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My name is Troy Angrignon. I'm an entrepreneur and these are my thoughts on business, technology, society, and anything else that catches my interest. Thanks for reading!
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Monthly Archives: June 2004
Secret trials, detention without cause, and no due process: The Gulag, the Reichstag? No, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Like we need any more evidence that the U.S. has turned into a police state, along comes this article about an innocent Nepalese man who has been in solitary confinement for two years in BROOKLYN, with no trials, no charges, … Continue reading
Posted in Society, World Affairs
1 Comment
Social software, web-friends, blogs, human connection, gender-swapping, breach of trust, deceit – just another day on the internet folks, nothing to see here, move along.
I’m attracted to this weird piece for so many reasons. It contains social networking, human connection, breach of trust, and one man’s story about how he is managing to handle (or not handle?) his life. It is the story of … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Interesting People, Society, Technology
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Largest Silicon Valley VCs head to China to look for new places to place their enormous funds
This article talks about how 8 Silicon Valley Bankers and 25 VCs are doing an exploratory trip to China to explore business opportunities. This to me seems like a serious pivot point in East/West VC relations. In the article, they … Continue reading
Posted in Angel & VC Financing, Business, Technology
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Why are you sticking your finger in your ear? Shhhhhh….I’m making a cell phone call
I had heard about this technology before but here is an article that finally names this bizarre technology (FingerWhisper) where vibrations are sent through your hand so that when you put your finger in your ear, you hear sound. (ou … Continue reading
Posted in Technology
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Bio-ethics, Eugenics, Abortion, Disease, & Genetic Screening: The new birthing decision process
If you were having a baby and the test showed that the baby would have Down’s Syndrome, Tay-Sachs, deformed limbs, a cleft plate, deafness, dwarfism, skin disease, or any of a host of other known diseases, would you still have the child?
(Link to the original story in the New York Times. Subscription required but worth it.)
Posted in Ethics, Life Sciences, Society, Technology
2 Comments
If you have lots of friends in unlike networks, you are at “risk” of having more and better ideas
The author of this blog-post comments on how this seems intuitively sensible, which I agree with. The more people I meet, the more different they are, the wider their world-views, and the more we interact, the more I feel that … Continue reading
Posted in Complex Systems, Interesting People, Society
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I’m writing a book and need one thousand friends to help
Here is a somewhat interesting article on the small trend of authors opening up their manuscripts to collective writing and editing. Having just worked collaboratively with my colleague for the past three weeks using the great product called SubEthaEdit, I … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Society, Technology
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Department of Mutant Vehicles and Lessons from Burning Man’s Planning Commission.
If you have not read anything about Burning Man, the anarchist art and culture festival held every year in the desert of Nevada, then you have been living under a rock. Here is a short but interesting article on the … Continue reading
Posted in Complex Systems, Interesting People, Society
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It will be a travesty if Michael Moore’s 9/11 documentary gets rated R and because of that, limits its viewers and distribution.
I can’t remember the numbers but there are some rules of thumb that state that if a movie goes from PG-13 to R, it cuts its potential revenues to 20% or 30% of what it could be, because R rated … Continue reading
Posted in Business, World Affairs
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Europeans will spend $1.5B on cell-phone porn in 2005. NOW I know what they meant when they said it was a SERVICE economy.
Sex drives all new technologies: Super-8 films, Videos, DVDs, the web. Well, now it’s time for orgasm-inducing porn on your…phone. According to this article, Europeans are building, building, building (pant) towards a climactic $1.5B worth of soft and hard-core porn … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Humour, Society, Technology, World Affairs
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Treo 600: Hawkins does it again
I have been coveting the Treo 600 since last year when it was demoed in July 2003 and they said at the time, it would be released in Fall. However, Canadians had to wait until just recently to be able … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Technology
1 Comment
Great urban planning ideas: Whitewater park…in your downtown
This is a great article from SF Gate on a whitewater rafting and paddling park that has just been built in Reno. And here is the photo gallery.
Posted in Environment, Health & Fitness, Society
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The Web of Life: the interconnected nature of voodoo death and the SCO Unix debacle
It has been said that in some societies in the world, if the village shaman curses an individual to death, that individual will be cast out from the rest of the village and the other villagers will pretend that the … Continue reading
Posted in Angel & VC Financing, Business, Complex Systems, Health & Fitness, Technology
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Advertising from Hell: Giant crotchless hairy armpits and “chicks”
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at this particularly awful campaign that contains 4 different shots of women fawning over a huge armpit that looks like a headless furry crotchless armless mutant. As usual, Mark Morford has quite … Continue reading
Leroy Hood speaks at BIO2004: Sequence a whole genome for <$1000 in ten years
Along with a friend, I recently entered a business plan in the Telus New Ventures BC competition. My plan was about a service where every six months a person would get an updated report on their risk factors as more … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Complex Systems, Life Sciences, Society, Technology
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I want to Google my hard drive
The annoying thing about my hard drive is that I have to save a file somewhere and then put it in a folder. What if it is about Technology AND Art AND Society AND Biology? Sure, I could alias it … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Computing & IT, Technology
2 Comments
Interesting People: Ex-Marine, Ex-stockbroker becomes Buddhist Philanthropic Vintner, Raises Money for Kids around the World
This is a wonderful article from the SF Gate website about a man named Dick Grace. From football captain to Marine Captain, to VP of Smith Barney Investments, and now a reformed alcoholic and Buddhist who owns a niche Cabernet … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Interesting People, Philanthropy, Society, World Affairs
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