gdp's Comments

Redeye VC : Fun Fact of The Week: Time from Inbox to Investment

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:56:47 +0000

we've seen broad increases in the US money supply (as measured by M2 and MZM issued by the federal reserve) -- this always fuels bubbles which in turn creates more liquid markets with more short-term speculators. that is the primary cause IMHO. also of relevance is the dramatic decline in startup costs which reduces the dollar amount required for many of these investments which in turn lowers decision cost and thus facilitates a faster checkout process. i suspect both these trends will continue; i consider ongoing expansion of the money supply to be nearly inevitable, and i believe the same can be said for the costs of launching and operating a startup.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing : Fear & Greed - how housing market drives the economy

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:48:13 +0000

nope. if economies always bounce back, why does most of the world live in poverty? it's because governments keep them that way and people don't care enough or are not educated enough to bring about the change that is needed. let's see if the internet change anything. i remain optimistic that it will, but ultimately technology is just a tool. everything comes down to choice.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Digg

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:05:19 +0000

hahahhahaa......good one jeff!

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing : What happened to AltaVista and Yahoo? From innovator to imitator to forgotten

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:43:36 +0000

i know steve is worshipped for his alleged greatness, though sculley's contribution to apple is grossly understated. he grew apple sales from $800 million to $8 billion, and developed distribution channels that would prove to be immensely valuable for when steve came back. the product visionary is valuable, but so is the salesperson. and of course, what is the story of steve at NeXT? a great OS that couldn't get sales right and was perpetually in financial distress. than NeXT gets acquired by apple, steve's product gets plugged into the distribution outlets sculley helped create, and voila! the world was conned again into using apple's products. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/16/business/compan...

TechCrunch : Chris Sacca: "The Obama Administration Didn't Fully Embrace the People Who Got it Elected" [Video]

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:34:28 +0000

no, president soetoro's administration is fully embracing the people who got him elected. goldman sachs, jp morgan, and citigroup are three of the top 7 contributors; companies in the list of top 100 defense contracting contractors, like GE and IBM, are not far behind. and who has profited the most from the policies of the soetoro administration? banksters and warmongers. now that's what i call quality customer service! http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cyc... http://www.govexec.com/features/0807-15/0807-15s3...

TechCrunch : The Many Bottom Lines Of Businesses

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 12:34:32 +0000

real capitalism doesn't exist without the gold standard. when the supply of money is dictated by government, all money becomes political, which inevitably leads to a merger of state and corporation -- i.e. fascism. then we see things like goldman sachs, jp morgan, GE, etc. under the gold standard, we see stability and opportunity for all. the essay "gold and economic freedom" by alan greenspan, published in ayn rand's journal, elaborates on this.

TechCrunch : European Ministers Push to Increase Target for EU Carbon Emissions

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:32:42 +0000

no, not good. folks need to read "the report from iron mountain," amongst many other documents that openly state the globalists agenda to use carbon and environmentalism as the pretext to create a global government. global government is bad because it represents ANOTHER layer of taxes (city, state, nation, globe) and represents more power taken away from local government. if you think you have no control over washington, imagine how little you'll have over world government. plus the carbon tax and carbon fraud market....there is no need for any of this stuff. it is just a pretext to introduce more control, ultimately leading to population control, because hey, humans emit carbon! hope folks will wake up to this stuff. look around you, the VC industry is collapsing, the dollar is crumbling....the only way out is the truth that sets you free. the truth is not a message of doom, it is the foundation of all solutions.

TechCrunch : Direct Deposit Makes Greenbacks Even Greener

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:25:54 +0000

two points: 1. saving trees? what, they don't grow back? same with oil, look into abiotic oil. it's not as scarce as we are led to believe. 2. the larger issue, though, is that the focus should be on finding ways to expand energy and supply. so, while i don't think oil is as scarce we are led to believe, the larger issue IMHO is that there are alternative energy sources that are far superior to oil, but they are suppressed. the current focus of much of "green tech" is on martyrdom, rather than innovation and increased consumption for all. why is that? who benefits?

TechCrunch : Direct Deposit Makes Greenbacks Even Greener

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:20:18 +0000

no, there is no benefit to the reduction stuff. it is just a scam to find stuff to tax, and eventually, to introduce legislation to limit population growth (i.e. "we have to do it for the environment" and that type of pseudo-logic). there is no scientific justification for any of this. there are free energy solutions already, but those types of things will suppressed by companies that profit from war and control of existing energy supplies. in other words, companies like GE.

TechCrunch : Direct Deposit Makes Greenbacks Even Greener

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:56:46 +0000

the fake green movement is about trying to sucker people into reduction. the real energy movement is about expanding the supply of energy and improving its distribution. this post deals with the fake side of things.

TechCrunch : GE, Kleiner Perkins, Emerald, And More Launch $200 Million 'Ecomagination Challenge'

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:21:14 +0000

i hope the technology community watches this with a very close eye. GE is one of the largest "defense" contractors ("defense" gets quotes because is the current military policy really defensive?) and the military and banking corporations that are doing a stellar job of waging economic and militant war on innocent civilians throughout the world are the same people pushing a carbon tax and a market for trading carbon. all of this is sold to a public under the guise of environmentalism and green and all that nonsense. as a reminder the climate changes occurring in the world are occurring in the entire solar system -- the ice caps on mars are melting as well, just one of many examples. "innovation" that is not cognizant of this simple fact is likely to be erroneous at best, deceptive at worst. i know a lot of it will exist outside of carbon, and that's cool, but i'm just saying, some of it will probably touch on carbon, and the entire carbon market is a market legislated into existence for no scientific reason whatsoever. we need to make sure the carbon people are aware of the information suggesting the entire carbon industry is a scam, and that their model for innovation lives in cognizance, not denial, of these arguments. lastly, being a defense contractor in today's world is basically the same as being a merchant of death as all of the US' current wars are completely void of moral legitimacy. see 9/11 being an inside job for more on that. in light of this GE is a shameful corporation and will remain as such until they are ready to address 9/11 being an inside job and how they are profiting off that. given that they own NBC, they have a clear venue to address that specific issue, loudly and clearly (not quietly or dismissively). for firms partnering with GE, remember who you're dealing with, and that cutting them out of the network until they shape up is a great way of holding them accountable.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Measuring Popularity in Communities

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:30:40 +0000

have you invested much time in giving them data about what you like/don't like? i mean explicitly giving them data, not just the data they get implicitly via your rentals and surfing habits. i haven't because i'm too lazy and their recommendations for me suck for the most part. IMHO this could be a key for them -- if they can find a way to get people to give more data, more feedback. ultimately though i think they need to invest more in community, particularly blogging. i'm skeptical of highly automated approaches solving this problem, and think community approaches that rely more on conversations and blogging -- i.e. cultivating tastemakers -- will work better to help people find what they like. they have some of that, but i think they need much more, IMHO.

TechCrunch : Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:36:05 +0000

wow. i question this decision, though. IMHO social gaming is the true expression of social (meaning how all the social stuff monetizes itself and finds a way to survive and prosper), and so i thought zynga was in a position to disrupt google, the ultimate borg company. i thought zynga could then become the primary economic keystone that drives the web; just as google has fueled an entire search marketing industry and allowed tons of small businesses to prosper, i thought zynga could be the next iteration of that concept. i wonder if this type deal eliminates that possibility. but if this leads to the google dollar.....lol, oh man, that would be epic. i dream google has the courage to challenge the central banks of the world, lord knows they have the muscle to do it. but i doubt they will, as they are too attached to wall st and corporate finance to do something like that. i guess this eliminates zynga from executing the business plan that saves the world. hope i'm wrong.

TechCrunch : Apple Targets Searchers For 'Dell Streak', 'HP Slate' With Google Ads For The iPad

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:40:17 +0000

i love bashing crapple but IMHO this is ethical and non-controversial, a standard paid search marketing tactic.

TechCrunch : U.S. Venture Capital Fundraising Up 13 Percent In First Half Of 2010 To $7.5B

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 15:20:09 +0000

i hope investors will understand how cheap money drives larger funds, and how both play a part in the creation of bubbles and excessive wealth consolidation. sustainable economic growth will remain elusive until these problems, which have been with us since the greenspan era, are dealt with consciously. growth in fund sizes without awareness of these problems is not a good thing.

TechCrunch : We Need More Opinion In News, Not Less

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 12:53:55 +0000

a subject near and dear to my heart. i agree with the bulk of what arrington is saying here, which is why i still read TC and value it as a source of information. however, the most important rule, which arrington conveniently left out, is that journalists are servants of the truth. the truth must dictate what is reported. in this regard i diss TC for their lack of coverage of important news stories -- needless to say mainstream media is even worse. and while i agree journalists should present their opinions in a straightforward matter, i think they have an obligation to ensure that their opinion is informed. again, arrington claiming to be a hardcore libertarian while endorsing mccain in the 08 election as the republican candidate (a guy who admits he doesn't know how to use a computer) wen 73% of the his readership supported ron paul is disappointing to say the least, and is a point i enjoy harping on because of how revelatory it is, how important it is, and how lacking in justification it is. inform yourself and learn to be sincere and perhaps your comments on journalism will be taken sincerely. until then, your game is weak and your talk is cheap. 9/11 was an inside job, kid mercury

TechCrunch : Did LeBron James Just Join Twitter To Tweet Where He'll Sign?

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 18:26:00 +0000

so disappointing that you guys have multiple posts on lebron james, and zero posts on the various cybersecurity initiatives that are under way.

TechCrunch : Wall Street Journal Throws A Softball To MySpace

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 15:21:46 +0000

the conflict of interest the WSJ has due to them having the same owners as myspace is a result of monetary policy, which distorts capitalism and leads to excessive industry consolidation. that's why all industries are excessively consolidated, and why the bottom 40% of the US owns less than 1% of the nation's wealth. it's also why we have a complete and utter lack of real journalism. GE is a major defense contractor, GE owns NBC. any wonder why we don't see more 9/11 truth coverage on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, etc? i just finished my book on web 2012 and the new world order. arrington i'm going to mail you a copy. perfect thing for you guys to talk about at the TC social currency event. social currencies solve all these problems so we can all live in a better world and pursue our dreams: i can be a bedroom rock star, fred wilson can embarrass jdawg in blog beefs, arrington can camp outside zuckerberg's house, etc. may our dreams come true!

TechCrunch : Employees Challenged To Crack Facebook Security, Succeed (Updated)

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 11:31:08 +0000

this is the problem with the current model of the web, driven by SaaS companies like fb and twitter. they are basically using the "get a lot of users then figure out the business model" approach. in addition to this leading to one world internet, the other problem is that these systems tend to be complex and expensive to create, but very inexpensive to destroy. meaning facebook had to raise over a half billion to build their empire, but arrington just needs a sleeping bag and a tent to bring it down. so what's the solution? federation. status.net over twitter. open source and P2P are more distributed. yeah, arrington can still whip out his camping gear and wreak havoc on those systems, but in order to do that, he's going to have to go on a camping tour by each and every node in the federated network, instead of just hanging out at headquarters. it becomes less feasible to camp out at each node, (though i wouldn't put it past arrington), and hence such a system is better structured for defense. it will also bring lots of other advantages, like leading the way to data portability and voluntary participation in the cloud.

TechCrunch : Dear Mr. President: Immigration Reform Won’t Be Enough To Stop The Brain Drain

Sun, 4 Jul 2010 22:15:20 +0000

100% correct. the real problem is governments artificially creating restrictions so as to protect their industry and limit the freedoms of their imprisoned, tax-paying, war-enabling citizens.