Pontificating mad wisdom since back in the day
Pontificating mad wisdom since back in the day
There has been much virtual ink spilled over the state of Twitter recently. I guess it’s time for me to add my worthless two cents! I think joined Twitter around 2008 or so and was mostly a lurker. It was a really exciting platform to be able to get the pulse of what was going on in the world.
If there were one, single maxim for the IT industry, it is: “The only constant is change.” Surely, anyone who has spent more than a few days in this business could figure that out on their own. However, I have noticed that a lot of the change is due to an inexplicable movement towards increased complexity disguised as innovation. This is – to put it bluntly – complete idiocy.
Recently, my family was interested in expanding our family/menagerie with one or two dogs. So, we did the responsible thing and asked around about good local dog shelters. We figured that the process would be not too different than what we went through ten and a half years ago when we adopted our current dog. Alas, it was a bit more difficult.
Quite a few months ago, I started writing this post to honor my friend, Doug Pitters, who departed from this world far too soon. Unfortunately, I never got around to posting it. Well, today marks the one year anniversary of his death, so here it goes…
This morning, my wife and I had the displeasure of hearing a school administrator show some disrespect for Science. I admit that we are pretty biased towards STEM: I majored in Computer Science and my wife majored in biochemistry and teaches Physics. But, even in consideration of this, I was alarmed by this person’s comment that Science could take somewhat of a back seat to Mathematics and English at the elementary school level.
One Saturday afternoon several years ago, I sat at the bar of The Library Ale House in Santa Monica, CA with a good friend of mine. We were sipping our pints and chatting about a whole range of topics. After a while, I started talking smack – definitely par for the course for a couple of guys gathered at a pub. My friend listened to my babbling for some time and when I paused, he exclaimed, “Hey, look at those two old guys!”
In today’s world of constant self-promotion, it’s pretty easy to fall into the trap of thinking that – to steal an old saying – your shit don’t stink. For individuals (and startups) trying to get noticed in an ever-crowded landscape, a little overt promotion never hurt. In fact, it is required in order to get access to the air, water, and sunlight the nascent enterprise needs to succeed. The point here is that it’s ok to exude confidence or even braggadocio as conditions merit; just don’t let things get to the point where you believe your own hype.
There is the old saying, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” That is the general explanation of how I have felt about blogging. In my case, however, “nice” means “with useful content that will move the human race forward.”
Overall, I am pretty happy to see the high level of interest in entrepreneurship these days. I actually think that we need more of it and wish that more teenagers were getting into it instead of just being passive consumers – but that’s another rant for another time. Out here in Silicon Valley, practically everyone here has a side job doing something entrepreneurial – even if it’s just writing mobile applications.
My wife just told me today that our local library branch would no longer be open on Saturdays. I almost shed a tear.
Not only does my daughter love going their for Story Hour after her class at Little Gym, but because I remember the great many hours I spent at the library on Saturdays when I was a kid.