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* GEEK OF THE WEEK: HOW LIFELONG ENTREPRENEUR BOB CRIMMINS’ LITTLE POKER GAME
BALLOONED TO A 2,300-PERSON STARTUP GROUP

1:25pm, 4th August, 2019

* HOW I UNWITTINGLY STEERED OCEANGATE’S SUB TO DISCOVERY IN PUGET SOUND’S
DEPTHS

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019

* NO POOP REQUIRED: RESEARCHERS DEVISE BLOOD TEST FOR GUT MICROBIOME DIVERSITY
USING DATA FROM DEFUNCT STARTUP ARIVALE

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019

* RUSSELL WILSON’S STARTUP TALLY POWERS NEW REAL-TIME PREDICTIONS GAME FOR L.A.
RAMS, SEAHAWKS’ BIG RIVAL

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019

* 13 WAYS TO SCREW OVER YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER

5:03am, 3rd September, 2019

* GEEK OF THE WEEK: HOW LIFELONG ENTREPRENEUR BOB CRIMMINS’ LITTLE POKER GAME
BALLOONED TO A 2,300-PERSON STARTUP GROUP

1:25pm, 4th August, 2019

* HOW I UNWITTINGLY STEERED OCEANGATE’S SUB TO DISCOVERY IN PUGET SOUND’S
DEPTHS

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5

* Previous
* Next

HIGH-TECH COMPRESSION SHORTS MAKER STRIVE AIMS TO MEASURE THE ‘MILES PER GALLON’
OF ATHLETES

10:35am, 3rd August, 2019

HIGH-TECH COMPRESSION SHORTS MAKER STRIVE AIMS TO MEASURE THE ‘MILES PER GALLON’
OF ATHLETES

10:35am, 3rd August, 2019

Startups

NO POOP REQUIRED: RESEARCHERS DEVISE BLOOD TEST FOR GUT MICROBIOME DIVERSITY
USING DATA FROM DEFUNCT STARTUP ARIVALE

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019
Researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle developed a way to
test for microbiome diversity from a blood sample. (Artist rendering courtesy of
ISB) If you want to know what’s going on in your gut microbiome, the community
of bacteria in our intestines that are tied to overall health, there are plenty
of companies willing to help. You just have to pay them — and send in a poop
sample. But it turns out that bottling feces isn’t the only way to gain insights
into the gut. Researchers at the (ISB) in Seattle have devised a new way to look
into the state of your microbiome with a blood test. Microbiome startups have
proliferated in recent years. Some are going after drug discovery for specific
diseases, such as Finch Therapeutics and Maat Pharma. Others, including
Seattle-based , are selling microbiome insights directly to consumers for
overall health. Given the relatively early stage of microbiome research, how
useful insights from the gut can be. That’s why ISB researchers decided to focus
on the diversity of microbes. “There’s not a good correlation between diversity
in and of itself and clinical health. But there are specific cases in which it
does seem to be a huge risk factor,” said, who worked with on the study, which
was published today in Nature Biotechnology. Low microbiome diversity is a
strong risk factor for patients with recurring Clostridium difficile (C. diff),
Gibbons said. C. diff is a potentially life-threatening bacterium that comes
back in nearly a third of patients following antibiotic treatment. ISB
researchers Dr. Nathan Price and Dr. Sean Gibbons. (ISB Photos) “Getting these
recurrent infections is super hard on patients,” Gibbons said. “If you could
avoid that cycle, you could not only decrease the cost of healthcare, you would
actually be saving lives and producing a lot less suffering.” Patients with C.
diff can be treated with a fecal transplant, but those are only administered
after antibiotics have failed. Gibbons thinks that a blood test could pre-screen
patients at risk of recurring C. diff and avoid the painful cycle. Related: To
create the test, researchers leaned heavily on data compiled by Arivale, a
Seattle startup that aimed to help people become healthier and avoid disease
through wellness. in April after it failed to find a market for its pricey
service. But Dr. Lee Hood, who co-founded both Arivale and ISB, rescued much of
the data and technology from the startup and brought it to ISB. That resource
gave Price and Gibbons extensive data on hundreds of former Arivale customers
who had their microbiomes sequenced and their blood tested, among other tests.
The researchers were able to train a model to predict which individuals are
likely to have very low microbiome diversity by looking at 11 blood metabolites.
Arivale customers gave permission for their data to be used for research, and
the information was anonymized. The ISB study is a “beautiful example” of how
personal data clouds can give new insights into biology and disease, Hood told
GeekWire in an email. They also found what they believe to be a “Goldilocks
zone” of gut diversity. People with low diversity tended to have diarrhea and
inflammation, whereas those with very high diversity tended to be constipated or
have toxins in the blood. With the help of Arivale’s data, ISB researchers think
more microbiome-related insights can be found. “We’re trying to build a real map
that can lead to actionable insights of how to manipulate the microbiome,”
Gibbons said. One disadvantage of the dataset is that it skewed toward white,
health-conscious people, who were more likely to be Arivale’s customers. “It is
a bit of a biased sampling,” said Gibbons. In the future, ISB intends to partner
with Providence St. Joseph Health, which would give researchers access to a more
representative population.
Sports Technology

RUSSELL WILSON’S STARTUP TALLY POWERS NEW REAL-TIME PREDICTIONS GAME FOR L.A.
RAMS, SEAHAWKS’ BIG RIVAL

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, right, with Jason LeeKeenan, CEO of
Tally, in Seattle in 2018. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) When the Seattle
Seahawks take on the Los Angeles Rams on Oct. 3 this season, fans might want to
predict how many touchdowns quarterback Russell Wilson will throw against his
division rival on that day. The best way to do so could be through a new mobile
experience from the NFL team that is powered by , the startup that was founded
by Wilson. The Rams launched “Pick’em” for use during a pre-season game against
the Oakland Raiders. The intention is to engage fans to make real-time
predictions as the action unfolds on the field. Fans, playing on the web or
through the Rams’ mobile app, earn points for every correct prediction and those
over 18 can compete for prizes such as game tickets, field passes and
autographed merchandise. Tally is a free-to-play predictions platform, not a
gambling app. But the move by the Rams, along with a , signals what’s ahead with
the eventual spread of legalized sports betting in the wake of a 2018 that
overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. It’s all poised
to change how we watch and interact with live events. Seattle-based Tally, which
employees 14 people now, is an , the company Wilson helped launch in 2017 as a
celebrity content app. TraceMe shut down in 2018 and the business pivoted to the
sports prediction model. Wilson was touting Tally in February. “We believe that
real-time predictive gaming experiences are going to be the critical components
of engaging in live sports in the years to come,” Tally CEO Jason LeeKeenan told
GeekWire. “We are positioning Tally to be the leading technology provider behind
this evolution.” The Tally app, showing, from left, phone authentication,
dynamic odds, and a real-time leaderboard. (Tally screen shots) According to its
website, Tally white labels its user interface, custom branding it for any
property looking to create such content. The Rams are the first NFL team to
partner with Tally. LeeKeenan said other partnerships are in the works, but he
wasn’t ready to announce whether the Seahawks might be one of those teams.
reported that Tally worked with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and the NHL’s
St. Louis Blues on similar games earlier this year. The Rams plan to use the
mobile experience to present a mix of game-specific questions and
micro-outcomes, according to the team’s news release. “Which team completes a
passing play of 30+ yards in the opening half?” or “Which of these players racks
up 10+ rushing yards first?” are example of questions posed to fans. Those
playing can can track their success throughout a game and rankings are updated
in real time as results are tallied live. Point values increase as the game
progresses. “We are thrilled to bring our fans closer to the action with an
engaging second-screen experience,” Marissa Daly, Rams VP of media, said in a
statement. “We feel that our free-to-play predictions game will be a fun way for
fans to compete against one another while watching their Rams compete on the
field.” The Rams have leapfrogged the San Francisco 49ers to emerge as the
Seahawks’ most heated division rival over the past couple seasons. Surely
Seattle’s star QB will be more engaged with winning games on the field than
worrying about predictions being generated in an app built by his company.
Regardless, LeeKeenan makes it sound like Wilson has already won. “What can I
say? Russell is a great entrepreneur and we hope all sports teams will be using
our technology one day,” LeeKeenan said.
Science

HOW I UNWITTINGLY STEERED OCEANGATE’S SUB TO DISCOVERY IN PUGET SOUND’S DEPTHS

5:08am, 3rd September, 2019
POSSESSION SOUND, Wash. — Steering a five-person submersible is like playing a
video game, except for the fact that you’re piloting a nine-ton piece of
hardware at watery depths that are inaccessible to . I got my chance to play
this week during a survey dive in a pocket of Puget Sound known as Possession
Sound, courtesy of , a manufacturer and operator of submersibles that’s
headquartered in Everett, Wash. During our three-hour tour, GeekWire
photographer Kevin Lisota and I were taken around the sound at depths ranging as
low as 350 feet, in OceanGate’s Cyclops submersible. We even played a supporting
role in finding a colony of anemones in an unexpected underwater setting. The
trip was part of a summertime expedition to get a better sense of the ecosystem
on the bottom of Puget Sound, in collaboration with researchers from the
Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. If things had turned out differently, OceanGate
would just now be wrapping up a series of submersible survey dives to the wreck
of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. But , the company had to delay those trips
until next year. That’s why OceanGate pivoted to the Puget Sound survey, and why
Kevin and I found ourselves scrunched alongside marine biologist Tyler Coleman,
pilot-in-training Mikayla Monroe and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush on Tuesday. We
began the morning with a safety briefing at the dock at Everett’s marina, led by
Dan Scoville, OceanGate’s director of systems integration and marine operations.
One of his bits of advice had to do with keeping calm if you hear thumps and
bumps on Cyclops’ hull. “If you can hear it, you’re OK,” he said. If there’s a
catastrophic collision and breach, you wouldn’t be around long enough to hear
it. Then the Cyclops was towed out on its launch-and-recovery platform to
Possession Sound by one of the boats in OceanGate’s fleet, the Kraken. A little
more than an hour later, the Cyclops was in position, and we headed out to meet
it on a faster boat, the Vito. Once we were dropped off on the floating
platform, we handed up our backpacks, took our shoes off and climbed into
Cyclops’ 5-foot-wide cabin. Mikayla sat on a mat toward the back, flanked by
video screens that showed camera views and sonar readings. Stockton sat next to
her, ready to give guidance. Tyler sat in the middle. Kevin and I had front-row
seats, looking through Cyclops’ hemispherical acrylic viewing window. We let our
stocking-clad feet rest on the window’s bottom, even though we were warned that
we might feel the chill of the water on the other side. Once all the final
checks were made, the crew members on the Vito, the Kraken, the platform and in
the submersible took a five-minute timeout, known as a “stopski,” just to make
completely sure all systems were go. (The idea — suggested by Scott Parazynski,
a former NASA astronaut — was inspired by the built-in holds that are included
in space launch countdowns.) Then it was time to dive. First the launch and
recovery platform blew the compressed air out of its flotation tanks, in a
process that had us dipping down backward into the water at a 20-degree angle.
Green-tinted water sloshed wildly over our field of view. “Is this a freakout
moment for some people?” I asked Stockton. “I haven’t run across that yet,” he
replied. “You could be our first.” GeekWire’s Alan Boyle takes notes as he looks
out the window of OceanGate’s Cyclops submersible. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin
Lisota) Within minutes, we were sinking below the photic zone, where sunlight
could penetrate to fuel the green plankton that tinted the waters. The view
outside was total darkness, until Mikayla turned on the floodlights on each side
of our window. Even then, plankton and the other particles floating in
nutrient-rich Puget Sound cut the visibility to just a few feet around us.
Mikayla relied on sonar readings to determine our depth, and on GPS readings to
determine our heading. Our first destination was right beneath us: We headed for
a wire cage containing a pile of salmon guts, which was dropped down on a line
from a buoy to attract whatever creatures were foraging at the bottom. When we
pulled up to the cage, we saw a smattering of rockfish (of the quillback and
canary varieties), with 4-inch-long prawns and an occasional crab skittering
through the scene, looking for a meal. The prime targets for OceanGate’s survey
are shark species, and especially the rare, crowd-pleasing sixgill shark. We
hoped to follow in the footsteps of Seattle rap musician Macklemore, who when he
went looking for Puget Sound sixgills in a different Oceangate sub. We saw no
sixgills, but we did catch sight of a slim, spiny dogflsh shark as it threaded
its way around the bait box. “So we had our first official shark?” I asked
Tyler. “Yup,” he said. Marine biologist Tyler Coleman identified this fish as a
dogfish shark. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Then we headed off to a wide
stretch of muddy bottom, punctuated by holes that provided shelter for the
prawns and other bottom-feeding critters. Stockton sidled over to me, holding
the modified Sony PlayStation game controller that’s used to steer the sub.
“Want to drive?” he said. It took me a while to get the hang of the controls:
The front buttons serve as “dead man’s switches,” which have to be pressed in
order to activate the controller’s dual joysticks. The left joystick controls
the up and down thrusters, and the right joystick controls horizontal thrusters
for forward and back, left and right. Simple, right? Nevertheless, I
occasionally rose high enough to lose sight of the bottom, and sank low enough
to plop the sub into the mud and send clouds of sediment rising up in front of
our window. To get ourselves out of those obscuring clouds, I had to drive the
sub out of the haze into clearer waters. At least there were no rocks to run
into, which is why Stockton and Mikayla brought us to a field of mud before they
handed me the controller. After a few minutes of meandering, Mikayla reported
that there was something showing up on the sonar, about 15 meters dead ahead.
Stockton took back the controller, and guided by Mikayla’s callouts, he brought
us right up to what looked like a garden of cauliflowers, plunked in the middle
of an underwater desert. It turned out that a tree stump had sunk 350 feet to
the bottom, heaven knows how many years ago, and a colony of anemones had taken
root there. Stockton was impressed, and he told Mikayla to take note of the
coordinates. “The visibility is probably 10 feet today, but we can get 5 feet
away, so that’s OK,” Stockton told me. “Imagine trying to find this if you were
diving. … Nobody’s ever seen this log before, I’ll bet you even money.” Toward
the end of the tour, we returned to the area where bait had been dropped to the
bottom. Mikayla turned the lights off, waited for a school of rockfish to swim
in front of our window, and then turned the lights back on so we could snap
photos. When it was time to ascend, we rose through the dark murk and back into
the sunlit green haze near the surface. Kevin and I were deputized to watch for
the whitish outline of OceanGate’s launch-and-recovery platform, anchored a few
meters below. It took a couple of tries to get properly “locked in” on the
platform, due to a balky thruster. I was feeling grateful that Mikayla and
Stockton were at the controls (and hoping I hadn’t damaged the thruster during
my training session). At last we were locked in and lifted up. The sun seemed
unusually bright as we climbed back up through the hatch and were motored back
to shore. On the way back, Stockton talked about OceanGate’s plans to bring the
submersible experience to a wider audience. “Diving’s no fun after you’ve been
in a sub,” he said. Taking people down to the Titanic is still OceanGate’s prime
objective: The submersible that’s designed for that role, which was initially
called Cyclops II but is now known as Titan, proved it could safely get to
Titanic-worthy depths this year . The postponement of the means there’s not a
lot for Titan to do until next summer. It’s currently being prepped for an extra
round of stress tests, plus equipment upgrades that should smooth the way for
the 2020 season. OceanGate’s Titanic customers are paying to participate in the
adventure as mission specialists, and most of them are keeping their
reservations despite the delay. Stockton said that OceanGate’s subs — including
Cyclops and Titan as well as the two-person Antipodes — are currently certified
for research missions such as the Titanic expedition, but not for more casual
tourist jaunts. Another perspective: Now OceanGate is seeking waivers from the
Coast Guard that would allow the company to offer submersible tours for
something like $1,000 or $2,000 per person. That’s more than operators in Hawaii
charge for submarine tours, but those tours go only 100 feet beneath the surface
and last only 45 minutes or so. OceanGate’s tourists would get an experience
even more thrilling than ours — assuming that the regulatory go-ahead is given.
“It’ll probably be six to 12 months before we get approval,” Stockton told me.
Stockton and his team of 27 employees are also looking into whether their subs
can be used for infrastructure inspection and environmental surveys. And they’re
planning to build a bigger, better submersible called Cyclops III, which could
handle depths of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet). To help fund those projects,
OceanGate is in the midst of a that was reported to the Securities and Exchange
Commission in April. So what’s tougher? Navigating the depths of Puget Sound, or
negotiating the shoals of the startup world? , Stockton Rush is clearly adept at
doing both. But personally, I’d rather be steering the sub. Correction for 4:36
p.m. PT Sept. 1: In a previous version of this report, we incorrectly identified
a ratfish as a dogfish shark. We’ve amended the ID for the ratfish, and added a
video screengrab of the dogfish. Woof! Also, we’ve corrected the anticipated
cost of a submersible tour to be $1,000 to $2,000 per person, instead of per
day.
Gadgets

13 WAYS TO SCREW OVER YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER

5:03am, 3rd September, 2019
Internet providers are real bastards: they have captive audiences whom they
squeeze for every last penny while they fight against regulation like net
neutrality and donate immense amounts of money to keep on lawmakers’ good sides.
So why not turn the tables? Here are 13 ways to make sure your ISP has a hard
time taking advantage of you (and may even put it on the defensive). Disclosure:
Verizon, an internet provider guilty of all these infractions, owns TechCrunch,
and I don’t care. 1. Buy a modem and router instead of renting The practice of
renting a device to users rather than selling it or providing it as part of the
service is one of the telecommunications industry’s oldest and worst. People pay
hundreds or even thousands of dollars over years for equipment worth $40 or $50.
ISPs do this with various items, but the most common item is probably the modem.
This is the gadget that connects to the cable coming out of your wall, and then
connects in turn (or may also function as) your wireless and wired router. ISPs
often provide this equipment at the time of install, and then charge you $5 to
$10 per month forever. What they don’t tell you is you can probably buy the
exact same item for somewhere between $30 and $100. The exact model you need
will depend on your service, but it will be listed somewhere, and they should
tell you what they’d provide if you ask. Look online, buy a new or lightly used
one, and it will have paid for itself before the year is out. Not only that, but
you can do stuff like upgrade or change the software on it all you want, because
it’s yours. Bonus: The ISP is limited in what it can do to the router (like
letting other people connect — yes, it’s a thing). 2. Avoid service calls, or if
you can’t, insist they’re free I had an issue with my internet a while back that
took them several visits from a service tech to resolve. It wasn’t an issue on
my end, which was why I was surprised to find they’d charged me $30 or so every
time the person came. If your ISP wants to send someone out, ask whether it’s
free, and if it isn’t, tell them to make it free or ask if you can do it
yourself (sometimes it’s for really simple stuff like swapping a cable). If they
charge you for a visit, call them and ask them to take it off your bill. Say you
weren’t informed and you’ll inform the Better Business Bureau about it, or take
your business elsewhere, or something. They’ll fold. When someone does come… 3.
Get deals from the installer If you do end up having someone come out, talk to
them to see whether there are any off the record deals they can offer you. I
don’t mean anything shady like splitting cables with the neighbor, just offers
they know about that aren’t publicized because they’re too good to advertise. A
lot of these service techs are semi-independent contractors paid by the call,
and their pay has nothing to do with which service you have or choose. They have
no reason to upsell you and every reason to make you happy and get a good
review. Sometimes that means giving you the special desperation rates ISPs
withhold until you say you’re going to leave. And as long as you’re asking… 4.
Complain, complain, complain This sounds bad, but it’s just a consequence of how
these companies work: The squeaky wheels get the grease. There’s plenty of
grease to go around, so get squeaking. Usually this means calling up and doing
one of several things. You can complain that service has been bad — outages and
such — and ask that they compensate you for that. You can say that a competing
ISP started offering service at your location and it costs $20 less, so can they
match that. Or you can say your friend just got a promotional rate and you’d
like to take advantage of it… otherwise you’ll leave to that phantom competitor.
(After all, we know there’s often little or no real competition.) What ISPs,
and, more importantly, what their customer service representatives care about is
keeping you on as a customer. They can always raise rates or upsell you later,
but having you as a subscriber is the important thing. Note that some reps are
more game than others. Some will give you the runaround, while others will bend
over backwards to help you out. Feel free to call a few times and do a bit of
window shopping. (By the way, if you get someone nice, give them a good review
if you get the chance, usually right after the call or chat. It helps them out a
lot.) Obviously you can’t call every week with new demands, so wait until you
think you can actually save some money. Which reminds me… 5. Choose your service
level wisely ISPs offer a ton of choices, and make it confusing on purpose so
you end up picking an expensive one just to be sure you have what you need. The
truth is most people can probably do pretty much everything they need on the
lowest tier they offer. A 1080p stream will work fine on a 25 Mbps connection,
which is what I have. I also work entirely online, stream high-def videos at a
dozen sites all day, play games, download movies and do lots of other stuff,
sometimes all at the same time. I think I pay $45 a month. But rates like mine
might not be advertised prominently or at all. I only found out when I literally
asked what the cheapest possible option was. That said, if you have three kids
who like to watch videos simultaneously, or you have a 4K streaming setup that
you use a lot, you’ll want to bump that up a bit. But you’d be surprised how
seldom the speed limit actually comes into play. To be clear, it’s still
important that higher tiers are available, and that internet providers upgrade
their infrastructure, because competition and reliability need to go up and
prices need to come down. The full promise of broadband should be accessible to
everyone for a reasonable fee, and that’s still not the case. 6. Stream
everything because broadcast TV is a joke Cord-cutting is fun. Broadcast TV is
annoying, and getting around ads and air times using a DVR is very 2005. Most
shows are available on streaming services of some kind or another, and while
those services are multiplying, you could probably join all of them for well
under what you’re paying for the 150 cable channels you never watch. Unless you
really need to watch certain games or news shows as they’re broadcast, you can
get by streaming everything. This has the side effect of starving networks of
viewers and accelerating the demise of these 20th-century relics. Good ones will
survive as producers and distributors of quality programming, and you can
support them individually on their own merits. It’s a weird transitional time
for TV, but we need to drop-kick them into the future so they’ll stop charging
us for a media structure established 50 years ago. Something isn’t available on
a streaming service? 100 percent chance it’s because of some dumb exclusivity
deal or licensing SNAFU. Go pirate it for now, then happily pay for it as soon
as it’s made available. This method is simple for you and instructive for media
companies. (They always see piracy rates drop when they make things easy to find
and purchase.) This also lets you avoid certain fees ISPs love tacking onto your
bill. I had a “broadcast TV fee” on my bill despite not having any kind of
broadcast service, and I managed to get it taken off and retroactively paid
back. On that note… 7. Watch your bill like a hawk Telecoms just love putting
things on your bill with no warning. It’s amazing how much a bill can swell from
the quoted amount once they’ve added all the little fees, taxes and service
charges. What are they, anyway? Why not call and ask? You might find out, as I
did, that your ISP had “mistakenly” been charging you for something — like
equipment — that you never had nor asked for. Amazing how these lucrative little
fees tend to fall through the cracks! Small charges often increase and new ones
get added as well, so download your bill when you get it and keep it somewhere
(or just keep the paper copies). These are really handy to have when you’re on
the phone with a rep. “Why wasn’t I informed my bill would increase this month
by $50?” “Why is this fee more now than it was in July?” “Why do I pay a
broadcast fee if I don’t pay for TV?” These are the types of questions that get
you discounts. Staying on top of these fees also means you’ll be more aware when
there are things like mass refunds or class action lawsuits about them. Usually
these have to be opted into — your ISP isn’t going to call you, apologize and
send a check. As long as you’re looking closely at your bill… 8. Go to your
account and opt out of everything When you sign up for broadband service, you’re
going to get opted into a whole heap of things. They don’t tell you about these,
like the ads they can inject, the way they’re selling this or that data or that
your router might be used as a public Wi-Fi hotspot. You’ll only find this out
if you go to your account page at your ISP’s website and look at everything.
Beyond the usual settings like your address and choice of whether to receive a
paper bill, you’ll probably find a few categories like “privacy” and
“communications preferences.” Click through all of these and look for any
options to opt out of stuff. You may find that your ISP has reserved the right
to let partners email you, use your data in ways you wouldn’t expect and so on.
It only takes a few minutes to get out of all this, and it deprives the ISP of a
source of income while also providing a data point that subscribers don’t like
these practices. 9. Share your passwords Your friend’s internet provider gets
him streaming services A, B and C, while yours gives you X, Y and Z. Again, this
is not about creators struggling to get their content online, but rather all
about big media and internet corporations striking deals that make them money
and harm consumers. Share your (unique, not reused!) passwords widely and with a
clean conscience. No company objects when you invite your friends over to watch
“Fleabag” at your house. This just saves everyone a drive! 10. Encrypt
everything and block trackers One of the internet companies’ many dirty little
deals is collecting and selling information on their customers’ watching and
browsing habits. Encrypting your internet traffic puts the kibosh on this creepy
practice — as well as being good security. This isn’t really something you can
do too much to accomplish, since over the last few years encryption has become
the rule rather than the exception, even at sites where you don’t log in or buy
anything. If you want to be sure, download a browser plug-in like HTTPS
everywhere, which opts you into a secure connection anywhere it’s available. You
can tell it’s secure because the URL says “https://” instead of “http://” — and
most browsers have other indicators or warnings as well. You should also use an
ad blocker, not necessarily to block ads that keep outlets like TechCrunch alive
(please), but to block trackers seeded across the web by companies that use
sophisticated techniques to record everything you do. ISPs are among these
and/or do business with them, so everything you can do to hinder them is a
little mud in their eye. Incidentally there are lots of ways you can protect
your privacy from those who would invade it — . 11. Use a different DNS Bryce
Durbin / TechCrunch On a similar note, most ISPs will usually be set up by
default with their own “Domain Name Service,” which is the thing that your
browser pings to convert a text web URL (like “techcrunch.com”) to its numerical
IP address. There are lots of these to choose from, and they all work, but if
you use your ISP’s, it makes it much easier for them to track your internet
activity. They also can block certain websites by refusing to provide the IP for
content they don’t like. TechCrunch doesn’t officially endorse one, but lots of
companies offer free, fast DNS that’s easy to switch to. ; there are big ones
(Google, Cloudflare), “open” ones (OpenDNS, OpenNIC) and others with some niche
features. All you need to do is slot those two numbers into your internet
configuration, following the instructions they provide. You can change it back
at any time. is another option for very privacy-conscious individuals, but it
can be complicated. And speaking of complicated… 12. Run a home server This is a
bit advanced, but it’s definitely something ISPs hate. Setting up your home
computer or a dedicated device to host a website, script or service seems like a
natural use of an always-on internet connection, but just about everyone in the
world would rather you sign up for their service, hosted on their hardware and
their connection. Well, you don’t have to! You can do it on your own. Of course,
you’ll have to learn how to run and install a probably Unix-based server, handle
registry stuff, install various packages and keep up to date so you don’t get
owned by some worm or bot… but you’ll have defied the will of the ISP. That’s
the important thing. 13. Talk to your local government ISPs hate all the things
above, but what they hate the most by far is regulation. And you, as a valued
citizen of your state and municipality, are in a position to demand it.
Senators, representatives, governors, mayors, city councils and everyone else
actually love to hear from their constituency, not because they desire
conversation but because they can use it to justify policy. During the net
neutrality fight, a constant refrain I heard from government officials was how
much they’d heard from voters about the issue and how unanimous it was (in
support, naturally). A call or email from you won’t sway national politics, but
a few thousand calls or emails from people in your city just might sway a local
law or election. These things add up, and they do matter. State net neutrality
policies are now the subject of national attention, and local privacy laws like
those in Illinois are the bane of many a shady company. Tell your local
government about your experience with ISPs — outages, fees, sneaky practices or
even good stuff — and they’ll file it away for when that data is needed, such as
renegotiating the contracts national companies sign with those governments in
order to operate in their territories. Internet providers only do what they do
because they are permitted to, and even then they often step outside the bounds
of what’s acceptable — which is why rules like net neutrality are needed. But
first people have to speak out.
Startups

GEEK OF THE WEEK: HOW LIFELONG ENTREPRENEUR BOB CRIMMINS’ LITTLE POKER GAME
BALLOONED TO A 2,300-PERSON STARTUP GROUP

1:25pm, 4th August, 2019
Bob Crimmins with his daughters on the day they met their Kickstarter goal for
the ‘Wise Walker.’ There are plenty of stories of entrepreneurs who got their
start in dorm rooms and garages, but how many can trace their startup hustle
back to the playground? At 12-years-old, Bob Crimmins began his education in
entrepreneurship by upselling lollipops from 7-Eleven to his classmates,
learning a valuable lesson in demand-based pricing. As a kid, Crimmins also
worked for his family’s businesses and went door-to-door selling custom
glasswork he made. Entrepreneurship and innovation often go hand-and-hand, and
Crimmins was no exception. “I wrote my first program on punch cards in 1978, a
time when it was neither cool nor lucrative to be a 15-year-old programmer,” he
said. Crimmins founded his first tech startup in 1999 and went on to launch four
more after that. Along the way, he started a poker game for friends in the
startup community. That was back in 2006. Fast-forward to 2019 and what began as
a casual gathering has grown into Startup Haven, a community for entrepreneurs
with chapters in six cities and 2,300 members. Up until now, Crimmins estimates
he dedicated about 15 percent of his time to Startup Haven. This year he decided
to make it his full-time gig so he can continue to scale the organization. He
plans to expand Startup Haven to three additional cities in 2019 and 10 in 2020.
Members must qualify as “venture-scale” founders before they are accepted into
Startup Haven. In addition to regular poker games, the group hosts founder
dinners and other events each month. Crimmins still makes time for the
occasional side hustle, like , a startup he founded with his daughters. Together
they designed a clip-on carrying case for dog owners to stash smelly poop bags
on walks. Related: “The most rewarding experience I’ve ever had as an
entrepreneur and as a father was teaching my twin daughters about
entrepreneurship by actually co-founding a company with them,” he said. We
caught up with Crimmins for this Geek of the Week. Learn more about his journey
and Startup Haven below. What do you do, and why do you do it? In 2006, I
started asking folks I knew if they wanted to learn how to play poker. Since
virtually everyone I knew at the time was a startup founder, exec or investor,
that’s who joined in. Learning the game was fun but what fascinated me was the
relationships that were formed by the folks around the table. Seeing the impact
of those relationships was amazing and it inspired me to keep the game going and
growing. Fast forward a dozen years and that humble monthly card game took on a
life of its own and became what is now Startup Haven, a founder support
community with more than 2,300 founder, exec and investor members in six cities.
We still host that fun, invite-only, low-stakes poker event every month in all
six of our chapter cities (we have hosted more 300 Startup Poker 2.0 events so
far)! But if you’re not a Startup Haven member then the reasons we play poker
are probably not what you think. I have written extensively about . If you’re a
full time, venture-scale founder or an active startup investor, you might find
it interesting. Over the years, Startup Haven has become much more than just a
poker event. We have hosted hundreds of Founders Dinner events, dozens of
special educational events. Beginning in 2019, scaling Startup Haven’s impact
has became my full-time focus and over the past few months, we have launched a
members-only recruiting program, an accelerator program and an investor matching
program. Startup Haven started a personal passion project and it will always
remain that. But scaling requires a different mindset and that makes it feel
like a startup. It’s an exciting time. What’s the single most important thing
people should know about your field? My “field” these days is helping founders
succeed more by failing less. Startups fail so often that it’s a wonder why
everyone hasn’t just stopped trying. A “Top 10” list of the reasons why startups
fail would include a hundred reasons. This stuff is hard and there is no silver
bullet, but I have come to believe that relationships and cogency are the two
best hedges against failure. I’ll buy dinner for the first person to convince me
otherwise. These principles are precisely what motivated me to keep Startup
Haven going for all these years and it’s why I’m genuinely excited about the new
. Where do you find your inspiration? My daughters. Humble founders. The
magnitude of human experience. What’s the one piece of technology you couldn’t
live without, and why? CNC lasers. I reckon I use mine three to four days a week
— there’s always something to make, to fix, to experiment with. Growing Startup
Haven has made that more difficult lately but it’s always on my mind and if it’s
been more than a week since I’ve had the opportunity then I really miss it.
What’s your workspace like, and why does it work for you? I’m a nomad. I work
out of a backpack. As a community organizer and a mentor, I spend time at a
variety of co-working spaces around town. I’m currently working primarily out of
Thinkspace, which I love. Crimmins at the Columbia Tower Club, where he often
works. Your best tip or trick for managing everyday work and life. Everyone in
the startup world is perpetually overcommitted. So protecting your calendar can
be a superpower. Largely, this amounts to figuring out how to say “no”
respectfully, helpfully, and more often. Mac, Windows or Linux? Windows. Kirk,
Picard, or Janeway? Picard. But, go Janeway! Transporter, time machine or cloak
of invisibility? Philosopher’s Stone is missing from the list, so I’ll go with
time machine. However, I will travel back in time to the moment the cloak of
invisibility was discovered and find it myself the day before. Then I would
travel forward in time to whenever the Philosophers Stone becomes and option. If
someone gave me $1 million to launch a startup, I would Put the money in the
bank and use the interest to fund experiments with the aim of developing a
cogent startup thesis that warrants putting $1 million to work at day zero. I
once waited in line for: I waited in line to see Star Wars when it first hit the
theaters. Your role models: I often find myself channeling great entrepreneurs
and investors I’ve known. What would Andy do? What would Dan do? What would TA
do? What would Chris do? What would Dave do? Without fail, I immediately see the
issue/questions/challenge/decision in a new light. It’s palpable. I don’t always
take the action I think they would but I’m always informed by what I think their
perspective would be. Of course, I could be terribly wrong about what they would
actually do if I were to ask them, but the exercise is so effective and
immediate that I wouldn’t want to break it by actually asking them. Besides,
none of them have time to take speed dial calls from Bob. Greatest game in
history: D&D. Viva la imagination. Best gadget ever: Staedtler 2.0mm mechanical
pencil … and paper. First computer: I learned to program on VAX-11 in high
school, then got excited about computers with my best friend’s TRS-80. I really
wanted the Osborne 1 to be my first computer but they were so expensive that I
had to eventually settle for building an IBM XT Clone. Current phone: Samsung
S8+. Every time someone switches from an iPhone to an Android, an angel gets its
wings. Favorite app: I love, love, love Audible. Audiobooks are a secret weapon
for sure. I even read the Mueller report in less than two weeks while driving to
and from meetings. Favorite cause: My “favorite” is youth entrepreneurship,
which I think is an important and valuable cause and it’s something I think I am
especially equipped to help with. But I don’t think it’s nearly as important as
so much other work that needs to be done in the world. Most important technology
of 2019: Boring old social media has proven its ability to fundamentally subvert
democracy. That needs to be fixed. I can’t think of much that’s more important
than that. Most important technology of 2021: AI … for as far out as our
headlights go. Final words of advice for your fellow geeks: My advice is for
early entrepreneurs. Having good ideas is easy. The hard part is determining
whether and how some good idea or other could also be a successful business —
before you sacrifice your savings account, your relationships and your emotional
health. Mostly, good ideas turn out not to be good businesses. And to be clear,
I’m not just talking about the ideas that only half the room thinks are good.
I’m also talking about the ideas where everyone in the room thinks the idea is
good, i.e., that the problem should be solved, that the product should exist and
that the world would be a better place with your startup in it. If it were only
the marginally good ideas that failed then the startup failure rate would not be
in the neighborhood of 95 percent. Aye, the allure of an idea that everyone
tells you is “such a good idea” is irresistible. Coupled with your passion,
confidence and ambition, keeping an open mind about whether your good idea can
also be a good business is super hard. So hard that you barely paused before
jumping off the cliff. Reid Hoffman famously described entrepreneurship as the
act of jumping off that cliff and building a plane on the way down. He is right.
But he didn’t say you had to design the plane on the way down. You can do a lot
to figure out which planes might possibly be built in the distance from the top
of the cliff to the bottom. Of course, certainty is impossible; but there are
ways to reduce your chances of disintegrating on impact at the bottom of the
cliff. Passion is helpful, even necessary; but it’s not sufficient. You also
need a lot of customer development, some math and a little critical thinking.
Constantly be on the lookout for assumptions you are making, i.e., what would
have to be true in order for your startup to be a good business? Notice that
this is a different question than “what would have to be true in order for your
startup to be a good idea.” Ideas don’t come with labels that identify them as a
good business or not. You have to figure that out yourself. To do that, talk to
lots of customers and then identify and quantify as many of your assumptions as
possible and model them in a spreadsheet. If you can’t tell a cogent and
quantifiable story about how you could get from here to there (wherever you
think “there” should be) then you are operating at a ridiculously high level of
uncertainly and risk. Founder, meet cliff.
* How I unwittingly steered OceanGate’s sub to discovery in Puget Sound’s
depths
* No poop required: Researchers devise blood test for gut microbiome diversity
using data from defunct startup Arivale
* Russell Wilson’s startup Tally powers new real-time predictions game for L.A.
Rams, Seahawks’ big rival
* 13 ways to screw over your internet provider

* How I unwittingly steered OceanGate’s sub to discovery in Puget Sound’s
depths
* No poop required: Researchers devise blood test for gut microbiome diversity
using data from defunct startup Arivale
* Russell Wilson’s startup Tally powers new real-time predictions game for L.A.
Rams, Seahawks’ big rival
* 13 ways to screw over your internet provider
* Geek of the Week: How lifelong entrepreneur Bob Crimmins’ little poker game
ballooned to a 2,300-person startup group
* High-tech compression shorts maker Strive aims to measure the ‘miles per
gallon’ of athletes
* High-tech compression shorts maker Strive aims to measure the ‘miles per
gallon’ of athletes
* Google Cloud vets launch Seattle startup Kaskada to bolster machine learning
tech with real-time data
* Backed by Bill Gates, Echodyne plays role in a pioneering flight of a drone
on its own
* Watch a Tesla Model 3 play chess against the top-ranked player in the US

#1 #1044 #1111 #14 #2018 #43 #47 #52
#5minshairstyle#easyhairstyle#easyweddinghairstyle#easybridalhairstyle#hairstyle
#77 #82 #abcc#exchange#best #abexercises #abs #ada #adidaswomen #aesthetics
#altcoins #anastasia

STARTUPS

Startups

NO POOP REQUIRED: RESEARCHERS DEVISE BLOOD TEST FOR GUT MICROBIOME DIVERSITY
USING DATA FROM DEFUNCT STARTUP ARIVALE

GEEK OF THE WEEK: HOW LIFELONG ENTREPRENEUR BOB CRIMMINS’ LITTLE POKER GAME
BALLOONED TO A 2,300-PERSON STARTUP GROUP

1:25pm, 4th August, 2019
Startups

HIGH-TECH COMPRESSION SHORTS MAKER STRIVE AIMS TO MEASURE THE ‘MILES PER GALLON’
OF ATHLETES

10:35am, 3rd August, 2019

GADGETS

Gadgets

13 WAYS TO SCREW OVER YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER

WATCH A TESLA MODEL 3 PLAY CHESS AGAINST THE TOP-RANKED PLAYER IN THE US

4:25pm, 1st August, 2019
Gadgets

WATCH A TESLA MODEL 3 PLAY CHESS AGAINST THE TOP-RANKED PLAYER IN THE U.S.

2:15pm, 1st August, 2019

SPORTS TECHNOLOGY

Sports Technology

RUSSELL WILSON’S STARTUP TALLY POWERS NEW REAL-TIME PREDICTIONS GAME FOR L.A.
RAMS, SEAHAWKS’ BIG RIVAL

HIGH-TECH COMPRESSION SHORTS MAKER STRIVE AIMS TO MEASURE THE ‘MILES PER GALLON’
OF ATHLETES

10:35am, 3rd August, 2019
Sports Technology

NEW GUY ON LINKEDIN, SEAHAWKS COACH PETE CARROLL RACES SCOOTERS DURING MICROSOFT
‘MINDSET’ TRAINING

3:39am, 31st July, 2019

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