Unilever PLC (/ˈjuːniˌliːvə/[3][4]) is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever Brothers. The company's products include baby food, beauty products, bottled water, breakfast cereals, cleaning agents, condiments, dairy products, energy drinks, healthcare and hygiene products, ice cream, instant coffee, instant noodles, pet food, pharmaceuticals, soft drinks, tea, and toothpaste. It is the largest producer of soap in the world,[5] and its products are available in over 190 countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever (more)
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry's, is an American company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, the company went from a single ice cream parlor to a multinational brand over the course of a few decades. The company was sold in 2000 to the British multinational conglomerate Unilever but operates as an independent subsidiary. Its present-day headquarters is in South Burlington, Vermont, with its factory in Waterbury, Vermont. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_%26_Jerry%27s
Joel Spolsky: Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon. Building a company? You’ve got one very important decision to make, because it affects everything else you do. No matter what else you do, you absolutely must figure out which camp you’re in, and gear everything you do accordingly, or you’re going to have a disaster on your hands. (more)
Michel Bauwens: MyBO details about Barack Obama campaign's network strategy. Larry Lessig warns that if Obama wins but doesn’t govern according to principles of openness and change, as promised, supporters may not be so interested in serving as MyBO foot soldiers in 2012. (more)
Tulsi Gabbard (/ˈtʌlsi ˈɡæbərd/; born April 12, 1981) is an American politician and military officer serving since 2025 as the 8th director of national intelligence (DNI). She has held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve since 2021, and previously served as U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. A former Democrat, she joined the Republican Party in 2024. Gabbard was the youngest state legislator in Hawaii from 2002 to 2004. Gabbard launched her 2020 presidential campaign running on an anti-interventionist and populist platform but dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden in March 2020. Previously, she also served as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2013 to 2016 but resigned to endorse Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. After her departure from Congress in 2021, Gabbard took stances on issues such as abortion, foreign policy, border security and transgender rights that differed significantly from her former Democrat colleagues. She left the Democratic Party in 2022. In 2024, Gabbard endorsed Donald Trump for the presidential election and joined the Republican Party later that year. After Trump nominated Gabbard for DNI, her past statements on Syria and the Russian invasion of Ukraine drew scrutiny and concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
Joseph Paul Trippi (born June 10, 1956) is an American political strategist. A member of the Democratic Party, Trippi most notably served as campaign manager of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid,[1][2] and has served as a political commentator for CNN since 2018.[3] He has worked on a number of prominent gubernatorial and United States Senate campaigns, including the successful bids of Jerry Brown for Governor of California and Doug Jones for U.S. Senate in Alabama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Trippi (more)
On his main website, barackobama.com, on February 11, 2007 Presidential candidate Barack Obama launched my.barackobama.com. This social networking site built an online community of over a million members before the presidential election. See esp (2008-08-19) How Obama Really Did It (more)
Zvi Mowshowitz: On (Not) Feeling the AGI. Ben Thompson interviewed Sam Altman recently about building a consumer tech company, and about the history of OpenAI. Mostly it is a retelling of the story we’ve heard before, and if anything Altman is very good about pushing back on Thompson when Thompson tries to turn OpenAI’s future into the next Facebook, complete with an advertising revenue model. It is such a strange perspective to witness. They do not feel the AGI, let alone the ASI. The downside risks of AI, let alone existential risks, are flat out not discussed, this is a world where that’s not even a problem for Future Earth (more)
aka betting
Free tool/course from Cedric Chin for XmR charts. https://xmrit.com/ (more)
writer of big high agency essay (more)
Grant Morrison on Pop Magic (magick). As a first exercise in magical consciousness spend five minutes looking at everything around you as if ALL OF IT was trying to tell you something very important. How did that lightbulb come to be here exactly ? Why does the murder victim in the newspaper have the same unusual surname as your father-in-law ? Why did the phone ring, just at that moment and what were you thinking ? What's that waterstain stain on the wall of the building opposite ? How does it make you feel ? Five minutes of focus during which everything is significant, everything is luminous and heavy with meaning, like the objects seen in dreams. (more)
Zvi Mowshowitz: Monthly Roundup #27: February 2025. I have been debating how to cover the non-AI aspects of the Trump administration, including the various machinations of DOGE. I felt it necessary to have an associated section this month, but I have attempted to keep such coverage to a minimum, and will continue to do so. There are too many other things going on, and plenty of others are covering the situation. (more)
"Fake it 'til you make it" (also called "act as if") is a common catchphrase that means to imitate confidence so that as the confidence produces success, it will generate real confidence. The purpose is to avoid getting stuck in a Self-Fulfilling prophecy related to one's fear of not being confident... The phrase is similar to Aristotle's notion that acting virtuous (Virtue) will make one virtuous. The phrase was introduced into modern language in the late twentieth century... It is often recommended as a therapy technique for combating depression. In this case, the idea is to go through the routines of life as if one were enjoying them, despite the fact that initially it feels forced, and continue doing this until the happiness becomes real. This is an example of a Positive Feedback loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it (more)
This is the publicly-readable WikiLog Digital Garden (20k pages, starting from 2002) of Bill Seitz (a Product Manager and CTO). (You can get your own pair of garden/note-taking spaces from FluxGarden.)
My Calling: Reality Hacking to accelerate Evolution by increasing Freedom, Agency, and Leverage of Free Agents and smaller groups (SmallWorld) via D And D of Thinking Tools (software and Games To Play).
See Intro Page for space-related goals, status, etc.; or Wiki Node for more terse summary info.
Beware the War On The Net!
Current:
- head of product for an early-stage boot-strapped company
- founder FluxGarden for Digital Garden hosting
- wrote Hack Your Life With A Private Wiki Notebook Getting Things Done And Other Systems ASIN:B00HHJA5JS
My Coding for fun.
Past:
- Director Product Managment, NCSA Sports
- CTO/Product Manager at a series of startups: MedScape, then Axiom Legal, then Living Independently, then DailyLit, then AEP...
- founded Family Financial Future, personal-financial-planning nagware for parents
- consulting
- founded Teamflux.com, a hosting service for wiki-based collaboration spaces.
- founded Wikilogs.com, a hosting service for WikiLog-s (wiki-based weblogs).
Agile Product Development, Product Management from MVP to Product-Market Fit, Adding Product To Your Startup Team, Agility, Context, and Team Agency, (2022-10-12) Accidental Learnings of a Journeyman Product Manager
Oligarchy; Big Levers, Theory of Change, Change the World, (2020-06-27) Ways To Nudge Future; Network Enlightenment, Optimistic Near Future Vision; Huge Invention; Alternatives To A College Degree; Credit Crisis 2008; Economic Transition; Network Economy; Making A Living; Varieties Of Info Technology Jobs; Generative Schooling; Product Oriented Unschooling; Reality Hacker; A 20th Century Economic Theory
FluxGarden; Network Enlightenment Ecosystem; ThinkingTools Interaction as Medium; Hypermedia Pattern Language; Everyone Needs Their Own ThinkingSpace; Digital Garden; Virtual ThinkingSpace; Thinking Tools Companies; Webs Of Thinkers And Thoughts; My CollaborationWare History; Wiki Proliferation; Portal Collaboration Roadmap; Wiki For GroupWare, Overlapping Scopes Of Collaboration, Email Discussion Beside Wiki, Wiki For CollaborationWare, Collaboration Roadmap; Sister Sites; Wiki Hack
Personal Cloud; 2018-11-29-NextOpenInfrastructure, 2018-11-15-BooksVsTweets; Stream/Flow Vs Garden/Stock
Social Warrens; Culture War; 2017-02-15-MindmapCultureWarSocialMediaEconomy; Cultural Pluralism
Fractally Generative Pattern Language, Small Tribe, SimplestThing, Becoming A Reality Hacker, Less-Bullshit Living, The Craft; Games To Play; Evolution, Hack Your Life With A Private Wiki Notebook, Getting Things Done, And Other Systems
Digital Therapeutics, (2021-05-26) Pondering a Mental Health space, CoachBot; Inside-Out Markov Chain