I love it when entrepreneurs discuss what went well and what didn’t with their startup. 10 lessons from a failed startup is a public service to everyone who is thinking of going out there on their own, so kudos to the guys from PlayCafe for being open, transparent and honest. I disagree with those people who think there is nothing to learn from failure, and anyone telling you about mistakes you can avoid is helping you out.
Noticed for the first time in ages that my server was not set to the correct timezone since DST started. Oops. Very easy to fix on Hardy. Just ssh into your box and
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
then pick your geographical time zone.
Et voila.
DHH (of Ruby on Rails fame) at Startup School (dead link). He did a very similar presentation at FOWA Dublin when I was there this year, but this is a nicer, refined version with him side by side with his slides.
I loved his comment about there being “not enough people trying to make a nice Italian restaurant in the webspace.”
Obviously, nothing earth shattering in here, but it’s wise to keep it in mind in an environment where everyone is trying to hit one over the fence a la facebook, youtube and twitter.
I’ve had this theory of happiness (or at least what I think I need to be happy) for some time now. Long-suffering friends have had to listen to my ideas that are part-Frankl, part pseudo-science, part observation and part admission about the good and dark in my own soul. Ready ? It’s quite simple, really.
The keys to happiness are : Meaning, Belonging and Someone. No, I’m not going to expound on it here. You can buy me a beer if you want the full explanation.
Another great HBR article by P&Gs CEO on what the four essential tasks of the CEO are. Kind of interesting as I agree there are specific things which only the CEO is in a unique position to do, much the same way that corporate headquarters end up being uniquely positioned to do things the individual offices can’t.
In a sense, I’d almost paraphrase them as dividing into
I’ve become a big fan of Cucumber in a very short amount of time. Mostly, because it’s enabled us to translate user requirements quickly into step by step instructions we can then code to. Especially with the turnover in staff at AI this means that business logic, reasoning and behaviour lives in the app and can be reviewed without a lot of overly hefty documentation and such. Write code to reflect behaviour, test, deploy. Voila, app done !
Interesting and article in Fast Company about making your own luck .
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing, and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, which include building and maintaining a strong network, adopting a relaxed attitude to life, and being open to new experiences.
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. They also take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities – for example, by meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.
Great intro and springboard article from the Register if you don’t know much about Sphinx on the smarter, scalable way to do full text search these days. All the cool kids are using it (and with good reason).
Sphinx and Rails goes together pretty much like chocolate and peanut butter these days and we’re using it on at least two production projects at AI, as well as it being a favourite of mine for personal use.
Great article on the anthroplogy inspired design and implementation of the Joel Spolsky ’s free social question and answer site Stack Overflow< which allows highly technical questions to be asked by its users and answered by its community.
Some great anthropological insights for all social software in the video but read the article as well. Love their nine building blocks of social engineering.
