It’s hard to write headlines without fawning. But here’s a blog written by and about a very cool couple in San Francisco – Lifetinker. Thoughtful, funny, out-of- the-box posts; from which I’ve tentatively concocted the following hypotheses:
- We’ve already determined that we need high-speed rail and pneumatic tube package and mail delivery across the country, and that we might as well start by linking communities already connected in other ways: Park Slope and adjacent neighborhoods in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Montclair, N.J.; Cleveland Heights, Ohio; certain communities in Vermont; and now I’m convinced that a Brooklyn/San Francisco link is in order. S.F. is so far ahead of us in recycling, energy, disaster preparedness, mass transit, that we have a lot to learn from them. In certain ways, they’re the “proof-of-concept” city (remember, we’re the city whose current mayor ditched municipal recycling on the basis that it cost too much, only to back up and reverse because, M.B.A. aside, they hadn’t actually crunched the numbers).
- I don’t know exactly what Brooklyn has that San Francisco needs, but we do have Prospect Park.
This is how Toby and Brooke describe themselves in the post The examined life:
Toby Segaran: I’m a Kiwi, writer, programmer, collective intelligence enthusiast, gadget packrat and “person of exceptional ability” — but I fell short of “extraordinary.”1 My work involves designing algorithms for data analysis of everything from drug trials to the Technorati Top 100. I’ve lived in three different countries. I am the author of this book, which came out in August of 2007, and I sometimes speak at conferences. I graduated from MIT in 2000.
Brooke Blumenstein: I’m a recovering Floridian, a recent Stanford MBA, and management consultant. Since leaving Florida, I’ve lived and worked in Boston, New York, Houston, Seattle, Bangalore, Palo Alto, and (finally) San Francisco. Lately, I’ve taken to growing mint (for mojitos) and basil (for pesto). I studied philosophy and computer science at Wellesley – and have continued my advocacy for women through the Women’s Initiative Network at the Stanford GSB. One day I’d would like to become a professional conversationalist.
B&T: We live in San Francisco where we frequently bark at sea lions. We both hate driving. Although we were probably frequently in the same room while in college, we didn’t meet until much later.
Note that they don’t say anything about the sea lions barking back, which probably means they’ve got to work on better material to bark at the sea lions.
He’s also got a separate blog, kiwitobes, which among other things plug his two books -
Two posts in particular struck me as “must-reads” -
The ethical, personal, high-tech engagement-ring
(in which, without saying it in so many words, Toby does the right thing ethically, and avoids becoming the sucker in the great Diamond Con);
Trying out new wave sports (not all of them, but certainly a few I’d never heard of);and Corporate amortization for household expenses, which is one of the only sensible financial things I do regularly when calculatting cost. But if two people this smart just caught on to it, it’s clearly anomalous behavior on my part – and probably worth reading just because it’s a better way to figure out the real cost of things (and why certain items with high prices and long, enforceable warranties are worth it, e.g. a good vacuum cleaner).
Finally – Ms. Blumenstein seems more discreet about what she actually does for a living – but Mr. Segaran, in addition to two books that look like they’re worth reading, is up to some intriguing stuff. One – currently off-line, is Lazybase: according to SimpleSpark.com, “Lazybase allows anyone to design, create and share a database of whatever they like.” (Link to very short entry). Another -
TaskToy – is a free, hosted, GTD-ish task-list manager that looks pretty good (I’m not done playing with MLO, so I haven’t kicked the tires yet on TaskToy.
However – what I believe is his current project – FreeRisk – making financial risk and the probability of fraud more apparent – may be a work of genius. And I hope to be writing about it soon over at Popular Logistics.
