• family,  Personal

    Engaged

    I’m not sure who still reads this at this point, but I did ask the lovely Staci Smith to marry me this evening, and she said yes.

    For you detail people, we have not set a date yet, nor a place.

    And chicks sure do like shiny things…

  • Education,  Links,  Sivers

    I’m still alive!

    Not that you would know it by my pathetic posting. Here’s some links for you, my loyal and neglected followers

    • Comparing Modern Education to a Placebo
    • Ideas and Execution
    • More from Sivers

      Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would seriously surprise me.

      A fancy tool just gives the second-rater one more pillar to hide behind. Which is why there are so many second-rate art directors with state-of-the-art Macintosh computers.

    • I really liked Never Eat Alone
    Comments Off on I’m still alive!
  • Education,  Hoffer

    Why Nerds are Unpopular

    I read this essay Why Nerds are Unpopular a few days ago and feel the need to share it with everyone. I don’t agree with all of it, Graham is looking deeply into a shallow pool when he examines the American High School Experience but a lot of it rings true to me. School is the only place to be (outside of prison) where attend by law, with no real method of exit. I remember thinking that I hated life in middle and high school, only to find after I left that I just hated being in school, confined with people I didn’t really know for eight hours a day with no option of leaving.

    Eric Hoffer has several essays about being useful as the key to self fulfillment. Being in school, you are by definition, not being useful. I’m also reminded of Joel Spolsky’s dictum “Happiness is controlling your environment. If you’re the socially awkward type, (which I was!) then you have no control over the only environment you have any hope of controlling, which is your social environment.

    Well worth reading.

  • Biz,  SilverLight,  Stronico

    Stronico begins

    As Silverlight 3 nears release – so does Stronico – my next killer app, or in this case, a visual contact and private network manager. Hopefully it will be done by the end of summer.

    I just finished the home page for the site (albeit it will change in a few days as the logo gets completed. Check it out at Stronico.com

  • Politics

    The GOP biological problem

    There has been much hubub about Arlen Specter’s switch to the democrats, saying they’re losing the “Moderate” wing. My theory: The GOP’s primary impediment is not ideological, it’s biological. They’re stuck with their corrupt deadwood, made even more rotted by their brief period in control of the legislative and executive branch. They have no credible voice on the current spending orgy because they haven’t been in the credibility business in any form for quite some time.

    By getting rid of the old guard (albeit not intentionally) they would seem to be solving the problem.