him a “win” for what he did in the fourth quarter is just a bad use of statistics and assigning credit.

Allen Paltrow: My Experience with Jobs and Apple

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:12:38 -0400

Allen Paltrow: My Experience with Jobs and Apple:

allenpaltrow:

Update: I have appended this follow-up.

Growing up I was a huge apple fan-boy (fine, still am.) The first NY apple store in Soho opening was probably the coolest thing that happened to me between the ages 6 and 12. For a while I would spend almost every weekend there. Every year for halloween…

Meet the Next 63 Y Combinator Start-ups - Liz Gannes - News - AllThingsD

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:13:59 -0400

Meet the Next 63 Y Combinator Start-ups - Liz Gannes - News - AllThingsD:

When you read the list of startups coming through Ycombinator it is absolutely amazing to me that none of them appear to focus on reinventing the not really disrupted film business.

What conclusions can we draw?

1. Ycombinator doesn’t like movie/tv related startups?

2. Today’s brilliant young engineers don’t care about the movie business?

3. I’m a contrarian.

4. I’m clueless.

"With the rapid development of new tools and services, maturing social networks and new routes to..."

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:12:09 -0400

“With the rapid development of new tools and services, maturing social networks and new routes to audiences, maybe film has opportunities to ensure that it can build on success in music, rather than repeat its mistakes. The experience of other creative industries ought to be thoroughly and systematically explored because one way or another, we are all facing the music together. •”

- Facing the Music - movieScope Magazine | movieScope Magazine

Why is Turntable.fm is so great?

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:20:45 -0400

Of course, I don’t know. Here are my thoughts But first my qualifications:

I don’t listen to tons of music
Have not been to pandora or last.fm in 2011
Have a MOG subscription, but think i will cancel
Put tons of music in my queue, but have done nothing with it
Don’t know how to dj.

Here are my thoughts:

simplicity. First list rooms, choose one, done.
facebook connect. no registration.
Early Internet crowd feels intimate, not pointless. social actually matters a bit.
no work required.
Club metaphor makes you feel cooler

What do you think?