San Francisco

Former Chicago Bears QB and current San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh loves open wheel racing. He talked about the sport; and driving the Indy 500 Pace Car on the radio yesterday. Harbaugh appeared on the Waddle and Silvy show with Marc Silverman and discussed the Indy 500. Hear the interview here. Harbaugh also discussed how much new Bears coach Marc Trestman has impacted his coaching career. (listen to the full show featuring Mark Giangreco and Jayson Stark here) Harbaugh will drive the new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray pace car Sunday morning. A synopsis of his Trestman discussion from ESPN Chicago: “We use his system still of calling plays and the way he taught us those concepts and techniques. I’ve used (those) since I coached with the Raiders, the University of San Diego, Stanford and the 49ers. “He will do great and talk about long overdue. Marc Trestman becoming a head coach is well deserved, he will do a phenomenal job.” Harbaugh’s first NFL coaching job came as quality control coach for the offense with the Oakland Raiders in 2002, and he reported directly to Trestman, the offensive coordinator. Harbaugh, a former Bears quarterback, went on to head-coaching jobs in college at San Diego and Stanford before landing the 49ers job in 2011. Jim Harbaugh, hero in Michigan Wolverines lore, also went on the Bay Area’s 95.7 The Game with O’Connell and Steinmetz. Harbaugh also discussed some Niners topics and why he prefers IndyCar to NASCAR. You can listen here (Niners Nation) Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net. He’s also an author who also contributes regularly to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, Walter Football.com and Yardbarker Banks has appeared on the History Channel, as well as Clear Channel, ESPN and CBS radio all over the world. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@PaulMBanks), like him on Facebook The post 49ers Coach, Ex Bears QB Jim Harbaugh driving Indy 500 Pace Car appeared first on The Sports Bank.Net.

Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet. Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: The Antlers: 2008-05-11, New York [mp3,ogg,flac] The Antlers: "East River Berlin Wall" [mp3] Blitzen Trapper: 2012-10-02, Tucson [mp3,ogg,flac] Blitzen Trapper: "Below the Hurricane" [mp3] The Deep Dark Woods: 2012-03-28, Cleveland [mp3,ogg,flac] The Deep Dark Woods: "The Winter Hours" [mp3] Mogwai: 1999-09-18, San Francisco [mp3,ogg,flac] Mogwai: "Stanley Kubrick" [mp3] My Morning Jacket: 2006-04-29, Indio [mp3,ogg,flac] My Morning Jacket: "Run Thru" [mp3] Patterson Hood: 2013-02-13, Charlotte [mp3,ogg,flac] Patterson Hood: "Little Bonnie" [mp3] Sharon Van Etten: 2008-06-06, New York [mp3,ogg,flac] Sharon Van Etten: "I Fold" [mp3] Tegan and Sara: 2013-04-12, Indio [mp3,ogg,flac] Tegan and Sara: "Now I'm All Messed Up" [mp3] Tegan and Sara: 2000-09-14, Toronto [mp3,ogg,flac] Tegan and Sara: "My Number" [mp3] Ween: 2007-06-13, Rochester [mp3,ogg,flac] Ween: "Mushroom Festival in Hell" [mp3] Free and legal live performances at other websites: White Violet: 2013-05-18, Athens [mp3] search for more free and legal music downloads at Largehearted Boy also at Largehearted Boy: other daily free and legal mp3 downloads covers collections 100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book) musician/author interviews Note Books (musicians discuss literature) Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links) Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack) Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)

To create something entirely new--something that the world has not seen before--requires contrarian thinking. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of Paypal who's now one of the world's best-known venture capital investors, says you know you're on the right track when you can explain what you're trying to by saying: "Most people believe in X. But the truth is "not X." When Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk at Airbnb set out to build their company, the world was a different place. The generally accepted truth was that normal people would never be willing to rent out their place--or a single room in their place--to strangers. Nor would they be willing to stay with people they didn't know when they're traveling to other cities. But the founders of Airbnb believed "not X," and then built the service to prove it. Thus was born a multi-billion-dollar business that is one of the most meaningful new start-ups to emerge in the past decade. We've seen hundreds of proposals for marketplaces of all kinds at the start-up incubator at which I'm a partner, Y Combinator. They are pointed a broad range of industries, types of services, and price points. The commonality, however, is their contrarian nature. Two companies in particular we've seen in the last few years that nail this sort of contrarian thinking are Tutorspree and FlightCar. Let's take a closer look at the innovation in each idea. Tutorspree: More Software Doesn't Always Mean Less Friction Tutorspree came through Y Combinator in our Winter 2011 batch. Initially, the company's proposal was simple: expose a hard-to-find supply (tutors) to demand (parents of students who need tutoring). Install messaging and payments, sit back, and watch. To some extent, the team saw success there as parents sought tutoring for their kids. However, as they analyzed messages between parents and potential tutors, they saw communication frequently break down during the early phases of interaction. The right pieces of information simply weren't getting through. Common wisdom among marketplaces is that by building software, you can make things scale quicker, and that people will be able to work together better. But in this case, software was getting in the way. Software helps connect people, but right at the moment of booking a tutor, there's no substitute for having a real live person get in touch. So that's what the team did. It's all software up until the point someone wants to book a tutor, at which point a Tutorspree rep gets on the phone and walks people through the next steps. It makes sense--hiring a tutor is a big commitment for a parent! Having a human being on the other end radically reduced the time needed to set up tutoring, and quintupled the average sale for the start-up. It may not have been code, but some problems for Web start-ups paradoxically cannot be solved with code alone. FlightCar: Cease and Persist FlightCar joined the most recent Y Combinator Winter 2013 batch, and when the founders touched down in Silicon Valley, they set out to do what nobody had done before: give people free airport parking by renting their cars out while they're away. Travelers get a free car wash, and don't have to pay $18/day for airport parking. People who want rental cars can get higher quality cars for less money than Hertz or Avis. And both renters and parkers get direct curbside pickup and dropoff with no waits for shuttles or vans. Anyone who travels knows avoiding that wait at the end of a long plane journey is a godsend. Initially they were mired in the permitting process of local government--they needed a parking lot to store cars while travellers were away. But it turns out they could just rent spaces from existing licensed lots, so that's what they did. The company got up and running in February, and were giving customers incredible door-to-door service, picking up and dropping off passengers curbside. New obstacles emerged immediately. When San Francisco International Airport sent them a ceas

Apr 15, 2013; Washington, D.C., USA; United States president Barack Obama poses for photographs with the BCS College Football Champions Alabama Crimson Tide team at the White House. Mandatory Credit: H.Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports PRESIDENT OBAMA REPRISES ROLE AS HONORARY CHAIRMAN OF THE PRESIDENTS CUP 2013 President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, has accepted an invitation to be Honorary Chairman of The Presidents Cup when the competition returns to the United States for the 10th staging, this year at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, October 1-6. Obama served as Honorary Chairman in 2009 when the event was last played in the United States, at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, Calif. In the hunt at the Senior PGA, Tom Watson still has a swing to savor at age 63 Every year about this time of year, 63 year-old Tom Watson starts to appear on some leaderboards around golf. Now days, it’s usually on the Champions Tour, but sometimes he rattles some cages on the PGA Tour. It’s almost like he is prepping for the British Open, and he is raising his game a notch so he can go over to compete. The 2014 Ryder Cup Captain made the cut, and is only 5 shots back at the 2013 Senior PGA Championship in St. Louis. Tome fired 69 on Thursday in this unusual four-day event at the Bellerive Golf Club, and will be  at -2 under par when play starts up on Saturday. Mickelson, Stricker not among Memorial field Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker have both decided to withdraw from The Memorial which gets underway next week. Phil withdrew from Memorial last year citing fatigue. You might remember he got irritated at the use of cell phone on the golf course, and looked like he was worn out. Lefty has confirmed he will play at The St. Jude the following week to get himself ready for the US Open. PGA Tour Regulars Miss Cut In England The weather played a huge role at The BMW PGA Championship this week, and a large group of PGA Tour regulars were the casualities. Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell head the list of some very prominent players who missed the cut at the Wentworth Country Club in Virginia Waters this week. Also missing the cut is the defending champion of the event, Luke Donald. The weekend outlook is for cool conditions, but the rain appears to be gone at this venue in Surrey England. Francesco Molinari has the overnight lead. Miguel Angel Jimenez has made the cut, and will play the weekend. Follow me on Twitter @Spin_47 and in The Golf Community at Google+

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg told the head of a taxicab fleet that he plans to “f*****g destroy” the city’s taxi industry when he leaves office on January 1. Bloomberg’s frustration with New York’s yellow cabs and their drivers stems from their unwillingness to adopt new technology such as accepting electronic passenger hails from smartphones, and their resistance to one of the mayor’s pet projects, a redesigned Taxi of Tomorrow. There aren’t a lot of people who can credibly threaten to upend an entire microeconomy. The mayor is a billionaire, though, and he might just have the wherewithal to make it happen. So how might he go about it? Well, first, when Bloomberg says “destroy,” we’re going to presume creative destruction, not physical annihilation. (It’s not that he couldn’t literally wipe out the taxi industry—with his $27 billion in personal wealth, he could undoubtedly afford the requisite military hardware—but even the famously direct Bloomberg might consider such a method unsubtle.) But isn’t car-service app Uber, which lets users order a cab, see on a map how far away it is, and pay for it, all through their phones, already going to disrupt the hidebound taxi industry? Well, probably not while it’s so expensive (although, in my personal experience, the cheaper UberX option has proven cheaper than Los Angeles taxis). More importantly, though, Uber still faces an enormous challenge as long as paid automotive transportation is heavily regulated by public officials under the sway of a concentrated bloc of self-interested small-business owners riding in culturally significant yellow sedans. Uber, along with competitors like Zimride, exists in a regulatory grey area that officials from New York to San Francisco are trying close down, and while they may claim—with some justification—to be worried about consumer safety, a lot of the rules in mind, like banning lighter, eco-friendly cars or using GPS to calculate fares, clearly don’t have safety as their first concern. Still, the laws that have allowed cabbies to block Mayor Bloomberg’s top-down technocratic paternalism while in office are the same ones that keep Uber from disrupting the the hired car sector from below. So if Bloomberg is serious about this smashing-the-yellow-cab-monopoly thing—and please, let him be—what does he have that Uber doesn’t? The answer is the distinguishing feature of his entire political career, from the shift in party allegiance that marked his first mayoral run to his quixotic campaign to enact gun safety rules: His firm belief that money well-deployed can buy any political outcome. And, of course, that $27 billion. A heavily regulated marketplace creates high barriers to entry, but sufficient capital can break through them. Uber has raised $50 million since 2010, and while it doesn’t release revenue figures, it’s clearly in a precarious position when it comes to fighting regulatory lawsuits and city rule-makers. But a Bloomberg-funded trade group, with publicists, lobbyists and lawyers could open the legal doors, while Uber and the like force mobile efficiencies into the sector. And then the market will provide all the destruction a megalomaniacal billionaire could want. More from Quartz: Why Thomson Reuters doesn't stand much chance of displacing Bloomberg's chat service Target joins the "blame the weather" club Emotional intelligence is a better predicter of success than IQ Click here to sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief and start your day with the latest intelligence on the new global economy. Please follow Getting There on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

A friend of mine told me that San Francisco is an extremely liberal city and has no traditional values whatsoever. I found that hard to believe, and I bet him $1000.00 he was wrong. When I flew there to gather my evidence, I was still at the airport when I saw a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that tore his theory to shreds. It read: “MORE THAN A DOZEN BOYS GETS SUSPENDED FOR REPEATEDLY VIOLATING THE SCHOOL DRESS CODE.” I thought to myself that this was great! I won! But after reading the article, I discovered that the boys were suspended for wearing pants to school, instead of a skirt. Anyway, I got on the next plane and came home. What the…

Editor’s note: Brendan Gill is the co-founder and CEO of OpenSignal, a startup that crowdsources data on mobile networks from consumer smartphones. Prior to that he founded a California-based e-commerce company after retiring from a brief lifeguarding career. You can find him on Twitter as @brendan_gill. Stefano Bernardi recently wrote a good cautionary post about the difficulties of raising investment in the US. He’s not wrong – the odds are stacked against you – but I don’t think European entrepreneurs should be discouraged. Founders need investors that offer more than just money: they need ex-entrepreneurs that have experienced exits; they need super connectors that can make deals happen and they need battle hardened veterans that have seen bubbles come and go many times over. The fact is that there are many more people who meet that description in Silicon Valley and having them as partners can make a huge difference. But how do you raise capital in the US? Rather than the vague and oft-repeated advice to “hustle your way to intros” I want to provide specific, practical tips we learnt whilst raising our seed round in the US last year. Start local Don’t book your flight just yet, there’s a new wave of European funds that are comfortable with pre revenue startups, know how to move fast, and won’t ask for 5 year cash forecasts right off the bat. They also regularly network with funds in the US and can be one of your best sources for intros to US funds/angels they like to co-invest with. I’m thinking of the likes of Connect, Hoxton, Kima, Number1, Playfair, EC1, Team Europe, Passion etc (Disclosure – Passion is an investor in OpenSignal). If you get one of them on board they could contribute to your round and potentially introduce you to a US fund to lead. Timing Closing a deal can take a long time. The standard US Visa Waiver program is 90 days and you’ll want to plan for all of that and start your research and reaching out to people in advance. A successful investment will usually involve a partner meeting where anywhere from 2-6+ people with ferocious travel schedules need to be in the same room. No one warned us but some of these meetings can take weeks to schedule so you need to factor this in and hit the ground running when you land at SFO. Basics Whilst many investors are still based in the 40mile stretch that lies between San Francisco and San Jose (“the peninsula” in local parlance) there has been a clear trend towards San Francisco in recent years. Staying in SF is more fun but staying on the peninsula can save you some cash. Either way you’ll be travelling between the two a lot and you’ll be far better off if one of your group drives as the CalTrain service is limited and slow. ZipCar is really useful for this and you can sign up with a foreign license but do it well in advance as it takes time.  For apartment hunting I’d recommend Airbnb and PadMapper and try not to stray too far from SOMA or Palo Alto as those are the epicenters of action for the city and the peninsula respectively. Be prepared Decide with your co-founders in advance what the plan is. Are you prepared to move to the US or are you staying in Europe? Are only some of the founders willing move? Based on this, filter your approach. Use Crunchbase, AngelList and other resources to see which investors have made investments in Europe in the past year. Don’t waste time with a US fund that doesn’t invest internationally under any circumstance. Those that do will still expect you to have a US parent entity in which to invest so that the investment terms are subject to US laws. If you are already incorporated in Europe and have external investors make sure they are willing to re-incorporate. Factor in another month at least if you are know you will need to re-incorporate. Getting meetings We didn’t have a large network in the Bay Area when we started and found this to be our biggest limiting factor. You’ll want to cast the net wide and reach

Forza Tavecchio! Here’s an interview with Packers kicker Giorgio Tavecchio I’m pretty sure you haven’t read – unless you’re a Packers fan in Italy.  Journalist  Giovanni Marino, a fan of American football from the Italian newspaper site La Repubblica, had a conversation with Giorgio recently, to talk about his early experiences as a Green Bay Packer. As an added bonus, I’m going to translate it into English for you! Isn’t that nice? You won’t have to go use Google translate, which composed a bunch of strange sounding English sentences when I gave it a try on the original article on LaRepublica.it. If you can read Italian, by all means, read it there. Here goes: The second part of Giorgio Tavecchio’s dream has just begun. “And I don’t want to wake up,” he jokes with his usual good humor and an admirable calmness. The young Italian is in Green Bay, and has just started a few days of  long preseason workouts, which will prove decisive for his future. He is looking to steal the spot of Mason Crosby, Packers kicker and owner of  a disappointing season last year. A chance at a spot in the NFL is so close, yet still so far away for the young hopeful from Milan. “My experience in San Francisco was important, I know what to do and I will. Then we will see what will happen,” he says with hope but with a great sense of realism. Here is the story of his early days with the most successful team in the United States. Chatting with Aaron Rodgers, the tranquil champion who loves to kid around: In Green Bay, Tavecchio has found a renowned college compatriot: Aaron Rodgers, just a few days after he became the new record holder of the largest contract in NFL history. Having both played at Cal, although in different years,  has  triggered an unlikely, but not negligible kinship (Aaron is one of the best quarterbacks ever and above all is the undisputed leader of GB). “Rodgers, in addition to being a champion, but this is known, is really a quiet person like maybe you never thought. Aaron is an absolute star, and yet his actions do not convey any of this. You can feel his leadership in the team, but at the same time, also feel that he exercises that leadership with a human and professional quality, never imposing himself  on anyone with arrogance,” says Giorgio. “I spoke with him and we speak often about Cal coach Tedford and we both greatly appreciate and cherish fondly the experiences of those college times. Aaron encourages me and this makes me proud.  He also loves to joke around, for example the other day he turned me around because I looked all uncoordinated during a  stretching exercise. ” The kicks by Mason Crosby: There is little to be done, whether Crosby or Tavecchio. And  in the harsh law of the NFL, the two are in competition, but of course we train together in these crucial weeks. How is my relationship with the incumbent kicker? “First of all, he is a decent person and so far has been very nice and friendly with me. I’m watching his kicking style; it is is fluid, secure, powerful. Simple. He makes everything look easy. On the other hand, you wouldn’t expect otherwise for a professional of multiple years in the NFL and, moreover, for the legendary Packers. ” From San Francisco to Green Bay: “Well, I love California, for me I think there is no better place. But Green Bay is not bad. Here the culture is football. They talk about it all the time and for someone who wants to play in the NFL it’s the pinnacle. Green Bay is a small town, almost a suburb, but the people welcome you with affection and the community lives the Packers 24-hours a day, including post-season. I miss the California climate – the cold here is a constant – and my family, but they call me every day to encourage me. ” The lesson of the Forty-Niners: “From the 49ers I learned so much. I realize that now

The redemption team. Jake Long has critics to silence, and so does Michael Vick. The bottom line: Have an off an year, earn the enmity of the media. Long had two straight years of nagging injuries before he signed a free agent contract with the St. Louis Rams. Broken bones in his hands, and he STILL catches everything thrown his way... Calvin Johnson revealed he spent much of last season with broke fingers. More remarkable, is how he broke Jerry Rice's single season receiving yards record with 1,964 yards on 133 receptions. The tight end evolution continues unabated... Have a look at the chart of yardage by tight ends from 1992 to 2012. If only your 401k could experience THAT kind of growth. Moving the NFL Draft to May isn't all they're thinking about... It's not just scheduling issues at Radio City Music Hall that has the NFL wondering about shifting the date of the NFL Draft to early May. The Welker - Amendola debate is going to heat up as the season approaches. Go to 11:35 on the video to hear what they have to say about the dual between two Texas Tech alums. Six minutes... NFL Films put together a video capsule for the 2012 season. Enjoy! 8 to 1 odds the Rams win the NFC West? There's little denying Seattle and San Francisco are leading candidates for one of them to make it to the Super Bowl this season. More interesting still, the Rams are getting some "spec-love" as a possible third NFC West team to make the playoffs. Jaws doesn't know what to think of Chip Kelley's offense... Ron Jaworski has his doubt about the Eagles' new head coach and his high flying college offense translating to the NFL: "I just don't see NFL passing concepts in this offense," Jaws continued. "It's a movement offense by the quarterback, off the run-action, off the read-action. A lot of short, quick passes, dart routes, bubble screens. Very few plays down the field with NFL passing concepts." Jason Garrett isn't playing for his job? Really? Well Jerry Jones said so, so it must be true... Sorry, I'm not buying it. Garrett finishes the season under .500, he'll be hitting the unemployment line. How will Michael Crabtree's injury effect the 49ers? The Achilles injury to the 49ers wide receiver could expose the team's vulnerability and lack of proven talent at WR. While I don't think it will hamper a team known for it's "Run First" reputation, it could limit total offensive output. With Manningham and Williams coming off injuries - hopefully by the time training camp starts - they'll be thin at best. RGIII has come back from major knee surgery at a lightning fast pace. I know how he's doing it too. His doctors used Super Glue, right? I remember when a knee injury put you on the sidelines for a year, but not anymore. How about some Stedman Bailey in the red zone? I have to admit, I never consider the West Virgina wide receiver as a red zone threat, but this video shows he has a nose for the ball in the end zone. Skip Bayless says Tavon Austin is Barry Sanders... So it must be true, eh?

Everybody stop -- hold the phone! Nnamdi Asomugha practiced on Friday, and for me, that's big news. I'm often extremely pessimistic regarding free agent signings and the like .. it's those undrafted free agents I'm crazy about. But with Asomugha, I think he's got a lot to offer and I personally believe he will be the best cornerback on the team next season. The Philadelphia Eagles used Asomugha wrong in so many ways. He's not a zone corner by any definition and if he can keep himself in shape, I expect him to do very well in man-to-man this season. I'm still excited for Chris Culliver going forward, but Asomugha has a couple good seasons left, I think. Anyway, we're just going to go with quick links today. I've been making an effort at adding more substance but I'm absolutely swamped tonight. Enjoy the links, folks. Goodwin agrees to pay cut to remain on team (Maiocco) Bridging logic gap on Grabtree, Harvin (Sando) Bill Barnwell on the state of the San Francisco 49ers (Grantland) Lockette, Jenkins, Patton will compete for Crabtree's spot (Maiocco) Nnamdi Asomugha -- Inside his first open OTA practice (Lynch) QB matters most, with or without Crabtree (Sando) Putting Michael Crabtree's 2012 production into perspective (Cohn) 49ers' Crabtree gets encouraging words from Broncos receiver (Press Democrat) 49ers' Reid Soaking it all in at Safety (NBA Bay Area) Harbaugh Looks for Young WRs to Emerge (49ers) From Candlestick to Levi's (CSN Bay Area)