vivez sans temps mort http://www.inevitablebacklash.com Lukas Bergstrom's weblog en Copyright Lukas Bergstrom 2002-2010 Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:37:57 +0000 lukasb@gmail.com Why all bloggers need to optimize their feeds for me if they want to get rich http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2128 So John Gruber makes money off his full-content RSS feed. There's a reason for that. If I open up Google Reader and see that Daring Fireball has a new entry, it's usually my first read. I even click on the ads. Part of that is because I'm a geek and an Apple fanboy, but on the other hand, I haven't bothered to subscribe to TUAW or Cult of Mac.

I read everything he posts is because his signal to noise ratio is very, very good. I'm interested in most of the posts he makes, and I'm interested in most of the words he writes. If he posts a link, he usually has just a few lines of commentary, where the other blogs listed above might pad their entry with a couple hundred words of "analysis". That's excusable, and easily skippable in any feed reader. But what's less forgivable is the number of posts they make I'm simply not interested in. I already subscribe to too many blogs, I don't need to add any junk.

There's a reason post-Gawker blogs work the way they do (post early, post often.) If your readers are web surfers, hopping from site to site, you want to make sure you have new content for them on a regular basis, to maximize page views and ad clicks.

The dynamic for someone using a feed reader is completely different. I have no problem finding new content. There's no way I can read everything in my feed reader, every day. I have to prune poor-performing feeds (poor signal to noise ratio) on a regular basis so I can make sure that I spend as much time as possible reading good stuff.

That means the sites that I'm most likely to subscribe to, read, and stay subscribed to, will be more concerned with quality than quantity. I can follow perfectly blogs that post only once a month, because I'll never miss their new stuff. If it's good, and there's not too much of it, I'll read it all. No offense to the talented pro bloggers out there, but that's not exactly the dominant model. (It's as if they've forgotten their original mandate to be filters of content; now they're just adding sugar and carbonation to the firehose.)

Now, I don't know how popular feed readers are going to get. But I hope they get very, very popular, because once publishers figure out how to serve them, I have a feeling we'll spend a lot less time searching for good writing.

In categories: Tech/Business

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2128 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2128 Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:31:40 -0800 oh and here are all the LuckyMe mixtapes | http://www.thisisluckyme.com/html/1music/mixtapes.htmloh and here are all the LuckyMe mixtapes http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2127 oh and here are all the LuckyMe mixtapes

In categories: Music/Mp3s

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2127 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2127 Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:47:04 -0800 Leaving One Acre Fund http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2126 On March 11th I leave One Acre Fund and fly from Nairobi to Frankfurt, on my way back to the USA.

It feels a little like leaving Microsoft in 1982 might have if you had an inkling of the future trajectory of the company. The core model in Kenya is much more mature than it was eighteen months ago: we now have three districts with 3,000 to 4,000 clients each, all generating performance numbers that in aggregate are steady and predictable. We have very promising trials underway to achieve better economies of scale and more impact for our clients. When I first got here it felt like building a car - suspension, frame, engine, speedometer and steering wheel - while the car was already on the road. Now it feels like we have the platform and we're tuning for performance. We have incredibly ambitious growth targets (seriously. ambitious.) and I believe we'll reach them.

So it's obvious I have mixed feelings about this. But when I brought up the subject of leaving with our executive director in October, I mentioned that I've been overseas for two years, and working in operations management for, now, eighteen months. I've got a better idea of what I want in life, and it involves building a life closer to family and friends, and going back to a career with a heavier analytical component. One Acre Fund's strength is a laser focus on field results, which means living here and staying devoted to implementation. There are a lot of people that are happiest doing exactly that (did I mention how rewarding it is to see a good harvest?) so I'm not worried about One Acre.

It's not the end of my work on behalf of One Acre Fund, either. I'll be fundraising, blogging about their progress and in general not shutting up about it whenever the conversation turns to development. I'll also be doing some volunteer country scouting if the timing works out.

The next set of opportunities is looking exciting too, though. More later.

In categories: OneAcreFund, People/Me

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2126 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2126 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:08:58 -0800 Some things I would like to know more about http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2125 -Do people know what they're talking about when they say agile development?
-Academic papers on Hadoop and MapReduce
-What happens when you get drunk?

In categories: Other/Food&Drink, Tech/Net, Tech/Development

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2125 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2125 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:57:15 -0800 Sohbet http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2124 My friend Ozge just started a blog on Turkish cuisine for American cooks.

In 2008, after five months of solo travel through Asia, I met up with Ozge on her home turf. (If you can travel with someone who is host, guide and friend together, I urge you to do so.) There followed a near month of highlights, as we ate and drank our way across Turkey, starting in Istanbul. It should always be nighttime, and we should always, all of us, be at rooftop restaurants near Istiklal, having meze with raki.

Aaand I can get the ingredients for the traditional eggplant dish locally. Yum.

In categories: Other/Food&Drink, People/Friends, People/Weblogs

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2124 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2124 Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:05:29 -0800 World poverty is falling faster than expected http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2123 "From 1970 to 2006, poverty fell by 86% in South Asia, 73% in Latin America, 39% in the Middle East, and 20% in Africa." And: because world inequality fell, welfare measured for the world as a whole grew even faster than world GDP did, and more than doubled over the period 1970-2006.

In categories: Commerce/Macroeconomics, Commerce/InternationalDevelopment

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2123 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2123 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:50:14 -0800 New material from Woob after like what, fifteen years? | http://woob.bandcamp.com/New material from Woob after like what, fifteen years? http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2122 New material from Woob after like what, fifteen years?

In categories: Music/Mp3s

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2122 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2122 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:59:16 -0800 If you're in Boston and you want to directly assist Haiti, this is a great way to do it http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2121 Ushahidi-Fletcher Situation Room update - scroll to the bottom where it says "Contact us at".
We really couldn't do this project with out the help of the Boston situation room. They are combing through the reports, getting updates via many different forms of media - basically making sense of a mountain of incoming data. On top of that, they're coordinating with many more thousands of individuals all over the world to help find critical data on locations, needs and confirmations with the people on the ground in Haiti.
And you can be one of those people!

In categories: Commerce/Non-profit

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2121 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2121 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:26:32 -0800 SMS donations to Haiti might be delayed http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2120 Donations made to Haiti via SMS might be delayed 90 days. This may or may not be a big deal, but just to be safe, I'm donating through the Partners In Health website.

In categories: Commerce/Non-profit

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2120 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2120 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:26:03 -0800 Annotations to Whole Earth Discipline - An Ecopragmatist Manifesto http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2119 Annotations to Whole Earth Discipline - An Ecopragmatist Manifesto~
I used to love reading my parents' old copies of the Whole Earth Catalog, my first introduction to what was techno-hippie culture. Anybody remember zomes?

I would love a good book of this kind, I hope this is the one.

In categories: Science/Environment

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2119 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2119 Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:04:42 -0800 Yesterday http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2118 Driving the RAV4 on the road near my house, a small Kenyan girl stands in the middle of the road, arms out from the her sides, chest puffed out. I just keep repeating to myself "I am not the guy driving the truck in Avatar, I am not the guy driving the truck in Avatar..."

In categories: Travel/Kenya, People/Me

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2118 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2118 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:46:33 -0800 Another dash of McCartney http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2117
A friend of mine was in the same NYC studio while Paul was putting together some of "Memory Almost Full" album released 2007 and his story is Paul was super nice and asked him if he wanted to come downstairs and take a listen to some tracks he was putting down. My friend obliged and once they were in the room Paul proceeded to sit behind the drumkit and overdub some stuff, singing along. After they were done Paul supposedly asked for "your honest opinion" and my friend could only come up with "Yes, Sir Paul, sounds great!" I told my friend he probably wanted to hear "Could use a tighter snare sound" or something.
From a thread entitled "I hate Paul McCartney so much".

In categories: Music/Musicians

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2117 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2117 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:40:11 -0800 "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear." http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2116 America's secret immigrant detention centers

Ok that's sort of a downer. Let me find another Happy Holidays something or other.

In categories: Other/Politik

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2116 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2116 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:26:48 -0800 Happy New Year http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2115

In categories: Music/Videos

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2115 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2115 Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:40:37 -0800 Reason CCCLXXXXVI we are happy to revisit Los Angeles: the San Gabriel Valley http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2114 Real Sichuan food at Chung King.

In categories: Other/L.A., Other/Food&Drink

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2114 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2114 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:33:28 -0800 How to make original content production profitable on the Internet http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2113 Fantastic Wired piece on Demand Media, a $200 million, profitable, growing-like-crazy company that produces original online content. And it's not porn. How? Algorithmically generated article ideas, written Mechanical Turk-style for about $15 apiece.
But once it was automated, every algorithm-generated piece of content produced 4.9 times the revenue of the human-created ideas. So Rosenblatt got rid of the editors. Suddenly, profit on each piece was 20 to 25 times what it had been. It turned out that gut instinct and experience were less effective at predicting what readers and viewers wanted - and worse for the company - than a formula.
Even the comments section has fascinating stuff. From a Demand writer:
We are paid in residuals, which means nickels and dimes trickling in over the long haul. But they add up. I clear about $1,000 a month at eHow, and as I build up my library there, I expect that income to rise by quite a bit.
Which actually ties in with someone Demand's cartoon character CEO said:
Long term, we'll make more money by increasing quality.
And I bet he means it. Only, can a public company afford to think about the long term?

In categories: Commerce/Web, Tech/Business

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2113 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2113 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:37:54 -0800 Playing http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2112 LUDU5 is a UCLA grad student gaming organization. High-brow, low-brow, films, shootouts.

In categories: Other/Games

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2112 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2112 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:53:20 -0800 "I do not like quantum mechanics, and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it." http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2111 - Erwin Schrödinger. Quantum mechanical quotes.

In categories: Science/Physics

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2111 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2111 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:50:37 -0800 Wicked sci-fi from before you were born http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2110 "Hosts ELISHA SESSIONS and MARK SINKER and their astounding guests burrow insensibly into the pulp and avant-garde science fiction of 1935-1975." Readings from and discussions of a bunch of science fiction short stories. There's a podcast link to the completed series, but, irritatingly, no link to see a list of all the episodes. So:

-Episode 1: John W. Campbell, "Who Goes There"
-Episode 2: Fritz Leiber, "A Pail of Air"
-Episode 3: Isaac Asimov, "Segregationist"
-Episode 4: Donald Malcom, "Beyond the Reach of Storms"
-Episode 5: Donald Wandrei, "The Red Brain"
-Episode 6: Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder"
-Episode 7: Frank Herbert, "A Tactical Saboteur"
-Episode 8: Howard Schoenfeld, "Build Up Logically"
-Episode 9: Robert Sheckley, "Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead"
-Episode 10: J.G. Ballard, "Track 12"
-Episode 11: Samuel R. Delany, "Aye, and Gomorrah"
-Episode 12: Arsen Darnay, "Such Is Fate"
-Episode 13: Brian Aldiss, "All the World's Tears"
-Episode 14: Thomas M. Disch, "The Squirrel Cage"
-Episode 15: Ursula Le Guin, "Things"
-Episode 16: Arthur C. Clarke, "The Forgotten Enemy"

Wish they'd done a Zelazny story.

In categories: Music/Mp3s, Arts/Literature, Arts/SpokenWord

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2110 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2110 Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:59:22 -0800 Akvopedia http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2109 "Welcome to Akvopedia, the open water and sanitation resource that anyone can edit."
Compare to Appropedia.

In categories: Commerce/Non-profit, Commerce/InternationalDevelopment, Other/Agriculture

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2109 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2109 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:28:01 -0800 Jeff Sachs on America's governance crisis http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2108 Jeff Sachs on America's governance crisis~
Spot-on, unfortunately, e.g.:
The US public is rabidly opposed to paying higher taxes, yet the trend level of taxation (at around 18% of national income) is not sufficient to pay for the core functions of government.

In categories: Other/Politik

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2108 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2108 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:20:42 -0800 Vorsprung durch Techno http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2107 In the interests of total uninhibited geeking out, I'm going to start doing all music-related Twittering from @lukasmusic. Don't get used to all the substantive news so far, it's mostly going to be me raving about new beats.

In categories: Music/Reviews, People/Weblogs, People/Me

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2107 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2107 Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:39:06 -0800 "... this isn't a left preparing to take power, but one that, in its heart of hearts, expects protest to follow protest forever ..." http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2106 Politically, we agree on nothing, but k-punk is never boring, and never more incisive than when he is critiquing his allies on the left.

In categories: Other/Politik

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2106 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2106 Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:19:43 -0800 The appeal of Los Angeles http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2105 It's simple: there are two big, exciting, diverse American cities that you can explore forever and never get bored. One has New York weather, one has LA weather. That's it.

In categories: Other/L.A.

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2105 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2105 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:18:26 -0800 Can A Farm-in-a-Backpack Feed Sub-Saharan Africa? http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2104 Can A Farm-in-a-Backpack Feed Sub-Saharan Africa?~
I don't think so, but I'm glad someone's trying.

In categories: Travel/Kenya, Commerce/InternationalDevelopment, Other/Agriculture

]]> http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/comments.pl?id=2104 http://www.inevitablebacklash.com/entries/2104 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:10:19 -0800