plugging back in

Monday,  09/06/10  06:37 PM

I'm plugging back in after a long weekend spent largely unplugged, pretty nice.  I will do so more often.  This is one of those things, nobody says on their deathbed "I wish I would have spent more time checking email".  I have much to do, but much of it is quadrant two stuff, and the things I did do were more quadrant three, like cycling (pic at right taken from China Peak) and working out and going to a Dodger game with my family.  We'll see whether this lasts... in the meantime, some quad4 stuff like making a filter pass! Urgh!  The U.S. Treasury's End-of-Summer $50B Bonfire.  We are spending too much money we don't have, and it will take too long to recover. I must tell you I am *not* paying attention to the Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain), which is taking place right now.  They lost me when they didn't invite Team Radio Shack I think.  I see that Igor Anton is leading, good for him, and the next "name" is Frank Schleck at 1:47.  Tom Danielson is at 1:52.  So be it... I liked this: The Driver's Seat (PDF).  Which car is right for you?  The choice of a car is much more than the choice of a vehicle, it says a lot about you, and determines a lot about how you see yourself. A great review of great books about a great man: Finest Hours (PDF), The Making of Winston Churchill.  Of all historical figures, the one I would probably most like to meet would be Churchill, a brilliant, intelligent, charming, and [by most accounts] delightful man.  It would be my finest hour :) Trend of the future: The Up! Personal Portable 3D Printer.  Now just $1,500.  Man I might have to get one of these, how fun :) Scott Loftesness is playing with HDR, and shoots the Gates of Hell.  That would be the famous Auguste Rodin sculpture in the Stanford sculpture garden; I know it well and have admired it many times.  He says the black & white version is more powerful but I disagree.  I remember so well seeing this piece in a rainstorm, with water streaming off it, and it was a powerful experience. Robert Scoble interviews Scott Cook.  It's an interesting interview ("Continual entrepreneurship is necessary to reengineer success") - Cook is always interesting, a truly fascinating guy - and Scoble notes he has been leader of Intuit longer than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been alive.  Wow. People who know me are generally struck by a couple of things, first, I eat a lot, and second, I don't sleep much.  Now TheScientist reports hungry flies ok with less sleep (PDF).  "When flies are starved, they are able to stay awake for long periods of time without suffering the negative outcomes of sleep deprivation, including cognitive impairment."  I will leave it to others to decide if there is any parallel :) Onward!  have a great week...

 

discovering the third quadrant

Saturday,  09/04/10  11:54 AM

Last night I shared a bottle of Chardonnay with my friend Jay, and he introduced me to a most significant concept: the third quadrant: This little 2x2 matrix plots tasks we have to perform on two axis - importance, and urgency.  In quadrant one we have important and urgent tasks, and we do these first.  In quadrant two are tasks which are urgent but not important, and we do these next due to their urgency, even though they aren't important.  "Busy" people tend to accumulate a lot of quadrant two tasks.  That would be me.  In quadrant four are tasks which are not important and not urgent, they are in fact optional, and often "fun".  These are the tasks you do when you are procrastinating from doing... the tasks in quadrant three, which are important but not urgent.  Because they aren't urgent we don't make time for them, and because they're important, they're "scary" and "hard" and not "fun".  And the pitfall is that we often don't get to them at all.  That would be me. Realizing this doesn't necessarily help - after all, I'm blogging right now, a quadrant four task if ever there was one, despite having plenty of quadrant three tasks waiting for my attention - but it is a great concept.  The main takeaway for me so far is that I must avoid quadrant two tasks to make time for quadrant three.  I will of course continue to set some time aside for quadrant four tasks :) PS amazingly and interestingly, this insight occurred at the 3rd Corner, how cool is that?

 

the Panamerica - sheep in wolf's clothing

Saturday,  09/04/10  11:34 AM

Last weekend I reported the  awesome folks at The Auto Gallery have loaned me a brand new Porsche Panamerica!  I have driven it all week and returned it this morning.  It was a pretty amazing vehicle and I thought I'd share a few thoughts... It was fun having an *unusual* car; everywhere I went people commented.  But nobody thought it was beautiful.  It was always like ... "huh, so that's the new four-door Porsche."  They successfully incorporated the Porsche design cues from the 911, but they did not end up with a great looking car. The 3.8L six has plenty of horsepower for daily driving, but it does not excite the senses.  You can't hear it roar, and you can't feel it throwing the car forward and smashing you back into the seats.  It is not a Turbo Carrera. The interior is beautiful and beautifully laid out.  Nothing bad to say. The electronics are first-rate.  The touch-screen Nav system is excellent.  The iPod link is perfect.  The sound system is quite impressive for a "stock" stereo (although, like the engine, it will not blow you away). There is plenty of room in the back seat for two full size people.  Is is not a 2+2, it is a true four-door four-seater.  And the trunk arrangement is very nice, plenty of room under the hatchback and the rear seats fold down easily for even more room when you need it. I guess I'd sum it all up by saying it is a Lexus sedan with Porsche styling, a sheep in wolf's clothing (and a very luxurious sheep, too!).  If that's what you're looking for, here you have it :)

 

catching up

Saturday,  09/04/10  11:17 AM

Getting caught up here after a long week away... woke up in Carlsbad this morning, drove home, returned my loaner Porsche (about which I will have more to say - yes, I have my little car back, yay!), and here I am back on deck, literally and figuratively, trying to get caught up.  It was a great week but also a sad week, and somewhat thought provoking, as some reality intruded into my weird little world.  Anyway it will be nice to have a long weekend, hang out with my family, and get in a little R&R.  And a little blogging... { Tech note: I discovered to my chagrin that Twitter is now forcing OAuth for their API, which means when I post to my blog it doesn't automatically Tweet, and hence doesn't automatically post to Facebook.  This scheme didn't work well anyway and I guess this is my chance to fix it, but coding an OAuth interface was not on my menu for this weekend.  I guess I'm going to have to post manually for a while... so be it. } Last weekend I declared the end of summer, but some say it isn't over 'till the fat lady sings (that is, Sept 22).  I must admit, sitting outside on this beautiful morning, it *does* still feel like summer.  But school has started, football is being played, and it's Labor Day; in fact, after this weekend I can no longer wear my white jacket :)  so it is over, baby.  Sad though that may be... Can you believe?  Google Chrome is two years old.  It has not replaced Firefox as my primary browser, but I often use it to check FB and for other JS -intensive tasks. Apple had a great week, but Ping seems to be a dud so far.  It suffers badly from the "now what" problem; I signed up, and there was nothing to do, and I will probably ignore it from this point forward.  Integration with Facebook would have solved this problem, and apparently at one point Facebook Connect was part of Pink, but at the last moment Apple took it out.  So be it. How to succeed like Apple: ignore your customers.  Really?

 

midweek

Wednesday,  09/01/10  10:35 PM

In the middle of the world's longest week, sitting in on a sales training class at Aperio, and doing a few hundred other things in parallel :)  but of course I have time to make a filter pass... Last night we took our sales team to Dodger Stadium - aka the Center of the Universe - to watch the Phillies beat the Dodgers.  Final score hot dogs 3 beers 5.  A great time was had by all. And so Apple announced: They have shipped 120M iOS devices.  Wow. iOS 4.1.  Bug fixes (!), HDR photos, HD upload, TV rentals, Game Center.  Yawn. iOS 4.2 (for iPad).  iOS 4.1 stuff + Airplay media streaming.  So be it. Redesigned iPod Shuffle.  Cute.  So be it. New iPod Nano.  Touchscreen!  But no camera, and no video.  And it is *not* an iOS device.  Huh. New iPod Touch.  Retina display, front and back cameras, Facetime, HD video recording.  An iPhone4 without the phone.  Expected, but nice. iTunes 10 with "Ping" social network.  Interesting, this I could see using myself... what are my friends listening to, and how do they like it?  Also interesting, they changed the logo to get rid of the CD.  Hah. ...and one more thing... A new AppleTV!  Teeny, cheep ($99), no internal disk, rental only.  New UI but not an iOS device, no apps.  Interesting. A classic Jobsnote, enjoyed watching/listening to the master :)  it was notable that he alluded to some failures or non-successes too; the bug fixes in iOS, bringing buttons back on the shuffle, AppleTV being a "hobby".  It worked. ArsTechnica posted their usual nice overview of the announcements. [Update: Ping is a big disappointment.  It might get better, but right now I have no friends, and there's no there there.] In the real world, worst August for stocks since 2001, not to mention problem bank list climbs to 829.  So much for that "Summer of Recovery", huh?

 

my Porsche Panamerica loaner

Sunday,  08/29/10  10:28 PM

I think you guys know, I smashed my little car, and the subsequent repairs have taken a long time.  By way of apology and sympathy, the awesome folks at The Auto Gallery have loaned me a brand new Porsche Panamerica!  In case you don't know, this is a four-door sports sedan... and so far I have found the driving experience to be rather Lexus-like, smooth as silk if a little unexciting.  The interior is luxurious and it has all the bells and whistles, including an iPod interface and a great stereo.  How fun. so what do you think?  beautiful? the front definitely evokes "Porsche"... ... but the back seems a bit ... different They say never look a gift horse in the mouth, and I do plan to enjoy it this week.  But I might have a few things to say about it next weekend... stay tuned :)

 

amazing 3D chalk art

Sunday,  08/29/10  10:18 PM

amazing 3D chalk art I would love to see this stuff live

 

weekend wrap

Sunday,  08/29/10  10:05 PM

Great weekend, didn't get enough done of course - as always - and feel a little guilty about it - as always - but I did have fun, got some exercise, and even (gasp!) got some sun.  All good. The lightbulb goes on.  "The Fed will not come to the Democrats’ rescue, at least not in time to stave off a shellacking in November."  I'm not hoping for a Republican resurgence so much as a recognition that liberal economic policies have failed. I like this post by Scot Tempesta: Ice Queens.  "When I was 18 years old my best friend Ana died of breast cancer at the age of 32. This year I turned 32 and I realized exactly how much grace she exhibited during her ordeal in the prime of her life."  Wow.  Dying of breast cancer at 32.  Order the calendar! Some of my best friends are that age.  When I was 32, I was divorced, my business was in trouble, and I felt my life was over before it had ever started.  When I think back to everything that has happened since, the possibility that life might have ended for me right then is frightening.  Makes you appreciate every day. This is awesome!  Check out Google's HTML5 demo, featuring Arcade Fire's "We used to wait", encapsulated in a "film" called The Wilderness Downtown.  You will need Chrome, and it will be worth it. HTML5's capabilities notwithstanding, a LOT of sites use Flash, and they don't work under iOS.  John Gruber considers.  "Is there more pressure on Apple to add Flash support to iOS, or on websites with Flash-only content to produce iOS-compatible alternatives?" I cannot believe the pre-hype and prognostication going on around Apple's "event" this week; nearly everyone agrees there will be some kind of iPod update, and also some kind of AppleTV update.  It is all very exciting, but let's wait to see what they actually announce instead of endlessly debating what they might announce... [Update: yippee it will be streamed live.  Although I will be in sales training and will probably not have a chance to watch until... next weekend...] Motto for this week: Drinks Well With Others:)

 

the Antonov 225

Saturday,  08/28/10  10:45 AM

The Antonov 225, the world's biggest airplane.  There is only one. Awesome!  How cool is that?

 

the end of summer

Saturday,  08/28/10  10:13 AM

Good morning!  A beautiful Saturday, sitting outside enjoying the morning... and I am anticipating a mountain bike ride with my friends in a bit... but I am also a bit melancholy, as it is now, unofficially, the End of Summer.  My kids are back in school, there is football on TV, and the air has a slight bite to it.  It has been a great summer for me, and I am not ready for it to be over!  Nooo... NY Times: New Kindle Leaves Rivals Farther Back.  I just bought one of these for Megan, arrived yesterday.  Really impressive little device.  Smaller thinner lighter brighter cooler than Kindle 2 (which I have) which was smaller thinner lighter brighter cooler than Kindle 1 (which I had).  Definitely the future of reading. Dog bites man: Blockbuster plans to file for bankruptcy.  And so electronic distribution trumps physical once again.  How long before this happens to Barnes & Noble? Apropos: View from the trenches: surviving change... Also: Phone numbers are dead, they just don't know it yet... Good to know: Ogling beautiful women a natural reflex for men.  Um, duh. The Onion wonders: Are tests biased against apathetic students?  It is so interesting the way test results are compared against "common knowledge", as a way of testing the tests.  I am in the middle of this with my daughter Alex, who has taken the SATs ahead of applying to colleges... far more time and energy goes into explaining why SAT results are incorrect (because they don't match "common knowledge") than goes into analyzing those results to learn what is really going on... Very important for future reference: Vanderleun's 330 word guide to writing a book proposal.  I *must* do this.  I must I must I must... Coding Horror: Vampires (Programmers) vs. Werevolves (Sysadmins).  "The art of managing vampires and werewolves, I think, is to ensure that they spend their time not fighting amongst themselves, but instead, using those supernatural powers together to achieve a common goal they could not otherwise. In my experience, when programmers and system administrators fight, it's because they're bored."  I love it. TheScientist has A Q&A with Frank Gehry as he shares thoughts on his latest creation, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health."TS: When designing the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, were you inspired by the diseases and patients it was intended to treat? FG: Well, I work with the clients and they have programs, requirements for their labs and for their equipment and things like that, so we respond to that...  we take our direction from them as clients and explore ways to make their lives more interesting and better through the building."  How awesome is that building?  I suspect it will indeed influence the work done inside of it! Important work: How to sail downwind faster than the wind.  Interestingly it is necessary to accelerate the vehicle externally to a speed higher than the wind, at which point it can stay there.  Seems like cheating, doesn't it? Did you know?  Clean people feel morally superior.  As we should :) Zooborns of the week: Komodo Dragon hatchlings!

 

Alexis' edition...

Wednesday,  08/25/10  10:47 PM

It's the Alexis edition of my blog, as she turns 17 today... congratulations, to the most wonderful kid imaginable... and meanwhile, we find: Chest Beating: NEMA Working Group 6 have approved supplement 145 to the DICOM standard, "Whole Slide Imaging for Microscopy".  This means that the huge complicated images created by scanning entire microscope slides can now be stored using the DICOM standard, a major step forward for my company Aperio and the entire digital pathology community.  It will take time for this standard to be adopted and propagate, but just having a standard is a major step forward, and every journey starts with the first step.  Yay. From the August 9 issue of the New Yorker: The Wheelhouse - "Herzog and de Meuron reinvent the parking garage" - and how great is that?  I've always admired the spiral parking of the circular Marina Towers adjacent to the Chicago River... Empty Chamber - "Just how broken is the Senate?" - judging from this article, the answer is very broken indeed.  Yikes. Here we have the T.O. Acorn's Squirrel of the Month.  A great feature, and a great choice :)

 

buzz kill

Tuesday,  08/24/10  10:51 PM

This is interesting...  from Leo Laporte: Buzz Kill.  In which he noticed that everything he was posting to Google Buzz wasn't actually getting posted, and nobody noticed, not even him! "Something happened tonight that made me question everything I've done with social media since I first joined Twitter in late 2006... "It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. "I should have been posting it here all along. Had I been doing so I’d have something to show for it. A record of my life for the last few years at the very least. But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs. Yep.  Related, from Paul Carr: Thnks Fr Th Mmrs: The Rise Of Microblogging, The Death Of Posterity. (I must tell you, I love having my archive.  It's like a diary, only linked to the world.) I honestly think this microblogging stuff is a fad.  An amazingly popular fad - think CB radios - but a fad nonetheless.  We'll see.

 

No Socialists (New Yorker - Aug 2, 2010)

Tuesday,  08/24/10  10:34 PM

I see socialists myself and they are scary...

 

Tuesday,  08/24/10  10:11 PM

Home for a day, between trips to Seattle and Vista, and on the phone for most of it :(  although it was good to be home.  Trying to get caught up around here and I find... The August 2, 2010 issue of the New Yorker was excellent; not only was the cover great, but the contents too; some selected articles: Stuck - the incredible badness of Moscow traffic. Letting Go - "what should medicine do when it can't save your life" - poignant and thought-provoking, an important subject... The Scales Fall - "is there any hope for our overfished oceans?" - a tragedy of the commons if ever there was one. Christopher Hitchens via Ann Althouse: "Tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism."  That's it.  That's why multiculturalism breaks down.  I can tolerate anyone who can tolerate me! Dave Winer reviews Eat Pray Love.  "The most powerful thing you can do to get through all this messy trickery is to first forgive your ghosts."  I'm not strongly tempted to see this, although I like Julia Roberts and I agree with the message. Scott Adams goes nonlinear: Larger Than the Coolness of Corduroy.  You have to click through. Ever wonder:  How promiscuous are you?  So I took the quiz, and "based on your response data, you'd be most at home in: Finland, the most promiscuous (#1) of the 48 countries evaluated by the study."  Finland?  Huh. I must tell you, my opinion of the iPad is gradually morphing...  it is successful, of course, and to everyone's surprise there isn't a killer app; just a bunch of different things people are figuring out that it is good for...  it might not be good for me - so far, it isn't - but so be it. PS my friend Gary, who has an extraordinary 20 years' worth of tablet experience, opines "his skepticism about his skepticism is warranted."  Yeah mine too. Did you know?  Four years ago today, Pluto was de-planet-ized.  The Earth didn't stop rotating around the Sun, but it was a big deal.

Posts and articles in the last month:

08/23/10 11:01 PM -	at U-dub
08/22/10 03:16 PM -	Sunday,  08/22/10  03:16 PM
08/22/10 10:58 AM -	Cool Breeze 200K was
08/20/10 11:46 PM -	Bowling for Tchaikovsky
08/20/10 11:41 PM -	no arms, no legs ... no worries
08/20/10 11:21 PM -	I'm baack!
08/16/10 11:24 PM -	on the road again
08/15/10 10:18 AM -	Win 7 x64 ...
08/14/10 06:52 PM -	on top of the world
08/14/10 06:45 PM -	the joy of solitude (New Yorker 8/2/10)
08/14/10 11:42 AM -	Alex and me in SF
08/14/10 10:48 AM -	my life as an oriental curry
08/10/10 10:28 PM -	timing is everything
08/09/10 10:20 PM -	Megan on the cover of North Ranch Living!
08/09/10 09:58 PM -	-8-9-10-
08/08/10 11:15 AM -	Aperio is hiring product people
08/08/10 10:11 AM -	reading an actual book
08/07/10 10:19 PM -	revisiting ancient posts
08/07/10 04:31 PM -	despicable me
08/07/10 10:20 AM -	tranquility challenge

For older posts and articles, please visit the archive.