Art Basel in December!

I am super incredibly excited to go to Art Basel in 3 months.  Yay!

I went once before, in 2009.  We met Val Kilmer the afternoon we arrived, and James Franco later that night!

Here's the photo from 2009.  I don't think I could be smiling any bigger.



We only stayed last time at Art Basel for 48 hours but we crammed everything in!  This time we are going for a whole week! We will work remotely from there.



The best part is that it's organized by my dear friend SM, and I get to stay in the same house as her for a week!

I'll also finally meet my online personal-trainer.  He's been training me via webcam for nearly a year.  He is also going to Art Basel.

Random moments August 2014

Memories from the past two months.

About to board the ferry for camping on Angel Island!

This camping spot is only a 30-minute ferry ride away from San Francisco!  

Partying with Orkut.  It was a happy and well-mannered evening.

Ate this cool Greek yogurt!  It comes with pomegranate and dates.

The making of kale pies.

The finished result.  When I texted the photo of the kale pies to Azer, he said "Who is eating the extra one?  I land at SFO in 20 minutes."

Visiting my dear friend Sveo, who has this indoor basketball court in his house. Originally when our mutual friend Jack and I saw the blueprints 3 years ago, we were both skeptical.  But after we played badminton, basketball, and did somersaults, we bowed to Sveo's foresight in installing this.

If you are envious, restrain yourself.  Don't hate!  Hateful comments will be deleted.

Once you've been a witch, it is easy to become a witch again.  I dressed up for a Castro Theatre show.  

software and the mark of love

Once upon a time, my friend Gor said, "When you're using a software product, you can tell if the creator loves it.  If they love it, all the little details will be right."

He said this in the context of reassuring me, "You love your product, and the users will be able to tell."

I've noticed this difference, when watching Lord of the Rings movie adaptation versus Harry Potter.

There's a behind-the-scenes story about making LotR.  During the filming of Balin's tomb, an employee commented, "One of the dwarf-language writings on the wall says, 'John was here'."  The set-design people freaked out and spent hours going through the scene freeze-frame, translating every sentence from dwarf-speak to English.



Finally they went to that guy and insisted, "Show us where it says, 'John was here' in dwarf-ish!"  He then looked stricken and said, "Um, I was just joking."

Contrast this passion to Harry Potter.  The entire theme of the book is acceptance of people different from yourself.  The book keeps reiterating: don't discriminate against the giants, or the house-elves, or Muggles.  Don't hate Snape just because he's so kooky.  Don't judge a book by its cover.

Then what happens in the final movie?  There's an added scene where someone asks McGonagall, "Where should Slytherin House go?" and she says, "Put them all in the dungeon."

Just imprison an entire group of people in the dungeon for no reason?  Go against one of the core principles of the book?


Peter Jackson would never have let that happen.

Another example is that Harry and Voldemort grapple in the movie for minutes, whereas the book makes it clear that Voldemort is far more powerful but Harry wins through love and self-sacrifice.

I've remembered this through the years, and it gives me assurance when I'm working on a product.  I know that if I love it, that will shine through.  Users will be able to tell, and be more likely to love it too.

Library

I'm staying in a weekend house with a library, something I have always wanted!  

I am sitting in the armchair with my kindle.

I am here with my friends who work at Screenhero.  The host drew the logo on the blackboard in the entryway! 

The little touches like drawing the logo (the square infinity symbol) are so charming.

Whew, keys handed over

My clean-up is complete and keys handed over and new tenants are happily ensconced in my Mountain View townhouse!  Or at least stressfully ensconced, since they now need to move all their furniture tomorrow.

Last week I got quite stressed over selling furniture.  My online personal trainer Donny told me about his experience in Florida.
   1. He posted his furniture on craigslist and only got flaky responses.
   2. Then he tried to donate it to charity, but was declined because they only want beach-y furniture.
   3. Finally he just put all the furniture out on the curb, and walked away thinking, "It's the city's problem now."

So I was worried.  But it all ended up well!  I sold most of my furniture to college friend C3.  He just moved back to the Bay Area and is now working on improving genetic analysis tools.

View from my doorway of C3 and friend moving furniture.

Today, I saw the UPS truck and gave my Comcast return box to the driver.  He asked if I'm moving out.  He said wistfully that it's been a long time (10 years) and he's delivered quite a number of packages to me, and that it's too bad I'm leaving.

I was stunned.  I had no idea that my UPS delivery person even remembers or cares who lives in my home.  It gave me a really happy warm feeling inside, like I'm really part of a community.  I told him that I'm not selling the place, just renting the place out for a while, and he said, "Ah!" in a cheered-up way.

Now that's one more reason to go live there again one day.  Because the UPS guy is nice.  Ha!

While clearing out my belongings, I found a journal from when I was 21 years old. 

21-year-old me had just gotten a work project cancelled at Microsoft and was unhappy.  I also felt isolated at the time because my coworkers loved baseball and go-karts and hated comedy sitcoms and Chinese food, so I had to work hard to find a common bond.  

The first paragraph of my journal read: "I feel old.  I feel like I used my time unwisely."

Ah, poor 21-year-old me!  I wish I could hug that nut-ball.  

Also found an old photo album, with this photo of me and little brother Tom:

Poor 6-month-old Tom!  I wish I could hug that little nut-ball too.

humbled

I find it strange that when people win an award or get an amazing job, they say that they are "humbled". This makes no sense to me.

Satya Nadella was "humbled" to be chosen as Microsoft CEO. The Oscar winners are "humbled" in their acceptance speeches. Why would you be humbled during the biggest success of your career? That's the one time you should be feeling *least* humble!

Earlier today:

niniane: i screwed up tonight and accidentally stood up friends. Humbled. (This is the proper use of "humbled")

omst: would someone who was humbled also sidenote that they were using the word correctly?
omst: food for thought
omst: humbled-brag

niniane: lol humbled-brag!

Gentle reader, next time you win something, please don't reiterate some bogus hypocrisy about being humbled. I want to hear you say, "Yes. This has been a long time coming, bitches. I deserve this. You all should be humbled in my presence."

I actually quite like how Charlie Sheen does this, with his #winning and his "giving everyone another faceload of planet jealous".

Solo camping

I went on my solo two-day camping trip last weekend.  It was so great.

My pack was only 22.2 pounds even with a 4-pound tent and a 1-pound stove.  It must have been light because I brought very little water.  My campsite had a water spout, though the water needed to be purified before drinking.

That pink tube on top is the pepper spray.  I'm glad I had it.  I also brought a flashlight, which I never used.

I used my survival school skills to make the wool blanket into a pack.  This saves several pounds from not having a separate pack.

Selfie just before I set off with my blanket pack.

It was a 4.6-mile hike to my campsite.  The distance was just right, with the weight of my pack.  

I decided to eat primarily soup, so it can all be cooked in my single pot.  I experimented with these three varieties.

1. Ready-made soup, 2. dehydrated vegetable bean chili, and 3. gumbo powder.

1. The ready-made soup was shockingly easy.  Two minutes from opening the can to eating the warmed-up soup.

It was a coconut milk based soup, which tasted exotic in the woods.

A commenter on my earlier post said it was better to bring 16 oz of food (soup in this case) instead of 16 oz of chair. I found this to be true.  

2. The dehydrated vegetable pieces in the bean chili turned out to be disgusting.  

I ate a lot of it anyway, even though I could feel it coursing a path of indigestion through my stomach.

When I went to chuck the rest into the bushes, I poked my leg into a plant that made my right shin break out in allergic hives.

3. The gumbo was okay.  I cooked it with potatoes and lentils.  It was nice to eat real food instead of dehydrated or super-processed foods.

One wonderful thing is that I became back in touch with my body, the way I was during survival school.  I could keenly feel indigestion, hunger, weariness.

The weather report said lows were around 53 degrees, but I froze at night.  I woke up every hour from the cold.  (This part of the trip was not so great.)  I could not sleep at all between 2:30am and 4:30am due to the cold.  

The second day, I decided the reason for the cold was insufficient insulation between me and the ground.  I spent an hour gathering pine needles to make into a bed.  

I was so proud of myself.  On the fourth trip to gather pine needles, I poked my unharmed leg into the allergic plant covering most of my campsite, and got hives on my left shin.  The allergic reaction was so painful that I thought I had been stung by a bee.  

This is the horrid death-plant that caused me allergic hives and throbbing pain every time it touched my skin.

I made a pine needle bed. I realize it looks a bit like a grave in the photo.  But it was not scary in real life.  I put my tent on top of it, and my blanket in my tent.  I was excited about my pine needle bed.  I took a nap and it was comfortable and warm.  Then night fell, and ... I froze again.  I woke up every 90 minutes, which is a slight improvement over every hour but was still ghastly.

As soon as I came home, I bought a frou-frou expensive thermarest camping pad with fancy insulation.

Note the circle of allergic-death-plant around my whole sleeping area.  

Walking back to my car!

It was nice being off the grid, sans email.  Peaceful.  Without the sounds of the city, my own inner voice becomes much more clear.

Nostalgia & a trash bag

I am clearing out my belongings from my Mountain View townhouse.  I rented it for 4.5 years to Azer, and he let me keep some things in the garage and bookshelf.  Now Azer bought a home and I am renting the place to new tenants.  

It feels sad throwing away belongings that were once cherished.  Or trying to sell them on craigslist, and having strangers haggle with me.  One guy haggled down the price of my chair from $30 to $25, then showed up $1 short and gave me $24 plus 17 cents in coins, with no semblance of shame.  He is an Adobe employee.

Azer said this might be the top of a housing bubble.  Maybe financially it is smarter to sell the townhouse.  But I am very emotionally attached.  I still think there is some chance I might live in it again, one day.

Throwing away once-beloved and now-obsolete items is sad.  I am forcing myself to smile, using that psychology trick where smiling forces your body to release endorphins.  It is actually working, surprisingly.

Of friends and friend geographic density and creamed corn

A delightful surprise has transpired.  It turns out that four friends / former coworkers work within one block of my office!  They work from three separate offices, but are so close that their Google Maps pins are almost touching my marker.

We are all going to afternoon tea next week.  Hobbitses!  

One of them, Yuichi, is teaching me how to be a foodie and appreciate world-class cooking.  Recently he told me about this Japanese cream corn croquette:

But tragedy lies ahead in our story.  In three weeks,Yuichi's company will be moving one mile away.  One mile is very far compared to 500 feet!  

One scone to rule them all

There is a British afternoon tearoom a block from my office.  I went there last week with two colleagues, Yuichi and "Sig".

Yuichi: "Are you guys going to dinner after this?"

Me: "No, who can eat dinner right after afternoon tea?  We're not hobbits, Yuichi."

Sig: (raises hand) "I'm going to dinner right after this."

Then Sig left early to go eat an 18-course meal over the next four hours.

...

Afternoon tea is so pleasant at a hungry time-of-day.  Recently I have acquired several teapots.  

"Casablanca" should win an award ... for most sexist film

Recently I watched Casablanca with a group of other people.  They gushed about how it's one of the most romantic films of all time!  It's such a true love story!



Let's review the female characters in this film:

1. Yvonne is being passed around from man to man, who take her home for sex and then treat her like garbage the next day.  We know basically nothing else about her.

2. The young Romanian woman is preparing to have sex with the police chief, in exchange for a visa.  We know basically nothing else about her.

3. Ilsa's beauty is praised continually.  She doesn't seem to have ambitions of her own, other than following her husband around or following Rick around.  Her only decision is which man to follow around.  But even that decision is too hard for her.  She tells Rick, "I don't know what's right any longer.  You'll have to do the thinking for both of us."

There were no other significant female roles in the film.  To recap, the only roles were a French woman being used for sex, a Romanian woman being used for sex, and a woman with beauty and no discernible skills who abdicates the single decision in her life.

This movie blows.  I don't know why anyone thinks it's romantic.

Yes, it is touching how Rick puts aside his relationship with Ilsa in order to help the world, because his problems don't amount to a hill of beans.  That part is good.

But otherwise it's ridiculous to say that one of the "greatest love stories of all time" is one that represses women to this extreme.  Why don't you just say that "one of the best stories about ideal racial relations" is 12 Years a Slave?

flamewars over anything

I chuckled out loud at the unnecessary aggression on this comment thread about MongoDB database's default setting of writes silently failing:

Andreas: Don’t complain about incompetent usage of a technology where you obviously did not read half of the tutorial. It is clearly documented and explained on IRC, lists, slides etc. a trillion times a day that the default behavior is fire-and-forget (means no check by default).

jhanson: Is this the same Andreas Jung who said: “The “safe” mode is off by default: who made this idiotic decision?”

Andreas: And? Did I claim in my former comment that the default is a good thing? Learn to read please.

Soda Glass: You certainly sounded so. Learn to write please!

Being on the sidelines, I'm laughing at all of these, but I'm sure if I were the one being attacked, I would not find it so funny.

Here is another one that's funny when you're not involved:

Dan: You shouldn’t have to check for errors. I don’t check if I ran out of heap space after every line I write.

foljs: And neither do the MongoDB developers it seems…

It is amusing how programmers on the internet will viciously attack each other, based on no provocation. But why are we doing this to each other? Shouldn't we programmers band together?

update on sleep experiment

Three months ago, I decided to improve my sleeping habits.  Here is what I've learned so far:

1. Falling asleep.  It turns out I dislike the time period of lying in bed waiting to fall asleep.  Things that are more interesting than lying motionless with eyes closed include: reading, watching a movie, writing code, or any number of activities.

So I previously would just stay up until I was so tired that I would fall asleep instantly, thus skipping the boring part.



But this meant that I would go to sleep quite late.

Things that did not work include:

• setting a reminder to go to sleep earlier
• avoiding blue light for two hours before "bedtime"
• announcing my intention to go to sleep earlier, and asking others to hold me accountable

Things that did work include:

• listening to a meditation video during the boring part of falling asleep

2. Waking up.  I was previously waking up earlier than I wanted to.  As soon as I became awake, I would get up, instead of trying to fall back asleep for another hour until my desired waking time.

Things that work include:

• using an eye mask and earplugs to avoid being woken up by light or sound
• listening to a meditation video in order to fall back asleep again

An obstacle was that it turns out that in the half-awake, half-asleep state, my brain makes problems seem ten times more arduous than they appear in the sober light of full day.  I previously countered this by spending as little time as possible in that limbo state, often by just getting up.  Now I try to meditate.

...

With this effort, I've managed to increase my average sleeping time from 6h 30m to 7h 10m.  Sadly, in the Ericcson study of violinists, the elite bucket slept 8h 36m, and even the worst-performing bucket slept 7h 48m.  I'm still significantly below even the worst bucket, sigh.

But focus on the positive!  I increased my sleep by 40 minutes!  That's a lot!

There was one week I got up to an average of 8h.  It felt like a new lease on life.  Something to aim for.

camping

I decided to go camping by myself this summer.  I want two days of peace and solitude in the wilderness.  I've wanted to do this ever since my 2-day "solo period" during survival school, but I'm finally going to put it into practice.

 

Survival school taught me how to create a shelter, purify water, treat cuts, and deal with wild animals and lightning.  The only thing I fear is encountering a dangerous stranger, but Sha-mayn brilliantly told me to get pepper spray.  I ordered it from Amazon, and now I'm prepared!

The only question is whether to get this 1-pound camp chair.  It looks so comfortable, and has back support!  But it is going to add one pound (5% additional weight to my pack).

Also I already am departing from "survival mode camping" by bringing a tent and flashlight, and this just goes further down the slippery slope.  At least the tent has a functional purpose of providing warmth and shelter, and the flashlight helps with safety.  The chair is only for luxury.  It has no function other than making my back feel great.  What if this camp chair is the gateway drug to camping trips with pillows and hammocks?

animation humor

At CM's birthday brunch:

CM: My friend was deciding between being an animator on a film versus a game.  He said on a film, he'd just spend a year making Shrek's eyelash.  On a game, he gets to create the whole character!

MB: All 2000 polys of it.

Later:

MB: Lots of games are all mo-cap now.

Me: Are all films totally mo-cap'ed now?  Does anyone hand animate these days?

MB: Of course.  You can't mo-cap a dragon.

OMG he-who-must-not-be-named hilarity

I am newly obsessed with Harry Potter books again.  The characters are so well-written!  I also forgot how funny the books are.

Hermione

I am quite irritated at the Harry Potter movies.

In the book, Hermione is a very strong, interesting character.  She is acknowledged by everyone as the best student in the class.  She stands up for herself.  She's great.

The movie forced her to cry at the end of the Yule Ball, sobbing, "Ron, you spoiled everything!"  Then she plops down dejectedly with her shoulders slumped.  In the book, she shouted at Ron to learn a lesson and "ask me earlier next time before someone else does, instead of as a last resort!"  Then she sweeps off to bed, leaving Ron thunderstruck.

Movie forcing Hermione to be dejected

The movie had her crying on Harry's shoulder when she discovered Ron kissing Lavender, asking Harry, "How does it feel when you see Ginny?" and then weeping at length.  That never happened in the book.  In the book, she sent magical birds after him and then walked out and slammed down the door, with a single sob.

Movie forcing Hermione to weep

The movie inexplicably had Ron pick Lavender over Hermione.  In the book, Ron went to Lavender because he felt jealous and inadequate that Hermione kissed Viktor Krum, and because Hermione insinuated his quidditch win was due to luck potion.  Ego wounded, Ron sought to build up his confidence via Lavender, who adored him like a dolt and never challenged him.  The movie had Hermione being sweet and supportive, but then gets suddenly rejected for no reason by Ron.

Ron and Lavender: movie removed all motive

I'm also irritated by Ron's speech in the first movie about how Harry needs to proceed through the rest of the quest alone, and that the hero has always been fated to be Harry, not Ron, not Hermione.  What the heck.  A central theme in Harry Potter is that we're not doomed or fated for anything.  We make decisions, and those shape our future.  Harry could've been great in Slytherin, but he continually made choices not to go into the dark arts.  The book emphasized and re-emphasized how our choices define us.  But the movie has a monologue about how Harry was the special one, so therefore his friends should just give up now because they're not the Chosen One and he is.

I place the blame at the feet of the movie directors for 1, 4, and 6.  They took an exquisitely written book and character (Hermione), and watered her down to a damsel in distress.  J K Rowling gave us a gift, and then the director dropped it in the dirt a few times.  

nepotism in "Fellowship of the Ring"

Last month, I watched Fellowship of the Ring again.  It is an amazing movie, and I watched all 17 hours of bonus commentary.  However...!



Aragorn is obsessed with the "weakness that runs in his veins" because he is inherited from Isildur.  Three thousand years ago!  Even if his ancestors had children at age 50, that's 60 generations!  He is only 0.000000000000000086% blood from Isildur by this point! [1]  We should be far more concerned whether his more recent ancestors have weakness in their blood or not.

Also, the story makes a huge deal about how Aragorn is the ONLY ONE who can unite Gondor.  At one point, it looks like Aragorn will refuse, and Boromir goes on about how the race of men will fail now, and the White City will come to ruin.  There is no one else in all the tens of thousands in Gondor who can lead?  In 3000 years, not a single other leader emerged?  We have to wait for Aragorn with his 0.000000000000000086% royal blood (blood tainted by weakness, no less)?

Other than these problems, Lord of the Rings has great lessons.  Throughout many pre-launch moments on my software projects when it was "darkest before the dawn", I reminded myself and others that the journey always feels gritty and broken while you're in it.  One does not simply walk into Mordor.  It's only afterwards that the epic elf songs are written and sung throughout centuries.  While you're trekking to Mount Doom, it does not feel epic at all!

Also Lord of the Rings teaches us that even a hobbit (or two, since Frodo had a cofounder) can contend with the will of Sauron.

But the nepotism is lame!  Some random dude in Gondor should have risen up and said, "Hey, I'm a great leader too, how about we stop waiting decades for Aragorn and just unite under me instead?" and they should have gotten on with it.

[1] computed via (0.5)^60

the 10% that voted for him won a bunch of money

"Moe" was one of the fellow students in my survival school course.  Moe lost 100 pounds in the six months prior to survival school, dropping from nearly 300 pounds into a normal weight range.

On the ride to the airport to attend survival school, Moe's roommate let slip that there was a betting pool on how long Moe would last.  Survival school is tough.  One former Air Force airman previously died on the course, from dehydration.  Moe pried out of his roommate the fact that out of 25 betters, only two bet that Moe would finish out the course.  All the other people bet that he would give up partway through.

Moe was demoralized by this.  He described how bummed he was to find out that 90% of his friends had bet against him.  

In the end, Moe did not quit.  No one in my group quit.  I think this was partly due to me.  I was by far the slowest.  I was always walking at the end, with the person doing the sweep.  And I didn't quit.  If the person struggling the most hasn't quit, why would anyone else quit?  

On the last day, as we prepared to re-enter the real world, Moe said, "My coworkers are going to be surprised.  But they won't care.  Almost all of them bet against me.  They wanted me to fail."

He turned on his phone, and posted an update that he finished.  An hour later, he checked his phone again and looked up in shock.  "Everyone wants to buy me a drink," he said.  "They all want to have lunch or dinner, and congratulate me.  I got so many congratulatory messages."

...

The next morning, I was talking to J, another student.  

J said, "Moe doesn't understand that guys don't encourage each other like women do.  They don't say, 'oh, you're definitely going to make it!'  Instead they say, 'You're going to fail.  You're going to fall on your face.  No way you're going to finish.'"

"Wow," I said.  "But they do congratulate each other sometimes?"

"After it's done," J said.  "Then they said, 'Good job'.  'Nice work'.'"

...

Recently I noticed that a good percentage of posts on PostSecret or forums I read are about people who want to take the leap and start a company or move to a new city or switch careers.  Almost all the comments are positive.  I wonder if it's true that real-world men are trash-talking?  If so, how do men manage to make life changes?  You would think women would be the ones starting all the companies, if they're the only ones with emotional support.

Also, this bodes well if you are making a big change and getting a lot of flak from guys.  When you succeed, they will all turn around to congratulate you, so there is no need to worry that the flak will go on forever.

60-day experiment: sleep

I've decided to embark on a 60-day experiment to get enough sleep.

All my life, I've had a reluctance to go to sleep at night.  In the evenings, I look at the clock every ten minutes, hoping that it's still early, so that I won't need to go to sleep yet.  Then at some point, it crosses over into "I should go to sleep now".  That lasts about 30 minutes.  Then I stay up another two hours, while trying not to look at the clock.

As a result, I'm usually in a sleep-deprived state, where I will fall asleep within one minute as soon as I finally lie down.

I read "The Promise of Sleep" years ago, from the leading sleep researcher on how sleep deprivation leads to worse mental performance and health.  But this just led to me feeling guilty while not changing my habits.

I'm going to do this experiment for 60 days.  Last night I went to bed at 12:30am, which is 1-2 hours earlier than normal for me.  It was painful.  Lying in bed awake for ten minutes before falling asleep was annoying.  Then I had more dreams than usual.  I had a dream about walking into a small conference room where a coworker was crying, and another dream about running around in a frightening maze.  I had been watching Lost just before going to sleep, so that was probably related.

The famous sleep researcher found these results when testing violinists at a music academy.  These are from top to worst performers ("teachers" means they are going to become music teachers after failing to become soloists).

I feel heartened that the best students on average went to sleep around 1am and got up at 9:30am.  I always envisioned that these virtuoso violinists were perfect little androids who went to bed in ironed pajamas at 10pm and woke up smiling at 6:30am. Good to know that their actual sleep pattern is not impossibly out of reach.

It was disheartening to learn that the bottom bucket of failed soloists still slept 7.7 hours on average.  Fitbit tells me that I sleep 6.2 hours on average.

This afternoon, I will try to take a nap around 2pm.  

masterful writing

Yesterday I finished "Ender in Exile" by Orson Scott Card.  I have some issues with the middle third having a contrived plot.  And I always felt Ender Wiggin is a wooden character -- as opposed to Bean, whom I love like a real person.

But one thing cannot be denied.  Orson Scott Card is a masterful writer.

Sometimes I read writing that is exquisite, like the Ender's Shadow series, or J K Rowling at her prime in Harry Potter 7, or Middlesex, and I feel overwhelmed by how beautifully it is executed.  Their mastery is breathtaking.



And then a vain little hope stirs in my secret heart that maybe one day, decades from now, I would be able to write a novel or short story that I would consider beautiful.  Not as beautiful as those books, since those are three of the top authors living in the world, but just a novel that I would be proud of, that I could look at and see as beautiful.

It seems a lot to hope for though.  I already am blessed to have an amazing calling-in-life, and to have work that I find deeply fulfilling.  So it seems too much to ask, to also be able to write fiction beautifully on top of that.

But when I read books by these masterful artists, hope leaps up in my heart of hearts.  

how to stand out above the din?

I read a story recently in a screenwriting book "The Story Book".  It goes something like this:

Writing is like mining for gold hidden in the hillsides of your mind.  The young writer goes to the publisher and points at the hillsides, shouting, "Give me money and I will return you pots of gold!"

The publisher wants gold, but he's heard it all before from thousands of prospectors.  They never have the gold they claim.

Two years later, the writer returns to the publisher with a bucket of muddy nuggets.  "You have to acknowledge me now!  I have spent years digging nuggets out of the hills for you.  Look at this gold, gold, GOLD, I tell you!"

The publisher unblinkingly indicates to either side of the writer, who realizes he is in a line of a thousand other weather-beaten obsessives, who have similar weighty buckets and are shouting the same imploring mantra at the man who must decide.

...

Who from the thousands of writers proffering gold-filled buckets in the line and stridently proclaiming their value, will the publisher select?  Look along the line.  The writer he will deal with is easy to spot, because he's not holding a bucket full of hard-won nuggets.  He is holding up a cut and polished, solid gold necklace.

And he's not shouting at all.

I thought this was brilliant.  I get emails from strangers asking questions such as "How do I land an interview with company X?  My resume isn't great because I haven't done many challenging projects, so instead I've been persistently emailing company X every week but they ignore me" or "I'm not doing very well in school and I have few projects, but I really want to work for Google.  How can I write my resume in a striking way that gets noticed?"

There are entrepreneurs who are convinced the secret to success is not to focus on making their product high-growth but rather to maneuver their way into meeting with a venture capitalist.  There are people who are convinced the best way to further their career is go every week to a networking event, and finagle their way into meeting the highest-profile people in attendance.

These are all focused on how to shout more loudly.  Occasionally someone might shout loudly at just the right moment that they get lucky and get heard.  But that's short-lived if they don't back it up with real skills.  Shouting loudly is not reliable.  The far more reliable path is to make a solid gold necklace.

Sometimes people don't want to hear that, because it takes years.  It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert.  They want to hear that if they just format their resume in this super-special way and add these particular buzzwords, they'll get an interview and a job and can go back to not caring much about computer science but now with glory and money while relaxing.

But that's not real.  The real task is making your skills most useful to the world.

meditation retreat

I went for a 5-day meditation retreat at Esalen.  It is a meditation center in California on the coast between San Francisco and LA.  It used to be a tribal ground for a tribe named Esalen, and has been this meditation center since 1962.


I ate all meals at Esalen.  The meals are not vegetarian, which I enjoyed!  They grow their own vegetables.  The squash and red lettuce taste amazing!

Now that I'm back in the regular world, vegetables taste boring by comparison.


Lodgings at Esalen were fully booked during the week I was there, so I had to stay nearby at an inn.  The inn has no locks on the doors!  You take out your valuables during the day, and latch the door with a little metal hook when you're inside.  I did not feel fully safe.

I spent 1.5 hours to get the fire roaring.  Tending a fire is very enjoyable!


The meditation class had 60 students.  We learned mindful self-compassion meditation each day.

This was not a silent meditation retreat.  We would do meditation exercises for 20 to 30 minutes, and then talk in small groups and then together as a class.

On the first day of class, the teacher showed a study performed on a former set of workshop participants, as compared to waiting-list people who did not get into the class.  After one year, the workshop participants tested higher for optimism and happiness.  When I heard this, I thought it was improbable!  How can a one-week class have an effect one year later?

Now that I've taken the class, I believe it.  Mindful practice is very effective!

someone in the world is complaining about water but thankful he at least receives texts properly

CM: [complaining about how his iPhone doesn't receive text messages when he's in Mexico]

Me: "I think you just need to call the phone company."

CM: "This is a first-world problem.  I shouldn't be complaining.  There are people in the world without running water."

Me: "Those people have phones."

CM: "True. They have better phones than I do."

(Proof: "More People have Cell Phones than Clean Water")

super bowl commercial I've watched 10 times

I love this 2-minute commercial made by personal injury lawyer Jamie Casino.  He lives in Savannah, Georgia.  He personally wrote, directed, and acted in this video as a tribute to his brother, and then bought up the entire local airtime during Super Bowl to air it.  It was only shown to Savannah residents.

One article says:

Though it aired on the small affiliate the video has now been seen by millions as the commercial went viral - a concept Casino admits he doesn't understand. 

"I can't believe it," he said. "I don't know how any of this social media works. My wife does our Facebook page. … I had heard of videos going viral but I thought they paid people to do it."

In another article, he says he spent under $100,000 for creating the video and then buying the Super Bowl airtime.  He started Christmas Eve, filmed for 3 days, and edited for 3 weeks.

I admire that he went over-the-top to create an artistic piece that would satisfy himself. It wasn't done purely as an advertisement (he never mentions the phone number or website of his law firm). It wasn't for fame, since he didn't realize it would be seen by millions. It was a labor of love.

It's hard not to be won over by competently-executed labors of love.

New favorite book: Ready Player One

CM recommended a book to me: "Ready Player One".  After I got halfway through, I told him that it may as well be renamed "Book for Niniane".

This is now the best book I've read.

It is about a post-apocalyptic world where people live in stacks of trailers.  All fossil fuels have been exhausted.  People live in poverty, and spend all their time plugged into a virtual world.  They use visors and haptic gloves to interface with this world.

It has everything I would want in a book.  A virtual world with avatars.  Character development and self-actualization along Maslow's hierarchy.  Having admin abilities in a massive game / simulation used by billions of people.  Playing a perfect game of Ms Pac Man.  Educational games that teach math in an entertaining fashion to schoolchildren.  Fighting off an enemy until the fight makes you re-evaluate your goals and take bold risks which sacrifice your own self-interest.

I talked to CM about the book for an hour.  Other friends kept coming by and saying, "What are you guys talking about so intently?  STILL the same book?"

respecting the user

Of all the qualities required in the leader of a product, there is one that I think is most important.  This quality is more important than people management or communication or fundraising ability or technical knowledge.

The quality is a deep understanding of the user.  The leader should have an intuitive knowledge of how the user thinks, what they read or watch, how they make decisions.

Therefore, the worst sign is when a leader makes fun of their users.  For example, on some games, the most hardcore users will spend 30, 40 hours per week playing the game.  Some leaders will actually mock these users.  They'll say "these users have no social life".  Or in enterprise software, the leader mocks the hardcore purchasers for being bureaucratic, like the manager in Office Space.  For a flash shopping site, I've heard the leader refer to their power users as "housewives with too much time on their hands".

So far I've seen a correlation between leaders who make fun of their most hardcore users and decreasing userbase over time.  Any time I heard a leader say that their most fervent user "has no life", I assume the product is doomed.  If you don't deeply respect your user, how can you build a great product for them?

The saddest is when a founder who understood their user is replaced in later years by a CEO who mocks the user.

Amazing CG of Bruce Lee

Marveling at this CG video featuring Bruce Lee.

I showed it to CM, who said "Holy crap.  I watched and my first thought was, where was the CG?"

The subtitles don't do justice to the original words.

Bruce Lee died at age 32.  He accomplished so much in his short life!

So many extreme close-ups in this video!  The creator really had guts to take on this many close-ups, lip syncing, emotional facial expressions.  Hats off to the animator.

four views of the same photo

Several years ago, I read this NYTimes account of four journalists taking photos of the same event.

It's interesting how each of them views it.  From journalist Charlie Cole:

I think his action captured peoples’ hearts everywhere, and when the moment came, his character defined the moment, rather than the moment defining him. He made the image. I was just one of the photographers. And I felt honored to be there.

... This tends to overshadow all the other tremendous work that other photographers did up to and during the crackdown. Some journalists were killed during this coverage and almost all risked being shot at one time or another. Jacques Langevin, Peter and David Turnley, Peter Charlesworth, Robin Moyer, David Berkwitz, Rei Ohara, Alon Reininger, Ken Jarecke and a host of others contributed to the fuller historical record of what occurred during this tragedy and we should not be lured into a simplistic, one-shot view of this amazingly complex event.

A different journalist:

For some reason, the editor in the office did not pick the frame of the man blocking the tanks. Instead, they picked the frame of the man climbing up the tank. The next day, A.P.’s version was widely played. They called me up at the hotel and I told them to have a close look again. So my photo of the man blocking the tank was released more than 12 hours later than my competitor’s.

Neither of them had the photo that was most widely used. That distinction belonged to the A.P. photographer, whose photo fronted many newspapers worldwide. But what these two journalists wrote in response was so different. One was frustrated at his colleague for making him "lose" to his competitor journalist. The other was awestruck at what he had experienced, and shared his spotlight by giving credit to others.

I think we each have these sides within us: the petty competitive aspect, and the awestruck grateful side.  I re-read this article every year or two.

4-leaf potato

Going to London and Dublin next week!

Over IM:

Potamus: in my mind, dublin is a frozen land with icy potatoes stuck in the ground

me: ha ha

me: icy potatoes!

me: omg

me: are there a lot of potatoes there?

Potamus: i think so

Potamus: ireland in our history book was all about potatoes

Potamus: and then when they didn't have potatoes, it was the potato famine

me: in my mind, dublin is a green shamrock field with a big castle, pubs inside the castle, friendly singing with an irish accent, big bear hugs between big burly men, and little singing leprechauns

Potamus: wow

...

We will see who is closer!