Hold on: I’m not sure that the below works right. Don’t use it yet. There are lots of instructions out there for installing RMagick, which is a graphics manipulation library used by many Ruby-istas for things like thumbnailing, resizing, etc. I wanted to use it for an internal database I’m building in Rails. Some of [...]
Posts from ‘March, 2007’
VC Essential Tensions: Momentum vs. Contrarianism
It is my intention to begin a series of entries dealing with “essential tensions” in investing in general and VC in particular. This is the first of the series. Venture capital as an industry deals with momentum investing. Paul Kedrosky has argued on his Infectious Greed blog that VC is a “bubble business,” and that [...]
The Washington State 529 Program (GET) Offers an Overlay
State-administered “529 plans” for education savings are another in the series of tax dodges doled out by the Bush administration (thereby further and regressively lowering the effective rate of taxation on the higher-income people most likely to avail themselves of such dodges). (Sticklers will observe that 529s predate Bush; true, but their extra tax favorability [...]
VCs Are Not Your Channel (But They Might Be Your Friends)
Occasionally I get calls from folks who get the bright idea that, since VCs have a bunch of portfolio companies under influence, they can leverage selling their stuff by talking to me instead of pounding the pavement to the whole portfolio. If you’re thinking of doing this, remember that we (VCs) are not your personal [...]
More Evidence That Your Old-Ass Values No Longer Hold Sway
I read last week in the Durham (NC) Herald-Sun this AP story, which unfortunately I now find linked only at the ghastly FOX News: Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships [...]