Grok
"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man."
- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a strange land.
I got this from wikipedia, then copied the main definition here for vanity's sake:
"To grok (pronounced /ˈɡrɒk/) is to share the same semiosphere or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein's view, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed. From the novel:
"... quote above ..."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment." Other forms of the word include "groks" (present third person singular), "grokked" (past participle) and "grokking" (present participle).
In an ideological context, a grokked concept becomes part of the person who contributes to its evolution by improving the doctrine, perpetuating the myth, espousing the belief, adding detail to the social plan, refining the idea or proofing the theory."
"To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier... That's why I don't want to hear people's ideas. I'm not interested until I see their execution."
- Derek Sivers
"It’s not until 10 months later when they’ve lost their ability to write a while loop that they realize they may have made a mistake ... If you find yourself in management and wish you were coding, don’t wait until you’re completely burned out and bitter; do yourself (and your company) a favor – and do it now. Get yourself back into the code jockey seat. If your current company won’t work with you, there are companies out there who will."
Rob Walling
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/10/26/work-less-get-more-done-convenient-open-source-what-a-startup-is-really-like-and-more/
NIH (Not Invented Here syndrome)
In some recent research into forming an Open Source initiative, I came across 'Not Invented Here syndrome' . This was one of those cases where it turns out that there's a widely adopted idea encapsulating a thought process and pit-of-the-stomach feeling that I'd been having for years. It was a nice 'yes! I"m not alone,' moment to be sure.
I do recognize that NIH can be a problem, but incorrect diagnosis can be dangerous as well. If you or someone you love develops a self-conscious problem and needs some reassurance that building in-house is ok, I recommend reading this article by Joel before any further self-scrutiny. (I also recomend regularly reading other stuff from Joel and participating in the business of software discussions that he kindly hosts.)
When engaging a new project, we've almost always brazenly struck forth into the fray crafting and chasing our vision for what the project could be. In the end this has lead to some truly interesting and original sites that have wowed our clients but also a number of projects running over budget (the excess of which we absorbed almost without fail.) There's little doubt that we could have delivered a number of our projects more efficiently if we had relied more heavily on more of the open source (and other) options out there. On not a few occasions, well into extended development cycles, we've realized that we're probably reinventing enough wheels to build a tractor trailer truck. It's hard to objectively quantify at this point how these minuses have balanced out with the benefits of crafting a vision from the ground up, where the only compromise is your own skill and energy. Sometimes I've suffered it. Other times I've benefited from it. I'll abstain from any overarching self-conscious values based reflections that I may or may not have.
Fledgling site sees uprecidented increase in rank
Fledgling site http://www.davidjerwin.com experiences a metioric rise in Alexa page rank. Hold on to your buts (and if and and ors): this hitherto unknown site has reached the staggering rank of 2,207,675, blazing up from the obscure ranking of 7,142,393 or so a mere month ago. Web experts are baffled, although they haven't heard about this so their general confusion is due to other factors. This is is, indeed, more rank than ever before... and according to Alexa, only about 2.2 million sites posses more of the precious precious rank.
Getting the most out of your (not just the most) monitors
I am currently running a three monitor system in my home office: a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 920BM, a 22" wide SyncMaster 2253BW and a 24" SyncMaster 245BW. Each is mounted on an Ergotron LX Desk Mount articulating monitor arm allowing me to rotate and position them exactly as I want them. I have found that Samsung monitors are the best monitors at the best price. They are crisp, reliable and have all the extras that are nice, such as good menus, DVI and VGA ports, bright colors, great refresh rates, etc... If you have thousands of dollars that you must spend on your monitors, I'd look elsewhere, such as a charity, give half of it to the charity, then look here again.
Orientation
Before widescreen monitors, there was little difference between using your monitor right side up and sideways. Turning a wide screen monitor sideways, however, is a whole different story. When I first did I was a little shocked by it. Then I got used to it and haven't looked back.
Web Browsing
I never thought it would be useful since, even at a healthy 1050x1680 (the native resolution of my 2253BW) a lot of web pages looked squished. They were used to lounging around in the sweat pants and tee shirt 1680 width. Now they were choked into 1050. But then I looked up and down and saw how much I could see. Entire pages were rendering using exactly all of the screen space. Also I realized that most pages out there are optimized for 1024 monitors, which my new res fit nicely. I found I didn't have to scroll anymore; I could glance. My wrists cheered.
Web Development: Browsers
So browsing is nice, but what about development? When I develop I use firebug... a lot. If you don't know what that is and you edit web pages in any capacity, make sure you're using firefox and get firebug. IE 8 has come a long way (and has even surpassed firebug in some areas like runtime stack reporting.) Google Chrome has a pretty good document browser as well. But whichever you use, stacking the browser on top of the document inspector is an extremely efficient layout.
Web Development: Editors
As with web pages, the vasy majority of source files are longer than they are wide so swiveling the monitor is advantageous here as well. I use my 24" 245BW at 1200x1920. I've also found that 1920 px of vertical space is too much for comfot, so I drag my browser panel below the text. This way I get the full 1200 width and adjust the ratio between code and navigation to a comfortable ratio (this varies depending on the codebase and language I'm using.)
The need for both: Video, graphics work and non code-exclusive IDE's
There are, however, a lot of times when we'd want that landscape resolution such as video, graphics work and IDE's such as Flash that are designed to go wide. Further, we're not either coders or DVD watchers; we need to be able to do both and we're not going to put up with having to meddle with screws or other complicated mechanical mechanism. This is where articulating arms come into play. I mount my monitors on Ergotron LX Desk Mount Arms. They are rock solid, have a great articulation range, allow for 90 degree rotation and even have conuits to tuck wires.
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I've had computers of one sort or another for about 25 years now. In that time I've gone through a good number of monitor configurations. At first the main factor was size (12" gave way to 13" which led to 15"). Then resolution started to play a role. Then there was a quantum leap into the flat screen days. Then multiple display video cards hit the main stream and there were two, then three - then as many as you wanted - monitors. Somewhere along the line wide screen monitors became commonplace... and of course sizes and resolutions continued to increase as lesser stats such as refresh rate, color depth continued to improve. Today we can get big beautiful cheap monitors and plug them into multiple cheap video cards that often rival our main boards in certain specs.
Client / Project Development Meditation Exercise
In order to get what I have to do done, I have to be able to choose what to do next now without wasting hours and energy (both of which are at a premium these days.) To do this I have to gain a perspective on all of the things on my plate, which requires a certain distance. Here's one way to do that:
- Clear off your desk and close all the windows open on your computer.
- Cultivate a distance and perspective: what sort of responsibility is this?
- Begin to think through all the things that you have (posses) to do.
- Think about the state of that project / relationship / etc...
- What is your next step? Visualize yourself doing it.
- Make a mental note of any thoughts, emotions, etc... that arise while meditating on that task. (Just note it, don't follow where it will lead.)
- Move on to the next thing.
Doing this makes it less likely that I forget things and let them slip away. It also helps me shake out the unhealthy connections to my responsibilities so that I can make the best decision on what to do that my current sensibilities allows.
Why does this come up?
On any given day as an entrepreneuer it's common to juggle up to a dozen different things. These may be simple discrete tasks such as answering a question, filling out a form or writing (or paying) an invoice. Some are more involved concrete tasks such as performing the next step in an ongoing project or preparing for a meeting. Others are potentialities or more theoretical tasks such as sending out an email to keep a perspective client or parter excited about an idea or project that you're cultivating or researching a skill set that seems as if it will help you strengthen a weak area in your work.
Pretend that this desk is my brain and you'll get the idea.
Things to do vary widely and require vastly different forms of attention and action. As these responsibilities build up, they can become overwhelming. I find that the hardest thing about my job is keeping the things I have to do in perspective so that I can make determinate choices about exactly what I should be doing now so that I can do it. When I can't make a clear choice I feel like a guy using an old gas powered lawn mower; no matter how much I pull the chain, the engine won't engage.
The Kingdom Grows
“If content is king, then bandwidth is the kingdom,” says Clayton Banks, founder and president of Ember Media and organizer of Innovation, an annual meeting of media and technology professionals in NYC. If he’s right, then the kingdom is growing now and has plans for further expansion.
As it turns out, he is right for at least two reasons and each reason has import into how media and information technology professionals should approach work.
On the surface, it is simple: content isn’t going to do anything for anyone no matter how good it is if it doesn’t get to them. It’s a quick reminder to make sure what we do can get to the audience. No matter how much we like the sultan of Brunei, we’re not going to enjoy his enlightened policies unless they reach us… which they don’t unless you live in Brunei. For me, this also calls for media equality to champion the cause of democracy, to which we owe the society we enjoy today, in the world of dissemination. To play out the dominant ideological difference of the day, others may see this as limiting those broadcasters who run the resources, forcing them into supporting the mob.
Under the surface, however, there’s a different story that’s been going on for a while. The kingdom is growing as bandwidth is getting to us in greater quantities (faster) and different ways. Our attention is being consumed and our action driven in more profound and varied ways. The digital infrastructure that we recently saw, for example, translate our financial system into itself is now translating significant parts of our habits and choices, and even our personalities and potentials, into forms supported by bandwidth and the technology that delivers it. And, well, the kingdom grows.
The borders of the kingdom can not be measured in bits per second or audience size alone. They are sweeping across our relationships with friends, our capabilities in navigating our days and decades, and just about everything that kids do. The fact that kids are taking to technology like ducks to water with floating bread in it can not be overstated.
It is the job of the technology professional to see how bits translate into behavior. It is the job of the business person to see the opposite.
The questions we ask and the standards that we demand of ourselves and each other must be made from the standpoint of legislators of a kingdom who are responsible not only for the health of the bureaucracy but who take an active responsibility in the development of their subjects.
I may have digressed a bit too deep into metaphor. Here’s a technology called Sixth Sense that was developed by one college student with the resources of a small tech group. The goal is simple, to inject helpful technology into common everyday actions. Imagine the proliferation of such technologies over twenty years with the penetration that cell phones have today. A whole generation of young adults on down with no memory of a world without it. Imagine how they would engage their world. Now shut off the bandwidth. The place people live is pulled out from underneath them. Sure, the world is still there but the world is still there when empires fall, it’s just very different. People would suddenly find it very hard to live. It would be traumatic.
Now think about what you have to do and get back to work! Mind your own business!