May
31
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Dan Ariely has moved his blog to WordPress.com, and today he has a new book out, The Upside of Irrationality. I was a big fan of his first book Predictably Irrational so I can’t wait to check out the new one. He’ll also be swinging by the Automattic office in San Francisco when he’s in town.

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Balloons over Cappadocia

Exploring Cappadocia

Balloons, learning about Turkish rug-making and seeing hundreds of beautiful rugs, exploring and making ceramics, dinner with the Bisnows, who happened to be staying at the same hotel.

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May
30
11

While linking the NY Times anyway, check out this article about concerns over salt consumption in the US and the industry’s response to it and try not to hear all the quotes in the voice of Nick Naylor.

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“Our experience of technology has been largely wondrous and positive: The green revolution ameliorated the problem of world hunger (for a time at least) with better seeds and fertilizers to increase harvests. When childhood diseases were ravaging the world, vaccines came along and (nearly) eliminated them. There are medicines for the human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS. There is the iPad.” NY Times: Our Fix-It Faith and the Oil Spill.

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MCM_7458

Cappadocia

Arriving at Museum Hotel, underground cities, rock-cut temples and ancient churches.

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May
29
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Door hanging out in the middle of nowhere

WordCamp Istanbul

WordCamp Turkey in the morning, wandering from Bosphorus University down to Bebek, dinner at Zubeyir Ocakbasi, a little Turkish ice cream afterward.

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May
28
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MCM_6993

Istanbul: Markets, Mosques, Nightlife

Wandering through market, Rüstem Pasa mosque, spice store, Yeni Cami (New Mosque), leeches, hilarious haircut, dinner with friends, Lucca, then Reina nightclub.

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May
26
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Windows 7 has an awesome utility called netsh that allows you to create wifi networks, even if you’re already connected to a wifi network on the same interface, which is actually slightly better than the same feature on OS X. If you don’t want to play with the command-line, there’s a handy utility called Connectify that makes creating a wifi hotspot from your Windows 7 box a breeze. This was one of the things I missed most about my Mac laptops.

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Be a new star

Ortaköy and beyond

Lunch in Ortaköy at Lavanta, wandering around, dinner at Krependeki Imroz, Armani after-party at Art lounge.

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May
25
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Turkish flag and birds

Arriving in Istanbul

Arriving in Istanbul and a little bit of exploring around the Ni?anta?? neighborhood.

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May
24
6

From Alain de Botton’s book How Proust Can Change Your Life, highly recommended:

Take the unemotive example of the telephone. Bell invented it in 1876. By 1900, there were thirty thousand phones in France. Proust rapidly acquired one (tel. 29205) and particularly liked a service called the “theater-phone,” which allowed him to listen to live opera and theater in Paris venues.

He might have appreciated his phone, but he noted how quickly everyone else began taking theirs for granted. As early as 1907, he wrote that the machine was

a supernatural instrument before whose miracle we used to stand amazed, and which we now employ without giving it a thought, to summon our tailor or to order an ice cream.

Moreover, if the confiserie had a busy line or the connection to the tailor a hum, instead of admiring the technological advances that had frustrated our sophisticated desires, we tended to react with childish ingratitude.

Since we are children who play with divine forces without shuddering before their mystery, we only find the telephone “convenient,” or rather, as we are (more…)

May
21
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I am going to be in Turkey for about 10 days starting on Tuesday. Any tips or must-sees in Istanbul and elsewhere?

May
19
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On Facebook I was trying to get to an event and clicked “see all” on the friend finder instead of the events area. Then something caught my eye, every friend Facebook was suggesting for me was female, and most I didn’t know. (Update, there’s one guy in there.) The first part of that is interesting — perhaps they’re testing some optimization in the friend-adder with the assumption that since I’m a straight male I’m more likely to add girls than guys, but if so that seems a little skeezy.

May
18
1

When I wrote about starting a bank, aka SafeBank, I was overwhelmed by the feedback and at least once a week since then I’ve been contacted by someone working on the idea. One I hadn’t heard of yet though is BankSimple, which I noticed yesterday because Alex Payne is leaving Twitter to work on it. I’m fully focused on WordPress and Automattic so can’t be involved with any new ventures as more than an advisor, but I’m glad smart people are tackling the problem and I hope to have an account at one (or more) someday.

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Surprise: Traditional Blogging Platforms Still Reign Supreme, comparative activity metrics across blogging platforms using some data from Postrank. I think if they included WP.com users with custom domains we would be double or trip where listed — even more if they included self-hosted.

May
17
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The best part about traveling is the forced minimalism. My life at home, as it has evolved, is quite complex and full of stuff. On the road I’m reduced to what I carry in a small backpack and hand bag — clutter becomes a physical burden. I really enjoy this simplicity as it helps me focus. One of my favorite things to watch as a friend or colleague travels more is how their bag gets smaller and smaller with each trip.

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“The difference between a vision and a hallucination is that other people can see the vision.” — Marc Andreessen from a talk at Stanford a few days ago. Hat tip: Niall.