My first patent!

I have to admit that I'm super-excited about this - I got my first patent awarded by the US Patent Office!

I'm usually really excited just to submit patent proposals. At Yahoo! they give out these cool glass cubes for every 5 patents you file, and I will admit that they're my favorite desk adornment other than a picture of Sophia. Since I recently signed a few more submissions, I went to find out if I was eligible for another cube, and low and behold, a patent had just been issued! And apparently for awarded patents you get a cool black onyx cube for the desk. Awesome.

Hooray! I'm now officially an "inventor", which was what I wanted to be way back in Kindergarten...

A great analysis of MSFT / YHOO

This post by Marc Andreessen is a great analysis of the current proposed MSFT takeover of Yahoo!.  Very enlightening for anyone interested in exactly what is happening over the next few months.

Some discussion of an idea of mine

I was entertained today by an article a co-worker forwarded me today that describes a patent I filed for at Yahoo! a couple of years ago. It was fun to see one of my ideas get both described and then debated on the message boards. Cool.

A super-duper foodie adventure

This past Saturday Sophia and I got to go on a food tasting tour of San Francisco planned and hosted by a couple of friends (Hideyo and Alinna). I've done this once before with a different set of people up in Berkeley, CA, and it was a great taste experience.

This was no different.

We left the South Bay at 8:30 am and drove with the friends up to the Ferry Building in SF. It was cold and somewhat rainy, but we were bundled up well. We started by walking around the weekly Farmer's Market that goes on there, and I bought a pound of kumquats right away, which I proceeded to eat as we wandered around. We tasted a ton of yummy food, including various jams, hummus, etc. Soph had a fresh-water oyster at 9:30 in the morning and was in heaven. A bit much for me at that hour, but more power to her. We also bought some freshly made butter, a couple of fresh breads, and some AMAZING triple creme cheese called Sir Francis Drake by the Cowgirl Creamery. OMG!!! Dang. Wow. That cheese ROCKED THE HOUSE.

After buying all our goodies we stopped in at Pete's and got a few free coffee's (thanks, Hideyo), then sat down outside Pete's and snacked on our first fruits. We ate about half the cheese we bought, spreading it on the fresh bread, and washing it down with coffee. Unbelievable. It took both Soph and I right back to Paris a few years ago. Man was it awesome. I'm getting hungry just writing this and I just ate dinner a few minutes ago.

After the Ferry Building we were off to Tartin for some amazing pastries. My eclair was good, but Soph almost had a seizure her meringue was so good. We then went to Memphis Minnies, a true Southern BBQ spot, where the pork was definitely better than the beef, both were good, but nothing was, at least in my opinion, really spectacular. But it was way fun to eat. Then we were back to Tartin so Soph could pick up more meringues (and for Alinna to get some additional treats as well), before we headed home.

We got home at 4:30, so basically 8 hours of non-stop eating/touring. mmmm. All in all a delicious tour. I can't wait for the next one.

I should be sad to admit, but I'm not, that for dinner Sophia and I finished off the rest of the amazing triple creme Sir Francis Drake cheese, as well as the rest of the baguette we'd started in the morning. This time we toasted the baguette and had the combination with some red wine. wow. time to work out tomorrow, but it was sooooo worth it. yummy.

Rituals of Relaxation

I had a really great weekend, full of relaxation. More on the specifics in another post. One of the things that I was reminded of at lunch with some friends, though, is how important it is to me to have rituals of relaxation. Not just time to goof off or relax, but some form of relaxation that I do regularly, usually with friends.

In college this ritual included Frisbee Golf and Bojangles. My close friends and I would frequently get up Saturday morning, eat some cereal and watch cartoons until we were awake enough to function (approx 10am). We would head out to a nearby frisbee golf course, trash talk each other while wailing our discs into the nearest tree (not what we were intending to do, I assure you), and just enjoy the outdoors on a pretty southern spring or fall day. After about 2 hours we would finish up and head to Bojangles.

Now for those with the misfortune not to have eaten at Bojangles, let me describe this briefly. Bojangles is a fried chicken joint in the same vein as KFC or Popeye's. The difference is that Bojangles is better. First of all the fried chicken is noticeably spicier (and therefore better). Second, the fries, while nothing that interesting by themselves, come covered with a cajun salt seasoning that is to die for. If you ask nicely you can shake on as much as you want, and you should shake on plenty. Of course, you need a very buttery biscuit to tame your mouth afterwards, which is kindly provided with all meals, and by then you're parched. Sweet tea to the rescue. Bojangles has the gold standard of sweet tea, with as many refills as you can stomach. If you haven't had sweet tea before, it's just good old fashioned hot tea, poored over ice, and sugar added until the sugar stops desolving; in other words, super-saturated sugar-tea. mmmmm.

So you can see why after a meal at Bojangles, esp after the physical activity and emotional stress (remember, trash talking) of frisbee golf, well, we would often take naps on Sat. afternoons. Once rested we would in some months of the year end up at a Duke Basketball game.

So *that* is a ritual of relaxation. It wasn't just a one-time event. Or 2 times. It was *all* the time. ahhhh. It's refreshing just to remember it.

Even now I have some rituals of relaxation, although none are quite so extensive, nor quite so likely to shorten my life by a decade or two. Recently Sophia and I have been going to breakfast on most Saturday mornings. We either go to a diner near-by, or a coffee shop, but we order breakfast, coffee, and sit and talk. It's a super way to start the weekend, first because it's delicious, and second because Soph and I get a chance to catch up on the week, process a bit, then jointly figure out what we're going to do with our weekend. It's awesome. In the last few weeks we've added joint scripture memorization to the ritual as well. That's been cool since I don't actually have that much scripture memorized, and it gives us something to do together.

What about a "stupidity" pill?

There was a great quote from the movie "The Sixth Sense" that shortly after it came out was completely transformed/modified into an even better quote:

"I see stupid people. They're everywhere. They don't know they are stupid."

I was talking at lunch with some coworkers about large drug companies and the fact that they are heavily incented to find drugs to treat chronic diseases, since you have to regularly take the medicine, resulting in good ROI for the drug company. Chronic pain, obesity, etc.

So why not a drug to treat stupidity? It's a common illness. If you could just improve IQ by 10 points with a daily drug, wouldn't that be great? Of course, smart people would end up taking it, too, so I guess it would be more accurate to call it IQ booster or IQ vitamin, rather than a stupidity pill.

But what would it feel like to be 10 IQ points smarter? Would everything suddenly get easier? Would everything be instantly boring? Could you even tell?

I think there's a lot of money waiting to be made here, but by somebody much smarter than me.

Yahoo! getting bought by MSFT?

Wow.

I've been speculating about this with some friends recently, that if we dropped below $20 that we'd be ripe for acquisition and that the most likely target would be MSFT for exactly the reasons listed in this article. In addition to providing a competitive alternative on the advertising front, a combined MSFT+YHOO would *own* the global markets for email and messenger, plus have an unbelievable mobile presence.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Voting along party lines

I'm sure to hear a lot of reasons why I'm wrong on this from both Democrats and Republicans, but I really dislike it when people vote entirely along party lines. I feel like there is a tacit acceptance that the party's position or candidate is the best person, and relieves the voter from the responsibility of examining the issues or persons sufficiently in-depth.

It's almost like our political parties have become larger-than-life versions of college mascots. I will unabashedly vote for Duke over Carolina every time, and will happily question anyone's intelligence who likes the Tar Heels. But at least I know that I'm being biased. Correctly biased, of course, but biased.

But when it comes to the people who are going to run the country, or the decisions we're making, shouldn't we pay a bit more attention?

I'm not saying that Republicans won't end up voting for the Republican position or candidate anyways, but at least take a serious look. I guess you could argue that this is the role of the primary, for the party to identify the best candidate. I can sort of buy that. But if my best candidate is still not as good as yours, shouldn't I vote for yours? There's no pride as stake here, just our future.

Of course, I'm one to talk. I'm an independent, and theoretically should be paying close attention on both sides of the fence, but the reality is that I'm overwhelmed with work and life and end up trying to catch up at the last minute anyway. I'm the reason we have an electoral college to begin with. But then again, so are people in each party who blindly pull the party lever without looking under the covers...

Hiring good people

Every book on management or successful business talks about hiring great people. But very little of what I've seen suggests how to *identify* those people.

However, I went through a recruiting/interviewing class that was fantastic earlier this week. The guy leading the class (who wrote a book on this subject), said that the absolute key thing to interview for is "motivation", which you can *only* tell from past performance. His 3 take-away messages were:

1) Write a 'real' job description - Write specifically the person needs to deliver in the first month, first quarter, etc., not what characteristics or background they need. That way you get people who self-identify that they can and want to do what you need.

2) Don't make an in initial impression until you've finished interviewing the person. People who are affable, nice, etc aren't necessarily good candidates. Don't get sold by their outward presentation; focus on what they've done, and if it matches what you need them to do.

3) Never hire people who competent but who are not motivated. Motivation is what sets apart people who make your team great and people who make your life a lot of work.

It was an awesome presentation. I am sure I can put it to good use, too.

The best of CES 2008

I never do get around to blogging about CES while I'm actually there. Too much walking, too little sleep, too hard to get internet access.

But as usual, CES was insane. Tons and tons of people. Enough electronics running to be seen from space if it wasn't all under a roof. And of course lots of TVs and other electronics. Like 100 Fry's electronics stores all in one place. Heaven and Hell, all mixed together.

There wasn't much new this year, but here were my TOP TWO things from the show:

#2: Panasonic 150" Plasma
This is like, the biggest TV EVER. It's the size of a number of the walls in my house. Wow. It was so big that some of the videos made me ill to watch... almost gave me vertigo.

#1: BUMBLEBEE!!!
The DTS (surround sound) booth had an *enormous* replica of the transformer Bumblebee from the movie. It was like 2 stories tall. AWESOME! Now if only it transformed.

Vegas is ridiculous

I end up posting about Las Vegas every time I go there. I can't help it. The place is completely ridiculous on so many levels. I don't know why, but it makes me think of Rome back in the gladiator era. Completely dedicated to personal pleasure (aka sin) and excess, and bragging about it all the way. Very tantalizing, even fun, but ultimately very empty.

Everything is huge. Everything is about pleasure (e.g. sex, gambling). Everything costs a fortune.

On the one hand it's impressive, but for the most part I really dislike it. You are forced to walk endlessly through a complex maze of slot machines, shops, and past numerous adult entertainment opportunities just to get to the elevator to your room. Or the bathroom. Ugh.

I was sitting "outdoors" on the patio of a restaurant for breakfast this morning that was INSIDE the lobby of my hotel. It is freaking enormous. And they are *constantly* building new and bigger casinos, etc. Complete insanity.

However, I did get to spend some quality time with coworkers, have some nice food, and maybe most fun, went to two different dueling piano bars, which I've never done, and had a great time both times.

But I'd be ok not going to Vegas.

Compuslively helpful?

A co-worker of mine made a very interesting observation about me today, which is that I'm "compulsively helpful". What she meant by that is that if I see something that could be better, or more efficient, whether in my domain/responsibility or not, I almost cannot help but offer assistance or input.

I think she's right. It's interesting for me to reflect how the best intentions can have very unintended and opposite results.

My sister would probably second this if I think back to all the unsolicited advice I gave her growing up. And I'm sure Soph would resonate with this.

That co-worker is correct, though. It *is* compulsive. I have a hard time even imagining a case where I would see something and be able to hold myself back from offering assistance. Wow. Clearly something to think about/grow in.