http://blog.nanobeepers.com Fighting the tyranny of dulldrocity one beep at a time Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:11:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Another post on Ricardo Semler's Maverick... Semco purchased several million dollars of computer equipment in the 80's to 'improve' their systems. However, this is what happened: ===== Everything has become excessively complicated and confused, which is exactly the condition computers were supposed to remedy. I can shamelessly say that Semco was swept along ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2008/05/22/semler-complexity-vs-simplicity/ Another great section from the book Maverick by Ricardo Semler I've been reading: ===== Without rules all answers are suggested by common sense. No, I can't define what common sense is, but I know it when I hear it. Some of our people stay in four-star hotels and others, sometimes with much ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2008/04/15/semler-rules-vs-innovation/ I've recently been reading Maverick by Ricardo Semler. It's an excellent read so far and chronicles the transition of Semco, a Brazilian manufacturing company, from a traditional corporate structure to one of the most unusual and innovative companies in the world. Part of that transition was due to Semler learning ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2008/03/11/semler-causes-of-time-sickness/ Well, it's been awhile since I posted. Since I'm starting a new adventure in my life, I figured I'd start blogging again. I moved to Provo, UT - the place of my birth and am quite enjoying it so far. For a long time I've had a drastic aversion to ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2008/02/13/back-in-the-saddle-again/ Bill Gates - Harvard Commencement Speech This was a fascinating read and made me think more about my motivations and my career. I find that I have hardly any motivation at all to work on a project that is solely a money-making adventure. For me to be passionate about what I'm ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/06/10/gates_harvard/ The truth about venture capitalists, Part 3 Marc's post is the first thing I've read that really clearly explains the 'why' behind the current venture capital market. He illustrates what's happening in the context of history. Very enlightening. Also check out Marc's other articles on venture capital: The truth about venture capitalists, ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/06/10/andreesson_venture_capital3/ I just got some of the pics of my brain scan. It's surreal to see the inside of your own head! See the original post here. Share This http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/06/01/pictures-of-my-brain/ If only there was a way to lose 50 pounds in a matter of minutes! I'd be rich for sure ;) This is an interesting lesson for me on detractors. Last night when I went to bed I had about 780 karma and this morning I had about 730. Puzzled, I ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/05/11/ycnews-lesson-lose-over-50-karma-points-in-a-matter-of-minutes/ So, I signed up for YC.News 31 days ago with the goal of increasing my team's chances of getting an interview for YCombinator's Summer Founders Program. Once we were turned down for an interview, I decided to keep contributing to YC.News since I found it so valuable as a community. ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/05/03/ycnews-experiment-630-karma-points-in-31-days-lessons-learned/ Yesterday I drove over to Stanford to attend Paul Graham's talk on Handling Investors. As I pulled up to the Stanford Oval, I saw Paul and Trevor Blackwell walking to the event. Actually Trevor was riding a motorized unicycle that he had put together and which Paul described it as ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/04/12/paul-graham-handling-investors/ I've been developing a framework using EC2, S3, S3DFS (DFS = Distributed File System) along with SQLite to try and solve the database problem on Amazon Web Services. S3DFS allows you to mount an S3 bucket to one or multiple EC2 instances as if it were a local filesystem. It works ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/04/07/infinitely-scalable-framework-with-aws/ VC Rick Segal's approach seems the most charitable. His tact works similarly in dating. (Note that I date with the goal of marriage in mind - I'm definitely not a 'player', which makes this a good analogy to the good VC's - they're hoping to 'marry' founders when it's a ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/04/05/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ycombinator-StartupSchool This podcast contains all the published podcasts from the last 3 years of Startup School. Talks from 2005 and 2006 are linked to the official recordings and those from 2007 are linked to my lower quality recordings until the official ones are released. If you were not there this year and ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/04/04/ycombinator-startup-school-podcast/ (Download MP3) I'm in Austin at the South by Southwest Interactive festival where Kathy Sierra gave the opening remarks (totally amazing as usual). Be sure to see her visuals at Brian Fitzgerald's blog - they are pretty important in understanding the talk.Share This http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/03/11/sxsw-2007-kathy-sierra/ Robert Sapolsky, the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers promotes the theory that irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) stems from our ancestors' need to quickly lose weight (by having a nice BM) when under high-stress (like running away from a pack of hyenas on the savanna). Similarly, many startups hinder ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/20/outside-money-and-irritable-bowel-syndrome/ Headed over to the D & A Cafe tonight and decided to try the baby octopus plate. Can-I-Keep-It-Down Rating: 7. Funnily, the experience was much like eating haggis. If you're really hungry and eat a little haggis, it's quite good. However, there's a particular threshold that you cross when you've ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/20/adventures-in-cuisine-octopus/ Kathy Sierra recently presented a test for whether people have "passion for their work", and I would add that it also indicates if they are more motivated by other factors (usually money/fame potential) than the pure nerd-draw of what they are doing. * When was the last time you read a ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/07/examining-motivations-hollywood-and-startups/ After much doubt and speculation...it's been verified I spent two hours today in a magnetic tube reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL: "My mind is going ... I can feel it." It was quite exciting actually. I arrived and knocked on the door and it was answered by two gorgeous women ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/02/its-confirmedi-have-a-brain/ Oh the Angst... Last night I attended the Beyond Web 2.0 event in Fremont, CA. One of the main things I noticed there was the angst and inner struggle some of the presenters (and much of the audience) seemed to have with the term 'Web 2.0'. One presenter started his presentation with ... http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/01/whats-with-the-web-20-angst/