Buying a house has some benefits: you get the peace of mind that you don't depend on anyone and you can stay here for as long as you want, as long as you make the mortgage payments. You secure a spot to your assigned school which looks great on paper. You build equity in the house. You've seen everything about what life has to offer already, so it's time to make your adult routine permanent for…
Riding bikes is priceless. It gives the freedom to move your body at 20 mph for several hours with very little energy. Then the game of racing bikes happened where people wanted to see who's fastest. The power of road bicycle racing is that it's a very simple game: the person who gets across the finish line first wins. Now there are many variables: who is there, the bike, the wind, who will crash,…
You’ve heard this before. The team has been working on this service and a couple months later traffic is picking up. Pretty awesome you think, customers are loving this feature! Hold on, now you hear finance people screaming at the Amazon bill. The application is considerably resource intensive. You got two options: 1) find the bottleneck and optimize, 2) limit cost of running the service. Let’s…
In no particular order: Learning Android Very practical guide to dive into the workings of a microblogging app. Making Things Happen Priorities get things done. Plus Scott is such a great writer. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something that you actually don’t. Ignore Everybody If you…
Startup Weekend is a learning experience about entrepreneurship. You’re building a company from scratch. I just finished my second Startup Weekend San Francisco and it was awesome. On Friday it starts with a bit of networking to get to know each other and see who would be a good fit to work with. Then it’s time for pitchfire: anyone can pitch an idea and has one minute to do so. 39 ideas got…
After reading this book you will never get into something without doing your checklist first. Atul Gawande is challenging what we think of the reliability of experts with the question: what do we do when expertise is not enough? He demonstrates how good the impact of the checklist is through carefully chosen stories. It's about surgeons, airline pilots, engineers, investors and the degree of…
When a fine idea is compressed into a definite metre, the very same thought comes hurtling at one like a missile launched from a fully extented arm. ―Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
I went through the whole piece of Peace Is Every Step . This thin book brings a lot of valuable insights from Buddhist teachings into our information-overloaded world. It's that simple and deeply refreshing. You've got a selection of my best picks: The starting point is mindfulness . And mindfulness is about being fully immersed in the present moment. One way of getting into that state is mindful…
I first met Storify Cofounder Xavier Damman at a conference in San Francisco one year ago. He was working on a product called Publitweet back then. He also built in 24 hours ListiMonkey right at the time when Twitter launched the list feature. He was very enthusiastic and ready to take the next step. We're now living in the connected age of social media and we try to catch up with never-ending…
Brain Rules is one of those books that really makes you feel smarter. Who wouldn't want to know how your brain is running? I loved this book. John Medina did a great work in putting his tremendous knowledge into twelves small chapters. The book is packed up with many stories, each one illustrating one brain rule at a time. I learned a handful of tricks for dealing with school, work and home life.…
That made my day. Thanks Louis!
Music bands are doomed. The Internet era has completely shifted the distribution platform. It used to be the record shops. Today it's all about streaming monthly subscription. There is one good news and one bad news to that. Good news is that the customer accesses to pretty much any track on powerful streaming platforms such as Spotify . But bad news is every band or artist has now the same…
Earlier in October, Michael Arrington talked about the slow race to a translating phone . The product translates voice into another language and then speaks the translation to the listener. And Google is working on it. It's indeed a very promising technology, as we can see on this demo . This actually would make intercultural communications more accessible. Michael Arrington goes even further…
Rolf Potts puts into contrast the tremendous difference between traveling as having vacation and traveling as a full discovery experience. Vagabonding is a fresh book that's digging into the philosophy of travel. In case you were wondering, "vagabonding" doesn't relate to homeless people, instead: Vagabonding is an attitude - a friendly interest in people, places and things that makes a person an…
Economic books have the true advantage of being backed up by numbers. And numbers don't lie. Freakonomics is about digging in unusual questions of daily life and society, using the power of numbers in order to unmask curious conclusions. Conventional wisdom is definitely defied. Questions such as: Why experts are in the perfect position to exploit you? Which is most dangerous: a gun or a swimming…
I have been wondering lately whether Europe can be such a place as great as Silicon Valley to foster startup creation. Loic Le Meur puts a couple of reasons why Silicon Valley is well ahead of Europe in the tech business. Here are the 8 key facts: All you need is in one place . The best Internet companies and the best people in tech industry are all in one place. Campus life. Everything you do…
Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgement. The traveler was a student of what he sought. ―Paul Fussel, Abroad
We're dealing with an increasing amount of information everyday. This is beginning with public transportation. First thing you have in front of you when riding the metro is three different newspapers available for free. Each of them contain all kinds of news and junk advertising. Then there are computers which basically allow you to access the knowledge of the world for free. You can be aware of…
People are more afraid of public speaking than death. Yes, and that's why tons of inexperienced people fail to communicate ideas to their audience. Don't you remember one time when you were wasting your time in a room where the speaker was actually talking to himself? Because I do. This refreshing book deals with conference speakers and teachers. It contains dozens of insights so to provide clues…
"A report from the front lines of the future of business. It's not a book of best practices. It's a book of next practices--a set of insights and a collection of case studies that amount to a business plan for the 21st century, a new way to lead, compete, and succeed." -Taylor and LaBarre From my last readings.
At Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco. Thanks Tim Ferriss !
From my last readings.
Them Crooked Vultures is a rock supergroup made up of drummer Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Eagles of Death Metal) and bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin). They played the entire album plus "Highway 1". Josh Homme even dealed some vodka during "Interlude With Ludes". Dave Grohl was blasting so hard that his…
Spotify is a great music streaming service that allows instant listening to more than 6 millions songs. The application is available on Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone and Android phones. I was using the free version for a couple of months. It stands to reason that yes, advertising sucks. But the Symbian version has just been released which allows me to use Spotify on my Nokia N95. As a music nerd, I…
I finally finished this 496 pages great book. A must read for anyone willing to deal with the reality of startups doing business. A quote from the front flap: "I wanted to provide hardcore information to hardcore people who want to kick ass, and I wanted it in something you can hold in your hands - a book. Why? Because a book boots up faster than a blog and is not dependant on Internet…
Some nice pictures by Sylvain from our last trip over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Just listen to Gary. Then, do the right next step .
Google Voice is a great new phone service that is really innovative. I'm using Google Voice daily since two months and I love it. Here is some of the nicest features it provides: One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail Record calls: record phone calls and store them…