noam's blog.a.lish

Yuval sent me this video which had me rolling. Dr. Vardi has helped more than 40 startups see the light of day, among them Mirabilis (makers of ICQ) and the video companies Scopus and BrightCove. He's a strategic advisor to Amazon and AOL, and a venture partner of Pitango, one of Israel's largest VC funds. You can read all about Yossi on his Wiki Page.

Dr. Vardi is also one of the chairpersons of Digital Life Design Conference which is Europe's conference for the 21st century, covering digital innovation, science and culture and bringing together thought leaders from Europe, the Middle-East, America and Asia. This year (DLD 08) there were a couple of interesting subjects covered like Web 2.0 startups and of course Advertising Exchanges (with special guest David Rosenblatt).

I went out to get some new basketball kicks today. I figured I'd go to the mall and pickup something at Foot Locker, "shouldn't take a long time" I thought to myself. Anyway, I walk in and I see one of my past favorites. The original (but newly made) Nike Air Jordan's 3, as made famous by this poster staring his Airness and Spike Lee. Well those are the shoes I want, I thought to myself, how much could they possible cost? 120$? 140$? 160$? I would gladly pay that amount for a piece of my childhood...

How much would you pay? Well, it turns out Mr. Jordan, aka "his Airness", is actually the one behind the recreation of the most famous shoe line in basketball history. The only problem is that he has a different idea about how to sell them. If you want to buy the newly created Jordan 3's you NEED to buy 2 pairs of shoes at a nifty price tag of 310 dollars. Say what? Why can't I just buy one pair of shoes? Hey, you know what, how about I get to pick which two pairs of Jordan's I want? No. Jordan will make that decision for you. What is up with this marketing strategy? I for one think it's ridiculous, are they actually making more sales this way or are they loosing possible sales because of this stupid gimmick?

p.s. I got some other pair of sneaks so I'm probably not going to get these after all. I hope I will be able to dunk without my jordans.

Came across this pixelated portrait of Google's top dawgs. You can actually see an enlarged version of each one of the overlords here (Sergery), here (Larry), and here (Eric). I wonder why they're tagged under the Jerk tag?

p.s. I wonder what it would take for me to get a pixelated portrait... I guess I'd have to actually do it myself.

This came up in a thread at work and I had to mention it cause it's absolutely great... You can get yours from Amazon, I had no idea they sold food.

Would this be a good gift for a child? Wouldn't it confuse them a little?

I just ran into this today, for the first time... No Pants Day. I have never actually seen this "implemented" in New York, I wonder if this year it will be more visible. I think that if we are allowed to I might actually "go-for-it" which should be great fun. So... you might be asking yourself what the hell no pants day is, the following is quoted from the Official No Pants Day FAQ page:

What in the world is No Pants Day?

No Pants Day is a day where everyone, be they students, respectable businessmen, or cherished community leaders, leave their pants behind. Usually this means wearing thick, appropriately modest boxer shorts, but bloomers, slips, briefs, and boxer-briefs all work as well.

When is it?

No Pants Day is always on the first Friday of May, the next being May the 2nd, 2008.

I realize this was a great opportunity to post a hot chick in a seductive thong... but I didn't go for it. foo did.

Someone I know at DoubleClick got this ad on Facebook yesterday. There have been some web-speculations about who triggered such an ad... some say it was a googler... either way I think it's fucked up.

The text of the ad reads: "Hi DoubleClick! Please stop gorging yourselves on all our food. Maybe we won't fire you. Thanks!" The image contains a pig sitting on a pile of questionable content. What was interesting was the click through url, which pointed to www.gwar.net which is kind of nasty... I wonder if there is any association by a googler to this site.

If you see anything similar please post a link to it in the comments. I wonder if the person(s) in charge will take responsibility or be found... on the other hand this is a pretty good way to get people to click on your ad... right?

A site for sharing all things that FAIL with the world. It's actualy quite funny and I can't wait to see what else gets posted there.

a whole new meaning to "doggy style"

Ouch.

Do you love asian girls (#11), Coffee (#1), and Barack Obama (#8)?

Do you love reading the Sunday New York Times (#46), Grocery Shopping at Whole Foods (#48), and Apple (#40)?

Then you're probably white.

My buddy YK told me to check out stuff white people like a new(ish) blog dedicated to "a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like." According to the authors of "stuff white people like", white people are pretty predictable.

I haven't decided if I like this blog yet, but I did find some observations to be funny. One of those observations are good old #39: White People Love Netflix

We all know white people love film festivals, but what about movies that don’t make it to a film festival, or weren’t in the local film festival? How do you get accesss? Thankfully white people have Netflix.

If you see a group of white people and you need to break into the conversation, a good thing to say “hey, is anyone else thinking that Netflix shipping is getting slower? I’m doing this PT Anderson thing, and I’m only up to Magnolia! What’s that all about?” They will relate, and talk about their own Netflix queues and how they are trying to get caught up on French New Wave.

Naturally I was curious to see if there was a site that was dedicated to stuff black people love... and sure enough I found it... Stuff Black People Love. This blog wasn't pointing out obvious/predictable trends in black people, they simply "Review Black Popular Culture."

Among the things you can find on SBPL (the blog came up with the acronym...):

• Pictures of Barack Obama when he was young.
• "Yo Mama" jokes.
• Is there something wrong with loving Fried Chicken?

I kind of enjoyed browsing both sites, some really funny comments... I wonder if there are more stuff ???? people like sites out there... I guess most of the stuff I read is stuff programmers/geeks like... right?

If you didn't think that Israel is a 3rd world country, this might just change your mind... Yesterday (Wednesday) while addressing the Israel Parliament, called the Knesset, Mr. Shlomo Benizri the skilled speaker and representative for the orthodox party called Shas quoted the Gemara on gay sex (the Gemara only mentions male to male) and stated that it can even be the cause of shock to the Syrian African fault-line (north of the dead sea in Israel) that hit Israel last week.

Mr Benizri made his comments while addressing a committee of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, about the country's readiness for earthquakes.

He called on lawmakers to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes".

Israeli court rulings in recent years have granted inheritance rights to gay couples and recognised same-sex marriages performed abroad.

There really isn't much to add or interpret. This guy is an idiot and it's just unbelievable that he is allowed to even talk in parliament.

I'm not marketing expert but this seemed a little weird to me. I received this email from Seamless Web (to put things in context, I live in New York City and it's pouring right now).

Personally I think this is hilarious... I wonder what you marketing people out there think of this campaign...

This article talks about a brothel in Prague where you are welcome to have sex for free with the hooker of your choice and the only catch is that people can watch you online... now I'm no VC or anything but this sounds like a great startup. Now imagine mashing this up with a social network and you have PrivatePartsBook... no? You be the judge

Big Sister is marrying 21st-century technology with the world's oldest profession to profit from the public's appetite for ever-more graphic reality TV. Since 2005, more than 15,000 men have taken up the offer of free sex in return for 15 minutes, or less, of fame, according to the brothel. Big Sister is now expanding into the U.S. with a local version of its Web site.

After donning a burgundy terry-cloth robe and slippers in a carpeted locker room, each client heads downstairs where the action takes place. Every move is recorded by more than 50 video cameras mounted everywhere from the toilets to the bed posts.

He comes for the free sex, good beer and women who are ``polite and very friendly,'' Nick says, at a table with a view of a glass swimming pool where one guest bobs naked. A pole- dancer in a white thong and bra gyrates with a grinning Slovak man holding a wine bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

``It's a different concept,'' Nick says later, as he leaves his details so the brothel can mail him complimentary DVDs of his performance. ``It's what the people want, to see normal people.''

Stupidity at it's finest hour

Really?

What is that?