David Lidsky's Blog, page 4838

American Spender

Last December we had, as a nation, quite a bit of cash lying around. The following month we found a way to spend it. In fact, we spent some $12 billion more in January than we had saved up. That's a lot of flat-screens--or an all-inclusive vacation that would put Sandals Jamaica to shame. It's also more than the gross domestic product of several entire nations, according to the CIA's World Factbook. So are we up to our old ways, living beyond our means and spending money we don't really...

Vivek Kundra Outlines Ambitious Government Plans for I.T.

The University of Washington was the place to be yesterday. Aside from Steve Ballmer's speech extolling Microsoft's position on the Cloud, we had the President's Tech Wizard, Vivek Kundra, setting out his vision for getting the government up to speed in matters I.T. As well as getting the nation online to pay their taxes, he wants to give people easy access to their health records, but is more than aware of the magnitude of the task ahead.

The most pertinent point that Kundra made in his...

Oscar or Not, "Coraline" Is a $65-Million Gamble That Paid Off for Phil and Travis Knight

On the morning that Oscar nominees were announced last month, Nike founder Phil Knight called his son, Travis, at 6 a.m. They both had just gotten word: Coraline, the debut film by their studio Laika, was up for best-animated film. "Phil is a man of few words, but it was a nice conversation," Travis told me recently. "A great father-son bonding moment."

On Sunday, they're hoping for another such moment at the Academy Awards. Whether or not they walk away with a gold statuette, it's been a...

The Heady Days of Facebook's Formation: Hacking Competitors and Smack-Talk Over IM

Business Insider posted a trio of articles today purporting to show the earliest days of Facebook, when it was still run out of Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room. Turns out, its history isn't exactly spotless--not that you can expect a 19-year-old to be ethically unimpeachable--and the info that's surfaced, including what appear to be old IMs between Zuckerberg and pals, show some early turmoil with competitors.

The first article, "How Facebook Was Founded," is actually less a story of the...

Consider the Coffee Cup Lid: Designers Swoon for Solo

Steven Heller praises the Solo Traveler lid, but the entire product line is worth a closer look.

As you sip your afternoon pick-me-up, consider Steven Heller's take on the humble Solo Traveler, aka the coffee lid. It's ubiquitous, it's barely noticeable, it's... Freudian?

The Solo Traveler lid is a substitute for a mother's breast--what we might call nature's original travel lid. The flat covers with the tear-back openings offer no such metaphoric representation. Instead, spout = nipple...

Why You Should Start a Company in... New Orleans

It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startup aspirants options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick. Here, part eight in our series.

What do entrepreneurs do? They find an itch that needs to be scratched and go at it. After the devastating hurricane of 2005, New Orleans definitely had a lot of itches.

Years of effort...

USPS Teams Up With Bright Automotive for Electric Delivery Vehicles

The U.S. Postal Service is continuing on its quest to convert some of its 142,000 vehicles to electric models with a partnership with Bright Automotive, the manufacturer of the upcoming IDEA plug-in hybrid for commercial and government fleets . The auto startup will retrofit a standard USPS vehicle with an electric drivetrain and send out it out on the streets of Washington, D.C. for a year of testing. If all goes well, the Postal Service might have Bright convert even more of its vehicles...

No Longer at the NEA, Yosi Sergant Is Back Among the Artists

After an appointment to a high-profile federal position that was truncated by a conservative takedown, Yosi Sergant was back in his element last night: In this case, a former Big Lots in Hollywood. White-hot fluorescent lighting radiated over hundreds of revelers at Manifest Equality, where Sergant had helped to corral 400 art pieces for sale by artists like Robbie Conal, Tim Biskup, and Ron English to benefit the Courage Campaign, a California-based equal rights network. Cleve Jones, the...

Jobs Squad: Turtle-Necked Mac Geniuses to Make Tech Support House Calls?

Apple seems to be creating its version of The Geek Squad. The Boom! disposal experts. Does this mean that we will soon be seeing squadrons of silver-colored vans, driven by bespectacled men in black polonecks zipping around the country, providing on-site tech support to those people who can't make head nor tail of how to sync their Apple TV receiver to their TV?

Monday saw the U.S. Patent office publish Cupertino's latest
trademark application--and there's nothing remotely touchscreen or...

Demolishing Density in Detroit: Can Farming Save the Motor City?

So it's come to this: Unable to provide basic services for all of his constituents, Detroit mayor Dave Bing is drafting plans starve his city down to a manageable size. Using proprietary data and a survey released by Data Driven Detroit, Bing and his staff will pick "winners and losers" amongst the city's neighborhoods and seek to resettle residents from the losers, those deemed most unlivable. With Detroit's tax base withering from the implosion of two-thirds of the Big Three, the housing...