Part 1 of 5 in my condensed reprint of Inc’s article, “35 Great Questions” from the April 2014 issue. How can we become the company that would put us out of business? –{{Danny Meyer}} Are we relevant? Will we be relevant five years from now? Ten? –{{Debra Kaye}} If energy were free, what would we …
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what viability would a subscription-based social networking service have?
You see stories like this one, and you wonder how Facebook is continuing to make it. So many people I know are either leaving, or reducing their involvement (including myself), that is seems it is destined to be the next MySpace. Over the past couple years, I have seen companies advertise themselves by giving links …
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april adoption update
We’ve gotten an update in our adoption process. Please go check out our [private] adoption blog. If you would like access to it, please leave a comment or email me.
the “best” industries for starting a business?
I generally really like Inc magazine. But this article is kinda ridiculous: “The Eight Best Industries for Starting a Business.” By the time an industry has landed on a list like this, the odds that you’re really going to be able to capitalize on it are super slim. There’s nothing “wrong” with starting a business …
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magazines
I am the [proud] holder of subscriptions to several magazines. As part of my attempt to vary my reading materials, I get {{Wired}}, {{Inc}}, {{Fast Company}}, {{Western Horseman}}, and several others. However – I’ve discovered that I just don’t care about most of what is any given issue; there are times when more than half …
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vacation
This CNBC story caused quite a bit of discussion on my Facebook wall this week. In short, Americans don’t take all the time off they can, and many don’t even take any. I didn’t used to take much, either – but have since changed my view on the matter. There seem to be a variety …
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group admin in the era of facebook
Along the difficulties of initially building a good group/community, comes the hassles of managing said [virtual] community – especially on the book of the face. I am a coadmin on the Ontario & Western Railways Historical Society Inc Facebook group. My friend Peter is a coadmin of the Linux Mint group. Something both of us have noticed …
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Daniel 5 (NASB)
{Daniel 4} Belshazzar the king held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, …
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lex>>fwd meeting @ west 6th tonight at 1730 edt
LEX>>FWD is meeting tonight at West Sixth Brewery in Lexington at 5:30p. The topic is scheduled to be “source control and specifically differences between distributed and centralized”. If you’re int he Lexington area this evening, come join us.
the seven stages of expertise
I recently found The Seven Stages of Expertise in Software Engineering. Stage 1: Innocent barely knowledgeable if at all Stage 2: Exposed seeking knowledge Stage 3: Apprentice has read case studies and tries to apply those techniques Stage 4: Practitioner can actually apply concepts learned in one context to a not-identical context Stage 5: Journeyman …
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reading experiment
In follow-up to a recent blog post shared to me by my friend Steven, thinking about my aunt’s old practices, and comments from my wife and another friend, I’m engaging in a “consumptive”/”reactive” reading experiment wherein I am going to do something I haven’t done in a non-workbook book since my time at HVCC – …
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I apologize for having been a “grudge bear”
“You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” {Leviticus 19:18} Many years ago, shortly after the church I grew up in ordained 5th pastor (who made 3 current when it happened), there was a sermon he …
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play to people’s fantasies – law 32 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 32 The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to …
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never run out of dry erase markers
They always go dead when you need them most – so stock up. Especially at employee personal whiteboard, meeting rooms, and class rooms.
integrisure – the business that never was
For a long time I have been interested in real, actual, legitimate security. I am not a fan of the widespread use of security theater in our “post-9/11 world”, as {{Bruce Schneier}} calls it. Integrisure was supposed to be a real-world {{pentesting}} of “secure” facilities, a la Sneakers. In late 2000 / early 2001, I was working on …
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Ecclesiastes 12:12b
there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body {{HCSB}}
Ecclesiastes 12:11
The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. {{NASB}}
designing a Bible study
When I browse the shelves at Family Christian, Lifeway, or even Barnes & Noble, I see various and sundry Bible studies by all kinds of authors: for the ladies, {{Kay Arthur}}, {{Beth Moore}}, & {{Priscilla Shirer}}; for the gents (or coed), there’s {{John MacArthur}}, {{David Platt}}, {{Dr David Jeremiah}}, and many many more. What I’ve …
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community building is hard
Establishing and building a community around a common interest is hard. After exhausting your network of friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc – the only way of getting new folks into the community is to aggressively campaign and advertise to them. Let’s say you’re a technical user group (like a couple of the ones I’m a part …
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control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal – law 31 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 31 The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose. Force them to make chocies between the lesser of two evils, both of …
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devops on area51.se
Whether you’re familiar with the Stack Exchange family of sites and services (askubuntu.com, stackoverflow.com, etc), or not, I encourage you to check-out and support this new DevOps proposal to see if maybe it can get to a critical mass and launch as its own Q&A site on the SE network http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/66151/devops?referrer=k13Ji_hD0QxN04cgiNoUkQ2
a smart[ish] dhcpd
After running into some wacky networking issues at a recent customer engagement, I had a brainstorm about a smart[ish] DHCPd server that could work in conjunction with DNS and static IP assignment to more intelligently fill subnet space. Here’s the scenario we had: Lab network space is fairly-heavily populated with static assigned addresses – in …
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a week without facebook…
…and a week to go. Normally, I take about one big break for the book of the face every year – generally when my wife and I take a vacation somewhere 🙂 This year we’re upping the ante: while home – and accessible via SMS, email, Twitter, phone, Google+, etc – I’m on a two …
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Daniel 4 (NASB)
{Daniel 3} Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth: “May your peace abound! It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. “How great are His signs And how mighty are …
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Daniel 3 (NASB)
{Daniel 2} Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, the height of which was sixty cubits and its width six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, …
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