PicoBlog

Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The 62 companies that I’ll discuss here (which is not an exhaustive list, but is still comprehensive) all reported quarterly earnings sometime between Jan 24th – March 27th. In this post, I’ll take a data-driven approach in evaluating the overall group’s performance, and highlight individual standouts along the way. As a venture capitalist, I naturally cater my analysis through the lens of a private investor.

The dynasty’s not the dynasty without Scottie Pippen. I was only five on June 22, 1987. I knew Michael Jordan by then, but that was it, and I definitely wasn’t tracking the draft. And with the NBA Draft last night, I wanted to take a look back at the reporting of the day around the 1987 NBA Draft, the Bulls, Pippen and Horace Grant. Part of my approach to research is simply reading the newspaper on a given topic, day by day, month by month.

Welcome, reader, to my first Cinema Toast installment. Long before Instagram was letting the camera eat, Hollywood made numerous attempts at it. It took decades and technicolor film before anyone recognized the sex appeal of cheese oozing from a burger. Since then, food has grown into the subject of avant garde film, documentaries, its own network and now the hottest streaming show in Hulu’s history. When I was writing for The Oklahoman, I published a number of pieces about food in film and television and thought I might bring some of that to The Feed with fresh eyes.

A new book never feels real until I tell you about it. Which means I’m always both unbearably excited and even less bearably terrified to finally introduce you to the characters and story that have been consuming me for the last year. When I started writing this one, I was fresh off of editing Happy Place, and while I had assumed at the start of that book that I’d be writing a screwball comedy, the book of course had other ideas.

A LOT OF PIFFLE: MYTH OF THE GERMAN SAWBACK BAYONET IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR. by Robin Schäfer‘They will soon have done everything, these Germans, to be banished from humanity, and it will soon be clear to everyone that their armies are nothing but hordes of barbarians, vile herds of wild beasts..’ No other hand-held weapon of the First World War has sparked so much debate and gave rise to so many myths and legends than the German Sägerücken or sawback bayonet.

A few weeks ago, a Seattle woman named Rachel Marshall died in her sleep. Because Seattle (well at least my Seattle) is still a small town at heart, the news shocked me and broke my heart. She was just 42, the mother of two young children. I didn’t know Rachel personally, but we have many friends and acquaintances in common. She was a well-known small business owner who I paid attention to and covered years ago when I worked as a food writer at a local alt-weekly.

I had intended to write a serious piece on a downbeat movie from my youth, and then I saw that this week marks 37 years since the release of Cobra, Sylvester Stallone’s tour de force about a cop who single-handedly takes down a murder cult. Now, granted, no one celebrates 37 years of anything. Hallmark doesn’t sell an “It’s Your 37th Birthday” card, nor is there a special gift you’re supposed to give your spouse for your 37th wedding anniversary.

SPOILER WARNING: This recap gets into the latest episodes of Below Deck Down Under: S2, E6 “All Wrong” and E7 “The Turnover Day”! If you don’t want any of that spoiled, come back later. BTW, if you want these regularly, they’re on the Patreon. I cover Below Deck on the podcast a lot and occasionally get into some of the incredibly weird moments on here. Well, Below Deck Down Under’s double episodes last night were so horrifying that I still haven’t processed everything that happened.

In my garden is a magnolia tree, starburst-pink against the March sky. Buried in book edits, and working extra shifts at the bookshop, for weeks I have been a creature of pencils and pages but this morning, stepping out to feed my hen I looked up and there—as much of a surprise as the first day I saw it—was a towering cascade of flowers, almost as high … ncG1vNJzZmikkaq%2ForzArJ%2BbsV6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6aZKaZl6O8rbXAZqSaqA%3D%3D