Quote of the Day

Never be afraid to fail.

The Golden Rule

He who has the gold, makes the rules. FCC clarifies that they do, in fact, control everything: "The FCC files a brief in the ongoing dispute over the mandated broadcast flag claiming unprecedented reach. We cringe." Things like this really worry me. I need to think about this some more, but I'm sure I can come up with an historical example that parallels this. I just don't see how a new medium is going to flourish by taking away rights granted to us on old media. Digital technology is about flexibility and ubiquity, not locks and keys. Intellectual Property is being used and controlled like weaponry. Trade secrets. What we're talking about here are ideas. What has prospered by limiting the flow of ideas? Power and corruption.

Introducing Hannah

Introducing Hannah
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

So, my parents just got a new puppy. The name for now, is Hannah, and she's a six-week old Yorkshire Terrier. She seems quite cute, and I can't wait to meet her.

How to Persuade People

I wanted to keep track of How do you persuade? from Scoble, because it struck a chord with me. Since learning more about business, I try to not always track down the best products, but also the best service. I've reached a point in life where price isn't always the best measure, and I want people who treat me (as a customer) like a valuable asset to succeed. The article basically sums up how I like to be treated when I'm going in to make a purchase or simply to explore the product. Most of the time I end up knowing more than the sales person of a product, and if they admit that, I'll give them some slack -- if they don't, and try to strong arm me, I'll just leave. It's a shame that there are too many people like that. If they would take the time to probe, the could learn a few things about their product.

The Choices We Make

The True Story of Audion This is a great story. It's inspiring, as a software developer, to see how a couple of guys went off chasing their dreams and made a product that a big behemoth would have bought. They didn't get bought, but don't regret it. I just like that. It makes me think about the future and the present. What you are doing has much greater impact on your life than what you could be doing. So, whenever you start letting your head go off into the clouds about grand plans, just try to come back to earth and think "What would I like to be doing right now?"

The Blue Packet

The Blue Packet This is hilarious! I loved this story. Probably the best thing about it was that I could translate this to my own industry. Developing a software feature for any established product is quite the same. It takes an army of people just to get it out the door and decide that it's the right feature in the first place. I feel like the Linux guy all too often. At least there's hope.

Innovation on Large Projects

I read this article today on The Seed of Apple's Innovation and I was very interested. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and it's something that's just been in my head. As an engineer, I have this creative pulse and I can get really connected to the products that I'm working on. If you're on a large project, you can often become disconnected from the customer. I can sometimes get stuck thinking like 'just another cog' to churn out code. Management teams definitely don't want their employees to think this way, but maybe it's a symptom of the team structure, and not some grand scheme to use people. One of the points of the article was that Apple organizes teams around a product. Companies struggling around how to organize teams know it's not an easy thing for management to grasp this important piece. A company may want to keep common as much code as possible, and keep people in areas of their expertise. I think this tends to organize people around the code, and not around the product which can be a much larger entity. The smaller and closer knit team will always be more effective, and it is a challenge to break up very large projects so that smaller teams can work on them. I would really like to see exactly how this works in the more successful companies.

United States Economy

This is an interesting article. We're all doomed. Especially us tech workers. I'm not a liberal by any stretch, but the middle class is vital to the economy in this country, and we appear to be making it go away.

VDARE.com: The Jobs Crunch: A Progressive Indictment Of Immigration—And Both Parties, by Randall Burns: September 23, 2004 The Jobs Crunch: A Progressive Indictment Of Immigration—And Both Parties [Peter Brimelow writes: At VDARE.COM, we often get mail from disgusted Democrats, and even lonely liberals, wanting to know why their party refuses to address immigration reform too. Randall Burns, one of our ablest correspondents, writes here as a self-described “progressive.”] By Randall Burns The chart below was a centerpiece in the Kerry campaign’s Our Plan for America. It's stark message: America is facing stagnant job growth. Traditionally, progressives have been very concerned about jobs and the distribution of wealth. But do Kerry and Edwards really understand the employment problem—or the..."

TV Execs Wouldn't Know Good Entertainment if it Hit Them in the Head

Argh. I just learned that "The Lyon's Den" has been canceled. Out of all the new shows this season, this is second on my list after "Joan of Arcadia". Why must they take away all the good shows and leave me with garbage such as "The Bachelor" and "Joe Millionaire"? I want quality though-provoking entertainment, not mindless drivel. Last season they took "Firefly", "John Doe", and "Fastlane" away from me. Then, after they already packed up "Firefly", the show was awarded a Hugo. Come on! Stick the damn shows on a Friday or Sunday night and of course they are going to get low ratings. What the hell are they thinking? Not every night can be rated as high as NBC's super Thursday. Having TiVo, I could care less what time things are on as long as they don't overlap. They really need to key into a new advertising scheme with TiVo to help boost revenue, if they need it. I don't have the time to watch live TV, and most people don't have that much time either. We need a new system. We need a system that can produce quality shows, and have them on at all times of the day. I can TiVo them whenever they are on -- just send me a TiVo ad to tell me what to record.

Dents and the Universe

I guess everyone wants to make their mark on the world, but some more than others. I was just reading this article in Business 2.0 about Marc Andressen, one of the cofounders of Netscape. He's off on his new project now, Opsware. Opsware is an automated way of keeping servers configured correctly. Great stuff, that I'm sure understaffed IT groups would love (so, basically all of them). Opsware stared out as an internal software project for the company's web hosting business (formerly known as Loudcloud). It was a solution to an existing problem. Marc and the other execs saw the handwriting on the wall, and transformed the company from web hosting to selling this software. That is awesome -- playing to your strengths like that, and finding what will really work. I can really relate to Marc. He seems like a hyper-kinetic visionary kind of guy, at least as portrayed in this article. While anyone who knows me will definitely not describe me as hyper-kinetic, I often think that way. Sometimes the thoughts are flowing so fast I can't keep up with them. I'm always thinking, though. Analyzing. Trying to see what the future will bring, and where best to be when it gets here. Of course, the sometimes leads me to not doing anything, but you'll have that.

The Di Vinci Code

This book had created quite a stir, and I thought I'd put my two cents in. It's a great read, wonderfully crafted to keep you wanting to turn the page. The theories in it are quite controversial, but that is part in parcel what makes it such fun to read. You really want to find out what happens. There was just a special on television about it that tries to dig deeper into the facts. You don't end up with any new information, but it serves up the same questions as the book. Of course, I'd never trust a fictional author for my historical information, but I'm just as skeptical of a broadcast journalist. They don't go so far as to debunk the theory, but they do poke holes in it where the author took a 'leap of faith'. The theory, of course, is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a child together, and that the early church covered this up. This is quite an interesting theory, and could even be taken in by Christians without losing their faith. What difference would it make if Jesus was a married father? It's subtle, but it does seem to place families of a higher priority. Something the church already does, but this just gives it a new level of importance. I haven't taken a stance either way, but it got me to thinking and that is always good. It makes me want to research the topic more and dig into the folklore surrounding The Holy Grail, and the Merovingians, the Knights Templar, and such. Who doesn't like a conspiracy theory? We all know the early Roman church was very powerful, and often conducted tasks that were more political than religious. This just adds more motivation behind it, and that is why it is a believable premise. I recommend reading the book, and you can come up with your own ideas on it.

The Relevance of Microsoft

Is it me, or is Microsoft losing it's edge? Don't get me wrong, it is still the behemoth of the industry -- not to be trifled with, but they just seem to be slowing down. I guess it was inevitable, but everyone still holds them in such high regard (or fear). With the uncovering today that Longhorn will ship even later than projected (now 2006), they seem to be stuck in big-company mentality. Yes, they are a big company, and millions of people rely on them, but the computer industry has never waited for anyone. You have to build it -- yesterday. Then again, MS has always used pre-announcements to stifle competition. My favorite example is Pen Windows, as detailed in Jerry Kaplan's excellent novel, "Startup". Are these pre-announcements this far ahead by now? Apple is making great strides with their latest release, dubbed Panther. I have been thoroughly impressed by OS X and now use it for all my personal work. They took a nice solid core, added a rich user interface, and built an exceptional development environment with Cocoa. The speed on my 500 MHz iBook is a little lacking, but I haven't missed any of the driver headaches that my old PC gave me. I will admit, it took me some time to adjust to using a Mac. I wasn't accustomed to not having to play with the OS to get things to work. I didn't have to spend four hours setting up my printer like I did with Linux, or reboot the machine ever time I installed a new application. It's weird coming from Windows to this... you almost want Apple to make you reboot once in awhile -- almost. Of course, my first love was the Amiga. That damn computer was so far ahead of everyone else... it really spoiled me. Preemptive multitasking, multimedia, stereo sound, kick-ass graphics, and speed, glorious system responsiveness -- all way before that was the norm... Macs were still in black and white, and DOS was stuck with CGA graphics. I really miss that machine. I had such a connection with it. I would sit in the basement for hours, hacking away on some graphics animation or music file. Spend some time on a local BBS, then go play a game or two. Ah, that brings back some memories. Well, this entry doesn't make any sense now. I'm definitely reaching my goal then. Stream-of-consciousness writing.