Sometimes I wish I was a super-hero with the ultimate power of persuasion. Because then I could call up world leaders and convince them to do things my way (because clearly my way is better)!
On a less narcissistic note, I was thinking about the things I would do to shape the world in my own image - and realised that you can tell a lot about a person about the things they don't like about the world (or the lack thereof). To that end, I've created a list of the top 10 things I would change:
Make it illegal to charge ANYONE (parents, insurance companies, anyone) for medical care given to children (people under 18).
Rename "marriages" to "civil unions" for everyone (gays, hetros, lesbians) - and make the churches responsible for the "marriages". If you want to be joined by law - get a civil union, if you want a marriage, goto a church.
Allow stem-cell research, but with strict oversight.
Roll-out fibre to the home for all residences in Australia.
Tax high-pollution industries and use that Tax to give a rebate for deploying solar power to every household in Australia.
Revoke Scientology's tax free status.
Pass laws to give woman the right to choose what happens to their own bodies (surrogacy, abortion etc).
Pass laws to protect Doctors and create a proper due-process for people to choose to end their own lives.
Eliminate years 11 and 12 - either pick a trade and work as an apprentice for 5 years, or study in academia for an additional 2 years in your chosen field.
Create a "guild" system of government. Several elected officials, with the cabinet of the elected party made up of the people chosen to best represent that industry or sector - so instead of "climate change minister" in cabinet (for example) - it would be a person considered by his peers to be the best climatologist in science - and for these leaders to be separate from political affiliation (too many times we've had ministers filling port-folio's they didn't have the knowledge or skills to manage).
While using a Windows VM on my MacBook today, I needed some files off a Windows install disk. I put the disk is with no problems, did what I needed to do, and then tried to eject it. You can imagine my suprise when I could hear the drive (making its really ugly crunching sound) and then - no disk.
So I pressed eject again. Nothing.
And again. Nothing. hrmm. This wasn't looking good.
So I went back to OSX, and the disk wasn't being detected by OSX - despite working fine the VM. I pressed the eject button. Nothing. I logged off (thinking some app had locked the superdrive). Pressed eject. Nothing. Rebooted, holding the mouse button down(I'd heard this does an eject if done on boot) - still nothing.
I was worried.
In a last ditch attempt, I found the terminal command 'drutil tray eject' which made the right sounds, but didn't eject the disk. hrmm, getting closer. I thought to myself "I wonder if it's stuck on something?" and then (and I have to admit that I felt like i was molesting my Mac) - stuck the tip of a plastic cable tie into the slot poked around a bit (a little, just enough to feel some resistance inside) and tried 'drutil tray eject' again in the terminal window.
For my whole life, I've basically been a Microsoft Fanboi. This isn't because I actually believed Microsoft was better, but more so that I was a big gamer; and well, games sucked on everything that wasn't a PC or a console. My options were limited.
So after my impressionable teen years and I started my IT career, it was really only logical to continue down that road, since in my opinion at the time, Window's worked fine. Linux and BSD operating systems were still notoriously difficult to use, and had swarms of issues and Apple machines we're for people who didn't want a REAL computer. And since I still liked gaming – Windows was my de-facto standard operating system and I never thought that would ever change – until a couple of months ago when Vista finally broke what was left of my patience and spirit.
Unable to tolerate the Vista rhetoric any longer, and having been frustrated with the “omg, your computer's sex is on fire” beauty of the new Intel-based MacBooks I made the switch. A long time ASP3, .Net developer by trade, doing the unthinkable – joined the army of people who like to wear berets, and watching Steve Jobs' latest Apple keynote speech.
And I have never been happier, nor have I looked back.
Looking back on it, I actually think that the problem started the moment that WinFS was dropped from the (then longhorn) feature set. This was followed by more dropped features until there was nothing left to look forward to. Vista ended up being all bling and no substance. It is the Amy Winehouse of operating systems. But still, despite this, despite the endless trouble with driver accessibility, despite the pitiful security solution called UAC, despite the endless and constant flow of problems; I persevered – hopeful in the knowledge that if I gave Windows some love, it would love me back. This has always been the case with previous versions of Windows, why should this be any different? But try as I might, as patient as I was, there just ain't no love coming from Vista. It hates you from the moment you install it, until the day that you die. And no matter how many service packs or patches I installed, it never got any easier.
It's like the spoiled middle kid from a dysfunctional family. What's worse, is that I suspect Microsoft knows it!
And before all of my previous comrades start cheering for Windows 7, like its the second coming, can I just point out that Windows 7 is effectively a working, stable version of Vista. Not much more. And what's worse, your going to be charged for the pleasure of upgrading to what Vista should have been in the first place.
Having had several conversations with various Windows user's since the purchase of my Mac, has been an interesting experience. I've come to realise, that Windows users have come to expect mediocrity from operating systems. And when I try to explain some of the awesomeness of OSX I am met with either apathy or a serious lack of comprehension.
It didn't take me long at all to fall in love with the MacBook. And this is just as much a tribute to Apple elegance (when they choose to use it) as it is about Vista sucking harder than a hoover. But the single, final feature which sealed the deal was the magical MacBook, sleep and wake-up/resume functionality. It sleeps and wakes up on he close/open of the lid like any other notebook. But the speed at which is goes from fully awake → fully asleep → fully awake is simply staggering. And, unlike Windows, I mean fully asleep (minimal battery usage) to a fully awake (and fully usable) state. I have the 2.0GHz version of the 2009 aluminum MacBook, and the whole process is only a few seconds! Simply amazing.
And much of the things which have truly impressed me are not even immediately obvious. The best way I have found to summarize the difference is this; “All of the things that you [Windows users] have learned to live with, just gone!” Windows in Finder (the equivalent to Explorer) open instantly, viewing folder file properties are virtually instant, search is staggeringly fast (this is called spotlight) and often, close to instant.
Even gaming isn't an issue (although I seldom get time for much of this these days) – I have a 30gb side partition for Boot Camp which runs Windows naively with correct drivers when I HAVE to use Windows with as much grunt as I can give it. VMWare Fusion actually lets you run the Boot Camp installation as a virtual machine if you only need basic Windows functionality (such as testing browser computability). This is sometimes to even needed, however, as many of the more popular games are sometimes available for OSX anyway.
I was expecting a lot more pain with the transition and its difficult to adequately paint the correct picture, but the simple fact is, MacBooks are amazing.
12 December 2008 marks the second annual Spouse2.0 Day! The day dedicated to remembering those running your other startup.
In its inaugural year, Spouse2.0 generated 4,250 references in google for a day dedicated to the significant other of startup-founders (and IT folks at large).
2008 saw massive investment in Web 2.0 start ups, the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, and the fastest rate of growth and change on the Internet and Social networking since the tech bubble burst in 2000 - Entrepreneurs have never been busier. Spouse2.0 day is an opportunity for start up founders and staff to take time out to remember their other start up - their personal relationship or family.
The day encourages everyone to buy a small gift for their significant other and blog, tweet or share about it all over the web. Posts will be aggregated into a combined feed (accessible from the site) for the world to watch. This doesnt have to be limited to blogs and Twitter, however, and could be a nice message on your partner's Facebook Wall.
Last year, I bought @MrsAngell a Jamie Oliver cookbook (as she is a massive fan of cooking) - and this year I have gone for something a little more "traditional"...but I obviously cannot spill the beans yet - 'cause she ain't got it yet!
So anyway, in the spirit of love and companionship I want to tell my best friend, that I love her more than she knows and I thank her for her patience, care and support.
There are only a limited number of start-up founders in the world, even less who sets his or her mind to change the very fabric of the internet. Chris is one of them.
When Chris and I founded Faraday Media, it was of extreme importance that just being another startup was not enough. We had to do something meaningful. Something significant. Not happy with fame or glory, we wanted to grow as people - giving back to a medium which had fed us for long time. To take the internet to a new place, just like Google had done nearly a decade ago. Its been a long road for Faraday, and while it hasn’t always been easy, Chris’ drive and aspiration has bought us to new and extraordinary heights, time after time after time; often at great personal sacrifice. I could never ask for a better CEO, or friend.
It’s no secret that Chris and I are the best of friends and it makes me very happy, to congratulate him on being selected as one of the 30Under30’s for Anthill, the leading entrepreneurial magazine in Australia.
From the website:
At 26, Chris Saad is one of Australia’s most impressive young web entrepreneurs. His theory and practice around web standards - specifically ‘DataPortability’ and ‘Attention Management’ - have gained significant traction and are set to have a profound impact on the evolution of media in the digital age. Saad has co-founded several web-related companies and organisations, most prominently Faraday Media in 2006, of which he is CEO. Faraday Media is developing Particls, a technology that learns user habit and taste and delivers relevant information to them via news crawler, SMS, email, flash visualisations, etc. He also co-founded the Media 2.0 Workgroup with 14 industry ‘commentators, agitators and innovators’. There’s no shortage of ideas or energy in this digitally-minded entrepreneur. One to watch in the years to come.
Make sure you click through to the Article, subscribe to the mag and read the other 29 profiles!
This is recognition to a man whom has dedicated and sacrificed so much for the greater good, a true philanthropist. Well done Chris, you are definitely deserving of this prestigious award and will no doubt be one of many in the years to come.
As many of you know, today (in America at least) is Spouse 2.0. Some people assume that it's like another opportunity to mirror Valentine's Day, which is fine; but thats a holiday for love and Spouse 2.0 is about thanks, spun with a geeky name to make it more accessible for us geek types.
Let me explain my situation a little bit.
Julie is my loving wife. And obviously we care about one another a great deal, but being a start-up founder is very hard on the loved ones in your life. Constantly being at the computer distant conversations by the cool glow of an LCD screen (or three). And while she might tolerate my somewhat poor relationship behavior, because of the hope of financial freedom or because I am doing what I love; the fact remains that it must be incredibly hard.
Now while this is true for so many other partners out there, its my firm belief that Julie has it harder than most. You see, not only does she also work full time and do an amazing job looking after the 2 little ones, but she has to deal daily with TWO "start-up" founders in her house.
She cooks us dinner, cleans our house, does the shopping the laundry and basically makes our lives such that we don't really have to think about much other than Particls.
She is a Particls user, however, so I do find some solace in the idea that we actually save her some time – somehow evening the score. But I don't actually say "thank you" nearly as much as I should. So, here, in this public forum; "Thank you Julie".
But alas, she does tolerate far more than even a cool and reasonable person, so I was more than happy to purchase her a gift (or two) to show my appreciation for her help and patience. I (well, actually "we" because Chris came with me) bought her the Jamie Oliver book "Jamie at Home" and the newish Michael Connelly book "Echo Park".
So my last act of Spouse 2.0 day is to publicly thank Julie for her endless devotion to 2 start-up founders who love her unconditionally.
Happy Spouse 2.0 day Julie, and all the other Spouse 2.0's out there.
Life is hard enough for an entrepreneur, let alone a Internet Start-up Founder. I am incredibly fortunate in that I am surrounded by a loving wife, very passionate and focused (and supportive) partner(s) and surrounded by developers who are far more gifted programmers then even I could ever hope to be. Sometimes, these people are the only reason I can go on.
The Touchstone Team has a huge level of faith and determination and a growing level of enthusiasm from the community (even some of our very own "fanbois and girls") which only catalyses our efforts. All-in-all, Touchstone (even right from the beginning) seemes to be slightly blessed.
It is however, not all rosy. It strikes me today as I sit here programming and blogging between episodes of Mythbusters and Grey's Anatomy on my wedding anniversary pondering how I am going to push a few lines out tonight between courses at my step-father's 50th birthday party.
Families (esp extended ones), girlfriends, in-laws and the Tax Department for some reason just dont seem to be very supportive when I whip out my tablet shouting "Eureka! I just solved how to factor views over time over importance!". They also don't seem to appreciate how satisfying it can be solving memory leaks, or understand why slowly transforming into an albino Hunchback of Notre Dame with sever allergy to sunlight and fresh (non recycled) air is an acceptable means to an end!
I guess they just don't understand the 'space', which is weird considering they all happily use MySpace! Im not sure what it is that can make these people so counter-supportive. Maybe they think they're helping or that they are trying to help us see reason, and it's their attempt to protect us from failure.
but it doesnt work that way. As an Internet Start-up Entrepreneur, our brains seem wired differently to other people. Success is not permanent and failure is not fatal, we all understand that. Small sucesses are like a drug, and miss-steps only drive us to go harder still.
Through sheer determination and willpower we will topple mountains! And so it continues....
Over the Christmas break, the Touchstone development team has taken some personal time out to remind their families that they are still alive. Since this naturally has slowed the pace of development, it has taken some of the pressures away from me as a director and founder to take 5 minutes to reflect on the past year and realise the massive steps we’ve taken both professionally and personally.
After this reflection, I have realised how lucky I am to have a partner and friend like Chris. I know there are many other ‘dual founders’ out there, but I’m sure none of them have quite the same relationship as Chris and I. We’re both burdened with an over-abundance of passion and opinion, and while this has on occasion raised some eyebrows in the office, we never let ego get in the way of decisions and we’re very careful to support each other when it’s needed.
Plus, there isn’t anything quite so depressing when you’ve fallen in love with an idea or aspect of the business, and your co-founder tells you that it can’t “be that way” – and you knowing in your heart that he’s right. But when he doesn’t hold this against you, you realise how lucky you really are.
Chris, you are an intelligent and co-operative friend and colleague and I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank you for your effort, tenacity, patience and inspiration which helps push me past what I previously thought impossible.
Sometimes, American politicians confuse me. How do some of these polititions they get enough votes to get into office. Perhaps my expectations are set too high by the banter of Josh Lyman and Jed Bartlet (you know the guys from everybody's favourite political drama).
But every so often you hear something from people like Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) who like to give us meaningful reasons of why he voted against Net Neutrality and "gave an amazing primer on how the internet works".
There's one company now where you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.
But this service isn't going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.
Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.
We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [...]
The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time. [?]
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.
It's a series of tubes.
And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?
Do you know why?
Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.
[...]
Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.
Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.
It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.
The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.
Oh, so THATs how the Internet works?
Perhps someone should show the Senator which "pipe" google is in. It might help him string a sentence together.
After a fiasco resulting in the temporary disconnection of my internet connection, I am suddenly faced with the harsh reality of being disconnected from my regular (and only source) of information.
Now it's a true statement that im not an RSS junkie (like Chris) for the simple reason that I was grossly unhappy with the delivery of RSS feeds into my machine - or is that my life. I have tried RSS in the past, and enjoyed the simplicity, but it was full of holes, and poorly (and ugly) executed.
So as I found myself feeling more and more isolated from reality without the net, I found myself appreciating more and more the power of TouchStone.
