bootstrapped photos on Flickr

These boots are made for walkin' by Cityswift

21 6

These boots are made for walkin'

And that's just what they'll do

One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

Ya

a poppy, or how I bootstrapped my drugs empire 😉 by Michael Figiel

33

lensbaby 3G can capture flowers, too. Here, wide open (that's f/2.0 if I'm not mistaken) and handheld.

final-3-2 by Kunal Baweja

8

A light painting I bootstrapped few years ago. The title indicates number of iterations/corrections made for the final outcome, took few hours just to get the shapes correct.

01_Feet Locked up by shackles by feetickling Foot

22 4

Daddy or Unicorn Fairy? by Steve Jurvetson

11 3

I am already doing the newborn gaze studies with A:B testing, as I leaned in Alison Gopnik's book Scientist in the Crib. Yeah, baby is more interested in magic unicorns than her papa.

I have gifted this book more than any other (to geek friends about to have their first child). It is not a parenting book, but it kindles an awe and awareness for the marvel of their minds, especially in the pre-verbal years when it might otherwise be difficult to connect.

And it leads to some practical experiments once you understand that babies signal their interest in things by where they focus their gaze, and that shifts over time as their brain develops.

At birth, much of the vision system is bootstrapping the vision system, from the color space to distance vision and initially edge detection. I took advantage of this at the hospital, when my son was one day old. I noticed that when I pushed the bassinet with the sleeping baby through the hospital hallway, his eyes would pop open as I turned the corner. When I looked up, I saw a right angle in the long line of fluorescent lights. And sure enough, when I closed my eyes and looked up, I could see the sharp edge of light through my closed eyelids. This was like food for baby’s developing brain; it made him happy to open his eyes to this visual treat. And it made it easy to get him to open his eyes for visitors by repeating this trick for them.

And when my daughter was first learning to speak, and had not mastered all of the sounds, I noticed her gaze flip around to me when a made a b or p sound. Imagine learning those for the first time. It is a very subtle difference in mouth position. And how else could we learn this but to watch someone else. So, I then had many days of enjoyable phoneme practice with her as she came to master the elements of speech.

I think Scientist in the Crib is fascinating not just for life in the crib, but for what it tells us about scientists as well. It is inspirational for adult life. From what I can see, the best scientists and engineers nurture a child-like mind. They are playful, open minded and unrestrained by the inner voice of reason, collective cynicism, or fear of failure. Newton and Feynman are famous examples.

I have come to celebrate the “child-like” mind. Here is one of Gopnik key conclusions: "Babies are just plain smarter than we are, at least if being smart means being able to learn something new.... They think, draw conclusions, make predictions, look for explanations and even do experiments…. In fact, scientists are successful precisely because they emulate what children do naturally."

Cortical Candy by Steve Jurvetson

8 2

bootstrapping the edge detectors in her visual cortex

Free Booklets Paper Texture Cards Tickets Invitations Menus Royal Memorabilia IM0281 by Queensland State Archives

6

ITM1692074

Technology company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A technology company (or tech company) is an electronics-based technological company, including, for example, business relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce services.[1][2][3]

Details

According to Fortune, as of 2020, the ten largest technology companies by revenue are: Apple Inc., Samsung, Foxconn, Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Huawei, Dell Technologies, Hitachi, IBM, and Sony.[4] Amazon has higher revenue than Apple, but is classified by Fortune in the retail sector.[5] The most profitable listed in 2020 are Apple Inc., Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., Intel, Meta Platforms, Samsung, and Tencent.[4]

Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. (owner of Google), Meta Platforms (owner of Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon.com, Inc. are often referred to as the Big Five multinational technology companies based in the United States. These five technology companies dominate major functions, e-commerce channels, and information of the entire Internet ecosystem. As of 2017, the Big Five had a combined valuation of over $3.3 trillion and make up more than 40 percent of the value of the Nasdaq-100 index.[6]

Many large tech companies have a reputation for innovation, spending large sums of money annually on research and development. According to PwC's 2017 Global Innovation 1000 ranking, tech companies made up nine of the 20 most innovative companies in the world, with the top R&D spender (as measured by expenditure) being Amazon, followed by Alphabet Inc., and then Intel.[7]

As a result of numerous influential tech companies and tech startups opening offices in proximity to one another, a number of technology districts have developed in various areas across the globe.[8] These include: Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Wadi in Israel, Silicon Docks in Dublin, Silicon Hills in Austin, Tech City in London; Digital Media City in Seoul, Zhongguancun in Beijing, Cyberjaya in Malaysia and Cyberabad in Hyderabad.

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.[1][2] While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder.[3] At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty[4] and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential.[5]

Actions

Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes.[6] Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy. [7]

Design principles

Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone.[8] For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".[9]

Heuristics and biases in startup actions

Because of the lack of information, high uncertainty, the need to make decisions quickly, founders of startups use many heuristics and exhibit biases in their startup actions. Biases and heuristics are parts of our cognitive toolboxes in the decision-making process. They help us decide quickly as possible under uncertainty but sometimes become erroneous and fallacious.[10]

Entrepreneurs often become overconfident about their startups and their influence on an outcome (case of the illusion of control). Entrepreneurs tend to believe they have more degree of control over events, discounting the role of luck. Below are some of the most critical decision biases of entrepreneurs to start up a new business.[10]

Overconfidence: Perceive a subjective certainty higher than the objective accuracy.

Illusion of control: Overemphasize how much skills, instead of chance, improve performance.

The law of small numbers: Reach conclusions about a larger population using a limited sample.

Availability bias: Make judgments about the probability of events based on how easy it is to think of examples.

Escalation of commitment: Persist unduly with unsuccessful initiatives or courses of action.

Startups use several action principles to generate evidence as quickly as possible to reduce the downside effect of decision biases such as an escalation of commitment, overconfidence, and the illusion of control.

Mentoring

Many entrepreneurs seek feedback from mentors in creating their startups. Mentors guide founders and impart entrepreneurial skills and may increase the self-efficacy of nascent entrepreneurs.[11] Mentoring offers direction for entrepreneurs to enhance their knowledge of how to sustain their assets relating to their status and identity and strengthen their real-time skills.[12]

Principles

There are many principles in creating a startup. Some of the principles are listed below.

Lean startup

Lean startup is a clear set of principles to create and design startups under limited resources and tremendous uncertainty to build their ventures more flexibly and at a lower cost. It is based on the idea that entrepreneurs can make their implicit assumptions about how their venture works explicit and empirically testing it.[13] The empirical test is to de/validate these assumptions and to get an engaged understanding of the business model of the new ventures, and in doing so, the new ventures are created iteratively in a build–measure–learn loop. Hence, lean startup is a set of principles for entrepreneurial learning and business model design. More precisely, it is a set of design principles aimed for iteratively experiential learning under uncertainty in an engaged empirical manner. Typically, lean startup focuses on a few lean principles:

find a problem worth solving, then define a solution

engage early adopters for market validation

continually test with smaller, faster iterations

build a function, measure customer response, and verify/refute the idea

evidence-based decisions on when to "pivot" by changing your plan's course

maximize the efforts for speed, learning, and focus

Market validation

A key principle of startup is to validate the market need before providing a customer-centric product or service to avoid business ideas with weak demand.[14] Market validation can be done in a number of ways, including surveys, cold calling, email responses, word of mouth or through sample research.[15]

Design thinking

Design thinking is used to understand the customers' need in an engaged manner. Design thinking and customer development can be biased because they do not remove the risk of bias because the same biases will manifest themselves in the sources of information, the type of information sought, and the interpretation of that information.[16] Encouraging people to “consider the opposite” of whatever decision they are about to make tends to reduce biases such as overconfidence, the hindsight bias, and anchoring (Larrick, 2004; Mussweiler, Strack, & Pfeiffer, 2000).

Decision-making under uncertainty

In startups, many decisions are made under uncertainty,[4] and hence a key principle for startups is to be agile and flexible. Founders can embed options to design startups in flexible manners, so that the startups can change easily in future.

Uncertainty can vary within-person (I feel more uncertain this year than last year) and between-person (he feels more uncertain than she does). A study found that when entrepreneurs feel more uncertain, they identify more opportunities (within-person difference), but entrepreneurs who perceive more uncertainties than others do not identify more opportunities than others do (no between-person difference).[4]

Partnering

Startups may form partnerships with other firms to enable their business model to operate.[17] To become attractive to other businesses, startups need to align their internal features, such as management style and products with the market situation. In their 2013 study, Kask and Linton develop two ideal profiles, or also known as configurations or archetypes, for startups that are commercializing inventions. The inheritor profile calls for a management style that is not too entrepreneurial (more conservative) and the startup should have an incremental invention (building on a previous standard). This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding a business partner) in a market that has a dominant design (a clear standard is applied in this market). In contrast to this profile is the originator which has a management style that is highly entrepreneurial and in which a radical invention or a disruptive innovation (totally new standard) is being developed. This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding a business partner) in a market that does not have a dominant design (established standard). New startups should align themselves to one of the profiles when commercializing an invention to be able to find and be attractive to a business partner. By finding a business partner, a startup has greater chances of becoming successful.[18]

Startups usually need many different partners to realize their business idea. The commercialization process is often a bumpy road with iterations and new insights during the process. Hasche and Linton (2018)[19] argue that startups can learn from their relationships with other firms, and even if the relationship ends, the startup will have gained valuable knowledge about how it should move on going forward. When a relationship is failing for a startup it needs to make changes. Three types of changes can be identified according to Hasche and Linton (2018):[19]

Change of business concept for the start up

Change of collaboration constellation (change several relationships)

Change of characteristic of business relationship (with the partner, e.g. from a transactional relationship to more of a collaborative type of relationship)

Entrepreneurial learning

See also: Entrepreneurship education

Many institutions and universities provide training on startups. In the context of universities, some of the courses are entrepreneurship courses that also deal with the topic of startups, while other courses are specifically dedicated to startups. Startup courses are found both in traditional economic or business disciplines as well as the side of information technology disciplines. As startups are often focused on software, they are also occasionally taught while focusing on software development alongside the business aspects of a startup.[35]

“The best way of learning about anything is by doing.” – Richard Branson

Founders go through a lot to set up a startup. A startup requires patience and resilience, and training programs need to have both the business components and the psychological components.[36] Entrepreneurship education is effective in increasing the entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioral control,[37] helping people and their businesses grow.[36] Most of startup training falls into the mode of experiential learning (Cooper et al., 2004; Pittaway and Cope, 2007), in which students are exposed to a large extent to a real-life entrepreneurship context as new venture teams (Wu et al., 2009).[13] An example of group-based experiential startup training is the Lean LaunchPad initiative that applies the principles of customer development (Blank and Dorf, 2012) and Lean Startup (Ries, 2011) to technology-based startup projects.

As startups are typically thought to operate under a notable lack of resources,[38] have little or no operating history,[39] and to consist of individuals with little practical experience,[40][41] it is possible to simulate startups in a classroom setting with reasonable accuracy. In fact, it is not uncommon for students to actually participate in real startups during and after their studies. Similarly, university courses teaching software startup themes often have students found mock-up startups during the courses and encourage them to make them into real startups should they wish to do so.[35] Such mock-up startups, however, may not be enough to accurately simulate real-world startup practice if the challenges typically faced by startups (e.g. lack of funding to keep operating) are not present in the course setting.[42]

To date, much of the entrepreneurship training is yet personalized to match the participants and the training.

Ecosystem

A startup ecosystem can contribute to local entrepreneurial culture.

The size and maturity of the startup ecosystem is where a startup is launched and where it grows to have an effect on the volume and success of the startups. The startup ecosystem consists of the individuals (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, mentors, advisors); institutions and organizations (top research universities and institutes, business schools and entrepreneurship programs and centres operated by universities and colleges, non-profit entrepreneurship support organizations, government entrepreneurship programs and services, Chambers of commerce) business incubators and business accelerators and top-performing entrepreneurial firms and startups. A region with all of these elements is considered to be a "strong" startup ecosystem.

One of the most famous startup ecosystems is Silicon Valley in California, where major computer and internet firms and top universities such as Stanford University create a stimulating startup environment. Boston (where Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located) and Berlin, home of WISTA (a top research area), also have numerous creative industries, leading entrepreneurs and startup firms. Basically, attempts are being made worldwide, for example in Israel with its Silicon Wadi, in France with the Inovallée or in Italy in Trieste with the AREA Science Park, to network basic research, universities and technology parks in order to create a startup-friendly ecosystem.

Although there are startups created in all types of businesses, and all over the world, some locations and business sectors are particularly associated with startup companies. The internet bubble of the late 1990s was associated with huge numbers of internet startup companies, some selling the technology to provide internet access, others using the internet to provide services. Most of this startup activity was located in the most well-known startup ecosystem - Silicon Valley, an area of northern California renowned for the high level of startup company activity:

The spark that set off the explosive boom of "Silicon startups" in Stanford Industrial Park was a personal dispute in 1957 between employees of Shockley Semiconductor and the company’s namesake and founder, Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley... (His employees) formed Fairchild Semiconductor immediately following their departure... After several years, Fairchild gained its footing, becoming a formidable presence in this sector. Its founders began leaving to start companies based on their own latest ideas and were followed on this path by their own former leading employees... The process gained momentum and what had once begun in a Stanford’s research park became a veritable startup avalanche... Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley’s former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same...[43]

Startup advocates are also trying to build a community of tech startups in New York City with organizations like NY Tech Meet Up[44] and Built in NYC.[45] In the early 2000s, the patent assets of failed startup companies were being purchased by people known as patent trolls, who assert those patents against companies that might be infringing the technology covered by the patents.[46]

Investing

Diagram of the typical financing cycle for a startup company

Startup investing is the action of making an investment in an early-stage company. Beyond founders' own contributions, some startups raise additional investment at some or several stages of their growth. Not all startups trying to raise investments are successful in their fundraising.

In the United States, the solicitation of funds became easier for startups as result of the JOBS Act.[47][48][49][50] Prior to the advent of equity crowdfunding, a form of online investing that has been legalized in several nations, startups did not advertise themselves to the general public as investment opportunities until and unless they first obtained approval from regulators for an initial public offering (IPO) that typically involved a listing of the startup's securities on a stock exchange. Today, there are many alternative forms of IPO commonly employed by startups and startup promoters that do not include an exchange listing, so they may avoid certain regulatory compliance obligations, including mandatory periodic disclosures of financial information and factual discussion of business conditions by management that investors and potential investors routinely receive from registered public companies.[51]

Investors are generally most attracted to those new companies distinguished by their strong co-founding team, a balanced "risk/reward" profile (in which high risk due to the untested, disruptive innovations is balanced out by high potential returns) and "scalability" (the likelihood that a startup can expand its operations by serving more markets or more customers).[citation needed] Attractive startups generally have lower "bootstrapping" (self-funding of startups by the founders) costs, higher risk, and higher potential return on investment. Successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in the sense that the startup has the potential to grow rapidly with a limited investment of capital, labor or land.[52] Timing has often been the single most important factor for biggest startup successes,[53] while at the same time it's identified to be one of the hardest things to master by many serial entrepreneurs and investors.[54]

Startups have several options for funding. Revenue-based financing lenders can help startup companies by providing non-dilutive growth capital in exchange for a percentage of monthly revenue.[55] Venture capital firms and angel investors may help startup companies begin operations, exchanging seed money for an equity stake in the firm. Venture capitalists and angel investors provide financing to a range of startups (a portfolio), with the expectation that a very small number of the startups will become viable and make money. In practice though, many startups are initially funded by the founders themselves using "bootstrapping", in which loans or monetary gifts from friends and family are combined with savings and credit card debt to finance the venture. Factoring is another option, though it is not unique to startups. Other funding opportunities include various forms of crowdfunding, for example equity crowdfunding,[56] in which the startup seeks funding from a large number of individuals, typically by pitching their idea on the Internet.

Startups can receive funding via more involved stakeholders, such as startup studios. Startup studios provide funding to support the business through a successful launch, but they also provide extensive operational support, such as HR, finance and accounting, marketing, and product development, to increase the probability of success and propel growth. [57]

Necessity of funding

While some (would-be) entrepreneurs believe that they can't start a company without funding from VC, Angel, etc. that is not the case.[58] In fact, many entrepreneurs have founded successful businesses for almost no capital, including the founders of MailChimp, Shopify, and ShutterStock.[59]

Valuations

If a company's value is based on its technology, it is often equally important for the business owners to obtain intellectual property protection for their idea. The newsmagazine The Economist estimated that up to 75% of the value of US public companies is now based on their intellectual property (up from 40% in 1980).[60] Often, 100% of a small startup company's value is based on its intellectual property. As such, it is important for technology-oriented startup companies to develop a sound strategy for protecting their intellectual capital as early as possible.[61] Startup companies, particularly those associated with new technology, sometimes produce huge returns to their creators and investors—a recent example of such is Google, whose creators became billionaires through their stock ownership and options.

Investing rounds

When investing in a startup, there are different types of stages in which the investor can participate. The first round is called seed round. The seed round generally is when the startup is still in the very early phase of execution when their product is still in the prototype phase. There is likely no performance data or positive financials as of yet. Therefore, investors rely on strength of the idea and the team in place. At this level, family friends and angel investors will be the ones participating. At this stage the level of risk and payoff are at their greatest. The next round is called Series A. At this point the company already has traction and may be making revenue. In Series A rounds venture capital firms will be participating alongside angels or super angel investors. The next rounds are Series B, C, and D. These three rounds are the ones leading towards the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Venture capital firms and private equity firms will be participating.[62] Series B: Companies are generating consistent revenue but must scale to meet growing demand. Series C & D: Companies with strong financial performance looking to expand to new markets, develop new products, make an acquisition, and/or preparing for IPO.

History of startup investing

After the Great Depression, which was blamed in part on a rise in speculative investments in unregulated small companies, startup investing was primarily a word of mouth activity reserved for the friends and family of a startup's co-founders, business angels, and Venture Capital funds. In the United States, this has been the case ever since the implementation of the Securities Act of 1933. Many nations implemented similar legislation to prohibit general solicitation and general advertising of unregistered securities, including shares offered by startup companies. In 2005, a new Accelerator investment model was introduced by Y Combinator that combined fixed terms investment model with fixed period intense bootcamp style training program, to streamline the seed/early-stage investment process with training to be more systematic.

Following Y Combinator, many accelerators with similar models have emerged around the world. The accelerator model has since become very common and widely spread and they are key organizations of any Startup ecosystem. Title II of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), first implemented on 23 September 2013, granted startups in and startup co-founders or promoters in US. the right to generally solicit and advertise publicly using any method of communication on the condition that only accredited investors are allowed to purchase the securities.[63][64][65] However the regulations affecting equity crowdfunding in different countries vary a lot with different levels and models of freedom and restrictions. In many countries there are no limitations restricting general public from investing to startups, while there can still be other types of restrictions in place, like limiting the amount that companies can seek from investors. Due to positive development and growth of crowdfunding,[66] many countries are actively updating their regulation in regards to crowdfunding.

Investing online

The first known investment-based crowdfunding platform for startups was launched in Feb. 2010 by Grow VC,[67] followed by the first US. based company ProFounder launching model for startups to raise investments directly on the site,[68] but ProFounder later decided to shut down its business due regulatory reasons preventing them from continuing,[69] having launched their model for US. markets prior to JOBS Act. With the positive progress of the JOBS Act for crowd investing in US., equity crowdfunding platforms like SeedInvest and CircleUp started to emerge in 2011 and platforms such as investiere, Companisto and Seedrs in Europe and OurCrowd in Israel. The idea of these platforms is to streamline the process and resolve the two main points that were taking place in the market. The first problem was for startups to be able to access capital and to decrease the amount of time that it takes to close a round of financing. The second problem was intended to increase the amount of deal flow for the investor and to also centralize the process.[70][71]

Internal startups

Internal startups are a form of corporate entrepreneurship.[72] Large or well-established companies often try to promote innovation by setting up "internal startups", new business divisions that operate at arm's length from the rest of the company. Examples include Bell Labs, a research unit within the Bell System and Target Corporation (which began as an internal startup of the Dayton's department store chain) and threedegrees, a product developed by an internal startup of Microsoft.[73] To accommodate startups internally, companies, such as Google has made strides to make purchased startups and their workers feel at home in their offices, even letting them bring their dogs to work.[74]

Unicorns

See also: List of unicorn startup companies

Some startups become big and they become unicorns, i.e. privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. According to TechCrunch, there were 452 unicorns as of May 2019, and most of the unicorns are in the USA, followed by China. The unicorns are concentrated in a few countries. The unicorn leaders are the U.S. with 196 companies, China with 165, India with 107[75] and the U.K. with 16.[76] The largest unicorns included Ant Financial, ByteDance, DiDi, Uber, Xiaomi, and Airbnb. When the value of a company is over US$10 billion, the company will be called as a Decacorn. When the company is valued over US$100 billion, Hectocorn will be used.

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hair college met college interest Music interest mine death Death such heavy topic course course did take up college someone there someone who go with experience exciting experience! behind I’m scared check what’s behind that door reach can’t reach him won’t answer phone local This local business kill Smoking kill six have six books about Psychology remain These remain on top shelf effect Wow effect that mascara great! use use your phone yeah Yeah did call earlier suggest did suggest that class same English class control Where’s remote control raise It’s challenging discipline kids these days care don’t care about think perhaps Perhaps arrive at compromise little There’s little bird outside window late am running late doctor’s appointment hard That test was hard field He’s over there by soccer field else anyone else coming pass pass by grocery store former She was former housemate sell sell your old couch online major It’s major issue project sometimes Sometimes forget turn off porch 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whose Whose umbrella this matter does it matter anyway everyone Everyone thinks stole that file center hate being center attention couple couple on their honeymoon now site This site big! end It’s end era project This project file due tomorrow hit hit burglar with bat base All moms are their child’s home base activity musical activity suggest toddler star son draw star! table saw draw it while was writing on table need need enroll good preschool court There’s basketball court near house produce Fresh farm produce best eat could eat that all day American sister dating American teach love teach English lessons oil Could buy some cooking oil at store half Just half liter situation situation getting out hand easy thought said this was going easy cost cost fuel has increased! industry fuel industry hiking prices figure government figure out how fix this problem face can’t bear face this horrendous traffic again again street Let’s cross street image There’s image stored inside mind itself 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period They covered period twenty years course Have seen course already summer I’ll go beach summer less Sometimes less more realize just realize that have meeting today hundred have hundred dollars that lend available am available work on your project plant Plant seed likely It was likely deer trail opportunity It was perfect opportunity test theory term I’m sure there’s Latin term it short It was just short stay at hotel letter already passed letter intent condition know condition am choice have no choice place Let’s meet out at meeting place single am single parent rule It’s rule law daughter knows how read now administration take this up with administration south am headed south husband just bought ring birthday Congress It debated at Congress floor She floor manager campaign handled their election campaign material She had nothing material report population population nearest big city was growing well wish well call am going call bank economy economy booming medical -She needs medical assistance hospital I’ll take nearest hospital church saw church last Sunday close -Please close door thousand There are thousand reasons learn English! risk Taking risk rewarding current your current address fire Make sure your smoke alarm works case fire future -The future full hope wrong That wrong answer involve need involve police defense your defense or reason did this anyone Does anyone know answer increase Let’s increase your test score security Some apartment buildings have security bank need go bank withdraw some money myself clean up by myself certainly certainly help clean up west drive West arrive California sport favorite sport soccer board see board seek Seek find per Lobster $20 per pound subject favorite subject English! officer Where find police officer private This private party rest Let’s take 15 minute rest behavior This dog’s behavior excellent deal used car good deal performance Your performance affected by your sleep fight don’t fight with throw German ball! top are top student quickly Let’s finish reading this quickly past past English was as good as it today goal speak English fluently second second goal increase confidence bed go bed around 10pm order would like order book author author this series world-famous fill need fill (up) gas tank represent represent family focus Turn off your phone TV focus on your studies! foreign It’s great having foreign friends drop don’t drop eggs! plan Let’s make plan blood hospital needs people give blood upon Once upon time princess lived castle agency Let’s contract agency help with marketing push door says ‘push ’ ‘pull ' nature love walking nature! colou color blue no ‘No’ one shortest complete sentences recently cleaned bathroom most recently think it’s your turn this time store I’m going store buy some bread reduce reuse recycle are ways help environment sound like sound wind chimes note take notes during lesson fine movie let’s buy popcorn! near Near far wherever are believe that heart goes 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character trust people good character growth company has seen strong growth this quarter loss farmer suffered heavy losses after storm degree Set oven 300 degrees wonder wonder Bulls win game attack army attack at dawn herself She bought herself new coat region internet services are your region television don’t watch much television box packed dishes strong box TV There good movie on TV tonight training company pay your training pretty That pretty dress trade stock market traded lower today deal got good deal at store election Who think win election everybody likes ice cream physical Keep physical distance six feet lay baby crib general impression restaurant was good feeling have good feeling about this standard standard fee $10 00 bill electrician send bill message have text message on your phone fail fail see funny about that outside cat goes outside sometimes arrive When your plane arrive analysis I’ll give analysis when I’ve seen everything benefit There are many health benefits quinoa name What’s your name sex know sex your baby yet forward Move car forward few feet lawyer legal helped write present everyone present meeting begin section stadium are sitting environmental science economy politics political politician issues are news glass much heavier than plastic answer Could answer question skill best skill woodworking sister lives close PM movie starts at 7:30 PM professor Dr Smith professor operation mining operation employs thousands people financial keep accounts at financial institution crime police fight crime stage caterpillar larval stage butterfly ok Would it ok eat out tonight compare should compare cars before buy one authority City authorities make local laws miss you when see again design need design new logo sort Let’s sort these beads according color one only have one cat act I’ll act on your information today ten baby counted ten toes knowledge have knowledge fix that gun Gun ownership controversial topic station There train station close house blue favorite color blue state After accident was state shock strategy new corporate strategy written here little prefer little cars clearly instructions clearly written discuss We’ll discuss that at meeting indeed Your mother does indeed have hearing loss force It takes lot force open that door truth tell truth song That’s beautiful song example need example that grammar point democratic Does Australia have democratic government check check work sure it’s correct environment live healthy environment leg boy broke leg dark Turn on light it’s dark here public Masks must worn public places various That rug comes various shades gray rather Would rather have hamburger than hot dog laugh That movie always makes laugh guess don’t know just guess executive company’s executives are paid well set Set glass on table study needs study test prove employee proved worth hang hang your coat on hook entire ate entire meal 10 minutes rock There are decorative rocks garden design windows don’t open by design enough Have had enough coffee forget Don’t forget stop at store since She hasn’t eaten since yesterday claim made insurance claim car accident note Leave note you’re going late remove Remove cookies from oven manager manager look at your application help Could help move this table close Close door sound dog did make sound enjoy enjoy soda network Band name internet network legal legal documents need signed religious She very religious she attends church weekly cold feet are cold form fill out this application form final divorce was final last month main main problem lack money science studies health science at university green grass green memory has good memory card They sent card birthday above Look on shelf above sink seat That’s comfortable seat cell Your body made millions cells establish They established their business 1942 nice That’s very nice car trial They are employing on trial basis expert Matt IT expert that Did see that movie spring Spring most beautiful season firm ‘no was very firm she won’t change mind Democrat Democrats control Senate radio listen radio car visit visited museum today management That store has good management care She cares mother at home avoid should avoid poison ivy imagine imagine pigs could fly tonight Would like go out tonight huge That truck huge! ball threw ball dog no said ‘no ’ don’t ask again close Close window finish Did finish your homework yourself gave yourself haircut talk talks lot theory theory that’s good plan impact drought had big impact on crops respond hasn’t responded text yet statement police chief gave statement media maintain Exercise helps maintain healthy weight charge need charge phone popular That’s popular restaurant traditional They serve traditional Italian food there onto Jump onto boat we’ll go fishing reveal Washing off dirt revealed boy’s skinned knee direction direction city from here weapon No weapons are allowed government buildings employee That store only has three employees cultural There cultural significance those old ruins contain carton contains dozen egges peace World leaders gathered peace talks

A Week in Tokyo 201509 by Danny Choo

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The first post in the A Week in Tokyo series that I wrote was back in November 2007. It's been interesting looking at past posts to see what life was back then and how much it has changed over the years. Unfortunately, there started to be big gaps in the frequency of updates.

As talked in the latest Desk Diary entry, I had to make a decision to hang on to a large user base I built up until then - or risk losing it by pursuing a further passion - to make a 1/3 scale fashion doll with the aim to make it a global brand - there are only a few truly global doll brands that I'm aware of - Barbie, Blythe and Pullip all of which are of a similar size and targeted at a similar market.

I made the sacrifice and soon after I found myself in a situation where I saw readership numbers that I built up over many years start to dwindle over night through the lack of writing - at the same time not being sure how well Mirai Smart Doll would do. No matter how confident I was in the product - it was ultimately the consumer who would decide the outcome of the decision I made.

The result of the sacrifice only started to be evident a few years later in June 2014 when I launched Smart Doll - a fashion doll modeled after a character I created called Mirai Suenaga. Mirai sold well - so well that exactly the same model still has demand after a year of her release.

I built the company purely on internal funds and successfully bootstrapped to a point where we are self sustainable - however I'm being faced with another major decision that I need to make. I understand that I can only take the company so far on its own cash and that if I want more growth then I'm going to have to take some form of financial investment. I was contacted by JAFCO who are considering to help me take the company public and I currently have a few investors who are also interested - I just need to work out how much of what I have now that I'm willing to sacrifice.

There is one thing for sure however, part of running a business involves doing some stuff that you are *not* so passionate about to bring in the cash flow that enables you to the stuff that you *are* passionate about.

Anyway - first photo taken in my hood near Nishikoyama station. All my photos are taken on the Sony A7 with the occasional Sony RX100 III. All these photos are HD size too which may make decent wallpapers for some of you.

View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27315/A+Week+in+Tokyo+201509.html

Do You Have A Positive Cash Flow! by Ken Gerrick

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“I think for any small business that’s bootstrapped, the overwhelming challenge initially is getting to positive cash flow.” –John Mackey, co-CEO, Whole Foods Market

smallbiztaxservices.com/do-you-have-a-positive-cash-flow/

OMG, bootstrapped a laser cutter! by Stefan Hechenberger

13 10

We finally made it. This milestone means a lot to us. So happy!

Many thanks to all our supporters and community. This is going to be good.

Mad props to reprap.org, www.cnczone.com, arduino.cc, grbl, buildlog.org, and their giants' shoulders.

Our Neural Networks by Steve Jurvetson

5 2

Hers has 10x as many synapses as mine. (at one week old here)

Much of the human brain’s power derives from its massive synaptic interconnectivity. Geoffrey West from the Santa Fe Institute observed that across species, synapses/neuron fan-out grows as a power law with brain mass. — from my little WIRED piece, Celebrate the Child-like Mind.

Genevieve is reading one of my favorite books, Alison Gopnik's Scientitst in the Crib: "Babies are just plain smarter than we are, at least if being smart means being able to learn something new.... They think, draw conclusions, make predictions, look for explanations and even do experiments…. In fact, scientists are successful precisely because they emulate what children do naturally."

Babies signal their interest in things by where they focus their gaze, and that shifts over time as their brain develops. This observable locus of attention is a gateway into their developing mind. At birth, much of the sensory cortex is bootstrapping the vision system, from the color space to distance vision and initially edge detection.

In a fetus, the initial inter-neuronal connections, or dendritic "wiring" of the brain, grow along chemical gradients, densely filling all available space, and exploring approximately 500 possible connections for each ultimate synapse formation. The massive number of inter-neuron connections in an adult brain could not be simply encoded in our DNA, even if the entire DNA sequence was dedicated to this one task. There are on the order of 100 trillion synaptic connections between 86 billion neurons in your brain.

This incredibly complex system is not 'installed' like an app from your DNA. It is grown, first through widespread connectivity sprouting from 'static storms' of positive electro-chemical feedback, and then through the pruning of many underused connections through continuous usage-based feedback.

For example, you have the adage “neurons that fire together, wire together” and the process of nearest neighbor associations in the vision system begin even before the rods and cones see light, and then continue after birth in a critical period of development.

At the age of 2 to 3 years old, humans hit their peak with over a quadrillion synaptic connections, 15x the adult brain, and twice the energy burn.

Feet locked up by shackles by feetickling Foot

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Why I am Voting for XXXX by Alan Grinberg

8 22

I imagine that anyone paying attention to the political noise of the last 4 months is getting quite tired of either Barack Obama being called a Socialist or Mitt Romney being called a Liar, or both. So much of what I have seen and heard on the media and the internet has been partisan shouting on one side vilifying the other side for wanting to lead the country in the wrong direction, or being vague about having specific plans to help the country, or displaying a hundred other faults.

Everyone in this country must agree that we need to improve the economy, and a core way of doing this is to create jobs. We also all must agree that one of the great things about the United States is our freedom.

Neither candidate seems to grasp how our economy really works. I am not a Harvard educated economist, but I have started and successfully run 2 businesses, both of which are profitable and have provided a living for a number of people. ZOO-INK, the older of the two, has been in business for 40 years, and AG Systems has been profitable for 26 years. Over 100 workers have collected wages through my companies, and not one dollar has been outsourced. I am not rich, yet I get great enjoyment from the work of running a business, and I like supporting my employees and helping our clients.

What have I learned in the School of Hard Knocks? I create jobs for people when there is demand for our products and services. I do not invest my savings to create jobs. I started ZOO-INK with a $400 investment, and AGS was bootstrapped by the cash flow of ZOO-INK. We do not need millionaires to create jobs for us. The call to "increase investment" rings hollow. Few entrepreneurs will invest resources in a business if they believe there will not be demand for their product or service.

How is demand created? By spending, of course. You have heard the phrase that we vote with our wallets. If you give $100 to a poor family, they will spend $100. Give $100 to a millionaire, and it will likely end up as an investment in a mutual fund. The economy is strong when money circulates fast, and parking funds in a Swiss bank account does nothing to help the employer down the street hire more workers.

We hear lots of talk of the deficit, and how we can't do this or spend that because we don't have the money. We live in a capitalist world (think international corporations). The history of a free market has been one of a boom and bust cycle. To counteract this cycle, and minimize the pain of the recessions, the government can play a corrective role and SPEND MONEY when times are bad, and PAY BACK THE MONEY IT BORROWS when times are good. Reducing spending during a recession aggravates the pain, and the deficit can be reduced dramatically when the economy is good and money is flowing. Why is no one paying attention to history? Why are so many people looking only at the short term?

What good is a strong economy without love? I believe that any actions a society takes should be in the direction of promoting MORE love on this planet. If 2 people want to get married, that should be encouraged, regardless of what your "scriptures" say. I do not believe that any 1 god is more right than any other god, or that we even need a god in order to foster love. All the gods I have met want more love on this earth, not less.

When love grows beyond our friends and relatives, we can have a greater sense of community. Most religions teach that it is a virtue to help the poor, and I see no reason why our society should reject the notion that we are all in this together. We can answer a "higher calling" if we recognize that the government can be an efficient vehicle to provide a safety net for the disadvantaged and to help people in time of need.

Freedom. We hear so much from both sides how this is the greatest country in the world, because we have freedom, liberty, and self-determination. When people live together, there must be standards of behavior that will impinge on our possible actions. We are not allowed to run a red light or steal from our neighbors, so by necessity our freedoms are limited. Laws should not be passed that limit freedoms without a benefit to society that is greater than the individual freedom that is lost. The government should have no say in how a woman treats her own body, pregnant or not. The government should not prescribe how one receives their medical care. And the government should keep its nose out of our personal business. And religion should play no role whatsoever in how our elected officials make their decisions.

There are good arguments for less government in some areas, and good arguments for more government in other areas. This debate should be ongoing, and always kept in the context of what our values are and what we want the future to look like for us and our descendants.

I base my decision on who to vote for by hearing what the candidates have to say, researching their past records, and understanding their plans for the future. I also read editorials, follow internet links, and study the results of fact checking. I strongly believe that electing President Obama to a second term in office will be in the best interests of the People of the United States of America.

--- Alan ---

03_FeetInBondage by feetickling Foot

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More bondage added on feet...

AI Futures and Philosophy with Sam Harris by Steve Jurvetson

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I had a mind-bending fireside chat with Sam Harris at Tim Draper’s CEO Summit. We spoke about the Ethics of AI and what it tells us about humanity and our collective future. So much of his writing (at least the 5 books that I have read) can be seen through this perceptual prism to the future. I just got the audio the full session. And I had to rock the robot socks :)

After a musical transition, we start with the inevitability and importance of AGI:

“This is the most important game that we’re playing in technology. Intelligence is the most valuable resource we have. It is the source of everything we value, or it is the thing we use to protect everything we value. It seems patently obvious that if we are able to improve our intelligent machines, we will. So, the only alternative is to not be able to do that. And if you look at the reasons why we might not be able to do that, those are, by definition, terrifying. These are civilizational catastrophes that prevent us from making improvements to hardware and software, permanently. There are many assumptions here that confuse people about this picture of inevitability. One is: many people assume we need Moore’s Law to continue or exponential progress. No, we just need progress; it can be as incremental as you like.”

“Many of you probably harbor a doubt that minds can be platform independent. There is an assumption working in the background that there may be something magical about computers made of meat.”

“Many people are common sense dualists. They think there is a ghost in the machine. There is something magical that’s giving us, if not intelligence per se, at the very least consciousness. I think those two break apart. I think it is conceivable that we could build superintelligent machines that are not conscious and that is the worst case scenario ethically.”

7:33 Vitalism / common-sense dualism vs the neural net inspiration.

9:55 Decentralized or Centralized, Network effects

12:08 Imbuing Morality and the Ethics of “Friendly” AI and Control vs. Cognitive Slavery

18:15 The path dependence of iterative algorithms: Survival instincts

19:40 Worse to have AI without consciousness

“We’re giving rise to a race of Gods. These machines, by definition, will be more important than us.”

23:01 Robot overlords and the selfish meme

26:50 Bostrom’s framework for valuing future lives

32:27 What are the moral and ethical implications? The Narrow/Dumb AI problem, Labor Dislocation

36:26 Competency Arms Race, bootstrapping like Alpha Go Zero

39:12 Trapping AI in a Black Mirror episode, consciousness, and why WestWorld is impossible

42:30 Could AI be more moral than us?

46:40 Free will

“One test for superintelligence will be can it get over the illusion of free will”

51:30 Our dinner debate with Moby and the philosophical mind

“I don’t have much respect for the boundaries between disciplines”

(context: I convened a dinner salon to introduce Sam Harris to Moby, and an intellectual romp ensued. Both of them are philosophy majors with a keen interest in meditation.)

2014/12/09 Update by Danny Choo

9

Photo of Yoshimi and I on the main stage at AFA.

I said I would post regular updates regardless of whether they are a huge wall of photos or small tidbits - so here is today's tidbit ^o^

AFA was absolutely incredible and huge! We sold out of Smart Dolls in 20 mins on day 1 and due to popular demand sold all the display models too at a discounted price too.

I was on the main and mini stage a lot and ended up losing my voice again as usual - I think I need some proper voice training for this job because after the throat goes kaput, I tend to get sick and am currently trying to battle with some Tolak Angin - an Indonesian brand of cold medicine ^^

Had a great CJ Night Singapore - I didn't really promote it much which was a good thing because we had less folks which meant I could spend more time with those who came.

I'm currently still in Singapore and will be heading back to Tokyo tomorrow. I'll be in Tokyo for 2 weeks before heading over to Kuala Lumpur for Malaysia's longest standing and gargantuan Comic Fiesta where we will have our Culture Japan booth. As CF and AFA were so close, most of the stuff that we have on sale at CF will be the same as AFA with a difference - we realize we need more Smart Dolls and more S and M sized T-shirts. Chitose seems to be veeeeery popular so we will bring more of her tees.

We will also have Touch n Go too - will post photos of the samples later.

Anyway, as soon as I get back to Tokyo, I will take more orders of Mirai and Kizuna and also ship within the next 3 weeks. I also plan to take orders for Air Stand, Summer Uniform, Cargo Pantsu, Frill T-shirts and Mirai Short Wig.

I need to dash now but will keep you updated with our next mission which is CF.

Nearly forgot to mention that I will be giving a talk at Venture Day Tokyo this Friday 12th about bootstrapping and creativity.

View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27246/2014+12+09+Update.html

Rich Sutton on Reinforcement Learning: Alpha Go Zero to 60 by Steve Jurvetson

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A fireside chat with Rich Sutton from Google DeepMind and the University of Alberta, and the founding father of Reinforcement Learning. Here’s the video

I started with an exploration of whether the AIs of the future will be human-centric or alien, and why? Why are goals and agency central to intelligence?

He was very excited about Deep Mind’s new Alpha Go Zero results, whereby the training of the game-playing AI was dramatically improved by removing human training data sets altogether. It bootstrapped itself from just the rules of the game and a series of AI vs. AI matches. It took just 72 hours. (Jump to video segment)

Dr. Sutton is considered one of the founding fathers of modern computational reinforcement learning, having several significant contributions to the field, including temporal difference learning, policy gradient methods, the Dyna architecture. In June 2017, Demis Hassabis announced that Sutton would co-lead a new Alberta office of Deepmind, while maintaining his professorship at University of Alberta.

Eric Wahlforss on Bootstrapping Part I by Anna Lena Schiller

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The video to go with it: vimeo.com/11420397

03_Soles of feet locked by shackles by feetickling Foot

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Anyone are welcome to give their ideas to torture these soles: whipping? stabbing? caning? needles? nails? piercing? cutting by knives?

Eric Wahlforss on Bootstrapping Part II by Anna Lena Schiller

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The video to go with it: vimeo.com/11420397

My First Visit To Japan by Danny Choo

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I created Mirai when I was still at Microsoft but had no idea at the time that she was to become our All Spark. In June 2014, I developed and launched a product called Smart Doll - a 60cm tall fashion doll modeled after Mirai who comes with a vision to become the world's standard fashion doll.

The demand for Smart Doll completely exceeded my expectations and we finally had enough cashflow to move into a proper office and out of our home which I worked out of for 7 years. I could have got to this point quicker by taking investment but chose to continue bootstrapping with my own funds.

This is our HQ located in Gotanda Tokyo. Everything we do here revolves around Mirai Suenaga and the other Mirai Millennium characters. We largely do 3 things which are:-

1. Smart Doll development and production - all body components are made in Japan and we do quality control and assembly right here.

2. Character development and marketing. This includes apparel, merchandise, events and collaborations - recently ones include being a mascot for Malaysia Tourism and Indonesia's largest online store Bhinneka.

As part of the content development, we also have a TV show called Culture Japan which is broadcast on Tokyo MX TV in Japan and on cable/terrestrial networks around the world.

3. Web development - current clients include folks like Good Smile Company and King Records.

My main focus right now is expanding the production line of Smart Doll which involves a loaaaaaad of challenges ><

View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27217/My+First+Visit+To+Japan.html

07_Foot bind with rubber bands by feetickling Foot

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Open_Sailing model populated by Cesar Jung-Harada

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www.opensailing.net

"The best way to predict our future is to invent it."

(Alan Kay 1971)

Open Sailing aims to design and invent future lifestyles to overcome any possible natural and manmade disasters stimulating people’s ingenuity and sense of solidarity. Might it be global warming or energy conflicts, we are living in a time where we are sniffing the ‘Apocalypse’, finally realising our human part of responsibility as the earth is crumbling. 2012 is a year when a collection of apocalyptic events are rumored to happen. We are taking 2012 as an ideal dystopic symbol we design for. 2012 is tomorrow, we must design quickly using these constraints and invent bootstrapping DIY technologies.

Open Sailing method is to convert apocalyptic threats into design constraints. From our compiled set of threat maps, we found that oceans are the safest locations. Ocean survival architecture became our new starting point, but we need to go further than surviving : how can we live together in this new fluid configuration and remain a hyper-connected intelligent social being? We are trying to make a truly “open architecture” : pre-broken, under-defined, reconfigurable, moveable, pluggable, organic, fluid. Can we reach a harmonious dynamic state of interdependence with each other and the earth? Is this the next step of civilization progress? Will we dissociate our concept of progress with infrastructure and metropolis?

NEXT STEPS IN 2009

Finding motivated knowledgeable collaborators and funders (february).

Prototyping technology equipment for ocean living, UK (march ~ april).

Testing the Open Sailing in the Atlantic ocean, Morocco (may).

Public presentation of Open Sailing researches (june)

Model made by

Martin gautron : martingautron.com

Hiromi Ozaki : hiromiozaki.com

Adrien Lecuru : projetk2006.free.fr/

Cesar Harada : cesarharada.com

Photography direction, Cereinyn Ord : cereinyn.com/

02_Feet locked up by shackles by feetickling Foot

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Foot punishment/torments 6 by feetickling Foot

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Foot punishment/torments 6

Foot punishment/torments 5 by feetickling Foot

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Foot punishment/torments 5

Foot punishment/torments 1 by feetickling Foot

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05_Soles with needles by feetickling Foot

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06_Soles with needles by feetickling Foot

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VisualEyes / Open Seminar by DensityDesign Lab

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Data are everywhere.

Many disciplines are addressing the issues of giving access and making sense to all these data.

What can and should (visual) design do?

“VisualEyes / The Role of Design in Data, Information and Knowledge Visualization”

Open Seminar

Thursday 20 May 2010 | 10.00 – 13.30

Politecnico di Milano | Campus Bovisa | Facoltà del Design | Aula CT63

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