JonnyTran

"Having an eraser means not being afraid to make mistakes."

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:35:08 -0500

“Having an eraser means not being afraid to make mistakes.”

During a recession, a company’s worst people get laid off, and its best people leave for...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:45:03 -0500

During a recession, a company’s worst people get laid off, and its best people leave for better opportunities.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:05:36 -0500

“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

- Carl Sagan (via douglangille)

zenhabits: history of my blog | Gapingvoid So true…

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:09:00 -0500

zenhabits:

history of my blog | Gapingvoid

So true…

kyle-burton: Good view of the minor change to the Philly...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:05:00 -0500

kyle-burton:

Good view of the minor change to the Philly Skyline - ‘Drexel Shaft’ toppling over

This changes everything. How will Drexel students bitch about being “shafted” now?

"Those who don’t read are indistinguishable from those who can’t."

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:52:00 -0500

“Those who don’t read are indistinguishable from those who can’t.”

- trying to convince myself to read more.

Visualizing Ten Dimensions Interesting, but the conclusion is...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:48:00 -0500

Visualizing Ten Dimensions

Interesting, but the conclusion is totally bogus.

"You live and you learn. More important to live. Without the former, there is no latter."

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:34:28 -0500

“You live and you learn. More important to live. Without the former, there is no latter.”

- pneuma (via howtobearomantic)

In another life, I was a musician. I wasn’t very popular....

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:33:00 -0500

In another life, I was a musician. I wasn’t very popular. But on occasion, audiences were moved, and that’s all that matters.

I adored my wife. We didn’t have much money, so we lived simply. Sometimes it was hard, but I wouldn’t trade those nights we spent hiking down to the lake — for anything. I can still smell the smoldering wood from the campfire.

Our son grew up in a heartbeat. He married a green-eyed girl. I used to wonder whether I could have been a better father. But now that he has his own kids, I see that I’ve done everything I could. He is his own man.

In another life, I was a musician. I wasn’t very popular. But on occasion, audiences were moved, and that’s all that matters.

Hacker News | HN Help: I'm lost

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:34:39 -0500

Hacker News | HN Help: I'm lost:

Aren’t we all…

pneuma: jonnytran: itouchtouchthings: unsolvedmysteries: i...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:50:00 -0500

pneuma:

jonnytran:

itouchtouchthings:

unsolvedmysteries:

i wish this was a real invention

I wish for the opposite of erasure: Dearest, please never forget me.

There’s already an invention for that. it’s the human heart.

Unfortunately I can neither record on my heart nor erase from it what I want. I’ve tried and failed miserably.

The Flavor of a Tech Breakfast

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:21:15 -0500

kyle-burton:

I think there is a distinctly different flavor to the conversation you have if you meet colleagues for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or drinks.

I find that lunch conversation is colored by what you’ve been focusing on in the morning and leads towards your concerns for the afternoon. This feels natural - you’ve been working on something all morning and sharing what you’ve done or the challenges is a hard thing to steer the topic away from. If there are members from two teams or groups there is often clustering of conversation along those dividing lines.

Dinner comes after a full day spent progressing towards a goal (or not). I find it often leads to reflection of the day just passed, venting or decompressing, or a shift completely away from all things vocational.

At breakfast though all participants are fresh, they may have things in mind, but their minds seem more often open to new ideas and topics. No baggage has been built up from the days experiences. There is a sense of much more energy.

Each of these has its values, recently I find that I’m enjoying the difference that breakfast meetups seem to bring.

I wish every meal were breakfast.

Windosill So simple, yet loses you in another world. Full...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:09:10 -0500

Windosill

So simple, yet loses you in another world. Full version is only $3.

itouchtouchthings: unsolvedmysteries: i wish this was a real...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0500

itouchtouchthings:

unsolvedmysteries:

i wish this was a real invention

I wish for the opposite of erasure: Dearest, please never forget me.

How the ambient sound at Walt Disney World works - Boing Boing

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:28:35 -0500

How the ambient sound at Walt Disney World works - Boing Boing:

(via kyle-burton)

Reminds me how I wish I had musical bio-feedback of the emotion centers of my brain so I could learn to better recognize the feelings I’m having.

heather-rivers: “It’s like there’s a gap. For the first couple...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:15:00 -0500

heather-rivers:

“It’s like there’s a gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, okay … it’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s … it’s trying to be good, it has some ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer.”

Watch this, okay? Especially you creative types. It’s important.

What does this mean?

It’s more evidence that you can only be great at something you really love, because you’ll only put in enough work if you really enjoy it.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:08:42 -0500

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

Time Running Slow

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:03:45 -0500

Sometimes I feel like moving to the suburbs was the worst choice I’ve made in the past 3 years. But that is the ungrateful bastard in me talking.

I originally made the choice because I had become disillusioned with the city. There is nothing here. But that’s exactly the point. I came here to leave all the crap behind. And I’ve made some friends. This is the first school or job I’ve had where I don’t feel like an outsider.

It’s nice to just be able to say that: I’m not an outsider.

This is thanks to them, but thanks to me also. Because I was always the one preventing myself from being one of them. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be normal.

…How pathetic. But honest. This is what happens when you get old. You get tired of life’s dead-ends. And almost every time, it was a dead-end because I wasn’t being honest with myself.

For a few years now, I’ve been taking a week-long retreat every fall to be more honest with myself. If I do this instead of a regular vacation, the weight is lifted for the entire rest of the year (as opposed to just a few weeks), making up for it 10-fold. In fact, things have changed so radically since last November that I feel like it’s been years.

When many things in my life change, like the first few weeks of a school year or getting a new job, time always runs slow. A couple weeks go by, but it feels like months. The entire landscape of my life is so dramatically different from a year ago, I couldn’t have predicted it. If it weren’t for the calendar saying 2009, I would have said it’s been 4 or 5 years since November of ‘08.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming to have to handle all that life hurls at you. Ultimately, all I want is to age without aging. So this year has been a huge success.

The reason so many things in my outer life have changed is because my internal landscape changed. Beliefs dictate our lives. For example, because I believe that underwater basket weaving is important, I’m going to have the thought to practice underwater basket weaving when the guy next to me won’t. And if I have enough of these thoughts, it’s likely that I actually will practice underwater basket weaving. The belief is the source from which everything flows.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to change your outer landscape to try to change your life. But will that change anything if your internal landscape follows you? I relate it to the thought-experiment where you take the country’s wealth and divide it evenly among everyone. In a year’s time, will the people who used squander their assets suddenly change? Or will they squander it again? making those who used to be rich, rich again, at their expense?

Beliefs are the root cause, and they hide in plain sight. When you step on these butterflies, the effects can ripple through your entire life.

Can you ever forgive me? … it is Sunday.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0500

Can you ever forgive me?

… it is Sunday.

"I’m your user. I’m supposed to be the protagonist. I’m on a hero’s journey...."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:38:00 -0500

“I’m your user. I’m supposed to be the protagonist. I’m on a hero’s journey. Your company should be the mentor/helpful sidekick. Not an orc.”

- KathySierra