More Quotes

February 20, 2011
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. – Anonymous Now there’s a man with an open mind … you can feel the breeze from here! – ?Groucho Marx It is better to seem a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. – Anonymous If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. – Sir Isaac Newton Excellence can be achieved if you . . . risk more than others think is safe, love more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible. – ?Anonymous Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt My mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. – Pablo Picasso There

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Entrepreneurship: Who to Hire

February 13, 2011
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When a company is started it’s crucial to ensure that the right people are brought on board at the right time. All too often a company starts up with a slew of techies with little or no business acumen and even less understanding of markets and market drivers. And since every successful company must sell product to a customer it’s crucial that the company determine who those customers are as early as possible. After my time at Texar I’ve come to a series of conclusions as to who should be brought on early, who should be brought on at various stages of corporate growth, and who should never be brought on. Although my take is my own it seems to jive with what most other entrepreneurs see as the correct sequence. In at least one case, though, my belief is at direct odds with what investors, especially, view as crucial to getting a start-up to success. My disagreement stems from the belief of how the senior management team should be arranged, especially with regards to how super successful high-tech companies look at the senior level. Here I’m talking about companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Newbridge from their formative years until

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Pepsi Throwback

February 1, 2011
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Pepsi Throwback

Here’s something I hope stays for good, Pepsi Throwback. When I saw it at the local Metro the other day I was stupid happy. And though some folks — unrepentant health nuts, mostly — will bitch about Pepsi simply attempting to lure more people into drinking soft drinks, I enjoy Pepsi for oddly medicinal reasons: it helps control my kidney stones. And because I drink one Pepsi a day for said purpose, I would prefer if it was sweetened with real sugar as opposed to HFCS. I’ve even gone so far as to contact Pepsi to see if it would be a product they’d bring out. And here it is! And to be fully honest I did enjoy Pepsi and had for years. However, because of my kidney stone problems I was told by my doctors to abstain from drinking soft drinks. Which I did. But when I stopped my kidney stone problem grew substantially worse. I thought it merely coincidental. I remained off soft drinks for about 3 years. Then last year my wife noticed a medical report claiming certain soft drinks actually help reduce stone formation.She recommended I go back on Pepsi recalling that the stone situation worsened

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Merry Christmas

December 25, 2010
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Peace and goodwill towards all.

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Somethings…

December 17, 2010
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I’m well aware of my limitations. I know some things that I do well. I know at some things at which I even excel. At others I’m merely passable. Yet more I’m merely bad. And there are those few things at which I know I simply am incapable. I know some people figure I can do a lot. And when the kids were small believed I could do anything. But sometimes you see something and know, deep down, that no matter how hard you desired or tried or wanted you could not come close to replicating. In fact, in the case that follows I couldn’t even become sufficiently practiced to be bad at it. And, yes, the video is inspiring. The guy has serious talent. Incredible balance. If I tried even one of the things he does they’d have to pick my pieces up off the ground. It’s things like this that make me smile. It’s when someone has a joie de vivre that makes me happy to be human. If more of us took this type of attitude towards life — to enjoy it, to love what’s around us, to stand in awe of each other’s abilities we’d all

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Newfie Baklava & Newfie Triangles

December 15, 2010
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It’s Christmas time and to me that means friends, family and baking! And one of the things I love to bake is baklava. There are a lot of complicated baklava recipes, but I’ve made this one a few times and it’s awesome. And it’s fairly simple. I’m sure some are saying, “Why ‘Newfie’?”. Well, because part of the ingredient list is Newfie Screech. You can substitute some other rum, but I always have Screech on hand for other purposes and found it works wonderfully well in this recipe. Enjoy. Newfie Baklava Ingredients 5 cups coarsely chopped mixed salted nuts (cashews, brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, almonds) 1/2 tsp all spice 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 2 cups honey 3 cinnamon sticks peel from 1 lemon, no pith 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 cup sugar 3/4 cup water 1/2 cup Newfie Screech rum 1 1/2 cup clarified butter phylo pastry Method Day Before Place the phylo pastry in the fridge to thaw overnight. Bake Day Preheat oven to 300F. Coarsely chop the mixed nuts. Mix the nuts with the all spice, cinnamon and cloves (note, you can put the spices in the food processor to simplify the mixing). Warm the honey,

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Some of my Favourite Quotes

November 28, 2010
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I’ve been collecting quotes for years. Some are pithy, some deep, some make you laugh but the ones I’ve kept have always made an impression on me. Here are some of my favourites. Plans are nothing. Planning is everything. Eisenhower Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done. Andy Rooney DOS computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form. New York Times, November 26, 1991 Memory is like an orgasm. It’s a lot better if you don’t have to fake it. Seymore Cray, on virtual memory Programmer /n./ A red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects. unknown 2 + 2 = 5, for extremely large values of 2 unknown I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. Rob Pike, commenting on the X Window System You start coding.

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High beams, dim bulbs

November 22, 2010
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What is it with some people who drive around in the city with their high beams on? Even when you try to tell them politely that they have their high beams they look at you like you’re either daft or trying to kill them. Well, maybe at least one dim bulb out there will read this and ensure their high beams aren’t on when they drive around at night. And, if someone flashes their highs at you, that means YOU HAVE YOUR HIGH BEAMS ON!!! The only ones worse than these idiots are the ones who replace their own headlights when the bulb burns out and then aim them up at the sky or, worse, right into the next car. And since so many cars have little levels on their lights I can only assume these geniuses are doing this on an inclined drive way, with the nose facing downhill. Why are these clowns worse? Well, there’s no way they can adjust their lights until they stop and flashing at them does no good. Plus, because they’re “handy” they doubt they’ve done anything wrong. Honestly, the calibre of driver is going down and down. No wonder there are so many

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Entrepreneurship: Due Diligence

November 21, 2010
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Continuing on with my occasional writings on entrepreneurship, let’s move on to due diligence. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I’m opting for entries regarding my forays into entrepreneurship by focusing on subject matter as opposed to chronological order. Perhaps at a later date and if it makes sense I’ll place these into a logical or chronological order, but for now I’m going to do them as I feel. Hope you like it! Due Diligence is that aspect of starting a high-tech venture whereby a series of investors get to examine every aspect of your organization and, to a certain extent, you. The outcome of a due diligence review is usually a set of reps and warrants (representations and warranties) that you sign off on saying that what was discovered is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as far as you know. And God help you if you lied during this phase as it will come back to haunt you ñ big time! The due diligence is typically broken down into a series of requirements: Sales & Marketing Financial Engineering & Manufacturing Materials Management I will endeavor to go into each in some level of detail. However,

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Info Glut

November 20, 2010
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I’ve been cleaning out the house slowly. Sort of like an extended Spring Cleaning. And as part of this chore I’ve decided to clean up my office and my computers as well. I’ve been storing all kinds of shit thinking it might one day be useful, that I may make some sort of artwork from it, or otherwise have deluded myself into keeping all sorts of useless things: old motherboards old memory (1 meg simms, etc.) newspaper clippings that I at one time found interesting old Dilbert comics snipped from the paper old CDs for software that is ancient and probably wouldn’t run all kinds of dead old mice, keyboards, … But no more! I mean, really. I can’t find useful things in my house anymore. I find stuff and wonder why I kept it. I’ve lost — well, I think I’ve lost — pictures from my past. But I can still find the motherboard from my first Pentium. Why? Out it goes into the recycle bins. Enough already. Similarly on my computer. Junk everywhere. I seem to be a packrat where ever I go. So I’ve started to clean up my computers. Gigs gave already been toasted from my systems,

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Musings

A blog of my musings. Some folks find it interesting and so I continue. Hopefully it will remain fairly interesting. At worst, it'll keep me writing orthogonally to my day job.

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