vinnie.net

Here's to 2009!  We're kicking of the year with a solid lineup tonight - which was a bit difficult with the holidays.  But your assistant organizer, Brian Solis of www.future-works.com, came through strong to help put together the companies tonight.

I'm looking forward to a fun and interesting year, filled with challenges - and I'm positive that the strong companies will do very well.  Starting next month, we'll be introducing guest experts every 2-3 months that should provide helpful knowledge to any tech company.


On Deck for tonight:

skout.com - find, meet, and  chat with new people on the go. Works with any mobile phone wit a webbrowser and connects to sites like facebook. [Redg Snodgrass]

dabbleboard.com - a superior whiteboard tool that can help with collaboration around the world, or right in your own office. [Zohair Hyder]

thegroupery.com - enlist volunteers, organize activities, and manage donations - the new way for people to self organize for social good. [Darren Lancaster]

offbeatguides.com - create real, hold-in-your hand personal travel guides based on travel dates, destination, and personal interests. [David Sifry]

When: Tuesday, Jan 6, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org

Is it too late to wish some holiday cheer and good fortune to everybody for 2009?

Happy Holidays from Krisinte, Milo, and Vinnie:

And Happy Holidays from the Lefora Team:

I hope everybody's Thanksgiving weekend was filled with good food and great fun.  Tonight we have companies that are perfect for this season and the current economy.  From getting a grasp on the stock market to finding the best products for the lowest prices, the lineup tonight will prove useful this holiday season.


On Deck for tonight:

stockmood.com - A TechCrunch 50 finalist - Having trouble making up & down of the market news each morning?  Stocknews uses machine learning to help predict the actual impact of news on a companies stock price and alert you. [Bill Hunt]

fixya.com - With over 1 million products in its database, Fixya helps ya find manuals, get tech support, and troubleshoot your product - providing a service that many manufactures left out. [Yumio Saneyoshi]

shoppingnotes.com - A holiday treat -  ShoppingNotes lets you bookmark your favorite holiday gifts now and get notified when the price drops. [Meng-You Yang]

rateitall.com - RateItAll has presented their 5-star online rating engine for 'everything' at a previous NewTech meetup.  And this week, Lawrence is launching something 'radical' and will give the group a sneak preview. [Lawrence Coburn]

When: Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 7:00 PM sharp!
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org

Voting in San Fran is liking voting in someone's garage.  Ohh wait, it is voting in someone's garage.

I made some last minute voting switches, including a Yes on Prop B for the affordable housing fund - it goes to redevelopment and new housing for mid->low income families, but i'm mixed on the cost, 100+mil a year in tax payer dollars (coming from 2.5c on every $100 of property taxes.  I also swapped David Campos to #2 and Quezada to #3. 

We have some special election coverage planned for Tuesday night,  we'll be streaming national voting results up on the projector.  Red, Blue, or something in between, it'll be an exciting night!

I'm limiting the demos to just three tomorrow night to keep things moving quickly.  We'll use some time between and after demos to hear about technologies you've been using (or creating) this political season.


On Deck for Election Day:

avaguide.net - Interactive video character's for your website.  Turn that boring copy into something fun.  [Marek Borzestowski]

zimride.com - Find your ride share or carpool onlne.  My trip down from the city Tue night is on there.  [Logan Green]

hubpages.com - An easy-to-use content publishing site with a vibrant author community.  And most importantly - tools to make you money. [Ryan Hupfer]


Some interesting links:
Sit shotgun with me on my way down from San Fran Tue night: http://zimride.com/share.php?ride=34793
 
Ryan of Hubpages put together an amazing piece - a bio of yours truly: http://hubpages.com/hub/Vincent-Vinnie-Lauria  (I couldn't believe how much he could research and piece together from online sites.  It's like my very own wikipedia site.)
 

Global Entrepreneurship Week - From Nov. 17-23, millions of young people around the world will engage in activities, contests, workshops, and online communities to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit on business and organizations motivated to do social good.  http://unleashingideas.org
 

And a special requirement, Brad and I want to see 'I voted' stickers on everybody that shows up (H2 visas spared ;)  Or else you will have some explain' to do...  http://maps.google.com/vote

 
When: Tuesday, Nov 4, 2008 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org


Happy voting,
Vinnie

 
 

First: If you don't know where to vote, ask google: http://maps.google.com/vote

Wow, for San Franciscans going to the polls this year, there is quite a lot of homework you have to do before hand - more than any other year in recent SF history.

San Fran currently has 22 props on the ballet, add that to the 12 props on the CA State ballot, along with your district supervisors, state assembly, congressional senator and other local candidates, and you're looking at a 20min exam just to vote (let alone any reading you may want to do before hand).

At a local skateshop, I came across a pamphlet for the 'League of Pissed Off Voters', which actually seems to have some pretty good suggestion.  So if you want to skip the studying, grab a copy of their little yellow guide.  The full 'phone-book' version is online: http://theballot.org/2008/sf

So here are Vinnie's 2008 picks: (which i picked before finding the League of Pissed off Voters, and noticed I was pretty much in line with their picks, they even made some good points to switch my own argument at times)

One of the more important props is Prop 8 to eliminate rights of same-sex couples.  Now my personal belief is that the word 'marriage' having a religious connotation mucks up this whole debate, but civil rights are fundamentally, vote No on Prop 8.

State Props
1A: YES on High Speed Trains
2: YES on fair treatment to farm animals
3: NO on the fish children's hospitals bond
4: YES on Parental Notification on a minor's abortion
5: YES on rehab instead of prison for non-violent drug offenses
6: NO on more $1bil for criminal penalties
7: NO on badly written renewable energy (many env. groups oppose it)
8: NO on Gay Marriage Ban
9: NO on victims' rights.  (the anecdotes they give don't back their reasoning)
10: NO on alternative fuel (this promotes propane, not sustainable energy)
11: NO on redistricting (kinda hard to know if this will be beneficial)
12: YES to Vet bond

San Fran Props:
A: YES on Trauma center for Earthquakes (as we'll be happier for it when we need it)
B: NO on affordable housing (subsidized housing doesn't seem the best way to control housing prices, especially when it's taken from other programs)
C: NO on prohibiting city employees serving on charters (too broad, for instance, firefighters couldn't server on an environmental board)
D: YES on financing pier 70 (everybody approves)
E: NO on increasing num. signatures req'd for recall
F: NO on moving SF elections to even years only (will not save all the money, and if I think 34 props is big, imagine if another year was piled on!)
G: YES on allowing Retirement Credit for unpaid parental leave (many parties agree)
H: NO on clean energy deadlines and making all utils public (gov't).  This moves PG&E into the gov't.  What I would really like to see is what I had in NY.  One company delivered my electric (PG&E in this case), and I could choose where they bought my electrons from (wind, solar, etc. and pay a premium for that)
I: YES on Independent rate payer advocate for public utilities
J: YES on historic preservation commission
K: NO on decriminalized prostitution (have you walked through the tenderloin?)
L: YES on funding Community Justice Center
M: YES on prohibiting specific acs of tenant harassment (i was in this position 1 year ago)
N: Yes on changing real property transfer tax
O: Yes on replacing 911 fee as a voter controlled tax
P: NO on Changing composition of public transit board to the Mayor.  This wasn't a clear call as MUNI and BART need to 'connect as a system' more then they are now, but I'll follow the SF Bike Coalition on this one.
Q: YES on modifying the payroll expense tax
R: YES on memorializing the George W. Bush Sewage Plant
S: YES on budget set-asides identification of funds (i like to know where the money will come from for new polices)
T: Yes on free and low-cost substance abuse treatment
U: YES against funding illegal war in Iraq
V: No - Keep the military out of our schools, this tries to reverse an earlier decision

Local Candidates
District 9 Supervisor (the mission).  You pick in order of preference: 1. Mark Sanchez, 2. Eric Quezada, 3. David Campos
School Board: still to decide
Community College Board: still to decide
Superior Court Judge: Thomas Mellon (current)
BART Board: Tom Radulovich (current)

National:
President: Obama
Congress: Cindy Sheehan (cause she's an independent and a strong critic of the war)  I'm not happy with Pelosi saying "impeachment is 'off the table'"

 

http://www.electiontaxes.com

This answers the question that keeps coming up, see what you're federal taxes will look like under Obama or McCain.

Joey, the plumber, such a focus at last nights debate.  First, be sure to see Joe's conversation with Obama:

What's interesting, is after seeing this video, I thought it boded well for Obama.  He handles the question very well, is respectable to Joe, and seems to explain his tax plan pretty straight forward. Kristine had me watch it before a re-run of the debate.  I was surprised to see it brought up so much by McCain.  A search afterwards, shows a number of news sources, on both sides of the issue, using it as a strong talking point for their side (McCain supports follow the 'spread the wealth' comment as a socialist view, Obama supports follow the explanation that 95% of the public wouldn't be affected by a tax increase on incomes of $250,000 a year).  The New York Times has a little write-up as well.

Obama point out two things:

 1) Joe's taxes would only increase above $250,000 a year (not on moneys less then that), and not by much either, maybe 3%.

 2) Joe's previous years of work up to this point 10-15 years would be taxed less under the Obama plan, with more money to either grow a company faster or save.

Just how does $250,000 in Revenues get taxed as a corporation?  Well, it depends how Joe has his business set up, and I would assume they way his question was pointed, then it was that he'd be including that income on his personal statements.  HOWEVER, that would be after accounting for business expense.  So a $250,000 a year Rev, doesn't translated to $250,000 profit to declare on his personal income taxes, so now one of two things:

 1) If Joe is going to be PROFITING $250,000 a year, then yes, his taxes will raise.  But Joe will also be on the far extreme of incomes in Toledo, Ohio, where the average house is selling for $90-$140k a year.

 2) The other assumption is that his REVENUES are $250k, but his income is significantly less (one would have to assume for a plumber in Toledo, no?)  If that's the case, then Joe will be taxed less under Obama's plan then McCain.

This distinction is important.  If a small business is claiming the profits through their personal income, then as long as profits are under $250,000 a year, their taxes will not increase.  This is 95% of the country. 

Sources:

• Corp. Tax Explained: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/key-elements/business/what-is.cfm 
• Corp. Tax Rates alongside Income Rates: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=1839 
• My prev. post on tax rates (with charts): http://vinnie.net/2008/08/11/taxes_debt_some_helpful_graphics 

UPDATE: Oct 15, 11:56am.  Neil sent me this link on what appears to be a minor tax evasion suit by Joe the plumber: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/16/123539/11/77/632515

LUCAS COUNTY COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
J. BERNIE QUILTER, CLERK
700 ADAMS STREET
TOLEDO, OHIO

MONETARY AMOUNT: $1,182.98

DEPT OF TAXATION STATE OF OHIO

Defendant 1:
WURZELBACHER SAMUEL J
30 DERBYSHIRE RD
TOLEDO, OH  43615

Looking forward to seeing everybody tonight.  Lineup below.

zicasso.com - The ideal solution for those *complex* vacations involving multiple destinations or activities.  [Brian Tan]

retrevo.com - A smart and simple web site that makes finding, buying and using electronics fun.  [Robb Lewis]

rofo.com - Find that new office space for your startup aggregated into one place.  [Garrett Krueger]

fairsoftware.net - A TechCrunch50 Finalist.  Start your online business, online!  It only takes a few clicks to incorporate use their unique 'Software Bill of Rights'. [Alain Raynaud]


When: Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org

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Free trip to Boulder, Colorado for Developers! 

Boulder, CO is looking for some kick-ass developers.  Are you one in the SF area and would be interested in a new scenery?  Submit your resume -  http://www.boulder.me - Last day to submit resume is today 10/07.

Photo Credit: philcampbell on flickr

I've just returned from a 4 day trip Helsinki, Finland brought to you by Nokia's Open Labs. I had a fabulous time, between all the other attendees I connected with, and exploring a new city that seems to find most americans a bit 'exotic'.  Now I just have to get used to being back in San Francisco, and learning what time and day it is, along with the fact the stockmarket seems to have blindly stepped into a manhole.

THE SHORT OF IT: The Open Labs event was an amazing time, as I explored a new corner of the world, met very interesting people, and had an all-out fabulous time!  I was a bit critical on the workshops during the day, because I didn't know what the goals were, but I loved my time there, the people I met, and would enjoy the opportunity to do something like this again. 

Upon arrival, I received an Nokia E71.  As a recent adopter of the iphone, it was difficult to make the OS switch, I wasn't the only one poking at the screen from time to time trying to open an app.  I know the symbian and nokia OS's are loved around the world, but when it comes to an advanced smart device, their beauty in simplicity doesn't match the iphone.  On just a plain (dumb) phone, I understand nokia's OS is great, but trying to configure my e71 and run installed apps felt like a slow process.  Little annoyances included not knowing how to add my contact book to the main screen menu, not being able to quickly 'lock' and 'unlock' my phone to put it in my pocket, and not being able to 'reply' to txt messages i sent out by typing the number (if it's in your sent box, you can't reply to the sent number, you must retype it.) To be fair here, I truly believe the iphone is the worst phone I've ever owned.  It's an amazing little computer and internet device, but as a phone, it's pants - it feels to slow to get to a dial pad and call somebody.

After unpackaging my new phone, we all went out to a night club that nokia rented for our private event, which provided a great atmosphere to meet people involved with social media from all corners of the world.  (side note on Finnish culture here, when leaving the club, i noticed a lot of young Finns walking around with parachute-type jump suits and garbage bags around their chest, I later learned these are freshman entering their first week of university, and this is their drinking suit that ensures they stay dry between drinking and puking :)

Friday was spent in workshops, where we broke out into groups, to help come up with ideas relating to how mobile and the internet is changing how we all interact with each other.  While interesting at times, the workshops felt a little too big, a little too loud, and too many opinions for me, an attendee, to get much out of it.  Many of us were curious to what Nokia's goals were for the workshops - in order so that we could help them achieve those goals - we were all very grateful for being there.

Friday night again was a great time, and one were I spent the most talking to people about what they were doing, who they were, where they came from, and what they were interested in.   Of course drinking added to the fun.  Talking to both attendees and Nokia folks was a good time.  What was so great about the Open Labs Event, that it was people from all walks of life on the web, like Nicky of nickydigital.com who puts together one scene of NYC nightlife on his site.

Some recommendations for next year:

• A pre-event website URL would be helpful, I don't believe I received a link to http://events.nokia.com/openlab/, so I never bother searching for it.  Somebody organically created their own (of course, this is a social media event!)
  
• Pre-tag some content on flickr/blogs/twitter, and link to it, maybe tag a few Nokia ppl organizing the event as 'openlabs08' on flickr so I can see who I've been talking to over email, and also train me to use a certain set of tags when I talk about the event.
  
• As people fly from all corners of the world, most of which have never been to Finland before, encourage them to stay an extra day to explore Helsinki, it's a beautiful city, most people I met flew in/out just for 48hrs of the conference.
• I was a bit confused on the goals of the event, a number of people I spoke to had the same questions.  What was Nokia looking to get out of it?  What was the benefit for the individuals attending?  What should we (attendees) have taking out of the workshops?  (My #1 reward was all the people I met and the connections I made, most of which happened at night, over drinks, just like at sxsw.)
• If you're giving out sim cards, please provide people with the option to keep them pass the event closing ceremony.  I wasn't the only person who had made plans with local Finns to hang out Saturday night and Sunday, who then found ourselves a bit screwed without the contact number we gave out.  (we're all the socially interconnected type).

UPDATE 9/17

After talking to a friend about this workshop, just wanted to give some info about how it all came together.

It was pretty amazing, as Nokia reached out to social media people around the world, with just an email through a PR? firm, WOM (word of mouth marketing), inviting them to Helsinki.  When I first received the email, I was a bit skeptical as it was text heavy, with no links to a nokia website.  I almost thought it was spam!  I replied with a short answer, to get another email that made it seem more legitimate.  At that point, I was pretty excited, like "wow, this is pretty cool, I feel like I just won something :)"  It's pretty amazing of Nokia to put on such an event and I'm very happy to have been a part of it.

The invited folks from all over, from Croatia to Mexico, Asia to the US.  People that were creating all types of content, from bloggers to video publishers, to forum moderators, to heavy twitter users.

Photos from the event can be found here. 

tags: NokiaOpenLab08 openlabs08 openlabs nokia workshop nokiaworkshop helsinki finland

Tonight we have a fun and interesting lineup.  From online gaming, to widgets, to product reviews, to children's books.

huddler.com - Learn about products from the people who share similar interests, it's like yelp for products. [Dan Gill]

biguniverse.com - A library of children's books where you can create your own, buy published books, or reads the books of others.  [Anil Hemrajani]

widgetbox.com - Add a widget to your blog, profile, or webpage, from Super Mario Games, to music players, widget box has them all.  [Julia Brunnings]

mygamemug.com - Find your perfect online gaming buddies with their sophisticated and fun matching system.  [Ray Lau and Erik Yao]

When: Tuesday, Sep 9, 2008 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94303
More: http://newtechmeetup.org

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Startonomics Tickets

If you subscribe to the meetup group's newsletter, you would have had an opportunity to win free tickets to Startonmoics, on my blog, I'm listing the VIP discount for $100 off for NewTech Meetup members.

http://startonomics.com/register
 * SVMU08 — VIP $100 discount for the SiliconValley NewTech Meetup

McCain's vs. Obama's Tax Plan:

I would  to point out that Obama's avg. tax increase of 3/4 million on households making above $2.87 million, includes households making 100s of millions (so for the 150,000 households in the U.S. that fall into that bucket, for many of them,  that's less then  1% of their income.  Also, the  percentages highlighted in red/blue are  not absolute percentages against their income, but the amount/percentage their current taxes would change.

Source: Washington Post. 

Projected National Debt:

Below we see the projected National Debt for each candidate's tax plan.  The first chart is if the Bush Tax Cuts expire in 2010, the second is if they don't expire (as both candidates compare their tax plans to for some reason.)  So also to note here, while Obama does seem to drive us further in to debt, it's not as bad as McCain's.  I am still waiting for an economically conservative republican president in my lifetime (they all seem to drive national debt pretty high, see next graphic)

Source: Washington Post. 

Historical National Debt (and sometimes surplus) 

Source: headybrew.net. 

And finally, who owns our national debt?  Top 5 share holders (billions of dollars):

And be sure to check out the CIA World Fact Book to see:

• Worldwide National Debts (U.S. is wining with $12+ trillion)
• National Debt as a ratio of GDP
  

When the artist, Samuel Yates, set out to find the Color of Palo Alto in 2001, he had quite a feat on his hands, to photograph every property and parcel in Palo Alto, about 18,000 of them, find the average color of each house, then find the average color of each street, then neighborhood, then the entire city of Palo Alto. He spent 1 year photographing each property, carefully choosing the setting (direction of sun, time of day, etc.) of each house.

On top of finding the average color, there were many other facets to this public art project, including finding the color in a sustainable means (using solar and wind to power his electric scooter, building from recycled parts for the garage he worked in outside of Palo Alto's Town hall), even changing his diet to vegan to represent a more sustainable lifestyle.  He then found creative ways to hook into the city's operations and provide them with this useful data, such as a photo of every house mapped into the 911's GIS data.)

All of this came together outside of city hall, where the entire building was draped with each photo, in the order taken (Jan 1-Dec 31, 2001).

Last night, Samuel Yates released 'The Color of Palo Alto' to reveal that finding the color is quite a difficult problem, for one, what color palette to average the colors on, HSV, RGB, LAB, etc.?  Well, with HSV being invented right in Palo Alto's Parc labs, HSV seemed like the appropriate choice.  But then do you find the arithmetic average of the most frequently occurring color, or the average of all the average colors of each property, or the most frequently color occurring in each property, then the most frequently occurring color in the whole city?

So, it's up to the residents of Palo Alto to vote on their Color - which they will be able to purchase at paint stores and continue this public art project.

Hey all,
Due to a conflict, I won't be able to MC tonight, but your assistant organizer, Brian Solis, will be MCing.  He's stepped up to the mic in the past and has done a great job at it.  We also have a return of a special guest, Guy Kawasaki who will let you know how to find interesting stories on the web.

- IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SEPT -
Our September Meetup will be Tues, Sept 9, 2008 (a switch from the first tuesday of the month), this will return to the first Tues in Oct.

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Tonight's Lineup:


involver.com - Create video campaigns that allow you to engage and interact with your viewers, and most importantly, grab emails. [Tyler Willis]



me.dium.com - Get social while surfing the web, it's like a lounge for every website, discover new places. [David Mandell]



kiobo.com - Get social and see where your friends are visiting or find people with similar browsing behavior. [Sanjay Tibrewal]



alltop.com - The digital magazine rack of the internet. [Guy Kawasaki]


Also, I would like to thank these folks for helping to put together tonight:
 * DLA Piper, http://dlapiper.com/
 * FireHouse Brewery for providing some growlers tonight, http://firehousegrill.com
 * Fearless Chocolate for some delectables they'll leave out: http://fearlesschocolate.com/

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When: Tuesday, August 5, 2008 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94303
More: http://newtechmeetup.org


Cheers,
Vinnie