Sunday, March 6th, 2011
In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge took the first motion picture of a galloping horse, in Palo Alto. 133 years later we recreated his experiment using a walking baby and an iPhone, rather than that galloping horse and zoopraxiscope.
But first you should crawl before you walk:
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
We made it to Sundance. Brendan is being Super Dad (and sporting a scarf) while I am off most of the day in screenings and panels. I am with the other members of PAIFF meeting up with prospective panelists, filmmakers, etc. We had a huge day yesterday where we just got word that three time Academy Winner Walter Murch (editor for The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, English Patient…) will be working with PAIFF on panel and workshop ideas (and possibly a film). He is the caliber of guest that we have been aspiring for. Next, Coppola and Lucas! I’ll send a big update soon on how PAIFF has been taking off…
Tonight our dear friends are watching Page while we head off to a screening. The movie is called Like Crazy, a love story about an English girl and an American boy. I swear Pagie will look just like the actress Jennifer Lawrence (also the lead in Winter’s Bone) when she gets older.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
Pagie, Pagie, tall and thin.
26 inches =
14 pounds, 8 ounces =
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Noone said this would be easy.
We have a big Conference for work on Friday so I have been going in everyday to try and help get things done. I have been bringing Page everyday and she has been a joy, although I must admit I get that guilty feeling when she gets restless and I don’t have time to play with her, but I just hope she doesn’t mind playing alone with her bunny bear or her squeaky zebra. She doesn’t seem to mind and all the interns get their turn trying to sooth her if things are really going south.
One of our speakers at our Conference is a documentary photographer, Doug Menuez. He is presenting his work from his collection called Fearless Genius. His work spans 15 years behind-the-scenes in Silicon Valley and documents the daily lives of engineers, venture capitalists, and marketing and PR masters as they developed new technology that challenged the world. He shipped us a box of printed cards that we were to add to the goody bags for all the guests. Browsing through his vintage shots of Bill Gates, John Sculley, and Steve Jobs, one of his images hit home. Its an image back in 1983 in Cupertino of an Apple programmer Sarah Clarke who often brought her newborn baby to work. Her office had curtains over the glass windows so her fellow workers knew when it was naptime.
My guilt seemed to melt away and suddenly it was all making sense.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
I told myself, never baby talk, would I, well, that did work not. Smiling a lot now and laughs every now and then, Page is. She does its the first thing when she wakes up and the last thing she does as she falls asleep. In happy baby mode with a bit of Yoda face in the middle there, she here is. And yes, obnoxious, I sound obnoxious. Help myself, cannot. Hmmmmmm.
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Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Netflix put on a family picnic at Saratoga Springs. Page made her debut, and we took Carson along too.
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
We are pretty sure that there aren’t 500 million of you reading this site.
We think that’s a good thing.
One of the guys in this picture does have 500 million people looking at his site. Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of facebook. facebook, who today announced that they now have 500 million people using their site.
A, wee and myself went down to the Computer History Museum to see the CEO of our little town’s most famous company be interviewed by Guy Raz of National Public Radio, and David Kirkpatrick who has just written a book about facebook. Alex was able to arrange free tickets for the three of us through her contacts at the Palo Alto Institute, which I am very grateful for.
To me, it was refreshing to see how awkward and unpolished Mark Zuckerberg was. He is just a 26 year old computer engineer. You could have plucked that same character from any company in Silicon Valley, but he happens to be the CEO of a gigantic internet presence. My perception of his lack of guile gave me the sense that he is not out there to be evil, sell your private information, and take over the world, but rather that he is just a geek who wants to solve “cool” engineering problems (that still doesn’t mean I am going back on facebook for now).
While it was great being there, and soaking up the culture of Silicon Valley, it was also a bit boring at times. Mark Zuckerberg is not a great speaker, and David Kirkpatrick had the ego to think that everyone had come to see him, so he spoiled the interview with his continuous interjections. His lack of objectivity (he is a facebook fanboy) did not entice us to run and buy his new book. After reading Ben Mezrich’s Accidental Billionaires (new film) we thought it might have been good to get a fresh perspective, however I suspect his book would just be corporate PR.
There were the usual questions about privacy and groups; where the company will be in 5, 20 years time; how he has the time to be a real CEO; what he thought of the new film; and my question, where I asked him when was the last time he coded. Inane, but I felt that my question needed to be in order to get asked. He answered that he helped solve some bugs last year.
Some interesting stuff:
