Let the Good Times Roll–by Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Schmoozing

This is a pretty good deal, $350 for a hundred roses!

well, if this is true it will further reiterate my view on the false sense of stability when you’re hiding in a big company.

Oracle Layoffs Coming?:

• No developers are being hired in the U.S., all new hires are in India.
• As many as 7,000 developers in the U.S. could be laid off.
• The bulk of the layoffs will happen in Feb.
• Large group in the Siebel FG&A group will be let go when that acquisition closes. About 16% of the total Siebel workforce will be let go.
• Severence for Siebel employees will be 6 months, Oracle folks will get 1 week for each year of service.
• No layoffs in sales, support, or consulting.

Technorati Tags: layoffs, oracle, siebel

From my Newisys days I was told by the guy who dealt with our VC activities day to day that anti-dilution clauses were some of the most evil things you could see on a tern sheet, basically you get screwed when you get a down round later (which in my experience happens more often than not 🙁 )… Here Tim Wolters, the CTO of Collective Intellect, blogged about anti-dilution clauses in the entrepreneurs’ perspective.

Beyond Dante: Term Sheet Terms: anti-dilution clauses

Technorati Tags: vc

Alright, I’m moving up there!

mathewingram.com/work:

Om Malik has a great Silicon Valley story about how Scott Johnson ? ex of Feedster ? closed an angel investment for his new company Ookles (top secret) while sitting in Om?s bathroom, as the blogger and his podcast partner Niall Kennedy recorded their latest in the living room.
Later, Om says he met legendary venture capitalist Bill Draper Sr., shared a car with Seth Steinberg of the online messenger service Meebo, and sat in a cafe with Dave Winer, when Kevin Burton of TailRank dropped in. Then Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.com and Scott Beale of Laughingsquid.com showed up, along with venture capitalist Jeff Clavier and Dave Sifry of Technorati.com.
And that?s not even a party like the ones Mike Arrington of TechCrunch.com throws, where 200 invitations fill up in a matter of hours and there?s a room at the back for startups to demo their wares. Om?s just talking about a regular day (okay, maybe not totally regular) in San Francisco tech-land. Yes, it seems that Web 2.0 is one big party.

Technorati Tags: party, sf, web2.0

Boing Boing: Penetrative sex improves public speaking:

A researcher at the University of Paisley has determined that having regular penetrative sex (and only penetrative sex) makes people into better, more relaxed public speakers:

For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in various forms of sex.

Then they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.

Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation.

Those who abstained from any form of sexual activity at all had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Update: Ken sez, “Just because people who have sex are less stressed doesn’t mean that the sex causes them be that way. At least as plausible is that they have more sex _because_ they are less stressed and recover from stress more quickly– stress and staying steamed being a turn-off, in general, not to mention physiological effects of stress on performance, for men.”

Impressive!

Boing Boing: Tricked-out secret tunnel between Mexico and US:

Federal agents found a secret big tunnel that runs from Tijuana, Mexico, to Otay Mesa, California. It’s apparently 1,200 yards long and runs between two warehouses on either side of the border. Two tons of pot were discovered inside. From CNN:

Made of concrete, the passageway had lighting, electricity, ventilation and a pump to remove water, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

Mack said human intelligence led to the discovery of the underground structure. Agents then used ground-penetrating radar technology from the military to find anomalies in the soil, she said.

Egotastic! – Kate Moss Hates Sienna Miller:

Kate Moss is pissed at Sienna Miller. Why, you ask? Did Sienna steal Kate’s boyfried? Or her coke? No, it turns out, Kate Moss thinks Sienna Miller is stealing all her magazine covers. The Sun says that Kate Moss is angry because Sienna has been getting on all the magazine covers, even though she is not a “professional model.”

😆

F430

Originally uploaded by andrewyng.

I guess somebody exercised some options…