Jackie Danicki

Antoine and Michael have some ideas, which they related to Brian - great podcast from three of the smartest friends I have.

Doing nothing would be better than what they are doing now. Better still would be to cut public spending in all countries (notably the USA) where the budget deficit is big. Yes that will all be horrible, but the horror will be sorted relatively soon. What they are actually doing will prolong the misery, which is what they have done in Japan, as Michael J explained. Trying to ensure a soft landing, as they are now, will merely leave the wreckage on the runway indefinitely. The runway wreckage metaphor did not occur in the conversation but lots of other regular get-the-grief-over-with-quickly metaphors did, notably surgery. If you have to have an operation, you want it all done at once.

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This is my first autumn in California. So far it is: crisp, sunny, and very difficult to dress for. (Well, not that difficult: Just plan to carry a sweater and a scarf with you every single day.) Oh, and it’s quite gorgeous. No wonder so many people want to live here.

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Mike Arrington:

[T]o argue that a company should always cut costs to the bare minimum is the same thing as asking that bear to act like it’s Winter in the Spring, because someday Winter is going to happen. All you end up with is a dead bear.

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There’s so much I could write about this baby, about her mother and father and grandparents and uncle and everyone who’s looked forward to her arrival for so long. But that would be a lengthy post, and I probably still could not put into words how happy I am that my friend of 17 years has produced this bundle of joy. I have to steal a line from our friend Kelly’s husband, Jamie, who said to Karri when she first found out she was pregnant: “I already love your baby.” Me too! Can’t wait to meet her face to face.

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I went to Arkansas last weekend, spending three nights and just over two days in the Ozarks. While there, I took some pictures in the woods. I used one of my cell phones (Nokia N95) to take all of the photos. Here are a few (click the thumbnail if you want to see a larger version):

I’m only halfway through processing all of the photos I took, but so far I’m rather pleased with how well my phone did. This is why I no longer even bother to carry a point-and-shoot (and I’m ashamed to tell you how long it’s been since I busted out my SLR). It’s not just the quality, but also the fact that I can just email the photos to myself from the phone, which means not having to hook up any cords to transfer files. Lazy tech wins for me, always.

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6AM: Wake up after 3.5 hours of sleep.

7.25AM: Cab arrives five minutes early for ride to train station. I usually walk 30 minutes to Belmont station, but Blake is visiting San Francisco from Cincinnati and I’m meeting him early-ish in Palo Alto for breakfast.

8.07AM: Arrive in Palo Alto 23 minutes ahead of schedule. (I tend to stress about being late and so am often really, really early.)

8.47AM: After making some calls and responding to some downright exciting work emails, I look up from my iPhone to see Blake standing over me. As I credit Blake for making me more open to hugging people, there is no choice but to give him a huge hug hello. I’m so happy to see him!

9.45AM: Blake and I wander the shops of University Avenue after a lovely breakfast at the Creamery. We look but do not buy.

10.30AM: While waiting for the train to Redwood City, where I want to show off Qik HQ to Blake, I get a call from Christine Lu. I’ve arranged lunch with her and some others for 1PM, but she’s just finished interviewing Guy Kawasaki and happens to be in Palo Alto. I tell her to come work at Qik HQ until our lunch; she picks us up and we all discuss terribly un-PC things in the car.

11AM: Show Blake and Christine around Redwood City, introduce them to the Qik team. Say goodbye to Blake, promising that I’ll come back to Cincinnati soon (probably for his housewarming at Parker Flats). Get Christine settled with a desk, our wifi password, and a cold drink. Do some work and respond to still more good news in my inbox.

1PM: Wander across the street with Christine and Bhaskar to the Daily Boost. We’re joined by Jeff Nolan and Chris Yeh for a conversation on topics as diverse as China, childbirth, the economy, sex industry business models, and some of the ways in which governments everywhere really suck. Christine shoots video interviews with all of us individually, about doing business in China, for her China Business Network tech tour next month. Decide to keep Christine at the office for the rest of the day.

3.30PM: Seesmic and Le Web Paris founder Loic LeMeur drops in for a visit. (He’d sent out a tweet asking for Qik’s address and got loads of replies within minutes; Pat Phelan saw his tweet and texted me from Paris to let me know Loic was looking for us. I love the web.)

4.30PM: Web 2.0’s most talented masseur, Microsoft’s Anand Iyer, arrives in time for Qik’s weekly Friday Beer Bash. Usually, Bhaskar has to yell at us at least five times - “Stop friggin’ working, people!” - but for some reason everybody’s ready to back away from their keyboards and start drinking. Thanks to Rish, there is diet root beer (my request) and healthier food than usual (ditto). We talk a lot about binge drinking, corporate kickball, and how we might combine the two for Qik marketing purposes. Uptake founder Elliott Hughes has seen Christine’s tweets about how much fun she’s having at our office, so he swings by too.

6.30PM: Everyone but Rishi has left unusually early for the weekend. I’m on the train home from work.

6.38PM: Walk home from the station.

7.15PM: Open mail, shower, and grill up some fish for dinner.

9.00PM: Fret about packing for my 6AM flight to Arkansas and whether I will have time to prep for the cleaning lady to come on Monday. Only one thing to do when gripped by such worry: blog.

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Yeah, that’s right.

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I’ve blogged ad nauseam about my friend Pat Phelan, so I’ll spare you my usual reverence and just say that if anybody qualifies for this award, it’s him. You can vote even if you’re not Irish!

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Jeff Nolan:

It will never happen because the very people who would presumably be doing the investigating have the most blood on their hands, but if any aspect of this financial crisis should be investigated it should be Congress itself. Members of Congress will no doubt claim “I didn’t know” or “I was hoodwinked like everyone else” but the fact of the matter remains that they were charged with making the laws that oversaw Fannie and Freddie and they should have known rather than pretending they were authorities on the subject and not actually knowing what was going on or worse, excusing it.

…It’s about time that the American public demand that Congress take a backseat role in regulating things they simply don’t intellectually grasp. The credit markets are specialized and we should empower our regulatory agencies to hire professionals who understand these markets, and Congress should empower those individuals to do their jobs rather than arm chair quarterbacking for sound bites, Sunday morning news shows, and for their own ego gratification.

I’d suggest knocking off with the regulation altogether, but then I’m an extremist and Jeff is a centrist. But seriously, I’m depressed by how so many people think the answer to the utter failure of government regulation is more regulation. Our country is brainwashed.

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Johnathan Pearce, on “the lie, put around by a lot of MSM commentators, that what we are seeing is the demise of unregulated, cowboy capitalism”:

Au contraire, what we have seen is the failure of a large body of rules, assembled over many years, to do what they were supposed to do. In fact […] these rules may have even worsened the crisis and encouraged financial players to take certain risks “off balance sheet” to avoid having to set aside capital. But you can bet that policymakers will not draw the conclusion that too much regulation might actually be part of the problem.

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I don’t know why this wasn’t a bigger hit for Solange Knowles; if her sister Beyoncé had done it, I am sure it would have been a huge summer smash. (The video for this song is BEYOND annoying, and I like this picture. You can find the video easily if you want to see just how bad it is for youself.)

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