I had a great time presenting to a crowd of about 200 people on Friday, Sept 28 on a topic I’m really in love with known as “The Wisdom of Crowds”
“The Wisdom of Crowds” Based on the Book by James Surowiecki
that basically says you can setup a method of getting input from people in such a way that the result is nearly always the right answer.
I got the inside scoop. Oceanic Time Warner just doubled the upload speed of their Road Runner High Speed Online service from 512kb to 1mb. For those of us doing online backups, bitTorrent downloads, and video/audio uploads, it’s HUGE.
I did this myself just now and have the screen shots below. I am running Mozy online backups on my computer. The 358kb upload is about the average speed I’ve been getting for the past few months.
I took a screenshot of that window just before I performed the fix. As Mozy was running, I did the fix, then took a screenshot immediately after. I didn’t restart my computer or the software.
This has got to be the coolest, quickest, easiest speed boost I’ve ever seen.
Before “the fix”
After “the fix”
What’s the secret?
Just reset your modem. I unplugged mine from power and plugged it back in again. In one minute I had a 162% upload speed increase.
Now this might not be a big deal for everyone, but for those of us that do any of the above geeky stuffs, this is just a godsend. My backups will take 1/2 the time. I’m going to be curious to see what this does to BitTorrent.
Tell them Peter Kay sent you. Enjoy!
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I’m a big fan of Paul Graham and had the pleasure to meet him personally when I spoke @ MIT about one of my inventions (PDF).
If you’re pondering starting up a tech company and are looking for money, I suggest you read his essay, “The Hacker’s Guide to Investors“.
In classic Graham style, he’s talking to you, the geek. Good stuff. Read it.
Paul covers these points:
1. The investors are what make a startup hub.
2. Angel investors are the most critical.
3. Angels don’t like publicity.
4. Most investors, especially VCs, are not like founders.
5. Most investors are momentum investors.
6. Most investors are looking for big hits.
7. VCs want to invest large amounts.
8. Valuations are fiction.
9. Investors look for founders like the current stars.
10. The contribution of investors tends to be underestimated.
11. VCs are afraid of looking bad.
12. Being turned down by investors doesn’t mean much.
13. Investors are emotional.
14. The negotiation never stops till the closing.
15. Investors like to co-invest.
16. Investors collude.
17. Large-scale investors care about their portfolio, not any individual company.
18. Investors have different risk profiles from founders.
19. Investors vary greatly.
20. Investors don’t realize how much it costs to raise money from them.
21. Investors don’t like to say no.
22. You need investors.
23. Investors like it when you don’t need them.
If you have a high speed Internet connection and you don’t have a firewall, there’s a good chance that your computer has already been broken into. Firewalls allow you to safely get online yet protect your network from outsiders. If you don’t have a firewall, go get one right now and make sure it has wireless networking, or wifi, built in so that you can connect other devices.
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Do your kids go online at home? When was the last time you surfed the web with them? Folks, nobody loves the Internet more than me, but we all know there is a really dark side that you can easily stumble into. Spend time with your kids online. Teach them to never give out personal information and make sure they know about the very real danger posed by online predators.
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