This is a pretty interesting advanced method showing how things were calculated when doing trade during ancient times in Ethiopia.... I always wonder where we would have been as a civilization today, if the ancient Library of Alexandria never burned down... thanks Julius Caesar.

The latest images by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) showing the Apollo 17 landing site are freaking awesome! Check out the detailed tracks of our presence. 

The press release has more details and a cool video.

This is hilarious, found it on TechCocktail.  Perhaps one of the most creative start-up marketing strategies to date, this rap song was created by the team over at Cardinal, a start-up with a mobile app to aggregate all the music you share from services such as Shazaam or Spotify. 

The song's title is "Takin’ VC Money (Money Cash IPO's)." 

Here are the lyrics:

To all the startups out there
Staying caffeinated
Pulling all nighters
And trying to launch something amazing
This song, is dedicated to you!

Maybe we can meet up with Ashton Kutcher
n see if we agree on some plans for the future
Have a drink with Fred Wilson
Get our lawyer to sign a deal
Or do you think Seqouia’s gonna find another 40 mil?

It’d be great to secure some investment ends
Straight from seeds to 10x dividends
Never complacent, you say exit? we say yes
Now we’re in the basement
Working with Node.js

Half these other rappers
Chase broads
And sip on Hennesey
We’re tailing our logs
And drinking 5 Hour Energy!

Three a.m. whiteboards and lightbulb moments
This is our time
Right now so we should own it
I long for delivering
And its prod we get it in
we have no problem with the thought of pivoting

We know what our vision is
And we don’t wanna waste it
We remain driven so we
Continue to chase it.. yeah!

Heyo we’re taking VC Money
All we’re tryin’ to do is get some new seed funding yeah
Money Cash and IPO’s
Thats how this action goes

Heyo we’re taking VC Money
All we’re tryin’ to do is get some new seed funding yeah
Money Cash and IPO’s
Thats how this action goes

Might as well send a little note over to TechCrunch
See if we can get a feature posted by the next launch

Time to get the word out
We’re ready for beta
Maybe limited at first
so our servers don’t crater

Yeah we’ve got swag
But its the bad stuff from conferences
You better skip the bag
I’ll just carry my accomplishments

Hooked up with Dealmaker
And now we’re live at GROW Conf
Prepping for a great night
And hanging at the GROW launch

Tonight you know we’ll brush shoulders with angels
Not the Charlie’s kind
But the ones with the bankrolls
That believe in our team

And also see our market fit
Excited by our dream
And they need to be a part of it
If you haven’t heard of us yet
We can flip you our deck
We’ll trade a check for convertible debt

I said…if you haven’t heard of us yet
We’ll trade a check for convertible debt... yeah!

Heyo we’re taking VC Money
All we’re tryin’ to do is get some new seed funding yeah
Money Cash and IPO’s
Thats how this action goes

Heyo we’re taking VC Money
All we’re tryin’ to do is get some new seed funding yeah
Money Cash and IPO’s
That’s how this action goes.

Ok. now you can watch the actual performance at the GROW conference, here's the youtube link (trust me, this audio/text version of the post is much better than the performance, that's why I put the youtube link last :-) ...nevertheless, hats off to Cardinal!!!

Interesting post on The Economist about an alternative indicator for world economic growth. About 8% of the world's international trade passes through the Suez Canal, so the amount of cargo on the ships can be a good early indicator of global economic activity.

The Suez Canal Authority has nice detailed reports of overall activity, and according to the annual report for 2010 [.pdf], 105 different flags passed through the canal in 2010, compared to 87 flags in 2009. Looking at the tonnage, there was an increase of 15.2%, from 734.5 million tons in 2009 to 846.4 million tons in 2010. 

From all the things passing through there, the highest gain in tonnage was liquified natural gas, or LNG, with a gain of 38.1 million tons, or a whopping 72.1% increase from 2009. It seems like the natural gas story is right at our front door.

The same report also has an interesting chart on the evolution of the number of ships and the net tonnage starting from 1975.

Seems like economic activity flattened in the early 1980s, and less and less vessels were needed to move the same weight of cargo. The latter could indicate advances in ship technology, or if cargo size was the limiting factor, the world started using lighter materials, or it could indicate a combination of both. Then everything ripped higher starting in 2000, thanks to the global growth story.

Having a great time at Carolyn Malachi's Beautiful Dreamer video screening! She is amazing as always! To all my dreamers and dream chasers, watch this video, listen to the vocals on this track, get inspired, rise up, execute.

...back to chasing my dream.

P.S. - the extended jazz version is hot too!