Several of the engineers based at our parent company in Toronto came down to our San Francisco site this week to sync up with us on the project that we are collaborating on. Our project manager thought this might be a good excuse for a team building exercise. Suggestions included going bowling or ice skating, […]
Category: thoughts
The perception of safety
I really liked Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point. When a friend of mine lent me an article that Gladwell had written in the New Yorker, I went looking for it on the web and found that Gladwell publishes all of his articles on his website (that article, entitled “The Talent Myth: Are smart people […]
George Lakoff and politics
I mentioned George Lakoff in my list of links a month ago, but somebody recently forwarded me a link to this interview with him, where I got a better sense of his thinking. That page also links to this other interview, which has some really great bits. Lakoff was the guy who said frames trump […]
Dean’s Last Stand
So I wanted to get one more entry in on politics before the Democratic primary race totally collapses this Tuesday when it looks like Kerry will take 5 of the 7 contested states. One of the things that I previously observed about this race is that it’s all about perception. In particular, I said a […]
Unions
Somehow the topic of unions came up at work yesterday, and, in particular, why unions have totally failed to become a force in the high-tech economy of the Bay Area. I had put some thought into this a few months ago when I made the mistake of deriding unions in front of a friend whose […]
Michael Moore endorses Clark
I’m on Michael Moore’s mailing list, and this morning he sent out his endorsement of Clark over Dean. Michael Moore, who most people know from his “documentaries” such as Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine, is a bit of a wacko, but I think he does genuinely care about this country and its people. […]
Community
I was reading an article by Phil Agre today, and was struck by a thought that I wanted to develop a little bit more. So I’m writing about it. One of the things I like about Agre’s work is that he is not a technological determinist; he believes that the use of technology is dependent […]
John Perry Barlow speaks
After writing my post about the perils of extremism a few weeks ago, I just have to link to John Perry Barlow’s thoughts on the subject. Despite being the author of the much ballyhooed Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Barlow only recently started a weblog of his own. After one of his posts evangelizing […]
Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore
Amazon link This is one of those standard high-tech marketing books that everybody refers to in the technology business sector. I had never gotten around to reading it, but after our marketing folks started mentioning the chasm in every presentation recently, I figured it was time to skim through it, just to find out what […]
Dean Can’t Win
In light of my speculation as to Dean’s chances in the presidential election, I thought I should put up a link to the political cartoon, This Modern World, which published a cartoon this week, ridiculing the idea that Dean can’t win. I’m still torn on Dean. I like his position on several of the issues. […]
