Juixe Techknow

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe.

Software Development

• More code, more problems.
• Code. Money. Respect.
• Code war is the new cold war.
• The programer-designer is the philosopher-king or our time.
• Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to gold farm and he’ll eat for a lifetime.

Team Leadership

• When the world is flat and information freely available there is a premium on creativity.
• There is no such thing as free lunch, especially if it’s lobster.
• Give a silicon valley startup founder a lemon and he’ll make a social networking site for people that like lemonade.

Product Placement

• I hope Twitter doesn’t become the next MySpace.
• There is no i in Apple.
• Google is buying Motorola for $12.5 Billion. Google is also developing a autonomous car, so in a few years it might buy Ford.
• It’s not Thanksgiving, so why did Google pay so much for a moto turkey?
• AT&T charges for services you use and most importantly for services you don’t, and they sell you out to the feds on top of that.
• I know that many G+ users are still in the early adopter stages of denial, but honestly, Google does not know how to do social right.

Quote

• Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant. – P.T. Barnum
• Wall Street is now a huge mathematical game of chess where individual companies are just pawns. – Mark Cuban
• Search is dead. What people want is an answer. … You don’t need Trip Advisor, you don’t need Yelp. – @Jason, #TWiST 171

Questions

• Got Woot?
• You think Papa Murphy’s is related to Papa John’s?
• Has Flash lost it’s fizzle?
• If G+ was spun out of Google as an independent company it would be valued at $50 billion.
• What company will be around in 25 years, Apple, Zynga, Facebook, Google, eBay, Microsoft, …???
• Now they are making movies in 4D… What is next, 7D?
• If this is your third startup, are you really still a starting up?
• I just want to know, why are those birds so angry?

Randumb

• When life gives you bullshit, make lemonade.
• Untangling headphones in the dark.
• Current Status: somewhere between FML and IDGAFF.
• Zoned out from being on the zone for so long.
• The future is retro.
• Don’t trust your shit to chance.
• MTV has as much expertise to produce MTV’s Music Awards as the History Channel’s has to produce Ancient Aliens.
• It’s ironic how many people misuse the word irony.
• Even though I haven’t gone back to school for a while now, I can’t resist a good Back To School sale!
• I tired of Shark Week. When will they have Turtle Week or Salamander Week?
• If Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were to be created now they would have been known as Angry Turtles.
• Total Retargeting
• Shift+Happens

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe.

Software Development

• I can’t take an IDE seriously if it looks like iTunes.
• Beta at your own risk.
• Refactor and remix yourself.

Team Leadership

• Moving on to plan b, section iii, revision 10, update 8, …
• Everything happens for a reason but not every reason is meant to be understood.
• The key to being cost effective is first being effective.
• To change your life, try to change your trajectory.
• Who is in your development dream team?
• Originality is dead. I know this because I copied it from someone else.

Product Placement

• Install Lion, Xcode 4.0 not supported, need to upgrade to Xcode 4.1, a 3GB install.
• Apple already working on next OS X release, tentatively known as Sea Lion.
• Google Plus going after Facebook is like an 800 pound gorilla going after a 800 pound rhinoceros.
• Google’s motto: Do no evil without cresting a algorithm to automate evil.
• G+: don’t be a square join a circle.
• The next release of Windows should come with one key feature: a 100GB DropBox like cloud spaces for free integrated into the OS, Office, etc
• I wish I could use Google to search my memories to find where I last placed my keys.

Question

• What is the speed of time?
• Isn’t Captain America wearing the big Scarlet Letter on his forehead?
• Which is worse: different day, same shit or same day, different shit?
• Is it just me or is it hot in herre?
• Fruit by the Foot or Sugar by the Pound?
• Why does it feel like Friday when it should feel more like Wednesday?
• What is the weather report on cloud computing?
• Is Jack Dorsey the web 2.0 version of Steve Jobs?
• If you had 8 more hours a day what would you do with them?

Randumb

• There is no God particle. Sub atomic particles are atheists.
• A live police chase is the human equivalent of a lolcat watching a light beam.
• When time flies it does so in first class.
• Frankie Says Chillax
• Bay Area Forecast: Fog-Drizzle My Nizzle Fo Shizzle.
• I’ma power up with a power nap.
• It is what it is and it do what it do.
• La Gaga has jumped the outer space shark.

In Da Future

• In the future, a picture will be 90% filters and photoshop and 10% reality.
• If the future could travel faster than the speed of time then it would travel back in time.
• In the future, the revolution will be fought with tweets.
• In the future, every other word in a sentence will be a registered trademark.
• In the future, the exercise of free speech will be deemed suspicious.
• In the future, a large portion of the president’s state of the union speech will be redacted.
• In the future, action figures will be illegal and replaced by diversity and cooperation figures.

Summertime

• Happy 4th of July. Let keep America free!
• Long live freedom, death to red coats.
• It’s going to be one hot fourth of July.
• Beerbeque.
• There is no freedom without choice.
• I’m so cool that the heat don’t get to me.
• Beans and cornbread.
• This heat is like kryptonite.

Since it’s initial private launch, Google Plus has received mostly positive reviews from tech insiders that were able to score an invite early on. I was able to get my hands to an invite a day or two after Google Plus, often abbreviated as G+, launched. This is not my first social network, I was an early adopter on Twitter, I was there before @aplusk, and I had the same experience with Tumblr and Quora. Each time a new social network is launched and before the mob of celebrities and social media marketing experts join, these services are often seeded with early adopters from the tech scene. Even with it’s 20 million users, G+ is still in this early adopter stage and this is evident by the list of most followed users on the network. The most followed profiles are those from technologists and tech pundits, including former first friend on MySpace Tom Anderson. A few years ago, this was virtually the same list of most followed users on Twitter.

Google Plus does innovate on a few areas where Facebook has lagged and dragged it’s feet, such as in the concept of circles. That said, Google Plus is largely a clone+ of Facebook, which is a derivative of whatever social trend we’ve seen in the last five years. Depending on how you count, Google Plus is Google’s fourth attempt at this social networking thing. The current trend in social networking sites is that anonymity is to be banned. Facebook was the first social network to demand users use their real and legal names in their profiles and Google Plus has followed this trend.

Since Google Plus is the newest social networking site to see an exponential growth, it is now going through some growing pains in the way Google is policing the community. There have been a large number of reports of Google banning and disabling Google Plus profiles that don’t use “real names.”

The worst part, for those whose accounts have been locked out, is that there is no customer support, no due process, and not even a G+ profile to contact if your Google account is disabled or banned our right. If your Google account is disabled you may be locked out of GMail, Google Docs, and other Google products you may use, which might be have years of data.

The natural progression of these policies is that in the near future people will need to show their government issued identification card, passport, DNA sample, work history and resume, retinal scan, and perhaps a Google history scan to use Google Plus or similar social network. I can appreciate that Google wants to encourage people to use their real names, but there are so many instances beyond their automated algorithmic logic that people use nicknames, pen names, aliases, alternative spellings, stage names, witness protection name, and more. Is Google Plus going to force Jon Stewart to use his birth name? What about Lady Gaga? What about Dear Abby? Larry Brin uses the short form for Lawrence, is that okay? And don’t get me started with folks that are known by their initials or by their profession title such as Dr. Dre.

So why is Google, and Facebook for that matter, so against anonymity? It’s all about the data. The more data Google has on each user, the better they can serve ads targeting them. Google Plus is a user data collection service as much as it is a social network. Google Plus gives Google a new platform to collect even more data that it can then sell, trade, and use to target ads. Currently, most of Google’s ads work on the intent of the user. The more Google knows about the people in your circles, their name, age, background, location, work history, interests, trends, and communication patterns it can easily develop social ads that target you and your inner most circle members.

This whole debate is a red herring, the real issue is about the identifying data that Google is collecting on each profile.  There are already a large number of third parties that are forming a “fourth bureau” of sorts that collects any and every piece of information such as if you pay a phone bill on time or if you spend 6 hours in the middle of the day playing FarmVille.

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe.

Software Development

• Know thy framework.
• I recently received two books, one on Scala and one Clojure. From reading the few chapters on each, I have to say I like Clojure best.
• How do you pronounce C++0x? Is the ++ silent?
• Coworker: Functional programming is the future. Me: Functional programming has been the future since the 80’s.
• Developers love to reinvent the wheel. Which means, writing their own editor, IDE, bug tracking, version control, wiki, web framework, blog

Team Leadership

• Live each day to it’s potential.
• Today is a new and improved day. It only gets better.
• Every day has the potential to be your best day of your life, because today is the only day that matters.
• Love what you do is a key to success.
• If you are about to fail, do it with flair.
• People need to learn how to disrupt an entrenched business, product, or industry. There should be a class on disruption.
• Always walk into a meeting with pen and notepad.
• If you want to survive, you need to adapt.
• If plan A doesn’t work move on to plan B, and it that doesn’t work, move to plan… That is why we have 26 letters in the alphabet.
• The most critical aspect of making a mistake is usually not the mistake but how you respond to it.
• Ideas aspire to be more than just ideas.
• Practice what you preach and live what you teach.
• One easy way to think outside the box is to add an extra dimension.
• The fact that unicorns aren’t real doesn’t mean that people won’t buy unicorn bacon.

Product Placement

• You’ll know if Google+ is successful when a congressman’s penises are accidentally posted and shared on it.
• What is up with these Google+ invites? The seem to be worth their weight in BitCoins.
• By the way he writes, I think David @Pogue is Apple’s VP of Marketing.
• I like the Migration Assistant in OS X. You can migrate data and apps to a new Mac from another Mac, mac backup, or external drive.
• Did @airbnb use the same black hat techniques that picture collectors and questionable dating sites use on @craigslist?
• The Swiss should make a Swiss Army iPod case.
• Companies are using positive tweets about their products as endorsements in commercials. I wonder if those Twitter users got compensation.
• How many screws does it take to take out a hard drive from a Mac Book Pro? I lost count at 21 screws and two different screw drivers.
• I don’t even know what language I speak when I order at Starbucks. Iced chai grande Americano hella latte extra cafe con leche fo shizzle.

Quote

• Checking in is so 2009. – Dave Matthews #TWiST
• If it’s printed, it’s no longer news. – @jbminn
• You can make a buck with cat pictures – Steve Yegge
• The impossible might take a while. – Scott Heiferman, #TWIST

Question

• Would you pay an extra $100 to buy an iPad made in the US?
• Do super models have role models?
• What is your innovation strategy?
• How smart is you network, team, or organization?
• How much is the whole of the USA worth?
• Since when is it a feature to have your product available in white?
• Is Instagram the new Polaroid?
• Will any software application last 100 years?
• Do you give a tip on pick up or only on delivery?

Randumb

• And then Jobs said, “Let there be an app market.” – The Book of Jobs
• I don’t respond well to BS.
• Love is a by product of accepting yourself and others as they are.
• It’s always a good morning when you can sleep in.
• To sleep or not to sleep, that is the dream.
• Be you. Do you. Get yours.
• Love love and live for life.
• Love is transdimensional.
• Love don’t cost a thing if you file for chapter 11.
• Lifetime movies is like porn for women.
• Any place that claims to be the happiest place on earth is really covering something deep.
• I wish my closet functioned like the TARDIS from Doctor Who, so my fashion could always current and I could have extra space.
• I’m a register member of the Ninja party but I have some Pirate party leanings.
• The most read book is Facebook.
• If only we could solve all of the world’s problems with a dance battle.
• Heading out to a beerbeque.
• Empathy is my religion.
• Everyday should be like Friday.
• Hollywood can follow up a successful movie with a sequel, a prequel or an alternative timeline-quel.
• Twitter is where quotes go to get misquoted and then retweeted.

I’ve worked for large companies and I’ve worked with small companies. There is a big difference in your day to day responsibilities when working in either of these environments. In a large company, you know your rank, your salary pay, and your place in the org chart. In a large company, you can predict product releases by the conference room schedule months in advance. I remember working on a project in a large organization and I wanted to add a boolean property to a single database table but the there was so much bureaucracy in place that that it took two meetings and the review of the local database expert who used his tenure to carve out a little fiefdom for himself.

It’s completely different in a small organization. In a startup, there is no room for bureaucracies, or org charts with more than two levels, or egos of experts but at the same time everyone is the CEO of something. In a company of less then 10 people, there is no room for middle managers, everyone has to manage themselves, everybody has to be a CEO of something. In such an organization, you may have to be the technical lead, the hiring manager, or the vice president of phone system, or directory of version control, as well as the senior technical writer, and even maintenance guy. In a small organization you have to do it all. In a small organization, when printer is stops functioning you are the printer expert. When the phone system stops functioning, you need to take the lead.

I’ve found that this approach also works for other aspects of life. There are people that wait for a scheduled meeting to to figure out what they need to do next, I like to get done.

No explanation required, here are some random thoughts that occurred to me during the past month. These ideas were either to long to force into 140 character limit of Twitter but not fully develop to belong on their own post.

No surprised that Borders bookstore filed for bankruptcy and is closing several of its stores. I went to one of the Borders store locations that is closing, in Silicon Valley, to see if I can find any great deals. Even with the 25-50% off the cover price on books at Borders, Amazon has a better deal on most of the books I was interested in. Amazon typically sells books somewhere between 30-45% plus add the 9% you save in sales tax and free shipping.

Every pitch deck should have a slide that describes the team as: Lean, agile, organic, grass-fed, locally grown, acrobatic, gluten-free, hungry, rockstar, gurus.

Team Description for Your Pitch Deck

Law of Software Envelopment states… “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.” In my experience, this should also including reading an Excel document, generating a PDF report, execute a VBA macro, sync with your Outlook contacts, fix end user printer problems, auto generate blog posts, …