tech ronin

[Book] The Black Swan Enlightens

I'm loving The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb! Really well written non-fiction. Somehow Mr. Taleb has made a complex non-fiction book into a page turner. This is a masterful book about how surprises can change everthing and how we understand the workings of our daily lives and the world much less than we think we do.

This delusion of certainty and knowledge can cause us regularly to make bad decisions in our lives. The whole housing and credit crunch mess is a perfect example.

Taleb argues that in simpler times things were more predictable and linear but now we live in a world where winner takes all or close to it. This is a complex argument and I'm not doing it justice.

Blogging beyond the diary-level is akin to trying to write a best-seller. According to Taleb, gaining wide readership is an endeavor with long odds. (Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail loves this book, by the way.)

Besides being a blogger with ambition albeit not a lot of time to invest, I'm also a software developer another occupation where The Black Swan holds sway.

A few will strike it rich with a software hit and the rest will labor in obscurity with dissappointing results. You don’t know whether you will get lucky one day and reach a tipping point that sweeps you into the bigtime. And even if you do get a hit, will you be a one-hit wonder? it seems a little like playing the lottery at the moment.

Please take a look at this book in your local bookstore and see if you don’t get drawn in.

Taleb is a quant trader who got fascinated by the unexpected and then went into a field where uncertainty reigns supreme. Then he started writing books about it. The Black Swan is currently 34 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Shopping for a New Place to Live on Craigslist

On September 9th, my landlord gave us notice that they were selling our house in Mill Valley and we had to move. The rent has been low and the place great, so I've been here 17 years. Lucky for 17 years. Of course, having a wonderful rental may have kept me from buying a place but them's the breaks.

We were worried about finding a place we would like without paying more than we are paying now. For good reason it turns out. The prices are $500 or more higher than we are paying now for an equivalent place. The solution we decided to go with is to get a smaller place. To downsize.

We found a new apartment in Tiburon with two bedrooms. We are going to pay the same amount for 1 less bedroom, a much smaller yard and patio and an apartment instead of a house. We are in a slightly more upscale neighborhood which was not a goal but some would consider it a benefit. The location is roughly as good otherwise.

The main thing I wanted to share here is that Craigslist used to its full capability really helps. What amped up the value for me was to subscribe to a custom RSS feed for the kind of place I was looking for.

I was able to see new listings as they came onto the market by simply checking my RSS feed regularly. Highly recommended. Each Craigslist page seems to have its own RSS button so you tailor your search and then generate your own personal RSS feed. Great way to go!

In my case, I also created a little FileMaker database for the candidate properties. FileMaker let me create a button that would take the street address to get to the google map for the place. I put a few container fields on the screen and some tabs to allow me to put screenshots of google maps in that were optimized.

I would do a screenshot zoomed out to see generally where the property was and then zoom in with the satellite view and get a close up of the neighborhood. This part was manual but quick to do. I would usually do one screenshot for a property and two or three if I was especially interested. I also could drag and drop photos of the house exterior and interior when available.

The cool thing was that once I typed in an address in my database, I could click a button to get to the google map. I've always wanted to be able to do this and it was when FileMaker Pro 8.5 came out with its web viewer that it's become super easy. FileMaker created standard code for google maps in the webviewer so I just copied and pasted that URL into my button and off I went.

Moleskine Writing Walking Breakfast Routine

I started writing in my Moleskine daily when I incorporated it into a daily package. A group of things I do together.

I live about two miles from downtown Mill Valley, California. A town of 14,000 people, 12 miles North of San Francisco. The heart of Mill Valley, is the Depot Bookstore & Cafe which opens onto a small town square.

The cafe is the best nearby place to sit and write. It seats about 50 people. That's about 40 more seats than you can squeeze into the local Peet's across the street. Peet's admittedly has better coffee, but the Depot's coffee is pretty good and the people-watching, cafe and comfortable seating makes it better for casual writing.

But I digress. The point is that this is a whole little downtown with quite a lot of character and only a modicum of cheesy touristy stuff. It's got its fair share of high-end touristy stuff, but hasn't succumbed to T-shirt stores. You would like it.

Luckily, the eggs and toast breakfast served at the Depot cafe works for me. I eat the toast dry (no jam even though they have great jam here) and ask for 1 slice rather than the default two slices to avoid temptation. You probably don't want to know, but I eat the toast with eggs -- combining the two which allows the eggs to serve as the topping on the toast and the toast to add a little variety to the eggs.

I love food and hate food shopping, prep and dishwashing, so an eggs, toast and coffee breakfast for $6.47 works as a daily habit. So, I walk all the way from my house or drive about six blocks and walk from there. Either way, I get at least two 20 minute walks. One going and one coming back.

The route I take is on Ethel Avenue which is up above the main drag - Miller Avenue - and in the trees and hills enough to make it easy to get some good exercise if you walk briskly on the downhill parts. The nature, including Redwoods along the way, is a major plus. And, hardly any cars drive on Ethel. It is really narrow so one car passing per walk would be above average.

The walking and breakfast combo would be great in and of itself. But, I add in a large ruled Moleskine notebook and daily entries to ratchet things up a notch. I date the entries something like: Dec 9 (1) Saturday. The parens around the 1 is really a circled 1 and I number the pages in an entry that way.

All my moleskine pages are numbered in spreads. One page number per spread of two pages. This hasn't really been of much use but sometimes I will refer to another entry and having a page number to refer to helps. Although, the date would also probably suffice. Whatever. I like having the page numbers just in case. I can see how far into the book I am.

Finally, what do I write? it varies. I have gotten into the habit of entering stock market index numbers, the crude oil price and value of the dollar. This might be a way to get into writing. It's easy. No thinking. And, I've found that the stock market's ups and downs affects my software sales, so it is of some interest. And the value of the dollar impacts foreign sales. It's fun. I usually read the business page while I'm there and those stats are available.

I also frequently enter short quotes or notes extracted from things I read in the papers there. The SF Chronicle is almost invariably available free. Sometimes you get a treat with the New York Times. I'll read a bit of that if there's something really good.

I also report on things I've done in the last 24 hours. Daily diary kinds of things but that's very short usually. The main goal of my writing is not to document my life, that's a secondary thing. I like to capture some of the highlights. Things of note. When traveling, I'll write more about what I've seen that day. Average days, I might write more about what work I've accomplished.

The big topics are (1) what do I need and/or want to do that day or soon, (2) my ideas and observations and (3) work ideas, observations, analyses which could be ideas on marketing my software or how to do something in software or a new feature I should add and (4) goals and wishes and possible future scenarios for my life.

My Moleskine is thus a thinking tool and way to keep my focus and advance my work (for pay and otherwise). It's almost like a listener. If you've ever wished you had two of you, this is one way to do it. I'm the reader/listener and the writer. Putting things down in writing lets me converse with myself I guess. It gives some distance. It's powerful.

As this post is getting quite long, I'll just say that on good days I write 6 to 8 pages and some days it is more like one. This writing-walking-breakfast thing is a major part of my life. It is wonderful. Perhaps if I didn't work at home it wouldn't be as desirable to get out somewhere everyday. Perhaps the conversational aspect of the writing wouldn't be so valuable.

I love it. It feels like a healthy and useful luxury and I hope I can always carve out a space in my schedule to do it. So far I've been doing it for close to a year and there's no end in sight.

Technorati Tags: Journaling, Moleskine, Walking, Writing

New Book Discovery: Radical Simplicity

I discovered Dan Price Saturday. It was beautiful day. I drove over to Stinson Beach to give my new car some exercise. I found this intimate little bookstore with tons of character - Stinson Beach Books. By their very nature, beach town bookstores are special places, so I had to go in.

Exploring, I found this little book called Radical Simplicity: Creating an Authentic Life. The cover got my attention but the inside pages were even better. It is chock full of Dan's wonderful original sketches with mostly hand-lettering. Beautiful book.

I started reading Radical Simplicity at the Sand Dollar Restaurant across the street from the bookstore. The burger I had there was scrumptious by the way. I read a good chunk of the book that afternoon and evening and finished it the next day. I was fascinated.

The writing and sketching are excellent but the most interesting thing is Dan and what he thinks and does. He is a passionate and quirky guy. He seems naturally compelled to do things way off and away from the norm. One thing he seriously wondered about was what it would be like to be an indian in the days when indians lived peacefully and in harmony with nature. Dan's story made me wonder about indians too.

Maybe I felt a little like Dan a long time ago when I first realized how modern industrialized civilization has really trashed the planet in a mere 100 years or so. And used up most of the fossil fuels too. It bothered me a lot then. I couldn't understand it.

Eventually I kind of hardened myself to it and decided it was *just the way things are* and I might as well enjoy the good parts of the trend. So I became a technology enthusiast. I still recycled and stuff like that but stayed far away from being an environmentalist.

Even still, I read Ecotopia when it came out and really liked it. Maybe it is the shadow side of my mind. Yeah. So Dan Price and his books worked on that side of my mind. And now I'm compelled to read everything the guy has written. Maybe not everything.

Unlike most of us, Dan Price has made some very tough choices to pursue his unique vision and live life the way he imagines it should be lived. He's definitely advocating living lightly on the land.

Dan has been on a quest. He's done a lot of traveling and a lot of building tiny alternative homes. He's lived in two tee-pees, lots of high-tech tents and some other little shelters that are perhaps best described as hobbit houses.

Dan's written two other books that I'm currently reading: How to Make a Journal of Your Life and Moonlight Chronicles. They are different and were written in 2000 and 2001 while Radical Simplicity was written in 2005. I like the most recent book best and the Moonlight Chronicles second best and How to Make a Journal third. He's getting better as he goes along. I hope this trend continues.

Dan also has written a series of zines over the years. Over 50 of them. He sells them on his website for $5 each. I'm very tempted to order a few. I'm sure I will. I'll get back to you about them once I've checked 'em out.

Dan is not a god or a guru. But, he's very honest and has taken an alternate path from mine. And I admire him for it. I am curious to see more of the details of that alternate life that I've so far passed by.

Blue Angels Over Alcatraz

I decided to miss a little of the 49ers game today in order to see the Blue Angels fly around right from the Golden Gate Bridge. That was fun! It's exciting to be on the bridge anyway. The day was gorgeous.

There were a ton of sail boats all over the bay. Here's a very wide screen shot. Right in the middle is a big ship. To the left is Alcatraz and the right is Treasure Island. And the Bay Bridge. And an awful lot of people on the water with amazing views. This one photo seems to say it all. If you click the photo, you'll be taken to the medium-sized Flickr version. From there you can see it larger if you like.

There are lots more photos of the Blue Angels on Flickr if you have your appetite whetted. I like this close-up taken by Dave Golden today with his Nikon D70. Until I saw his photo, I didn't know the planes were numbered 1-6.

Technorati Tags: Blue Angels, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay

Bought my first New York Times Article 10-Pack today

I've resisted paid sites on the internet so far, but today I decided to pay by the article for access to the New York Times archive. I usually try unsuccessfully to monitor the NYT and make sure I read or capture anything really good before it goes into their paid archives.

NYT lets you have free access to the last 7 days or so. Today, I tried out searching their archives for China, one of my current passionate interests. First, the search is very well done. There's advanced search and you can narrow your search to particular sections of the paper, that sort of thing.

I quickly found an article that was interesting that I hadn't read. It's called Shanghai Journal: A City's Traffic Plans Are Snarled by China's Car Culture. A great little 1,000 word read.

In order to read it, I could pay $3.95 for the article or buy a 4-pack for $7.95 which halved the per article price. That hooked me, so kept reading. The 10-pack is $15.95, not much less but $1.60 per article started seeming pretty cheap. I decided to go for 10. There has to be at least 10 articles in the archive that I would pay good money for (probably more like 1000 - hmmm that's $1,595. Yikes!).

I found out as I was nearing the check out that I would only have 30 days to select those 10 articles after which the unused articles would expire.

So, now they've got me looking in the NYT to find good articles to make sure I'll find 10 before my 30 days are up. That gets me more familiar with NYT. I've never been a subscriber, so don't know my way around all that well.

It seems like this approach will be a great way for NYT to make some money. In their case, I'm not worried about them. Their paper readership is still expanding and I think it's because people have gotten hooked by reading current articles free online. NYT has some of the best reporters and writers on the planet, so they are set.

Other papers probably won't fair so well unless they can distinguish themselves for excellence or local coverage.

OK. That's all for now, I gotta get back to my China search. Knowing me, I'll find 10 articles in the next hour and be popping another $15.95 soon. I can't say that 10 articles are worth more than something like the new Cold Play CD, but it's not bad. Part 2.

Technorati Tags: China, newspapers, NewYorkTimes, NYT

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Loved it

The ultimate in gorgeous and glamour is also a great Hollywood movie! I'm already a big fan of Angelina Jolie, so that was good going in. This is a smart romantic comedy first and an entertaining actioner second. Happily, Ang and Brad bring out the best in each other - chemistry and connection is almost perfect. Brad, muscles and all, is funny, flirtatious and vulnerable while still being the boy with his toys cowboy assassin. Angelina is the smart, gorgeous, controlled, professional. Dialog and delivery are equally good.

Fighting is top-quality action. It's rare to see male and female opponents or team operating all out like this as different but equal Plus you get some Hong Kong style flare - lots of bullets and two-fisted shooting.

The action is entertaining and humorous. And I like the combination of action and romantic comedy in this instance. There's a War of the Roses subtext that goes on throughout that is really funny. One of my favorites was the look John gave Jane after she accidentally threw a knife into his thigh. Oops! His look and her response were priceless.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a grain of plausibility to the story that they had been assigned to kill each other.

Brad and Angelina were outfitted with all the best furnishings, clothes and technology which I have to admit to enjoying thoroughly.

This movie is not elevating, it won't make you a better person. But, it will entertain at a very high level and the humor is smart. If you haven't seen this already, check it out.

Technorati Tags: movies

The World is Flat, Now What?

I'm just digging into The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and am enjoying it. Lots of good stuff. I'm on page 29 and it is a 479 page book. I can already tell you one major issue I have with it, though.

There's a working assumption that globalization is overall a good thing. That's not so bad, but it seems that Friedman looks for every opportunity to sell it. He is already trying to make the case that even though outsourcing is moving jobs out of the US at an accelerating pace, it's all gonna be fine:

I firmly believe in the lesson of classical economists about moving work to where it can be done best. ...Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently. That ultimately helps the New Londons, New Bedfords and New Yorks of this world even more than it helps the Bangalores and Shenzhens. It helps because it frees up people and capital to do different, more sophisticated work, and it helps because it gives an opportunity to produce the end product more cheaply, benefiting customers even as it helps the corporations. ... India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services. What goes around comes around. p.20 - 24

Wouldn't that be nice? This is the argument/religion of economics and the argument of the pro-globalization folks. Work should go to the lowest cost producer. That's efficiency. That drives the economy. There are some negatives in these low cost working conditions and for the environment (work goes where environmental regulation is least), but hey?

I have an MBA so I know this drill. I like the drill to an extent. But I live here in the US. I was born here and was planning to die here. But this whole leveling of the international playing field thing could be a problem for us high-living Americans. We are talking about the hollowing out of the American economy here.

Let me get personal and use myself as an example. I'm currently selling my Studio Manager software product 40% internationally and 60% in the US. Few of my sales are local and I rarely ever meet with my customers face to face. I talk with them on the phone and do a lot of emailing and every once in a while a client pays to have me fly to their location to provide training, consulting and customizing services. But most don't.

I doubt if a business like mine would exist except in these times where I can make my product known online and email my software and annotated pdfs, email and talk long distance very inexpensively. I'm on the receiving end of some of the benefits of globalization. I work out of my home. My employees are actually freelancers who work out of their homes and meet with me typically once or twice a week as needed. Work ebbs and flows - I have flexibility, they have flexibility.

But then there's the other end of the equation. I live in Mill Valley, California. One of the most expensive places on earth to live. Real estate is astronomical here. Labor costs are about as high as anywhere. There are places in the US that have a cost of living that is half of what it is here. Does my Mill Valley location help me economically? Not as much as it used to when I had a local business. Now I compete with software solutions that are made anywhere not just local consultants who have cost structures similar to mine.

I'm doing OK so far. There's still lots of cultural friction that is to my advantage. My product is in English and appeals to English-speakers (but individual customers have spent the time to translate it to Spanish and Japanese and a French version is in the works). Most of my sales come from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We share a relatively common culture and that produces a sense of confidence that plays a key role when software purchase decisions are being made.

But, longer term, I may have to consider moving to a place where it won't cost me so much to live so that I will be able to compete with low cost providers. To increase my advantage further, I should consider outsourcing some of my development. Perhaps I should have an English-speaking East Indian helping me with my FileMaker work. That's what this world is coming to.

The funny thing is that I know a FileMaker developer who has moved from Vermont to Panama in the last six months to save money and is now paying $400 a month for a three bedroom house. He has three brilliant Siberian programmers doing most of his development for him. He communicates with them by instant messaging every day. I have no idea what he pays them but he sells their time to his customers for $65 per hour. He's taking this globalization thing seriously.

I identify as a free agent. At this point in time, being a free agent seems very appropriate and adaptive. Working for myself, I have to be a generalist and handle all sorts of disciplines. I'm light on my feet. I keep current. I look for opportunities. I try to find ways to take advantage of new technologies and ways to land on my feet when faced with the inevitable ups and downs and twists and turns. I feel like a ... tech ronin.

Technorati Tags: Books | Social Trends | Economics | New Economy | Career | Tech Ronin |

Online Memorial for my Friend Kate Wittmer

I was playing around with some of my recent photos this wonderful Saturday morning - straightening and running enhance and adjusting photos and having a good time. And then my eyes wandered over to the Source column on the left and I saw a smart album for my recently deceased close friend, Kate.

This picture was taken many years ago when she and I were on a trip to Hawaii. Kate was (using the past tense is difficult) a brilliant, creative and sensitive woman. One of my dearest friends ever. We kept in close touch even though she moved away from the Bay Area to Taos, New Mexico several years ago.

Kate died in her sleep from a heart attack on December 20, 2004. I want to do a whole website memorial on her using some tool I haven't chosen yet. I planned to do it much sooner, but its taken some time and distance to bring myself to the task.

I'm hoping that friends of Kate will find this post and correspond with me about her.