Jeff Sayre Webtrepreneur » science

Flocking To the Stream

Jeff Sayre — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:13:37 +0000

I recently began to go through some article backlogs on the websites of various people whose thoughts and perspectives I want to understand better. One such person with whom I’m trying to play catch up is Nova Spivack. If you don’t follow Nova then I suggest taking the time to remedy that (more…)

Big Snow Equals Global Cooling, What?

Jeff Sayre — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:56:57 +0000

With the recent record-setting snowstorms in the Mid-Atlantic states, global climate change deniers are once again crying foul with global warming and ringing the global cooling bell. People need a heaping helping of science literacy to weather this storm, to rationally understand the overall processes that can cause massive winter storms like this even when the average global temperature is increasing. (more…)

It’s Chemical Free and Not Tested on Animals!

Jeff Sayre — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:55:14 +0000

As a trained scientist, there are two phrases that stir up my ire every time I see them in marketing copy: “chemical free” and “not tested on animals.” I know that may seem odd, but with our woefully-gullible and science-challenged populace, this is a real issue to me.

I was planning to post an article this morning about the Semantic Web and Web 3.0 but this gnawed at me as I just ran into these phrases once again. So, I decided to write a quick rant. I’ll post the more serious stuff in a week or two.

Okay, my rant is now officially beginning… (more…)

Rash Decisions Are Not Good Decisions

Jeff Sayre — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:31:18 +0000

I recently posted an article entitled, Looking for Two Startup Partners 35-plus years Old.

It is interesting how some people quickly jumped to conclusions and made sweeping assumptions based on a single blog article, or worse yet, blog title. Although the majority of people who have taken the time to comment or tweet about this post have been positive about my efforts, a small minority (across the age spectrum), have been negative, even seemingly offended. (more…)

BuddyPress Privacy: Moving Toward a Privacy API

Jeff Sayre — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:23:19 +0000

BuddyPress development is moving toward a modular, team-focused approach. In my mind, this is the biggest news that came out of the weekly BuddyPress developers’ chat (more…)

Are You a Successful Project Manager Or a Reluctant Leader?

Jeff Sayre — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:43:02 +0000

In my previous incarnations as an executive at two different consulting firms, I often came across the type of person that I refer to as the reluctant leader, or the reluctant manager. I use this term somewhat euphemistically. This type of person is more aptly described as having or exhibiting one or more of the following attributes: being clueless about their role and responsibilities; scared that they are in over their head; ineffective at managing people and projects. (more…)

Looking for Two Startup Partners 35-plus years Old

Jeff Sayre — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:17:25 +0000

At first, that might seem like an odd announcement. But when Dave Winer made a recent post about ageism, I decided that I would try a little reverse ageism in finding startup partners.

Since I am not hiring employees, I am not breaking anti-discrimination laws. I am not making job offers. I am searching for business partners with whom to start a business. (more…)

New Equity Offering Model: the Semi-Public Market

Jeff Sayre — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:31:52 +0000

Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their debt and equity holders—collectively called their stakeholders. But when a company decides to issue stock in the public market, they lose significant control over how their shares are valued and traded. This is deemed acceptable, of course, because there are many shareholder advantages when a private company goes public.

With the recent meltdown in the global-financial system, it became apparent that risky-trading behavior is a rampant, real issue in financial markets. (more…)

Privacy in the Facebook Era

Jeff Sayre — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:27:57 +0000

Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that privacy is no longer a social norm. Is that an actual fact or a engineered fact?

Here’s why I ask. Over the past several years, whenever Facebook has made a change to its privacy policies, it has caused great uproar—not only with civil liberties advocates (as you would expect), but also with Facebook’s user base. (more…)

Introducing Twitter-disclosure Slashtags

Jeff Sayre — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:35:02 +0000

It’s official. On December 1, 2009, the FTC’s new disclosure guidelines went into effect. So what does this mean for Twitter users?

It means that you must disclose any financial relationship that you have with a product, service, company, or industry that you tweet about.

To make disclosure easy on Twitter, I’m proposing a set of Twitter-disclosure slashtags. (more…)

The Hot Air About Global Climate Change

Jeff Sayre — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:20:26 +0000

When it comes to science, the scientific process, and specifically the climate issue, most people are unfortunately ignorant. Case in point. The proper term is global climate change—not global warming. (more…)

Do You Support BuddyPress Privacy?

Jeff Sayre — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:47:02 +0000

In a recent post, I asked for ideas on how WordPress ecosytem developers can earn a living doing what they love to do—coding great-quality plugins for WordPress, BuddyPress, and bbPress. This post is my attempt to try the time–honored (more…)

How Can BuddyPress Developers Earn a Living?

Jeff Sayre — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:35:48 +0000

In the WordPress ecosystem, when it comes to getting paid for time spent, it seems that theme designers are far ahead of plugin developers. GPLed–premium themes are not only an accepted part of this ecosystem, but seem to thrive. Plugin developers, on the other hand, have been shunned in the past for offering premium plugins. I won’t go into the reasons for this, but there is a sordid history, to say the least. I also do not want to reopen the war wounds from previous debates on this topic. (more…)

OAuth, BuddyPress, and Privacy

Jeff Sayre — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:09:03 +0000

When I first started kicking around the idea of coding a privacy component for BuddyPress, several people suggested looking into using the OAuth protocol to accomplish the task. Being semi-omniscient, and totally oblivious to everything else, I did not have the faintest clue on how to work with OAuth. (more…)

I’m BuddyPress-ed for Time

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:11:16 +0000

Volunteerism is the heart and soul of any successful, healthy Open Source project. So, when Paul Gibbs posted the following Tweet a week ago,

Apparently I’ve made 1317 posts on the #buddypress forums. This puts me ahead of @apeatling on 1053, @johnjamesjacoby on 1257. @jeffsayre wins with 1454!
1:08 PM Dec 13th by Tweetie

it made me remember a post (more…)

BuddyPress: authentication versus authorization

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:46:13 +0000

When it comes to user access of computer-based systems, access control has two subgroupings: authentication and authorization. Authentication deals with the process of verifying that a given user is indeed who they claim to be. This is taken care of initially by the registration process and subsequently by the login script. Authorization deals with verifying and managing the access rights a given authenticated user has to certain objects. (more…)

BuddyPress Privacy Component Released!

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:20:26 +0000

Finally, after many rumors, and fortunately little innuendo, the public Beta of my BuddyPress Privacy Component is ready! (more…)

BPAz Privacy Levels, Values, and Results

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:00:48 +0000

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Hey! I’m Finally Creating My Personal Website!

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:30:36 +0000

After too many years of strewing my great wisdom and humor all over the blogosphere, the net, the InterWeb, I took your advice. I’m finally consolidating all my personal thoughts, observations, wisdom, and humor into my own website.

Yes, I know. You’re thinking, “what great wisdom and humor?”

The point is that this new domain, which I’ve had for many eons, is finally being used—and yes, I’ve actually had this domain for several billion years.

So stay tuned or ignore me. It doesn’t matter. As the days and weeks progress, I will transfer my content from other places into this new digital husk.