Ben Shoemate's Notebook

Sarah Kershaw of the New York Times reports on research published at Siggraph about a computer program developed at Tel Aviv University that changes the geometry of faces in photographs to make them more beautiful. (Photo: Lars Klove for The New York Times, manipulation by Tommer Leyvand)

The photograph on the right was doctored by the “beautification engine” of a new computer program that uses a mathematical formula to alter the original form into a theoretically more attractive version, while maintaining what programmers call an “unmistakable similarity” to the original.

The software program, developed by computer scientists in Israel, is based on the responses of 68 men and women, age 25 to 40, from Israel and Germany, who viewed photographs of white male and female faces and picked the most attractive ones.

Scientists took the data and applied an algorithm involving 234 measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, or between the eyes.

Ever since President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Administration wiretapping program in late 2005, he has insisted it is aimed only at terrorists’ calls and protects Americans’ civil liberties:

– If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we’d like to know why. … In the meantime, this program is conscious of people’s civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America — and I repeat: limited. [1/1/06]

– This is a — I repeat to you, even though you hear words, “domestic spying,” these are not phone calls within the United States. It’s a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I’m mindful of your civil liberties. [1/23/06]

– People who analyze the program fully understand that America’s civil liberties are well protected. There is a constant check to make sure that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect. [2/28/08]

However, ABC News reports that the NSA frequently listened to and transcribed the private phone calls of Americans abroad, according to two former military intercept operators. These conversations included those of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and American aid workers abroad, such as Doctors Without Borders:

[Former Navy Arab linguist David Murfee] Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News. […]

“We knew they were working for these aid organizations,” [former Army Reserves Arab linguist Adrienne] Kinne told ABC News. “They were identified in our systems as ‘belongs to the International Red Cross’ and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them,” she told ABC News.

Kinne called Bush’s assurances that the U.S. was only tracking phone calls of a “known al Qaeda suspect” “completely a lie.” Click here to watch ABC’s report.

Digg It!

via http://digg.com/

During the last Presidential debate, John McCain delivered this line about his opponent with withering contempt:

[Obama] voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.

I'm already tired of hearing these guys talk, but that caught my ear. A $3 million dollar projector? What does that even look like? Gearlog did some digging and found out that appropriation was requested by the planetarium to replace an awesome (but obsolete) 40-year old Zeiss Mark VI star projector with a newer model (pictured above).

Anyone with a planetarium in town will remember the Mark VI from school field trips: the 2.5 ton, 1350 watt giant (pictured below) can project a dynamic image of thousands of stars and constellation onto the ceiling of a massive dome for the viewing pleasure of a reclined audience. Its replacement would have been much more impressive, had it been granted: the Universarium Model IX, which is a $3.5 million dollar astronomical projection unit capable of accurately representing a night sky in full color and motion. The proposal was never granted. But politics aside, that's not exactly your school's transparency projector. You can check out the spec sheet at Zeiss's official site. Model IX photo from Picassa user Lito [Gearlog, NYT]

via http://www.booooooom.com/2008/10/08/alex-prager/

Perhaps when the top result is the best result - and it's a paid link.

Look at the image of my search results above.

I just now wanted to find the NLCS playoff schedule. I like baseball. I follow the National League, (NL) for the most part. Just about every fan of baseball (and there are millions of them) knows that "NLCS" is code for "National League Championship Series.

So I typed "NLCS playoff schedule" into Google. The results were terrible. The first result was for 2007, and it's October! Playoffs, you know? Happening now? Google was pretty good at giving me the right results when I typed "Olympics" in last August. So I thought it was pretty safe to assume I'd get 2008 playoff schedules when I typed in that query. Alas, it was not to be.

So just in case Google was feeling a bit addled tonight, I added a "2008" to the end to clarify: NLCS playoff schedule 2008.

The results are above. Of the *organic* results, the first is a blogspot blog - not worth clicking on, I mean, I wanted the official sked, right?This one is just for the Dodgers, and I'm a fan of blogs but...I didn't want the Dodger's sked, I wanted the whole NLCS. The second result was worse - an article from a baseball site, and it's about player health. Huh?

The third site is a attempt to sell me tickets.

Google, am I not being specific enough for you? I very much doubt that your algorithms can't figure out how to deliver exactly what I was asking for, especially during the playoffs.

But, wait a minute, there is one result that, should I click on it, will give me the answer I wanted. It's at the top, and hey, look, Google even HIGHLIGHTED it for me!

Oh wait, doesn't that highlight mean it's a paid link? Oh well, never mind that. It's the first link, and we all know that everyone clicks on the first link. Google may have failed at organic search, but it saved its bacon - and paid for it - through AdWords. Let's just hope for Google's sake that folks continue to ignore that "I'm feeling lucky" button. Unless, of course, it's routed through a paid link.

Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley’s most prolific angel investors (and he was also an early investor in Google), wrote an email yesterday to the CEOs of his portfolio companies. In no uncertain terms he outlines a bleak immediate future, and gives advice to his startups.

It’s the same advice, actually, that he gave in 2000 during the tech meltdown that was then happening in real time. Lower your burn rates to get at least 3 more months out of your current money, and raise money right now if you can. It’s very similar to what Sequoia (and other VCs, I’m sure) are telling their startups.

One thing Ron made clear in a conversation with me today. He’s not worried about the state of innovation in Silicon Valley, and he isn’t going to stop investing. He’s not pessimistic about the future of technology at all. What he is concerned with is protecting the portion of his portfolio companies who don’t currently have a large cash position to weather a storm, and he’s sharing his experience from the last downturn to help them through this one.

The full text of Ron’s email is below, along with similar emails he sent on April 17th 2000 and May 10th 2000.

——— Forwarded message ———-
From: Ron Conway
Date: Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:12 PM
Subject: IMPORTANT PLEASE READ ASAP …..REGARDING CURRENT MARKET CONDITIONS…Confidential

We have all been absorbed by the turmoil in the financial markets the past few weeks

Unlike the turmoil of 2000 when the “action” was centered right here in Silicon Valley this time is it centered on Wall Street…..but it has rippled to the west coast quickly and we will not be “immune” to its drastic effects.

I was an active investor in 2000 when the “bubble burst” and remember it vividly and want to give you the SAME EXACT advice I gave to my portfolio company CEOs back then.

I have pasted in the emails I sent on April 17th 2000 and May 10th 2000 and every word applies today.

Unfortunately history DOES repeat itself but I hope we can learn from history and prevent the turmoil from occurring again.

The message is simple. Raising capital will be much more difficult now.

You should lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to “raising an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible. Letting go of staff is hard and often gut wrenching. A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with the eye of doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some
respects is survival–survival until conditions change.

If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible but face the fact that if you can’t raise money now you must cut costs.

While I do not own a large percentage of your company I hope you will consider this thoughtful advice.

I was here in 2000 and want to share what I learned through many years of experience and historical “pattern recognition”!

Here are the two emails from the year 2000 that I referred to above and all the statements apply in today’s market:

To: Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio CEOs
Date: 04/17/2000 05:24 PM
From: Ron Conway
RE: Market Conditions Effect on Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio
Companies

The down draft in the stock market sends us some obvious “signals” and we can’t help but mention them.

1. If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible.

2. Many companies are ignoring certain VC leads we’ve provided in order to concentrate on the top tier only. While we have preached that in the past, this is no longer the case. Currently, top-tier VC
bandwidth constraints, coupled with the market down draft, make it very important to take meetings with any VCs where you can get their attention. We have been working hard to open up this new bandwidth.

3. You must aggressively examine and pursue M&A opportunities (unless you have over 12 months of cash reserves!) ro insure you have critical mass (including funding, customers, rolodex power, market
share, cash, synergy, etc.).

4. Be realistic on valuations - they will fall so be ready and willing to co-operate.

5. Look for corporate partners to invest so you can raise more money. You should also consider a sale of your company to your corporate partners.

6. If you are entering a funding cycle start raising money sooner rather than later.

7. While it’s safe to say entrepreneurs have had negotiating leverage with the “down draft” in the market, the VC community will start exercising their leverage.
—————————————————————————-
—————————————-

To: Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio CEOs
Date: 05/10/2000 05:23 PM
From: Ron Conway
RE: Market Conditions Effect on Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio
Companies

I want to “touch base” again; given the continued uncertainty in the capital markets.

As the market turmoil continues, we must underscore the advice that we have provided since mid April and it boils down to just a few points:

1) The capital market window is shut, including IPOs and VC Funding (VCs are looking at their existing portfolio funding needs - not new opportunities). Basically the market is now looking for PtoP (Path to Profitability) instead of BtoC, BtoB, etc! PtoE will prevail price to sales ratios! You must lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means selective staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to ‘raising
an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible.

2) If you have $10M or less in the bank you must do #1 above plus look at M&A options for your company; especially if your company is BtoC, content, advertising model, community, commerce, and even BtoB. An M&A transaction will allow you to gain critical mass and to get two sets of funding sources and rolodexes working on your behalf. M&A transactions take over 90 days so you need at least that much cash to fund your company. You must attend our M&A day on May 24th at the San Mateo Marriott at 3:00 PM. We will have investment banks there in addition to entrepreneurs who have
successfully accomplished M&A transactions. We will send you details.

We are still developing many new funding sources for our portfolio companies that are in funding cycle.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0