Posts tagged "internet"

posted 4 months ago

Yesterday was a historic day. The internet community came together and crushed all of the work and millions of dollars that went into lobbying for passing SOPA and PIPA. As illustrated by this fantastic image by ProPublica we clearly made an impact and moved many SOPA supporters to the opposition column. Additionally, many of PIPA’s co-sponsors have now reneged on their sponsorship and instead, oppose the bill now. SOPA and PIPA might still make its way to vote and still has the potential of passing as there are so many people that are yet undecided. That would obviously be terrible. But that’s not the point of this post. The key to all of this is that we spoke with our voices, not our money. We rallied around a cause and showed the world what the internet community is capable of. We made it clear to everyone that we will not stand for this bullshit anymore. We are a venerable force to be reckoned with and we will not kowtow to the agendas and lobbyists that our opponents throw at us. This marks the day of a new future: one where communities can be far louder than dollars. January 18th, 2012 is the day the internet won.

Yesterday was a historic day. The internet community came together and crushed all of the work and millions of dollars that went into lobbying for passing SOPA and PIPA. As illustrated by this fantastic image by ProPublica we clearly made an impact and moved many SOPA supporters to the opposition column. Additionally, many of PIPA’s co-sponsors have now reneged on their sponsorship and instead, oppose the bill now.

SOPA and PIPA might still make its way to vote and still has the potential of passing as there are so many people that are yet undecided. That would obviously be terrible. But that’s not the point of this post.

The key to all of this is that we spoke with our voices, not our money. We rallied around a cause and showed the world what the internet community is capable of. We made it clear to everyone that we will not stand for this bullshit anymore. We are a venerable force to be reckoned with and we will not kowtow to the agendas and lobbyists that our opponents throw at us. This marks the day of a new future: one where communities can be far louder than dollars.

January 18th, 2012 is the day the internet won.

posted 4 months ago

This is what makes the internet so special. We can save lives with pixels and a bit of heart, people. We are living in the future. superamit: Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me. WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers. Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months. Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC. Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth. 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia! Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time. TODAY … After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor! You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.) WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks. First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed. Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world. Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening. AFTER THE TRANSPLANT Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering: My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick. Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life. Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo. Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young. THE GREAT NEWS I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan. I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck! Thank you.

This is what makes the internet so special. We can save lives with pixels and a bit of heart, people. We are living in the future.

superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

  • 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.
  • Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.
  • Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.
  • Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.
  • 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!
  • Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

  • My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.
  • Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.
  • Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

(via heathercapri)

posted 8 months ago

Going Off the Grid

Tulum by Casa de Queso

This week I’m heading on vacation with my girlfriend to a remote-ish resort near Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We’ve both been pretty busy lately, and considering my newfound funemployment we thought it was a great time to have a fun little escape. What better time for going completely off the grid then? So for the first time in what I think might actually be forever, I’m disconnecting completely.

I’ve noticed just how addicted I am to technology lately, and it bothers me quite a lot, though it’s hard to just give up some things. I’m constantly connected through Twitter, Facebook and the like. I’m always keeping up with whatever hot new television show is on. Most importantly, I’m not spending enough time feeding my brain with what it truly needs: quality. I don’t read much unless it’s tech news. So I’m using this trip as a way to change that.

On this vacation, I’m only bringing my iPhone, which I will use for calls and texts only, and my Kindle, since I don’t want to lug any physical books along. There will be no email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. for me. I won’t even be uploading pictures of what’s going on with Instagram. Instead, I’ll be selfish and live in the moment for myself, instead of publishing my adventures for the world to see.

Ever since I got my first mobile phone about eleven years ago, I’ve never been completely disconnected, so this will honestly be my first time ever. I’m excited. And nervous. I Hope Apple doesn’t announce the iPhone 5 while I’m gone! See you all in a week…

posted 8 months ago

"The degree to which anyone values the Internet is proportional to how valuable the Internet makes that person."

Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur

posted 1 year ago

Don’t have any good placeholder pictures for the website you’re working on? Never fear! Use Placekitten.

Don’t have any good placeholder pictures for the website you’re working on? Never fear! Use Placekitten.

posted 1 year ago

Now that’s a lot of power sitting at one table.

Now that’s a lot of power sitting at one table.

posted 1 year ago

Unsubscribe.com: My Key to Email Sanity

I live my life by email. It’s my primary form of communication (with SMS pretty closely behind). So between work, junk, notifications, personal and other mail, I tend to get a bunch. Historically, I’ve kept a series of email addresses so that I could keep my most important emails in the right places. This was mostly for my own sanity.

I’ve been a Gmail user for a very long time (back when you had to buy an invite from someone on Ebay because it was such a hot commodity). Ever since I got access, I used that address for every single box that said “Email” next to it. Mailing lists, purchases, logins, everything. As a result, after a few years of having that account, I would get thousands of emails every week that inundated me all the time. It was impossible to keep up with that account. Beyond that, if I got an actual important message to that account, I was mostly screwed. So for that reason, I kept a separate personal email address and made sure my close friends sent mail to that address.

A few months back, I heard of a service called Unsubscribe.com. The gist is basically that you tell it what mailing lists, etc. you want to be unsubscribed from, it then works its magic and poof you’re unsubscribed. Now I’m sure you might be thinking “but most of those messages have ‘Unsubscribe me from this list’ at the bottom of each message”. And sure, I’d tell you that you’d be right. However, between the sheer amount of messages I would get, and the fact that some of them just would not unsubscribe sometimes, I gave up with that tactic. So I signed up for Unsubscribe.com.

Unsubscribe.com sends you daily summaries of how many lists you were successfully removed from

And?

It took me about a month using Unsubscribe.com to really get through the lion’s share of the lists I needed unsubscribed from, but I can happily report that it works. I just forward my unwanted mail to them and they get me off the lists. I can’t tell you how it works, but it’s seriously magic. Hundreds, possibly thousands of lists later, I am in an email utopia. Maybe a handful (meaning around 4-5) unwanted messages get through a day, but that number is getting to be less and less.

Finally, yesterday, through the additional help of a company called MigrationBox I was able to move all of my addresses that weren’t work into one inbox. So thank you, Unsubscribe.com. You have made my email life 1000% better.