Nice (Wo)Men do Finish Last

And not because "jerks" finish first.

If someone is genuinely funny, witty, or just a blast to be around, they will end up being known as the funny guy, the witty girl, or by a slew of other adjectives(none of which are nice). Funny how that works.

Work is another context where nice is a death sentence. Roughly translated, it means, "This person isn't very talented or hard-working, but at least they aren't an asshole."

Nice isn't nice. Strive for better.

Balance of Imbalance

"If you have more than three priorities, then you don't have any." - Jim Collins

We all would like a little more balance in our lives, however, we grow when we are most imbalanced.

When on a serious diet, partying, drinking and even dinner dates will have to be put on the back-burner.

When approaching a looming work or school deadline, all of the above, plus sleep, may be at serious risk.

However, on vacation, those imbalances are skewed in the other direction; mental and physical recovery trump everything.

In order to grow, we need imbalance on the minute, day, and week scale; in order to achieve sanity, we need balance on the month and year scale.

Simple Works

In the event of a fire, we take the stairs, not the elevator.

Subaru Outbacks seemingly last for centuries, dragsters tend to blow up while going down the track.

Bubble sort lacks edge cases, almost all merge sorts are broken more than 60 years after the original algorithm was proposed.

Don't discount a product just because it is simple. When the complicated, fancy things are broken down, the simple ones will still be chugging along.

Today's Problem, Today

Cancer and diabetes are 2 of the largest causes of death in the U.S.

Immense amount of time and research is being devoted into helping those affected, as well as finding a cure. Not-so-ironically, not much time is devoted to treating and find a cure for diseases that do not exist yet.

However, in the software engineering world, much time is wasted at the infancy of projects in speculating and attempting to find solutions to problems that may exist at scale... if they get there.

Let's take a lesson from doctors, and solve today's problems, today.

Scale

Almost all problems(at least those worth solving) become hard at scale.

Fortunately(or unfortunately?), many of the people and organizations worried about how they will solve the problems when they get to scale, never get there.

Why I Will Run a Food Truck

If you have the luxury of doing so, go checkout the line at the nearest food truck.

If you don't have that luxury, I will sum it up for you: a large amount of happy folks, waiting to be served some delicious, unconventional food, by people who are ecstatic to be doing so.

It's a win-win situation for everybody... the net joy in the world had increased because of that one interaction.

Now contrast that to, say, my gambling experience in Las Vegas, where there needs to be a winner and a loser(hint, that was me). I almost certainly suffered a much greater loss in joy from losing than the house did from winning... a net loss in joy.

You probably won't see me becoming a professional gambler(or financial trader or politician or...) anytime soon, but one day I will run that food truck.

Sharing Joy

It's about 3 A.M and 100 degrees in the Las Vegas desert at EDC, I have been dancing my heart out since about 9 pm, and in that time I have only had about a pint of water. My lips were chapped, my tongue felt like sandpaper and I didn't feel like there was an ounce of water left anywhere in my body.

Then my new friends came back from the water refill station with camelbaks and water bottles galore.

I have never seen so much joy experienced from water, not just from those of us that were receiving the water, but from those that came back with the water. It felt like the modern-day, edm version of Thanksgiving.

Another take home lesson from EDC: joy, like water, is best when shared.

Readings of 2014, June Edition

As you may have noticed, the title does not have a "Part x" element. That is because I slacked off this past month and only finished 1 book. Fail.

The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley:

The most common role played during meetings in large companies: Devil's Advocate.

In this book, Tom Kelley points out how the Devil's Advocate is a dangerous role to be played, as well as introduces us to 10 roles that are much more beneficial to organizations. Not going to go over all 10 of the roles, but will go over the ones that I found particularly interesting.

First up is the Experimenter. I find the Experimenter role particularly interesting primarily because it is the role that I feel closest aligned to. The Experimenter has to be willing to take risks, and be able to fuck stuff up over and over without taking it personally when things don't turn out how they expected(if there is even an expectation of the experiment). The quintessential Experimenter, Thomas Edison, is credited with what can most accurately sum up the Experimenter's role, "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."

Next we have the Cross-Pollinator. The primary strength of a Cross-Pollinator is their ability to apply lessons that they have learned in one endeavor to something that is seemingly unrelated. I commonly find myself drawing analogies among cooking, software development, lifting, and the meaning of life, so relating to the Cross-Pollinator role was far from a stretch for me.

Finally, we have the Storyteller role. I love this role, not because I find it a strength, but because I am extremely envious of those who do. Being a great Storyteller can strengthen pretty much any role; a realtor who can more effectively paint a picture of the potential in a house, an engineer can more effectively communicate painpoints in a project, and comedians can suck their audience in(Dane Cook isn't the funniest comedian in the world, but he is second-to-none in his role as Storyteller).

Happy Birthday Ma

My ma already(hopefully) knows that it is her birthday, but I figure I would embarrass her in front of my other 1 or 2 readers by wishing her a happy birthday here.

I will unfortunately not be back home for her birthday, but it will just make us cherish the time (and Eggslusive meals) that much more when I am home next.

Possessions, Un-learned

I may have been ranting and raving lately about how we tend to lose some awesome traits as grow up, but I have also noticed that a lot of folks my age are losing a not-so-awesome trait: our desire for possessions over experiences.

When I was a kid, I was always wanting the next shiny toy, the next video game, or the next pack of Pokemon cards(sorry for spending so much of your money mom, but they're going to worth something someday, promise). Almost as soon as the wrapping was off of the first one, the newness would wear off.

When I moved off to college, I was struck with the realization that I couldn't possibly bring everything with, some of my oh-so-important possessions would have to stay(the Pokemon card didn't make the cut); the most important stuff that could fit in a U-haul and truck came, the rest stayed. When I moved to Boulder, that amount shrunk from what could fit in a truck and U-haul to what could fit in a Jetta and suitcase. In my latest move, San Francisco, that Jetta(rest in peace :'() and suitcase shrunk to a backpack and suitcase. If I keep it up, I think I may be moving with just the clothes on my back, if that.

On the flip side, I am replacing those possessions with experiences, and so are a lot of other 20-somethings. Crossed a couple off my list this year, EDC and Spring Break, but still have many left to go: lifting at a national-level powerlifting meet, Burning Man, Coachella, Oktoberfest in Munich, and some serious overseas backpacking to name a few.

Granted we do still want things as we get older, and they do tend to be more expensive, like cars(I will eventually blow a stupid amount of money on my dream Toyota Supra), cell phones, laptops and homes, but at least those have some utility outside of just being a shiny toy.

Shiny toys only stay shiny for so long, but experiences will last as long as your memory.

Dancing, Re-learned

I spent this past weekend having the time of my life at EDC in Vegas. For those not aware, EDC stands for Electric Daisy Carnival, is a multi-day event held in many cities where hundreds of thousands of people get together to listen to DJ after DJ play music on various stages, all through the night. Literally all through the night... it goes from from 7:00 PM to 5:30 AM each night(may-or-may not be a little sleep deprived as I type this).

But the most important part: all of us want to dance, so we danced.

Standing in the sea of 300,000 people, we somehow forgot that we were supposed to be self-conscious of our dancing abilities, that other people actually care whether we can actually dance or not. We learned that people couldn't actually care less about other's dancing abilities, because they were too busy being focused on what they really wanted to do.

And that was to dance.

Dance, If You Want to Dance

Like my last post, this is another about amazing traits we somehow lose as we grow up.

A few weeks ago, I went over to one of my old neighborhood buddie's, Steve(not to be confused with my uncle of the same name), house. Inevitably, his mom whipped out old an old VHS tape of the 8 year old versions of the two of us dancing our hearts out in the basement, not giving a care about who was watching.

We didn't care if we weren't the world's best dancers.

We didn't care what anybody else in the room thought of our awesome moves.

We just wanted to dance, so we danced.

Here, Uncle Steve, Open Your Shirt

That is what the 3-year old me said to my Uncle, whose name is Steve(if you didn't gather that much from the title), as I handed him his Christmas present, which just so happened to be a shirt(another thing that you hopefully picked up).

Kids have a knack for such amazing honesty.

If they love you, they will tell you so.

If you're not being very nice, they will also tell you(could have also named this post, Mommy, you're not being very nice, which I may-or-may-not have been prone to saying when she didn't get me a toy that I just had to have).

Somewhere along the way, though, we lose that amazing quality.

We stop building quirky cards that say I love you in macaroni and glue. We gossip to others about someone not being very nice, instead of letting them know to their face. We get a little better about keeping christmas presents secret.

Start tapping into your inner kid... let people know when you love them and when you're not so fond of them. Maybe even ruin a surprise every now and then.

Dragsters

You don't need a 2000 horsepower dragster to get groceries.

You don't need a Mac Pro to check Facebook.

You don't need the fanciest parallel algorithm to process a relatively small amount of data. Learned that one today.

Many problems get hard at scale, but many times things simply don't get there. Don't bother building(and maintaining) a dragster, when a simple one-speed bicycle will do.

Wander

"Not all those who wander are lost" - J.R.R Tolkien

I moved out to San Francisco 2 weeks ago, and it has renewed my love with a good wandering session, I actually spend my Sundays doing exactly that.

Wandering is the perfect solution to the problem posed by Seth Godin, in the Problem with Top 40 Radio, where the masses end up making your decisions for you; when you only listen to radio stations that play the top 40 hits, you effectively defer your decision making to others. Yelp has actually done similar things to dining out(eating is probably my favorite thing to do in the world), and it is very easy to fall into the trap of only eating at the highest rated places, taking your decision away from you.

Wander. You might to find the highest rated, but you will find what you enjoy.

My Beef with Rice Cookers

I don't always use a rice cooker to cook rice.

But when I do, I inevitably forget to flip the switch from warm to cook, and end up with uncooked rice when I am expecting to eat.

Maybe, I am just getting spoiled; so many things are doing "do as I mean, not as I say" incredibly well.

Maybe, fancier cookers do have the rice-cooking, mind-reading ability that I so desire.

Either way, I don't think it is too much to ask for my cheap, Wal-Mart brand rice cooker to know when I want to cook my rice, and when I want to keep it warm.

Closed Sign

Saw a really awesome coffee shop on Sunday, but unfortunately I stumbled upon it during non-business hours, which was made very clear from the closed sign hanging from the window.

Closed signs are great at letting people know that an establishment is, indeed, not open. However, closed signs aren't very good at letting people know when a place re-opens, which is the information we really care about.

Readings of 2014, May Edition, Part 2

Inferno by Dan Brown:

Another epic adventure through a day in Robert Langdon's life. This time Robert Langdon wakes up with amnesia in an italian hospital, only to shortly flee from the gunshots and troupes of armed men chasing him.

As the name suggests, this journey necessitates Robert and crew deciphering clues related to Dante's The Inferno(which I have unfortunately not yet read), to save the world from yet another (arguably not) mad genius.

Would you flip a switch to kill half of the world?

Obviously not.

But what if the whole world would die in 100 years if you didn't flip the switch?

Read it to see how it ends if that switch gets flipped.

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan:

Yup, I read children's books. Get over it.

And in my defense, it is a really good children's book, full of enlightenment of greek and roman mythology.

In this iteration, Percy and Annabeth try to escape from Tartarus(pretty much certain death), which they fell into during the cliffhanger of the previous book, The Mark of Athena, and seal the Doors of Death to keep the monsters from regenerating.

</end nerdout session>

Best Commercial I Have Ever Seen

And that tile belongs to... drumroll please... Canon.

Some commercials have jingles that get stuck in my head, but leave me not having any idea what brand the jingle is for.

Some commercials are all about showing off the brand.

Some commercials are all about people, but their is no connection from the people back to the brand.

However, Canon stated that they make epic cameras... but didn't leave it at that, they were able to perfectly capture how their epic cameras enable us to make epic stuff. Essentially, they show how they make us more badass. I am not really into photography and videography, but the below commercial might have just changed that.(Can't actually find the commercial online.... but when I do, there will actually be a commercial below)

Enough (or Enuf)

Stiving for Enough is simultaneously brilliant and lazy.

On one hand, doing more(or less) than Enough, is usually detrimental. If you eat more than Enough calories to support muscle gain,  they will likely be turned to fat... if you eat less than Enough calories to lose fat, you will lose muscle.

However, Enough comes with a dirty side, Enuf, that comes from gaming of the metrics. If you are trying to fit more quotes into a paper for the sole purpose of inflating word count, you aren't aiming for long Enough, you are aiming for long Enuf.

Be good Enough, not good Enuf.