Checked out a little British rock show with the The Kooks and the Pigeon Detectives in Montreal, Canada… it was definitely better than this one but not quite as good as that one.  Here are a few photos and clips:

The Kooks:

The Kooks - See the World in Montreal Canada from Dan Jackson on Vimeo.

The Pigeon Detectives (opener)

Pigeon Detectives in Montreal Canada from Dan Jackson on Vimeo.

Matt Costa, Battery Park in Burlington Vermont, July 31st 2008

This was the last show of the 2008 Burlington waterfront concert series.  We brought Toby with us (his 2nd concert) who barked like crazy during his favorite song which got him some attention and a shout out from Mr. Costa himself.

here are a couple Matt Costa video clips:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

and a few Matt Costa pictures:

Coldplay Concert, July 29th, 2008 Bell Centre Montreal, Canada

The Coldplay Show in Montreal was by far the best concert we’ve ever been to.

Reviews:

“The standing ovation started the moment the lights dropped, and didn’t let up until the end of the encore. Cheers were deafening and singalongs were omnipresent.”

“Sometimes we go to certain towns - in England, Wales, Germany or Australia - and people don’t sing along, so we get depressed,” Martin said. “So we come here, and everyone is going for it 100 per cent, and it makes us feel fantastic.” - Mycoldplay.com

Pictures from Coldplay in Montreal:

A short clip from “In My Place”
Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Full Set List:
Life in Technicolor

YouTube  Life in Technicolor
Violet Hill
Clocks

YouTube  Clocks
In My Place
Yes
Viva La Vida

YouTube  Viva La Vida
42
Fix You

YouTube  Fix You
Chinese Sleep Chant (band playing close together, right side of stage)
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face (techno version, right side of stage)
Speed of Sound

YouTube  Speed of Sound
Yellow

YouTube  Yellow
Lost! (regular version - not acoustic)

YouTube  Lost
Strawberry Swing
The Scientist (acoustic, b-stage beside sound booth)

YouTube  The Scientist
Death Will Never Conquer (acoustic, b-stage, Will on vocals)
Talk (remix)
Politik

YouTube  Politik
Lovers in Japan
Death and All His Friends
The Escapist (outro)
Encore
Green Eyes
The Dubliners

More @ Coldplaying and MyColdPlay

Technology Review (a magazine published by MIT) recently asked various thought leaders what the Web might be in ten years. Below is one of the most creative responses but all the interviews are quite intriguing.

Jonathan Abrams
Founder of Socializr and Friendster; San Francisco, CA

“In five to ten years, we will all have chips in our brains. When you look at someone’s face on the street, your Google Brain software will automatically call up every embarrassing photo of them from ancient websites such as Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace; list all mutual friends; and remind you of the person’s annotated bio. As a response to the perceived slowness and verbosity of antiquated services like Twitter, people will send everyone they know nanobursts of information about anything they might do or think before they actually do or think it. Every website, blog, and social-networking profile will include an aggregated feed from every other website, blog, and social-networking service, resulting in an exponential and infinite length of repeated content on every possible site, overloading our brain chips and causing frequent nosebleeds and occasional cerebral hemorrhage.”

Source: The Future of The Web, Technology Review 7/2008

Matt Costa: Never Looking Back

The Kooks: Always Where I Need to Be

Jack Welch on Work/Life:

“Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness. Of course he wants you to be happy, but only inasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing his job right, he is making your job so exciting that your personal life becomes a less compelling draw.”

The quote above was pulled from:
Jack Welch’s best seller “Winning” (2005)
I read this book a while back and highly recommend it. Recently, I’ve started to publish an excerpt from the book to kick off each week.

Jack Welch on China:

“Yes, you hear about China’s problems - its scarcity of middle managers, for instance, and the massive number of poor farming families moving into unprepared cities with not enough jobs to support them. Lumbering, bureaucratic state-owned enterprises still make up most of its economy. And the country’s banks are saddled with bad loans. But for China, these aren’t mountains to be scaled, they’re blips to be flattened by the giant, high-speed bulldozer that is its economy. Increasing prosperity from spectacular economic growth over the past twenty years has given the Chinese enormous self-confidence. But China has so much more: a massive pool of low-cost, hardworking laborers and a rapidly expanding number of well-educated engineers.”

“And then there’s its work ethic, which may be its single biggest strength. Entrepreneurship and competition are baked into the Chinese culture. Consider the executive who hosted me during a week long visit to Shanghai and Beijing last year. She said she’s at the office from 7am until 6pm, goes home for dinner to join her husband and son until 8pm, and then returns to work until midnight. “This is very typical here,” she said, “six days a week.” And she works for a U.S. multinational!”

“You can look at China and feel victimized. Or you can look at it and be excited about conquering the challenges and opportunities it presents.”

The quotes above were pulled from:
Jack Welch’s best seller “Winning” (2005)
I read this book a while back and highly recommend it. Recently, I’ve started to publish an excerpt from the book to kick off each week.

“I think winning is great. Not good - great. Because when companies win, people thrive and grow. There are more jobs and more opportunities.”

“A good mission statement and a good set of values are so real they smack you in the face with their concreteness. The mission announces exactly where you are going, and the values describe the behaviors that will get you there… an effective mission statement basically answers one questions: How do we intend to win in this business? In the most common scenario, a company’s mission and its values rupture due to the little crises of daily life in business.”

Jack Welch on Values:

• Never let profit center conflicts get in the way of doing what is right for the customer.
• Give customers a good, fair deal. Great customer relationships take time. Do not try to maximize short-term profits at the expense of building those enduring relationships.
• Always look for ways to make it easier to do business with us
• Communicate daily with your customer. If they are talking to you, they can’t be talking to a competitor.

The quotes above were pulled from:
Jack Welch’s best seller “Winning” (2005)
I read this book a while back and highly recommend it. Recently, I’ve started to publish an excerpt from the book to kick off each week.

Hope everyone had a great holiday! If you didn’t make it to this year’s party at the Jackson’s, you missed out on another exciting night with:

• roughly 150-160 people
• loads of food and a full bar (two bartenders, two kegs, and a pile of wine)
• a ski jump with a starting ramp 4 stories tall (made with scaffolding)
• a custom horse shoe pit (w/ lighting for night time use)
• another appearance by Santa Claus himself
• two real live elves handing out free reindeer poop to everyone (yes, there are pictures below)
• overage drinking games (also have pictures of this below)
• and one bag piper playing live music in the living room (i can’t believe i didn’t get a picture!)
  • followed by grandma who broke out the keyboard and led the christmas carols until 3am

here are some highlights from the event (click here for the full roll of photos):

luminarias (lining the walkways)…

the kitchen…

the dining room…

the bar…

Two full time bartenders serving up a huge selection of wine, 2 kegs (magic hat and coors), soda, and a six pack of O’Doul’s if that’s your cup of tea.

signage…

the hallway…

the dessert table…
the elves…

Dressed up as elves… these two walked around the party handing out “party bags” to everyone. They were the life of the party!

reindeer poop…

Yep, that’s right…. reindeer poop. My grandparents brought over a hundred bags of reindeer poop, one for every person at the party.

a high school reunion…

hey jonesy!

the ski jump…

The 4 stories of staging were setup at thanksgiving (top of hill - not seen in this picture) and the ski jump (above) was ready by the party for anyone who dare.

santa claus himself!

“Sorry Mike… I don’t seem to have any presents for you this year”

horse shoes…

My dad built this custom horse shoe pit… installed lighting… and even plowed the back yard so we had access to the pit during the party.

overage drinking…

the caroling… (until 3am!)

the bagpiper… (if anyone has a picture of this please send it over!)
although i was unable to get a picture of the bagpiper that was playing… i’ve posted a video below of a bagpiper to give you an idea. just picture 2 elves running around handing out “reindeer poop”, a santa claus, etc…

YouTube  Celtic Bagpipes

Last week Andrew Tobias (current Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and Author of “The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need”) shared some of his readers‘ experiences with Mint.com.

Mr. Tobias: a big thanks for the link to my write up on Mint/Covestor. Apparently, AT is friends w/ one of the Mint.com founder’s which allowed him to share:

• The monetization strategy of this relatively new online finance management service:
  • AT: Their game plan is ad revenue and “sponsored links.” My friend who’s one of the founders says: “Some of the offers we present are sponsored, meaning we earn a referral fee if you sign up for them. However, Mint will always show you an un-sponsored offer ahead of a sponsored one if it will save you more money. We sort offers in order of their value to users, regardless of sponsorship.”
• A response to the concerns about how your login credentials are used/stored:
  • AT: My friend responds: “Mint does not store your credentials, we use them once to create a linkage with your account(s). Consider the benefits of being able to see all your account activity in one place – makes it easy to spot any suspicious activity (remember 90% of fraud occurs off line). Mint offers alerts (via email, or text message) to bring unusual spending to your attention.”
• Click here for the full article…

“See The World” - The Kooks

YouTube  See The World Video

Nicholas Negroponte’s goal is to setup every child in “emerging” countries around the world with a $200 laptop to promote self education. This program was setup in response to the lack of educational resources in many developing nations across the globe.

Mass production of these “XO” laptops is slated to begin this month to prepare for launch on November 12th. You can track the progress and major developments of Nicholas’ program by visiting: http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/progress/index.shtml.

1. Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit association.
2. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology.
3. A graduate of MIT, Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966.
4. Conceived in 1980, the Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages.
5. In the private sector, Nicholas Negroponte serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment.
6. He has provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Wired magazine.
   Source: Laptop.org

Click the thumbnail below to see a preview of this laptop that can be donated AND delivered for a mere $200…

“Being around people who occupy a variety of roles is good for development, because it facilitates one’s understanding of the world.”

Devin recently sat in on a discussion with Lawrence G. Shelton, a Professor @ the University of Vermont’s Human Development and Family Studies program. Prof. Shelton is in the process of pioneering a new theory he calls “develecology”. It is a composition of topics in ecology and human development.

We got our hands on Prof. Shelton’s 3 page outline on Develecology titled: “Develecology 001: Develecology Made Plain” (from which I’ve extracted some main points):

Key Concepts/Terms:

1. Development: acquiring a more valid and differentiated view of the world you live in and the skills and motivation to maintain it, adapt to it, and restructure it to make it better meet your needs.
2. People participate in activities, relations, and roles.
3. In development, activities become more complex, more important, and more intrinsically motivating.
4. Roles are defined by particular activities and relations and are a way we organize experience and expectations.
5. Being around people who occupy a variety of roles is good for development, because it facilitates one’s understanding of the world.
6. There are multiple types of relations:
   1. Observational: one person watches the other
   2. Joint Activity: two people engage in an activity together
   3. Primary: both people think about each other, even when apart
   4. Developmental: one person is more developed than the other, they engage in activities together, reciprocity gradually increases, power becomes more balanced, and both share positive affect
   5. NOTE: these types are not mutually exclusive in any given relation.
7. As people participate in several relations, the degrees to which they support each other, are compatible with each other, or are in conflict with each other, become increasingly important.
8. A setting is a physical place where people can engage in face to face contact with each other.
9. Each settting has a unique pattern of role, relations, and activities, or Microsystem within it.
10. Each person has a unique ecosystem, defined from the perspective of that particular person.
11. Developmental status is indicated by:
    1. How well we understand the ecosystem and how skilled we are at functioning in it, maintaining it, and modifying it to better promote our development.
    2. The variety and complexity of the roles we occupy.
    3. The number of relationships we engage in.
    4. Our skill at engaging in developmental relations as the more developed person.
12. The relations between the settings one participates in make up a person’s “mesosystem”.
13. The primary link among settings is the person who moves in and out of them, connecting them and thus defining which settings are in hes/her mesosystem.
14. Develecology suggests that people maintain a higher “developmental status” (or maturity) within a macro system when they participate in more activities, engage in more relationships and settings, and are exposed to more roles.
15. Over time, the settings and activities we engage in tend to be related to each other. When several settings encourage the development of a particular complex activity that we are motivated to continue, a “developmental trajectory” is established. A developmental trajectory of settings and related activities tends to underlie each important activity in a life. Developmental trajectories influence which settings we enter, and which ones we don’t, as we choose those that are made available through our developing interests and skills or seek out those that will enhance those interests and skills.
16. Settings a person does not participate in may still influence development, and may be influenced by what happens in the person’s mesosytem settings.
17. Culture, or the Macrosystem is represented at the ecosystem level by the existence of consistencies across settings, microsystems, roles, relations, activities, and relations between settings.

I believe Prof. Shelton is in the progress of writing a book on this topic but the field of develecology is certainly in it’s infancy. If you are interested in finding out more Google won’t be much of a help with just 4 results… all from Prof. Shelton’s course listings on UVM’s website (i suppose we’ll just have to wait for his book to be published)

About Prof. Shelton:

• Lawrence Shelton has taught in the Human Development and Family Studies program since its inception at the University of Vermont in 1971.
• His childhood and adolescence were fairly uneventful, growing up in a healthy family in the small town of Carrollton, Illinois.
• He completed adolescence as an undergraduate at Harvard, where he studied Social Relations. At Harvard, he took [and passed] courses with Erik Erikson, George Goethals, George Gardner, Robert White, Brendan Maher, John Spiegel, and B. F. Skinner, among others.
• Larry earned the Ph.D. in Child Psychology in 1970 from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, where he was the first doctoral student of the late John P. Hill, an eminent figure in the field of adolescence.
• Larry describes himself as an applied developmental ecological — or “develecological” — psychologist. His professional goals include to understand and help others understand how development happens, across the whole lifespan, and how experiences in relationships and community settings help shape a person’s life.
• Larry teaches the introductory life span development course, the introductory family course, and the senior level course on the family ecosystem. His seminars include Adolescence and Youth; Advanced Child Development; Parenting through Separation, Divorce, and Remarriage; and Boys and Men: Development, Relationships, and Risks. Source

Now that we’ve made it halfway through October… I suppose it’s time to start getting psyched for the upcoming winter…

YouTube  Terje's 7601 Descent Video

“Terje HÃ¥konsen (born October 11, 1974 in Vinje, Norway) is a Norwegian snowboarder. HÃ¥konsen is widely considered one of the most influential snowboarders of all time and was one of the sport’s early icons.

HÃ¥konsen dominated freestyle snowboarding in the 1990s winning the ISF World Championships in half-pipe three times in a row, in 1993, 1995 and 1997. He has also won 5 European championships in half-pipe (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997), the U.S. Open in half-pipe 3 times (1992, 1993, 1995), and the Mt. Baker Banked Slalom 6 times (1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004). He also won the Innsbruck Air & Style Contest in 1995. HÃ¥konsen set the world record for highest ‘air’ during the finals of the Arctic Challenge in Oslo 2007 when he reached 9.8 meters out of the top of the quarterpipe with a backside 360.

He is the creator of an aerial snowboard maneuver named The Haakon Flip.

HÃ¥konsen is also credited to have developed the T6, the world’s first snowboard to be made out of a material named “Alumafly,” an aluminum honeycomb construction and as a co-creator of the Burton Fish (a powder-specific board) and the Burton Malolo, a cross-breed between a freestyle and powder board.” - Image: norskdesign.no Bio: Wikipedia

- from Paul Graham’s “The Future of Web Startups”