One - Jud Valeski's blog

fbi

I Helped The F.B.I. Get Into Someone's DB

It was back in 1997 at my first job out of college. I was a networking stack engineer on the Netscape Browser. At that time, the email client, news reader, and browser were essentially rolled into one (I'm sure I'm pissing some lawyer off by making

techstars

jud@techstars.com

I'm getting back into the mix. It's been a creative, fun, enlightening, educational, expanding, and relaxing couple of years "off," but I want to re-engage with something operational again; I've joined Techstars [http://www.techstars.com/] as its CTO. I'm

nepal

My Mug

Monastery InteriorA few weeks ago I found myself sitting in the monastery (above) in Taksindu, Nepal. We were witnessing a "sang" ceremony which helps us remove obstacles in life. It was a powerful experience to observe something like this at all, but then something over-the-top happened. Throughout the

Sleeping Pills/Ambien

Coincidentally, many years ago, Ambien hit the market right when I started doing a fair amount of international travel for business. I was stoked. Sleeping in significant time-zone offsets from my home time-zone was obviously a challenge, and I'd always have a packed schedule the next day, so

photography

Day In Pictures: Nepal Trek

As part of a broader visit to Nepal to help rebuild Chhulemu with the Himalayan Development Foundation [http://hdfoundation.net/], here's our crew during a five day trek to Dudh Kunda ("Milk Lake"). Sherpa Mountain Adventures [http://www.sherpamountainadventures.com/] got us there and back safely,

virtual reality

I Hope This Isn't Our Virtual Reality Future.

In the context of our Virtual Reality future, three things have struck me over the past handful of years. As a kid I imagined totally immersive gaming, wherein even your economics would play out in a virtual world (you would earn and spend totally virtually). I quickly arrived at the

Rdio & The Music Industry

I'm grumpy that Rdio couldn't make it through the forrest of crappy music services that end-users lapped up in the name of "free." Especially when it comes to artistic endeavors, look past your wallet sometimes folks; life is better in the end when we

business

International Business Travel And You

I was in my mid-20s when my boss asked me to go to India to do some work with our office in Bangalore. I was stoked. I was so excited that I was going to travel to India and a) meet my colleagues there and b) to experience another, radically

parenting

Parenting, "the talk," and a Request.

A couple of days ago I tweeted about "the talk" [https://twitter.com/jvaleski/status/663870880448012288] I had with my 10-yr-old daughter, and it received an intense amount of attention. The tweet was actually about "the network," as opposed to sex, which everyone undoubtedly assumed it

software

Spending Capital

The Joker burning "his half" of the cash in The Dark Knight.Enough data points now to write this post without giving anyone in my portfolio away, and enough that I feel like I see a pattern. I'm seeing a lot of first-round/seed stage capital

aging

Four Day Time Portal

I just got back from a trip to Duluth, MN. I had never been to the mid-west before. Nor had I ever spent four days in a retirement community. Nor had I ever spent four days with people who were all 70 years old and up. Nor had I ever

mobile

Kids And The Network; A Progression

It's been awhile since I've written about my kiddos (boy, 13. daughter, 10) and their relationship with, and use of, the Network. Anecdotal Stuff * If I ever utter the word "ethernet cable" my son rolls his eyes. My daughter does nothing because she doesn&

advertising

Ad Tech Bustage?

Number of times I've clicked on an ad over the past 20 years or so and bought somthing on the click-through somewhere? One or two, maybe three, times. Number of times I've bought something (an airline ticket, a hotel room, a magazine, some clothing, a device,

news

Main Stream Media And Me

It's been several weeks now since I dropped out of main stream media consumption. My consumption vectors have become... * daily curated news/content emails from curators I learn about and can subscribe/unsubscribe to/from if/when they prove their quality/lack-of-quality * my Twitter feed. real-time signal from

news

Journalist Rank (jRank) & News Feeds

I just got back from a run and wanted to flesh this notion out a bit. I was listening to a This Week In Startups "news" roundtable [http://thisweekinstartups.com/news-roundtable-ben-parr-declan-mccullagh/] in which Declan McCullagh [https://twitter.com/declanm] was talking about his new "news" app

apple

After Several Weeks With Apple Watch

I keep putting it on each day which means something I suppose. I use it for * Checking the time. * Strava start/stop for commuter rides when I'm wearing the watch. I don't wear it for true sports activities. * Paying for stuff at the grocery with Apple

travel

Human Travel Agents

They're baaaaack! For the past several months I've been using an app called Native [http://nativeapp.com/] to book leisure travel. For the past several months I have NOT had to... * deal with busted hotel, airline, restaurant, and other travel websites * deal with constantly changing workflows

travel

Travel Guides

I've been doing a fair amount of leisure travel recently and have come across an amazing set of travel guides. They're called CitiX60 guides, and are published by Viction Workshop; http://victionary.com/ . They are awesome! * Each one is a compilation of recommendations by local creatives

reading

Read More Faster; Instapaper

I've radically changed my content discovery approach and sites/services I consume for information and news. As a result, my new method leverages a broad array of curated content sources using a disparate set of presentation formats (web sites, feeds, emails, posts, etc) that I either consume via

hardware

"Editing" Hardware

Yesterday I found myself "modding" one of my 12-yr old son's Nerf guns. One of his buddies had done it, and now he wanted to. We grabbed a bunch of tools/gear and sat down to hack away. I've built physical things from the

news

Where Did The Journalism Go?

With Circa dead, I lost what I considered my last shot at reasonable "news" consumption. I'm aware Circa was "editors" and not "journalists," but they did a decent job editing stuff together and letting me walk down categories of content I wanted,

photography

Canon 5Dsr First Impressions

1/8000' exposure, f1.8, ISO 100, 50mmI've been using the new Canon 5Dsr [http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras/eos_5ds_r] for a few days now. I'm quite certain it'll replace my 6D, but I want

email

Google Inbox: I Tried

I was in the first wave of Google Inbox users when they started leaking it out into the world. I can't remember when that was, but I've been using Inbox exclusively now for at least a few months. I'm done using it now and

travel

Running in Tokyo

After a handful of trips to Tokyo, and associated runs, over the past few years I thought I'd share some routes and tips. I've only stayed in the central Roppongi area, so my launches are from hotels there. * Hang left. The Japanese drive on the left-side

gps

Apple Watch Review

I just spent a week with the Apple Watch. I thought it was going to be the answer to my sports activity tracking needs, however it’s not. Surprisingly though I’ve found a ton of value in it in ways I didn’t anticipate. The Good Wearing the following