reecepacheco

of course i love this.

lacrosse:

New Nike Commiercial: “The Human Chain”

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-14)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

The Season is Here… it’s Always Here.

Lacrosse, per NCAA definition, is a “spring” sport. I know it’s February and there’s snow on the ground outside my window, but games have started so to me, it’s spring.

Five years ago, I’d be cranking through classes all day before a team lift (always legs on Monday), then I’d put in 2.5 hours battling through drills on a turf field on the roof of the Brown gymnasium, (Yes, on the roof. No, it wasn’t cool. It was cold, windy, and half the field was covered in building exhaust… ok, yeah, we sort of relished it), then we’d head inside to watch game film for 30 minutes and finally sit in the ice bath to soak up the soreness.

The coolest part was I did all of this surrounded by 40 other guys who all had the same mission as I - win game #1. Then #2, #3, #4 and so on…

These days, my competitive career is entirely different.

I probably stay more active in lacrosse than my teammates on the NYAC. Already this year I took a trip to Miami to play in a tournament. I had a blast playing with some other amazing players, the competition was solid and I even took an 80mph shot in the ribs that has been painfully reminding me of the trip for a month now. (Seriously, this bruised rib is one of the most nagging injuries I’ve ever had).

And last weekend, I headed back to Brown with some other alums for a preseason scrimmage against the current Bears team (Unsurprisingly, Providence hadn’t warmed up since I graduated. Wind chill had the temp around 7 degrees). Still, it was a great day and us veterans were able to pull out a close win over the young pups.

The win was fun for a moment, but there was still a fundamental lacking for me and I’m realizing how much I miss the bonding of a team working towards a common goal and the inherently high level of competition on a daily basis.

Sure, when my NYAC team starts up soon we will all be focused on winning our 4th straight A.L.L. Championship, but we don’t even practice. We just show up on Sundays and play. It’s easier on the calendar, but I know deep down every teammate of mine, and every true competitor out there, needs that battle and that feeling of true team.

But since my lacrosse career won’t last forever, I’ve assembled a new team (different “sport”), uber-competitive, we all have the same mission… and this game is played 24/7.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez

ok… i’ll bite and post a Valentine’s tune. amazingly beautiful song.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

ditto.

headunderwater:

Bob Marley - Turn Your Lights Down Low

I like my love songs old school.

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

via @AustinBryan

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of themetacognitive ability to realize it”.^[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”^[1]

^{…but once the intelligent get confident, it is a powerful mix.}

I am very fortunate to have grown up in the restaurant business, with a father who cares about eating well and a mother who grew fresh vegetables in our garden. Not everyone is that lucky, and it’s a shame that America is consequently in such bad shape (literally).

Oliver’s TED talk is brilliant and I hope his wish comes true.

brycedotvc:

One of the most powerful TED talks I’ve seen. This is part of the problem we’re hoping to attack via our investment in Local Dirt.

Brilliant. Competition FTW.

@bryce:

Dear Google,

Bright and early I logged into one of my favorite services and saw this news.

You’ve been catching a lot of heat lately. The echo chamber seems to think you want to be everything to everybody. As though dominating our search box wasn’t enough, now you want to control our friendships, our health records, what we carry in our pockets and the pipes into our homes.

I for one welcome out new overlord. Not because you will dominate in all of these categories or even do any of them all that well. Frankly, I think many of the powerful subtleties of these servies and devices will be lost on you.

No, I welcome you because each time you plant a stake in the ground it makes everyone uncomfortable. It makes them nervous. Because as much as we love to hate you, your engineers and your reach scare us.

You see, we need competition. It brings the best out of us. We can fall into the rut of seeing nice month over month growth and increasing market share that leads to high fives ‘round the board room tables for meeting our modest metrics. As true as this scenario is in start ups, its even more true in large companies who’ve been holding back innovation in the fields of mobile, media, telecom, energy, health and education.

Yes, you’ll make missteps and may never gain the kind of presence in any of these categories that you have in search, but I don’t think that’s your point. I think you see the same complacency we see in very large markets and want to rattle the cages to remind us we’re all still alive and we all need to compete every day to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.

Look, I’ll probably never own a Nexus One, but I think my iPhone will be better for having you put Apple’s feet to the fire. I may never switch from Comcast, but I bet they’ll up their service level and bandwidth speeds with you in the market. And I may never store my health records with you, but I bet we’ll get closer to a transparent health system with you in the mix.

So, thank you Google for a reminder that the aim of competition is to bring the best out of us all. Oh, and, Game On!

XOXO,

bryce.vc

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Something Good Can Work - Two Door Cinema Club

heavy rotation for me since I heard it on @WOXY recently. very catchy. enjoy.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

bijan:

Heaven’s On Fire - The Radio Dept

this band is trending on the Hype Machine right now. I can see why.