[…] the nostalgia cycles have become so short that we even try to inject the present moment with sentimentality, for example, by using certain digital filters to “pre-wash” photos with an aura of historicity. Nostalgia needs time. One cannot accelerate meaningful remembrance.

From Christy Wampole’s How to Live Without Irony.

WordPress.com now accepts payments via Bitcoin, possibly the largest internet service yet to adopt it. I find Bitcoin intrinsically interesting as a crypto-currency, but it also might open up our premium services to folks who couldn’t use them before. It’s been fun to watch the store engine of WP.com evolve behind the scenes. In other WordPress.com news, there are now verticals for municipalities and bands, and we compiled an incomplete list of best-selling authors on WordPress.

Rolling Jubilee is a non-profit that takes donations to buy distressed debt for pennies on the dollar, and then abolishes it. Donate $100 and they can take $2,000 off someone’s back. Seems like an amazing random act of kindness, you’ll never know who you helped.

US Technology Agenda

Asides

Wired writes on The 8 Missions That Should Dominate Obama’s Technology Agenda. I’m quoted there, but here are my full responses to the questions they asked:

1. First off, how did you monitor the election results – phone, TV, twitter laptop, twitter, bar stool?

I was at a friend’s house with about a dozen people watching mostly CNN, and reading Tweetbot on an iPad Mini.

2. As someone leading a tech company (or as an investor), what are you looking for the president to do over the next four years? Are there priorities you have that the White House could help you achieve? Either from a business perspective, or a technological/hiring/infrastructure point of view?

At a macro level I hope the President keeps the economy on a path to recovery, and stays on the right side of anti-internet efforts like SOPA. What we’re building with the web is too early to be marginalized by special interests so early in its growth.

On a personal level, I hope he keeps fighting for protections and privileges under the law for my non-straight colleagues.

But the most important things we need to do will likely not have a big effect before 2016. As a country America needs to invest in its infrastructure, particularly broadband, education, particularly STEM, and in streamlining immigration, so the best and brightest who come to our shores aren’t shown the door when they graduate from one of the leading universities in the world. Four years is too short of a timeframe for these investments to pay off but that’s okay because I’m in business for the long run and I want to see our country strengthen and prosper over generations, not just the next economic cycle.

3. Were there any other races, measures etc. that you were particularly interested in, and why? What was the outcome, and why did you care so much?

I followed a few of the senate and house races, mostly as they related to SOPA and PIPA, and the state marriage equality measures.

4. Or, does all this politics stuff have zero bearing on what you are doing?

Even though the political process often frustrates me, I’ve seen its ability to influence the lives of my friends, family, and colleagues too many times to ignore it any more.