Month: September 2006

Scott Kleper & SpotDJ

/ Adam Nash / 4 Comments

A good friend of mine just updated his personal blog for the first time in months recently, and I thought this was as good a time as any to introduce the very cool startup that he’s been working on.

The company is called SpotDJ, and his blog post about it is here.

Scott has been a good friend ever since I met him through the CS 198 Section Leader program at Stanford, where he was one of the first section leaders I hired.  Scott was one of those great student developers who didn’t just take Computer Science classes – he really wrote code.  Shareware, mostly, for the Mac.  Even then, Scott always shipped.

Scott had the misfortune of having an internship at Apple Computer in probably the most depressing time possible – in the Advanced Technology Group, in 1997, right as the entire group was disbanded.  Since then, he’s done some pretty interesting things – working for several companies and even co-authoring a book.

Doing a startup is something that is very easy to talk about in Silicon Valley, but make no mistake about the fortitude it takes to really quit a good paying job and go out on your own.  Scott is doing it right now, and SpotDJ is evolving into something really interesting.

I love the idea that instead of bidding on keywords (Google/Yahoo), you might actually target content/advertising based on a song.  If they can crack some  success measure like cost-per-click (cost per listen?) and some demand measure like click-through (selection? rating?), it’s a very interesting way to target content/advertising in an environment where keywords aren’t the way people navigate.

In any case, check out the company, and kudos to Scott.

How many posts in a day?

/ Adam Nash

Like everything else, it’s very different to talk about doing something versus actually sitting down and doing it.

Here I am, only two weeks into my pledge to post something to my blog every day, and I’m noticing that my posting is not at all consistent.

Some days I miss.  Like this weekend, where I was able to spend some wonderful time with Carolyn & Jacob.  Only one post in three days.

Other days, like today, I can have two, three, or even more posts to the blog.

I guess some of that is to be expected – it’s hard to find the time to do almost anything on a daily basis if it isn’t your primary profession.

Still, I’m a little more surprised at the days, like today, where it seems like there are far more topics than time to write about them.  I guess it makes sense – the news of the world isn’t evenly spaced out or planned.  Some days are just more interesting than others I guess.

I’m pretty sure today will have the most posts of any day so far… a funny combination of news from some personal favorites – Apple & eBay, as well as a nice startup announcement from a good friend of mine.

Orion & The Rebirth of the Space Program

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

On Friday, NASA announced the selection of Lockheed Martin as the major contractor to build the space vehicle to replace the aging Space Shuttle fleet.

Orion Crew Vehicle
The vehicle is called the Orion Crew Vehicle, and Lockheed Martin will be building eight of the reusable launch vehicles, with an initial launch target of 2014. For those of you following at home, the Space Shuttle fleet is due to be retired in 2010.

Time magazine has a nice piece outlining the selection, and the type of multiple-administration support that the ongoing efforts to establish a permanent manned-presence on the Moon & Mars will require.

This is an incredibly exciting announcement for a number of reasons. The first & foremost reason is that this finally begins to put the unmitigated disaster that was the Space Shuttle program behind us. The last thirty years have been an amazing failure in terms of manned presence in space, largely due to the abysmal failure of the Space Shuttle program to meet any of its estimates for reusability, cost, and scale. Originally promised to have launches that could be turned around as quickly as commercial airliners, we’ve been lucky in years to even have half a dozen launches – and that is ignoring the catastrophic failures that have befallen two of the shuttles.

The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy & Space has a nice piece on the new Orion program.

Establishing a permanent manned presence in orbit, on the Moon, and on Mars are goals that transcend administrations and nations.

When viewed from the lens of history, it is likely that the decision to firmly establish a timetable and goal of manned presence off this planet will be seen as the most significant of our generation. We can only hope that the administrations to come will not play political football with the most significant of human achievements.

It is sad in many ways that the timeline for this success will be in the 2020s, rather than the 2000s – which it easily could have been if we had avoided the Space Shuttle program. Still, it’s cool to see space get so much attention again. The X Prize, Space Tourism, SpaceX – this is the type of rapid technical improvement that they dreamed about in the 1950s & 1960s.

PS For those of you trivia buffs out there, Project Orion was also the codename for the 1960s concept of a nuclear-pulse propulsion craft that would make inter-stellar flight practical. The concept: a big spaceship with a large metal plate behind it, propelled by small nuclear explosions.

Tivo Series 3: Unboxed

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

Just a quick post tonight, but I couldn’t go to sleep without sharing one of my favorite “new device” events: the infamous “play-by-play” of the opening of the soon-to-be-released device on a website.

Tivo Series 3: Unboxed (PVRBlog)

Of course, being the true geek, my truly favorite event is when someone rips apart the box piece-by-piece and actually walks through the innards of how it’s built and what is inside. 🙂

Maybe next week.