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Homeward Bound - WSJ.com

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:05:20 -0800

From the page: It is one of the major vulnerabilities for professionals on the H-1B visa. "The moment you don't work, you're out of status, you have no grace period," said immigration attorney Tahmina Watson. Workers can either leave the country within a matter of days, or convert to a B1/B2 tourist visa, which doesn't allow them to work, but buys them a few months to sell their homes and cars, make travel arrangements or find a new school for their children.

One Amongst a Multitude: Take the Jump!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:11:06 -0800

From the page: "There will always be reasons not to do something risky, new, and unfamiliar. But if it's something you really want, then it's a waste of time doing something else. Just make sure it's not about prestige or money, because in the end, that's not what anyone's life should be about."

One Amongst a Multitude: Learning to Find the Right Solution

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:44:39 -0800

From the page: There is a definite disjoint in what school teaches us and what we have to face in the real world. School gets half of it right, you do need to know the solutions and formulas and ways of doing things.
But we also need to know when it is appropriate to apply what we learned, and the current model of learning just does not cut it

One Amongst a Multitude: Marcus Aureliuss Meditations

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:14:51 -0800

From the page: "The person who loves reputation supposes that his own good depends on the activity of others; the lover of pleasures finds his own good in being affected by his emotions. But the person who has Intelligence understands the good to be in his own actions. "

Russian Math, the Poincare Conjecture and Perelman - WSJ.com

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:04:41 -0800

From the page: American math culture has intellectual rigor but also suffers from allegations of favoritism, small-time competitiveness, occasional plagiarism scandals, as well as the usual tenure battles, funding pressures and administrative chores that characterize American academic life. This culture offers the kinds of opportunities for professional communication that a Soviet mathematician could hardly have dreamed of, but it doesn't foster the sort of luxurious, timeless creative work that was typical of the Soviet math counterculture.

The returns to entrepreneurship & Startup Boy

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:48:30 -0800

From the page: "Modern Internet entrepreneurship starts with a few engineers working for nothing and carrying latops and cellphones. They coordinate with Skype and Gtalk and Wikis and Bug Tracking sytems. The company itself is snapped together with outsourced HR, cookie-cutter incorporation and even financing, and outsourced finance / payroll. Marketing is done virally, or through SEO, or SEM. Customer service is handled via the community and forums. PR and outreach through tweets and blogging. Payments come via Paypal. Ads are served up by third-party ad networks. Storage goes on Amazon. Computer goes through Amazon, Softlayer or Rackspace. Code is built upon stacks of open source, SaaS, and $10/month services."

The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm by William Voegeli, City Journal Autumn 2009

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:22:55 -0800

From the page: Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor.

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:50:48 -0800

From the page: Fred Brooks, in his essay No Silver Bullet identified a three-part plan for finding great software designers:

1. Systematically identify top designers as early as possible.

2. Assign a career mentor to be responsible for the development of the prospect and carefully keep a career file.

3. Provide opportunities for growing designers to interact and stimulate each other.

Lessons Learned: Validated learning about customers

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:46:50 -0800

From the page: Consider this company (as always, a fictionalized composite): they have a million dollars of revenue, and are showing growth quarter after quarter. And yet, their investors are frustrated. Every board meeting, the metrics of success change. Their product definition fluctuates wildly - one month, it's a dessert topping, the next it's a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform,

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable & Clay Shirky

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:22:21 -0800

From the page: When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.