David's Blog

Feb 3

Interesting to learn how Adam Lisagor made this video for airbnb.

Airbnb: A video

Some fun facts about the video I made with Airbnb.

All the locations are real Airbnb places.

The pretty lady in the video is Venetia Pristavec, who does all the in-house video content for Airbnb, traveling around to different countries and interviewing hosts. She’s great.

Where you see people, those are real Airbnb hosts.

The site is neat, but you should download the iPhone app. It’s one of the best-designed, most beautiful and functional apps I’ve ever used.

The cinematographer is my friend Rachel Morrison. She’s great.

That villa with the credit card logos in the pool? It’s in Puerto Vallarta. The crew stayed there for a few days. It’s great.

My side of the Scrabble board spells out “COOTYS RAT SEMEN”. Venetia’s spells “BEANS”. I won.

I’m out in the desert all day today shooting for something top secret*.

*Okay it’s for eHarmony.

**It’s not for eHarmony.

Jan 17

Student Pays Tuition One Dollar at a Time

rickwebb:

rubenfeld:

While tuition increases in Britain prompted violent protests last month, rising college fees rarely elicit more than shrugs among most students in the United States.

But on Friday, a sophomore at the University of Colorado, Boulder, found a symbolic way to strike back.

The student, Nic Ramos, paid his entire spring semester tuition — all $14,309.51 of it — using dollar bills, a 50-cent piece and a penny.

“It kind of started as a joke,” said Mr. Ramos, an economics major. “But when I thought about it more,” he said, “it’s just an absurd amount of money. I wanted to give the school a different way to look at tuition.”

It took Mr. Ramos two days to withdraw the money from several banks. He said that when he walked into the bursar’s office on Friday morning with a 33-pound duffel bag full of cash, the tellers were stunned. According to a university spokesman, Bronson Hilliard, it took three people nearly an hour to count the money.

If I was still in college, I would love to do something like this.

I paid in $20’s when I was @ BU. It was really satisfying.

(via mikehudack)

Jan 11

“Facebook runs on a very stiff, crude model of what people are like. It herds everybody — friends, co-workers, romantic partners, that guy who lived on your block but moved away after fifth grade — into the same big room. It smooshes together your work self and your home self, your past self and your present self, into a single generic extruded product. It suspends the natural process by which old friends fall away over time, allowing them to build up endlessly, producing the social equivalent of liver failure. On Facebook, there is one kind of relationship: friendship, and you have it with everybody. You’re friends with your spouse, and you’re friends with your plumber.”

Lev Grossman’s profile on Mark Zuckerberg for Time

I think this is the best analysis of Facebook I’ve ever read. “The social equivalent of liver failure” is a genius phrase.

(via buzzandersen)

I believe that they will fix this.

(via mikehudack)

Nov 16

I like this idea.

Apr 1

(via thisisnthappiness.com)

Feb 25

Millionaire athletes hate handing over $20 cash for being late

abbyjean:

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson uses psychology in his NBA locker rooms. Ever the behavioralist, Jackson fined his players tiny amounts – $10 and $20 – for being late to games by a few minutes. Jackson has found that players are more grudging about having to pull cash out of their own pocket on the spot, than having a larger fine deducted from a paycheck, as is the usual practice.

Feb 24

superamit:

How Google Voice transcribed ”Hey Brian it’s dad, give me a call.” for this guy Brian. Yikes.

Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide

Feb 23

This is so cool. Anyone trying to get a message across can learn a ton from Wes Anderson. For Fantastic Mr. Fox’s humor to work it had to be animated just the right way. Anderson, not being the animator, could have requested revision after revision until the animators came back with something he liked. Instead, he took accountability and acted out the scenes beforehand, giving the animators something concrete to work with. Upfront, it’s a ton more work for Anderson, but overall it streamlines the entire process making it incredibly efficient. This should be required watching for any management team.

Feb 3

Google Chrome: “Please try using Gmail with a Supported Browser.” Oh well, back to Safari.