Month: February 2006

A Good Day in San Francisco

Posted on by theFerf

After a quick trip to the DMV, I am officially licensed to ride my motorcycle in the city of San Francisco (oh, the formalities). As a side note, there was HAIL on the way there, a very rare event from San Francisco. It only lasted about 60 seconds, but was kinda fun to see none the less.

Back to the point. Amy and I got up today and since it was sunny, decided we would make our first official journey on the motorcycle. We were going to go to South San Francisco (only about 9 miles from our apartment) but we got to ride on some major roads (280, 380 and 101) just to get there. We got the bike up to about 75mph and the wind was insane but we quickly arrived at our destination, The Golf Mart, and finished our business.

The second part of our journey took us to one of Amy’s favorite restaraunts…Fuddruckers. From there we took off to a little shopping center and then headed back to the city. By the time we got back, it was time for Amy’s hair appointment and then we were fortunate enough that the sun was going down so we headed over to watch the sun set over the ocean. To end the day off right, we went back home, did laundry and spic-n-spanned the entire place.

California's Ocean Coast

Amy and her New Scooter

Posted on by theFerf

Scooter 1
So, Amy has seen the benefit of 2 wheel transportation here in San Francisco. When she first got here, I had my old motorcycle and took her everyplace. It is amazingly easy to find parking for motorcylcles and scooters in the city.

So when we went to buy my new motorcycle, we decided that Amy needed a scooter too. Scooters are pretty cheap, I was surprised. None the less, to the point. Click the link below to see a 10 photo set of Amy posing with her new scooter.

** NOTE **
Last weekend Amy and I both took a motorcycle safety course. She decided to take the motocycle course, and not the scooter course for the experience. It was funny to see (sorry no pictures) her riding a motorcycle and she did really well. Anyway, enjoy the photos.

See the Whole Set

This Photo taken by theFerf

The Nature of Social Networks and its Participants

Posted on by theFerf

The nature of why social networks work is an interesting beast and Im always excited to join in conversations regarding them. My experience with 95% of these networks is that they do not maintain my interest past a day or two even if I am REALLY trying to pay attention.

So what makes a them sticky and what keeps the users coming back? Maybe it is possible I just havent found MY social network yet. According to an article I read today (from the leader of the Yahoo! Technology Dev Group), 1% of any given group starts something (creates the initial content), 10% participate (adding to the pile) and everyone else just lurks (reads). I lurk at MySpace, I lurk at TagWorld, I lurk at Yahoo Groups…but I have never wanted to become the 1% or 10% (for the most part) at these places. Maybe something will come in podcasting where I could be the 1% or 10%.

As Yahoo! has been gobbling up many social media sites over the past year (Flickr, upcoming, del.icio.us) I often get asked about how (or whether) we believe these communities will scale.

As an example take Yahoo! Groups.

* 1% of the user population might start a group (or a thread within a group)
* 10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content whether starting a thread or responding to a thread-in-progress
* 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups (lurkers)

There are a couple of interesting points worth noting. The first is that we don’t need to convert 100% of the audience into “active” participants to have a thriving product that benefits tens of millions of users. In fact, there are many reasons why you wouldn’t want to do this. The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal. Another point is that the levels of the pyramid are containing – the creators are also consumers.

Elatable » Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers

Electric Bus Depot

Posted on by theFerf

Electric Bus Depot
Wandered past this giant re-charge station for San Franciscos electric bus brigade and found it interesting. Its hard to tell but there is basically a giant wired grid over the entire lot allowing the buses to sit and charge (i assume they are charging).

This Photo taken by theFerf

Bust your next employer, win $50K from the BSA

Posted on by theFerf

Make money fast! Listen up friends and family, cash in now on the employers you hate!

Step 1. Every Office has Pirated Software. Find it.
Step 2. Install it
Step 3. Call the BSA and blame it on your boss
Step 4. Take the year off!

Bust your next employer, win $50K from the BSA BoingBoing reader polymorf says, “Job-search website Dice.com appears to be in cahoots with the Business Software Alliance (BSA). They’re offering potential employees a big reward if they narq out their next potential employer for software piracy.”

>> From Boing Boing