VC Horror Tale

Eve Andersson, a founding member of Ars Digita, has published a scalding recounting of the rise and fall of the Internet consultancy and software publisher. It goes into great detail on how the venture capitalists and MBAs destroyed the company and its culture. I had very similar experiences in terms of being led astray by deceitful executive officers, so if nothing else I can attest to its emotional accuracy, and I can say I’m more inclined to sock an MBA across the jaw than I am to trust him with any piece of an enterprise I care about.

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Good Concept, or Not

Intel Concept PCsMany Wintel fans may insist that what matters in computing is specs and not looks, but deep down they all wish their hardware looked as good as Apple’s — and now here’s proof. Intel’s “Concept PC Gallery” gets an A for effort, but it ultimately amounts to a motley showcase for some of the ugliest hardware designs ever seen, real or hypothetical.

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Beagle Boy

BeagleNow that I work at home and I’m here nearly all day and every day, I’ve been thinking a lot about adopting a dog from a rescue like BREW Inc. (There are some adorable dogs shown on this site, like Juan, that need good homes.) Maybe I’m just a softie at heart, but getting a pet just seems like something I want to do now.

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Search Fun

GoogleGoogle is one of those Web success stories that seems truly deserved. They have a great core product in their search engine, which surpasses so many of its competitors in accuracy that I now use it exclusively. And in the past year or so they’ve extended their business in truly interesting ways too, e.g. bringing online a huge archive of Usenet postings. Their latest scheme is a programming contest that opens up a database of 900,000 Web pages and asks contestants to do something clever with it — anything clever. “Part of your job is to convince us of why your program is interesting and why it will scale; other than that, you’re free to implement whatever strikes your fancy.”

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