Congrats to Lockhart Steele for getting an infusion of cash ($1.5M to be exact) to expand Curbed to new cities.
In reading the NYT’s coverage, nothing really surprised me much until the last two paragraphs where Brad explains why he is one of the investors:
If the downturn lasts long enough, “everyone suffers,
Although I’ve just recently become accustomed to Seattle and its nuances, and my schedule has fallen into a rhythm of some sort, I’m looking to somewhat overhaul my routine. I enjoy being busy to a large degree and too much free time definitely breeds indolence. Therefore, outside of work, one class and freelancing I’m beginning to familiarize myself with some of the local food banks by performing service work for a few through Seattle University and my church.
There was a time when, after volunteering during several college spring breaks at a Franciscan soup kitchen in the heart of Philadelphia’s most destitute neighborhood, that I was going to be a live-in volunteer there for one or two years after college before starting my career. But as perhaps anyone would, I had grave concerns regarding how I would jump into my career after a two-year hiatus and little professional experience under my belt. Luckily, the bevy of opportunities to help the less fortunate in Seattle have stymied any regrets I may have had in not welcoming the amazing opportunity that the friars in Philadelphia offered me. Within a year, I do hope to voyage back to my volunteer roots for several days and assist the needy there once again.
Wigs n’ Wine
On a lighter note, last weekend my roommate along with friends and myself donned wigs and slurped libations for a Wigs n’ Wine Party commemorating my upcoming birthday. We kicked off the notable occasion with dinner at Peso’s Kitchen & Lounge in Queen Anne. Having resided in Seattle now nearly five months, it was neat to get out and poke around the nuts and bolts of Queen Anne a bit. It’s probably by far the Seattle neighborhood I have frequented the least. Our evening out was a far cry from my birthday outing last year, which took place at a sleepy pizza parlor nestled in a leafy Illinois suburb. Despite the mundanity of last year’s evening, it was a pleaseant time nonetheless; this year was just understandably extremely new and different.
Am I back in Chicago?
Sure, it rains here plenty, and, of course, no shock there, but I am a bit perplexed at how much the sun has poked it’s head out from the clouds the past couple weeks. On the other hand, must say I was surprised at how much the temperatures have fluctuated lately; the thin coat of frost that blanketed my car windows the other day reminded me of my numerous years in Chicagoland and the frequency in which I had to de-ice my windshield. Oh well, I’m not complaining, guess it’s just an unseasonable cold October for Seattle standards.
Fraud is generally defined as the “intentional misrepresentation of the truth in order to deceive another.
The interactive marketing team over at Move working pretty hard over the last few days putting together a list of available short-term housing options for people who were displaced by the Southern California fires. Our hope is that we can help people who are returning to find that their homes were either destroyed or partially burned find a temporary place to live while they get back on their feet.
With tremendous support for the Move Rentals team, we were able to reach out to local apartment associations and thousands of Southern California property managers, many of whom have been more than willing to forgo their traditional lease process and open up their vacancies to people on a short-term basis. Also, through the REALTOR.com team, we’ve been able to reach out to local and statewide REALTOR associations who have also provided lots of help in identifying homes and apartments that available for short-term leases.
Normally I don’t talk much about the work that I do at Move, but in this case, I’m going to make an exception because I feel pretty confident we’ve been able to aggregate the largest selection of temporary housing options for the fire victims and I want to get the word out to the RE.net community. Any help you can provide in spreading the word about the list of temporary homes for people displaced by the fire would be most appreciated.
Finally, one of the guys that works with me has done a tremendous job taking adding all the temporary listings we can find onto a Google Map. This has made it extremely easy for just about anyone with a website or blog to spread the word.
Tis the season of the pumpkin and on Alki it’s transforming…. Blood and Gargoyles: an exchange in At Large in Ballard
Eerie Capitol Hill Seattle photos. Haunted Brew House Tour info at Georgetown’s The Paper Noose
Issaquah Undressed and the “Coat of Many Colors“. It’s a Stellar Pizza night in Georgetown on Mid Beacon Hill and Tippi Hedren is for the Birds!
Miller Park Neighborhood Association : Volunteers needed for the Community Center’s Creepy Carnival. Halloween Happenings in West Seattle Blog
A good friend of mine is involved with The Microsoft Theater Troupe and their Fall Production of “Schoolhouse Rock”. Minimum donation is $15 and all proceeds go to charity as part of Microsoft’s Giving Campaign.
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The show starts this Friday and there are performances Friday and Saturday October 26th and 27th and Thursday, Friday and Saturday November 1,2,3,8,9 and 10.
Microsoft employees reserve seating through their internal system and non-microsoft employees reserve their seating by sending an email to tickets@microsoft.com
The show is at 8 p.m. each night shown above, in the Microsoft Building 31 Cafe.
A long, long, it-feels-like-forever, time ago, Anna covered the story that there were a lack of good translations tools available on the internet, and especially in languages like Russian. In that article, she linked to an article that showed Google had developed a much better translations service, but hadn’t released it to the general public. Well, I’m always interested in closing loops, and so I’m happy to report that Google just announced that their, much improved, translation service is now live at Google Translates.
What makes Google’s service interesting is that it doesn’t use the standard “rule-based” translation methods, but rather, it is much more statistical in nature:
We feed the computer with billions of words of text, both monolingual text in the target language, and aligned text consisting of examples of human translations between the languages. We then apply statistical learning techniques to build a translation model.
Anna and I couldn’t help but to try the service out, so we choose a Russian news site: pravda.ru and the results were pretty impressive (pravda.ru in English) as I could definitely pick up almost every story.
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My take is that the translation of websites is only the beginning for Google… Not only will they improve the translations (especially if enough users adopt their feature to “recommend” a better translation directly through the tool), but I can easily see a day in the not-too-distant future when this tool is built right into gmail or google chat. This could make it extremely easy to have an online conversation with someone who doesn’t even speak your language.
In my family this could be very useful as my wife’s parents do not speak much English (and I don’t speak much of their native Russian). At this point that means that my wife has to translate everything that is said between us. What if instead, I could simple email them (in English), but it would arrive with an accurate translation in Russian? The result is that it would actually be easier for us to share stories over email or chat then in person!
From a business perspective, the possibilities are fascinating… Why not translate an entire website (Welcome to “Дождь город
I’m no Microsoft “fanboy,” but have you ever noticed that when they release some half baked project with a promising future (Microsoft’s “Unified Communications Products”) they get a lot of grief (“Microsoft’s Phone Ambitions Face A Winding Road,” but when Google comes out with a half baked product with a promising future (Google’s “Presentations”), the media thinks it’s cool and they focus on the future potential (“Google Presentations…one more step in the right direction“).
a blog about southern California real estate, but I do have a non-fire related update from Southern California.
Brad Inman and I are going to be speaking at Beverly Hills REALTOR Association’s Head of High Office Tea this Thursday afternoon. From everything I can gather, it is going to be a pretty posh set-up at the Peninsula Hotel. The plan is for Brad to speak about the status of the industry for about an hour, myself to speak for about an hour and tea and conversation making up the last hour.
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Tickets are $40 and just about sold out.
Also, I shouldn’t admit this, but I honestly have not given much thought about what I’m going to say just yet… Conveniently, back in August I did a presentation on using blogs to build up an online brand for the KW Mega Technology Camp that came off well (and took about 45 minutes including questions from others who were on stage). I think I’ll adjust that presentation a bit but go with that general outline. If anyone who was at that presentation wants to give me feedback, I’d love to hear it! 🙂
[photopress:just_listed.jpg,thumb,alignright]Agent receives $5,000 fine for taking the key from the keybox, giving it to the electrician and allowing the electrician to remain on the property unattended.
Agent receives $5,000 fine for giving her keypad to an unlicensed friend to show property.
Agent fined $3,000 for changing the price by $1.00 or $2.00 to cause the property to show up on the agent hotsheet to get more attention and possibly showings.
Agent fined $3,000 for advertising another agent’s listed property in a real estate publication.
Agent waited in car while handing his keypad to his unlicensed assistant who showed the property. Agent did not leave a business card in the house. $5,000 fine.
$1,500 fine for not uploading a photo in a timely manner, not changing the status in a timely manner and not taking the keybox off of the property in a timely manner.
It is sometimes easy to forget that “The MLS” is not simply a data base for listed property to gain the eyes and interest of potential buyers. Reading the report of hefty fines being paid by members for, in some cases, what might appear to be fairly minor transgressions, is a good reminder of what “the mls” really is and is not.
I have to admit that as I am typing this, I am wondering if there is a fine for writing a blog post about fines.