This game’s got everything: a test of hand-eye coordination, a swinging potato, thrown sharp objects and a memorable name:
Clipping courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
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Author: Joey deVilla
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A Pretty Realistic Custom Paint Job
You could almost believe those flames were real!
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
Merlin Mann had this to say about “Evangelist” job positions on Twitter:
The trick is to drink the company’s Kool-Aid, but in small, controlled sips.
PickupPal, which describes itself as “the largest online carpooling community in the world”, is a site that allows people all over the world to arrange to rideshare or carpool. It’s used by people travelling to the same place to arrange carpools to work, rides out of town and even share a ride to see their favourite bands in concert. It’s a great way for people to save money, gas and the environment.
The only people who seem to have a problem with PickupPal are the bus companies in Ontario. PickupPal lets people seeking rides pay the people driving them, and the bus companies in the province sensed a threat to their business model. The bus companies decided to go to the Ontario Highway Transit Board, which found PickupPal in violation of the Public Vehicles Act.
The problem with the Act is that it makes a lot of ridesharing illegal. The only way you can carpool with someone is if you meet all the criteria listed below:
- Travel can only be between home and work. Carpooling to school, the ski hill, a concert or the airport are not allowed.
- You cannot cross municipal boundaries. If my co-worker David and I, who live in Toronto, were to commute to the Microsoft office, which is in Mississauga, we’d be in violation of the Act.
- You must ride with the same driver each day. If I were to ride to Microsoft with David on Tuesdays and Thursdays and with Developer and VP Mark Relph (my boss’ boss) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we’d be in violation of the act.
- You can’t pay the driver more frequently than once a week. If I give David gas money on Tuesday and then again on Thursday, I’ve just broken the law.
This isn’t the first time the bus companies have messed with a ridesharing service. The popular Quebec-based service Allo Stop, which was a service that allowed people to find rides between Toronto and Montreal – a very popular travel corridor – was banned in Ontario after the Ontario Highway Transit Board ruled that their service was illegal. The Board did this at the behest of the bus companies Greyhound, Voyageur and Trentway-Wagar. The “logic” of the decision, according to Felix D’Mello of the Ontario Highway Transport Board, who said "If you are transporting passengers beyond a municipal boundary, and getting compensation for it, the only way you can provide that kind of service is with a public transportation license."
Why should I be forbidden to carpool simply because I want to pay the driver for gas (or, the more likely scenario: because I want to be compensated for gas)? The bus companies are simply using a law whose intent was to protect the public as a cudgel with which to beat perceived competition out of existence.
What can be done? A BlogTO reader wrote his MPP, who responded quickly by suggesting that we exert pressure on the Honourable Jim Bradley, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation. Write him and express your concerns! He can be reached via old-school mail at:
The Honourable James J. Bradley
Ontario Minister of Transportation
77 Wellesley St W, 3rd Flr, Ferguson Block
Toronto ON M7A 1Z8
or via email at jbradley.mpp@liberal.ola.org
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“Startup Empire” Happens Tomorrow
A Conference on Startups? In the Middle of a Meltdown?
[This article was also posted on my tech blog, Global Nerdy.]
Given the doom and gloom coming from all the business new outlets, it may seem crazy to try and start a startup in the current economic crisis. Y Combinator’s programmer-turned-essayist-turned-venture capitalist Paul Graham would disagree:
The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.
When Microsoft and Apple were founded.
As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup. I’m not claiming it’s a particularly good time either. The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn’t matter much either way.
If we’ve learned one thing from funding so many startups, it’s that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.
If the quality of a startup’s founders plays a far bigger role than the state of the economy, the question changes from “Why would would you want to start a startup when the economy is in such sorry shape?” to “How do we prepare our startup’s founders to be at their best?”
There are many answers to the latter question, and tomorrow’s Startup Empire conference’s goal is to showcase and share as many of those answers as possible. It’s a small conference with a single track and completely dedicated to providing the best advice, ideas, information, inspiration and contacts to help entrepreneurs get their startups off the ground. Organized by the people at StartupNorth and DemoCamp’s (and Microsoft’s) David Crow, the speaker and attendee list is packed with entrepreneurs, mentors, VCs and other people in both the local and international startup ecosystem. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when you gather them all under a single roof and put them in a more intimate, focused conference setting.
The conference is sold out, but I’ll be attending and providing lots of coverage and notes from the sessions. Watch my tech blog, Global Nerdy, for reports!
Who’s Speaking at Startup Empire
Here’s the final schedule for Startup Empire:
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Registration
9:00 a.m. – 9:10 a.m.
Introduction
David Crow
9:10 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Why You Should Startup in a Downturn
Don Dodge
9:45 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Slow Down and Speed Up: Handling a Fast-Moving Startup in Turbulent Times
Austin Hill
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Break
11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
From Napkin to First Steps
Mathew Ingram, Darryl Ballantyne, Thomas Whitiker, Mike Kirkup
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Your First Structures: Legal, Organizational and Funding
Rob Hyndman
12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Why Now is a Great Time to Start Your Startup
Howard Lindzon
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Lunch
2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.
The Funding Game, from Friends to VCs
Craig Hayashi
2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
The Ins and Outs of Term Sheets: Angel Loans to Preferred Shares
Suzie Dingwall Williams
3:30 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Instapitch: From Elevator to PowerPoint
Roger Chabra, Kevin Talbot
4:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Break
4:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
We’re So F***ed
Hugh MacLeod
5:15 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Boulder, TechStars and Why VC Doesn’t Have to Matter
David Cohen
6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Microsoft BizSpark Launch Party
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Remembrance Day / Veterans Day
Today, November 11th, is Remembrance Day in Canada and other Commonwealth countries and Veterans Day in the United States. In honour of our veterans and present-day soldiers, here’s John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In honour of this blog’s seventh anniversary, seven photos I found today that I though were worth sharing.
Earth from Chandrayaan-1
Here’s a gorgeous shot of the Earth as seen from Chandrayaan-1, India’s first lunar space mission:
A Scene from Critical Mass
It’s a good message. If only Critical Mass would heed its own advice:
“Fatburger” Knows Their Market
This bumper sticker has got to be part of the most nichey campaign I’ve ever seen for a burger joint:
(In case you’re not aware of the significance of 4:20, here’s an explanation.)
Better Homes and Wookies
Even Chewbacca has a domestic side:
The Case of the Missing Bacon
It just doesn’t have the gravitas of the Hardy Boys’ or Nancy Drew’s case names. Hell, this case may be too small for even my childhood hero, Encyclopedia Brown:
“Grapes” Goes Bananas
Here’s Don Cherry wearing a suit so loud that even I might not wear it:
You Can Judge a Good Lawyer by His Ad
“No evidence, no conviction!” Now that’s a snappy catchphrase. If you’re ever in need of a lawyer in southern Louisiana (that’s the area covered by the 225 area code), this guy is your man!
I wonder why he felt it was necessary to include the line “This is an advertisement” on the ad:
Click the ad to see it at full size.