Paul Graham is one of my favorite essayists. The following are some excerpts from his excellent 2004 essay, “The Age of the Essay“. The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. Certainly schools should teach students how …
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Category:insights
delivering solutions – “shipping is a feature!”
Back in 2009, {{Joel Spolsky}} wrote an article called The Duct Tape Programmer. Of everything he has written, I think this is the very pinnacle, and it is summed in one simple sentence in the middle: “Shipping is a feature.” I’ve referenced this article twice before (in Feb and Sep of ’11). Why is this …
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don’t implement your scheduler in a pure queue design
Recently came across a seriously funky issue with one of HP’s products (don’t laugh – I know there’s loads of funkiness in HP tools). HP Cloud Service Automation (3.1) allows you to schedule requests in the future. It also allows you schedule end dates for subscriptions. That’s neat. Here’s the problem: if you delete a …
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reference materials
I learned recently that my wonderful wife was never taught how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, almanac, or encyclopedia as a child in school. Not all of that can be because she went to public school whereas I was homeschooled. Nor can it merely be that she grew up in KY and I in NY. …
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bursts by albert-lászló barabási
{{Albert-László Barabási}}’s book “{{Bursts}}: The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do, from Your E-mail to Bloody Crusades” is fascinating. In the same overall genre as {{Malcolm Gladwell}}’s {{Outliers}} (review) – pop psychology and pop science – {{Bursts}} is a great read: bringing highly technical and dense topics to the masses in a manner that [apparently] …
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creating vs consuming
One of the biggest issues facing Western societies is that they are all consumption-oriented. Not enough time is spent creating – all [most] people want to do is consume: entertainment, food, money, fun… We all want shortcuts. We all want to be at the level where we don’t have to think to accomplish work. We …
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call
I learned about the call command in Windows recently. Some context – was trying to run a command via HPSA at a customer, but kept getting an error that the program was not a recognized internal or external command. Very frustrating. Then one of the guys I worked with suggested adding a “call” to the …
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organizational knowledge capture, retention, and dissemination
Knowledge capture, retention, and dissemination has been an interest of mine for a long time. I have written about various aspects of it before. The most vital commodity any organization has is the knowledge of its members – it does not matter if it is a historical society, company, church, or school: the organizational knowledge …
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redecentralizing school
I have a very long–term interest in education. As I look at the current public education “system” in the US, I can see a variety of major problems. The biggest problem, endemic of any system built around the premise that the only people who should be together all day long should all be “similar”. Somewhere …
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passive income is not a business plan
Shortcuts. Shortcuts are great. But only when you know the long way. Without hard work, the short cut will seem hard. Passive income seems to fall into this category. Some people think panhandling is a form of passive income. It’s not. The panhandler works for his money – he talks to people, shakes a cup, whatever: he …
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mastery by robert greene
In {{Mastery}}, {{Robert Greene}} continues in the style of his excellent work, {{The 48 Laws of Power}} (which I previously reviewed and have been posting excerpts from). Sadly, it is not quite to the level of The 48 Laws – though it still a good book. Unbeknownst to me, I’ve already been practicing most of what …
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the art of war by sun tzu
{{The Art of War}} by {{Sun Tzu}} is one of the oldest texts in the world, and the oldest known treatise on warfare. It has become de rigueur in war colleges, business schools, and other venues. Most people have incorporated at least part of Sun Tzu’s teaching and thinking in their lives as leaders – …
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finding your niche
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” You’ve probably been asked that questions hundreds of times in your life – parents, friends, teachers, yourself, movies. It’s a common theme. For most of us, the decision gets made sometime in our late teens or during college: doctor, mom, lawyer, electrician, plumber, teacher, policeman, …
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the richest man in babylon by george s clason
{{The Richest Man In Babylon}} by {{George S Clason}} is one of the few audio books I have enjoyed – and one that I think everyone should read/listen to frequently: it’s the early 20th century version of {{Dave Ramsey}}’s {{Total Money Makeover}} (another great book). The advice/suggestions in this book are things I didn’t listen …
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the 48 laws of power by robert greene
Unlike my previous book reviews, I’ve decided to approach {{The 48 Laws of Power}} by {{Robert Greene}} in a slightly different manner. Mr Greene’s collection of historical observations into a neatly-distilled, easily-readable format should make everyone who reads it want to put a copy on their desk – and reread [parts of] it frequently. The …
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double at – email triangulation
Why has no one come up with an email routing/sending system that can use multiple at (@) signs? For example, why not have an author@antipaucity.com@apple.com? The email could be routed to both auther@antipaucity, and @apple – and/or could force-route mail through the first mail system (presuming credentials were available). Let the flames spark.
why the electoral college matters
This year’s election results seem to – again – be confusing a LOT of people. The incumbent presidential candidate, Mr {{Obama}}, won ~51% of the popular vote. His main opponent, Mr {{Romney}}, won ~48% of the popular vote. However, when you look at the electoral votes (the only ones that really matter), you see a different picture: …
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the failure of the technical sales cycle in enterprise software
Specifically in the realm of data center management and {{automation}} software, but applicable to all other niches, sales people are too focused on this quarter, their commission, and getting ink on the page. In the broader context of the software companies producing tools / products, there is a general focus of getting to the next customer – forgetting …
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asking the wrong question
A recent question (“Is it possible to trace someone using Google during an online exam?“) on superuser had me thinking about asking the right question again. I want to design an online exam for over 1000 students via around 50 computers right after the vacation ends. Now the problem is that I have heard that …
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the gold standard
This is going to ramble a bit, and I’m not 100% sure my opinions are even remotely reasonable, but I had a great conversation on the Gold Standard recently, and thought sharing that would be fun. The quoted sections are relevant parts of the conversation from my friend*, and the unquoted segments are my responses. …
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gaming expense reports? really?
At various stages in my career, I have traveled extensively – yet never even thought of “gaming” the expense reproting system the way it has been recently reported by CNN. Being terminated over charging a movie to your room? Seems harsh (getting the $9.95 back from the employee would seem to be easier) – but breaking the rule …
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doing technical phone screens
Related to a previous post on career development, I thought it could be interesting to look at one approach to the technical screen that I have used over the past few years when interviewing candidates. for folks with no “real” experience yet, I ask them to rank themselves on a few key technologies on the …
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http is a stateless protocol
The ubiquitous protocol that enables the internet as we know it, http, is stateless. Stateless merely means that any given request has nothing to do with the previous, or the next request. This enables the world wide web, as web servers do not need to keep track of who is receiving data, nor ow much …
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the ticket smash, raw metrics, and communication – how to have a successful support organization
When I worked at Opsware, and for a while after HP bought us, we used to try to have once- or twice-a-week meetings for each support group wherein we would bring our most difficult cases (with the difficulty being determined by the case owner), and have an opportunity for everyone on the team to ask questions, …
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why technical intricacies matter
I have been working on a upgrade for one of our customers for nearly a month. Last week we spent about two hours focused on one specific problem that had been rearing its ugly head on an exceedingly-frequent basis: one of the components of the application was routinely pitching OutOfMemory errors from the Java Virtual …
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