nehrlich

Geeky entertainment

2009-06-09T07:08:20Z

I have come to depend on my iPhone for directions - before I leave for a new location, I put the address into the iPhone, and bring up directions so that I can consult it if I need to en route. Normally I type in my address as the start location. This evening, I was feeling lazy and just said "Current Location".

I looked at the directions, and they had me starting from a place two miles away from where I currently was.

In fact, it looked like it was my address from three months ago.

Oh.

Yup, the Skyhook Wireless people had come by the old place at some point and associated my WiFi network with that address.

What an odd technology world we live in.

Thinking about easy

2009-06-01T04:51:30Z

Following up on my last post about making things easy, I talk more about the concept of easy and when things actually should be hard.

Big Five test scores

2009-05-20T15:29:01Z

I posted this as a comment on Rif's LJ, but figured I'd repost over here to get feedback from others. These are my results from the Big Five personality test.

I pretty much bottomed out in every category (O12-C10-E9-A38-N18). It's interesting because this is self-perception so it may not line up with what others think of me.

Low E score doesn't surprise me, as I consider myself an introvert even when others tell me I'm not.
I've calmed down so a low N score works.
I don't think of myself as being creative or innovative, so a low O score makes sense.
I may have graded myself too harshly on the C questions, as I'm not wholly disorganized but I'm more of an improviser than a planner.
The A questions were a bit too vague - my tendency is to be agreeable with those that have earned my respect, and ignore or be rude to those who haven't, and the questions don't capture that behavior.

I'll have to think more about what my test responses indicate about what's going on in my brain.

Making things easy

2009-05-20T05:42:26Z

A post about how making things easy can be a good business model. Now if I could only get it in my brain that posting is easy so I'd do it more often...

Leadership

2009-05-12T05:48:15Z

Brief musings on what leadership means. Plus, hey, first official blog post in 2.5 months - it's not great, but getting that first one out of the way lowers the activation energy for the rest. Or something like that.

Becoming a leader

2009-05-09T18:50:14Z

Owning a comment from Charlie O'Donnell's blog post about why everybody doesn't just decide to be a leader.

Interesting question (catching up on RSS on the weekend). I'm one of those that hasn't become a leader, despite knowing lots of "leaders" in your sense (you, @canida, @kiwitobes, @chrisheuer, etc) and despite being a "leader" in high school. In my case, it's partially that I haven't quite figured out what I want to be a leader in, when I should probably just pick something and commit to it. I have several friends who chose a slightly non-mainstream area (e.g. DIY, vocal percussion or computerized smell) and became "The Guy" in that area. I still haven't found something that interests me enough to invest the time and effort to become the leader in that field, and that may just be me being fearful that I will be defined by my interests when I'd rather learn bits about lots of things. I'll have to think about this some more.

Why am I doing this?

2009-02-28T20:45:08Z

Some thoughts on why knowing the answer to "Why am I doing this?" goes a long way to making any job bearable, even when working way too hard.

Right vs. Effective

2009-02-10T07:45:27Z

I've mentioned this concept of Right vs. Effective in a couple conversations recently, so I'm sharing it with the world at large. It's a useful distinction to me, but we'll see what y'all think.

Super Bowl Sunday

2009-02-06T06:22:12Z

I took time off from working on Sunday (yuck) to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, and I delve into analyzing one awesome football play, and one awesome ad.

Tracking

2009-01-22T05:34:16Z

Some thoughts about the benefits of daily tracking towards achieving one's goals. Not particularly thought-provoking, but it's all I got after too many meetings today.

What is the story?

2009-01-18T18:30:35Z

I recount a few incidents recently where I asked what is the story, and try to tie that together into a larger story of personal marketing. I didn't quite make it work, but I'm posting anyway, because I wanted to get something up this morning.

TV character resolution meme

2009-01-02T17:49:30Z

Inspired by a friend who said her resolution this year was to be more like Jaye Tyler from Wonderfalls, I ask you: what TV character represents your aspirational goals for the year?

For me, I'm inclined to say Barney, from How I Met Your Mother - not so much the womanizing aspects (although, sure, why not), but more the willingness to try anything and the awesome enthusiasm with which he attacks life. Plus, as my friend pointed out, he dresses well too!

Mapping out Organizational Space

2008-12-27T22:20:18Z

Thoughts on mapping out organizational space, in particular the new organizational configurations made possible by technology, building off of a post by Tim O'Reilly.

Personization

2008-12-26T17:25:51Z

A post on "personization" or the importance of treating people as real individual people rather than as foils on which we project our own hopes and fears.

Buying Pants

2008-12-19T04:17:47Z

In which I spend several paragraphs working out my clothing issues in public.

The Future of Organizations

2008-12-12T06:02:35Z

The future of organizations, which is a rambling discussion of social technologies creating a new Coasean floor to the size of organizations and several other topics of recent interest to me.

Situational vs. Dispositional Management

2008-12-06T18:27:18Z

Taking Philip Zimbardo's ideas of dispositional vs. situational perspectives, and discussing the consequent differences in management styles.

Mahler's Eighth

2008-11-30T20:54:51Z

Most of y'all have been getting these updates, but I updated my chorus page with an account of my recently concluded Mahler's Eighth Symphony experience, and linked to it from my blog, and now from here. Check out the MTT page for amusing quotes from Michael Tilson Thomas.

Spreading Ideas and Framing

2008-11-28T21:36:42Z

Some thoughts on framing and idea propagation inspired by a friend's post on same.

why prop 8 is dumb

2008-11-27T15:49:07Z

Man, thatwesguy managed to suck me into explaining why I think Prop 8 is dumb. But in the spirit of owning my comments (and feeling vaguely guilty that I haven't done more to advocate against Prop 8 in the blogosphere), I'm linking to it.

I'll go back to writing, as jofish22 puts it, "Deep thoughts I have thunk" this weekend some time as I get brainpower back.

Concert etiquette

2008-11-20T08:10:02Z

If one is attending a symphony concert, it is considered proper etiquette to turn off cell phones, try to avoid coughing during quiet spots, and generally avoid detracting from other patrons' enjoyment of the performance.

If the symphony has its standard reminder and then does another reminder because they are recording the performance for later release as a CD, one might think that the audience would be extremely careful about such things.

One would be wrong.

I heard at least one cell phone go off tonight, and several explosive coughs throughout the quiet sections. It almost felt like people were waiting for the quiet sections to cough.

Oh well. Tonight was a bit weak, anyway. Hopefully we'll get better takes on Friday, Saturday or Sunday (or at least the audience coughing in different places).

Convergence08

2008-11-17T16:33:10Z

I went to the Convergence08 unconference, and it was pretty interesting.

MTT fan-boy-ness

2008-11-14T22:14:04Z

MTT came and gave a talk and performance at Google today. I couldn't make it because my group's big weekly meeting was at the exact same time. But after my meeting was done, I wandered over to see if MTT had run over time. He hadn't, but he was still around chatting to people when I poked my head in. He saw me, recognized me and waved to me to come over.

Wacky.

He said "So this is what you do when you're not at the symphony, eh?" And I'm like "Uh, yeah". I first apologized for missing his talk but explained that I had a meeting I couldn't miss. And we chatted for a bit about how the rehearsals are going for the Mahler 8th (concert next week), and I said again what an honor and privilege it is to work with him, and he said thanks.

The experience just confirms again what a wonderful down-to-earth person he is. That he remembers my face, despite me being one of 200 people in the chorus, and wanted to say hi is just remarkable. And I am even more of a fan-boy than I was before.

I haven't had a chance to update my "Life with MTT" page yet, but this will definitely go on there. As well as some amusing quotes from Tuesday's rehearsal (e.g. "You see this stick I'm waving around? The tendinitis in my shoulder makes it hard for me to do that, but I'm doing these big waving motions so that we can stay in sync. Hey, maybe you should look up at me so that I'm not doing this in vain." (ouch) )

Fun!

2008-11-14T01:30:57Z

This amused me just now - if it were 666, it would have been better (spam is eeeeeeeeeevil!), but 6666 works for me. Hrm. Assuming a 30-day month, that implies 222.2 spams a day, which would also make me happy.

In other news, Chip Kidd (book cover designer and author of The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners) came to speak at Google today, and he signed my copy of The Learners after I burbled at him for a little bit. Alas, only about 50 other Googlers showed up - philistines!

Time Perspectives of Philip Zimbardo

2008-11-12T08:03:44Z

While I didn't manage to see him talk in person, I watched Philip Zimbardo's talk on time perspectives last weekend, and thought he had an interesting perspective.