20 Nov 2015 :: by sd :: According to Wired :: the Summit Series is like TED meets Burning Man …ON A RECENT weekend, Barack Obama’s chief technology strategist, a prominent conservationist, and a supernatural mentalist — a professional mind reader — walked into a California ski lodge. In context, this was nothing unusual. Nearby stood Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder, and Gus Van Sant, the film director. The three-foot-tall motivational speaker Sean Stephenson sat in a vintage barber chair, getting his head shaved by a guy in suspenders beside a banner that read: “People Hate Us On Yelp.” According to some bullshit the New York Times thought fit to print :: Summit is a younger hipper Davos …“We learned about the art of just gathering great, innovative people from disparate industries into a shared space and seeing what happens,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “If you want to think about it in terms of provenance, we were a bit of a younger, hipper TED or Davos.”I love to think about rich white people getting ripped and sniffing each other’s farts in terms of provenance.
In Fast Company the Summit Series is like :: wait for it … TED meets Burning Man.The series, conceived in 2008 by Jeff Rosenthal, Brett Leve, Jeremy Schwartz, and Elliott Bisnow, who had all made their fortunes as entrepreneurs, was meant to convene people who had big plans to change the world, but who weren’t yet established enough to find a place at Davos or TED. With the help of family and friends, the founders raised a reported $40 million in 2013 to buy the ski resort in Eden [Utah] to host events… But since then, Summit Series events have taken place everywhere from Mexico to Washington, D.C., convening over 10,000 people. The Series is invitational and participants pay several thousand dollars, depending on the event, to take part.I never get invited to invitational events for world changing thought leaders. I’d guess it’s something to do with the way all my thoughts threaten to lead us towards the realization that greed actually isn’t fucking good … and that manipulation is even worse.
Strip greed and manipulation from the salad of our economy … and what’s left? Stale slow growth croutons and income equality kale?“Summit selects for optimistic people,” he says. “These are people who really believe they can change the world.”Changing the world through the divine power of repeatedly repeating the words … Be the change you want to see in the world!Or maybe just say the change you want others to believe you want to see in the world :: that’s prolly just as good … what with all the global cross platform social synergies that have been going around like venereal diseases on a cruise ship. More talk … less action.Let’s just flap our mouths about change :: and then go ahead and do whatever the fuck we were gonna do anyway … it’s a win win {for everyone but the vast majority of humanity}.Funny story though :: this year I was invited to attend Summit’s flagship event :: not by the thought leading change makers at the top of the mountain shaped pyramid … but by a longtime reader of this site who was one of the many musicians hired to entertain these wolves in trust fund cashmere clothing.
I didn’t want to go :: in fact … I would have paid $5000 not to go. Had Jeff Rosenthal :: Brett Leve :: Jeremy Schwartz :: and Elliott Bisnow bought a mountain any other place on Earth … I wouldn’t have gone. But you can’t make a $40 million play in Utah without The Devil’s fucking sign off … and I’m sworn to hunt The Devil until there’s a bullet in my brain. So … ugh … ick … fucking fuck … I had to go.It was all smiles :: and hugs … and oh. But it also gave me a game changing epiphany. You can read all about it in my Summit Series series over the coming months :: but here’s the endgame spoiler …Scamworld isn’t creeping upward toward the real world in an effort to increase its reach/credibility. Scamworld is just the trickle down of the devastating devotion to lies and corruption that form the basis of the real world.Listen to 2012 Jason telling The Verge {@12:50} …“If legit people on the Internet banded together and tried to do something :: tried to help stop all these old ladies from getting screwed … it would make a huge difference.
Probably even a bigger difference than the government getting involved.”Ha … what a naïve fucking idiot!What legit people on the Internet?The whole model is fake. The whole model is balls. The whole model is a reflection of the way America has lost itself to propaganda and exploitation.Anywayz :: hi Summit Series … I’m The Salty Droid. Thanks for letting me on your disgusting Bacchanalia boat of bullshit and hypocrisy. It mos def changed the arc of my path. I’m so sorry you missed your opportunity to Jonah & The Whale my trouble making ass.#makenosmallplans>> Ultimate creative business cards collection Sign up for the latest branding inspiration, industry news, and logo design tips & resources. Join thousands of designers and branding experts who stay inspired with our monthly newsletter.VANCOUVER — A car dealer from China has purchased 100 classic cars and trucks from arguably the best and largest collection in the country. Jim Ratsoy, a B.C. car dealer for nearly 50 years, spent the past three decades selecting the best vehicles in North America for his collection which spans six decades of automobile production.
Jim was a longtime Pontiac Buick dealer in Richmond. For a number of years, he drove a 1936 Ford convertible to work at his General Motors dealership almost every day. He became a car dealer on his own in 1957 and acquired his first collector car two years later – a Model T Ford purchased from a local farmer in Northern Alberta who bought it new. “We got it started and put air in the tires to drive it home,” he recalls. “The tires were rotten and didn’t last so we drove it home on the rims – about 40 kilometres to where I lived. Since then, I’ve always played with old cars and enjoyed every episode.” Jim bought his collector cars one at a time and originally housed his collection in a warehouse near his Pontiac Buick dealership. He eventually expanded to an acreage in Richmond, approximately five kilometres south of Vancouver International Airport. The growing collection occupied two large buildings on his property. One of the buildings containing rows of beautifully restored classics is ringed by a collection of memorabilia including signs, vintage gas station displays, pinball machines, jukeboxes, player pianos and music machines from early in the last century.
The majority of the beautifully restored vehicles include a preponderance of convertibles. “Top goes down, price goes up,” Jim would often say at the auctions where he bought some of his cars, adding, “It was the auctioneers’ favorite saying.” His Ford collection includes convertibles beginning in 1929 with a Model A phaeton running through continuous years up to his fully optioned black 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner retractable convertible and 1960 Edsel Convertible. In the last year of productions for Edsel, only 76 convertibles were manufactured in the 1960 model year. He has a perfectly restored first year 1939 Mercury convertible lined up with Mercury convertibles in the subsequent years of 1940, 1941 and 1948 as well as a 1957 Mercury Monterey convertible. There’s also two Mercury ‘woody’ station wagons and a rare Canadian-built yellow 1947 Monarch convertible. The collection includes a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible. Plymouth and Dodge convertibles, beginning with a 1932 Plymouth and going right up to a stunning black 1948 Plymouth convertible, line one wall of the building.
The wood-bodied 1947 Chrysler Town & Country convertible that he bought in St. Louis from a collector along with a 1931 Cadillac V12 phaeton are among the 100 vehicles going to China. There are Chevrolet convertibles from all eras as well as pairs of both 1955 and 1957 Bel Air convertibles. Pontiac convertibles are represented from 1948 and 1958, and he has Oldsmobile convertibles starting with the first Rocket V8-powered Oldsmobile built in 1949. Jim’s collection ranges from 1906 to 1991, including a 1991 Buick Reatta with only 8,000 miles registered on the odometer. “It is simply time for them to go and there is nobody around here that is interested,” Jim says sitting in a century-old barber’s chair amidst the collection he spent much of his life putting together. He explains that his children aren’t willing or able to look after the collection and a series of health issues led to his decision to liquidate. He has had several interested parties looking to purchase the collection, all from out of the country.
“I’ve had some negative comments about the sale,” he admits. “But no one here stepped up and wanted to buy them. I have no second thoughts. “In some ways, it is sad that the collection did not stay locally but it is going to a place where hopefully the cars will be enjoyed and appreciated.” Jim is keeping approximately 20 of the newer collector cars because they are easier for him to drive and eventually sell. His longer-term plans are to pare his collection down to about four special convertibles he can use. Among the cars that he says are most notable that are heading to China is his massive 1958 Buick Limited convertible – the largest production convertible ever built by General Motors’ Buick Division. “It was originally silver with a red leather interior but we painted it black which is my favorite color for cars. Black shows off the chrome very well,” he says. He admits he may buy some more cars in the future. It’s in his DNA. His father was a General Motors dealer in northern Alberta and Jim became a dealer at the young age of 23.