Rodent Regatta

Kathy Sierra’s weblog makes you think she’s reading your mind. Her recent articles read like confessions from clients. The things that keep clients awake at night—at least my clients—are clearly explained at Kathy’s site.

In The Myth of Keeping Up we see the reading pile that has become all too familiar. Unfortunately, the reading pile that once resided at the office has a big brother gaining weight at home. Articles, books, magazines and even newspapers accumulate like loose change, but that loose change grows in value as its weight increases. Those reading piles do not!

Put the pile on a scale and you’ll discover another sibling or two with their toes on the corners pressing down. These siblings are email—in multiple accounts—along with RSS feeds, pdf downloads and web sites far and wide. Even the best automated filters and organizers do little to reduce the pressure people feel when falling behind.

Never has it been more important to understand what you are truly passionate about, what your purpose is and with whom (or what) you’re trying to keep up. Here’s a tip: if you’re trying to keep up with somebody else, stop! Stop now and free yourself from that struggle. It’s unimportant.

If you work in a place where the culture pits you against your coworker, get out now. It is 2006 and if your employer hasn’t discovered the benefits of collaboration over competition, he or she never will. You, your health and your relationships to others are far more important than trying to “keep up.”

Constant striving in these areas defines the rat race. There’s a big difference between the rodent regatta and a peaceful afternoon of sailing. Purpose, passion and balance characterize the latter. Toil, frustration and a fuzzy finish line characterize the former. Let the Jones family pull ahead. You won’t lose a thing!

Twenty four 8 1/2in. x 5 1/2in. pages hold my web passwords. Firefox manages passwords fairly well, but the pages are beyond dog-eared due to frequent references required to log into a news service, software forum or web site.

Three questions remain unanswered in the whole arena of web 2.0, hosted, software-by-subscription, software-on-demand, utility computing, web apps…you get it. I talked about those questions earlier. Here’s the quick reminder:

• Who has my data and can I get a copy of it that is useful?
• What do I do when you—my web app provider—go away?
• Can you really survive the bubble?

Now, a far more eloquent essay about the matter exists. Joel Dueck has written The Nuclear Proliferation of Little Rails Apps. He hits on all the concerns, but with a more immediate focus on whether or not we are really more effective with dozens of specialized “little Rails apps.”

This one is drop-everything-read-it-right-now good.

The whole thing began as a short weblog entry by Jason Hoffman at the Joyent weblog. That entry pointed to an article titled Shaking Up Tech Publishing. There are currently forty six comments about that article.

Here’s how that turned into a two-day excursion through all kinds of new thinking:

Read on...

Our President spoke tonight. The sound bites were plentiful, but the statements of fact were compelling. Either we believe these things or we do not:

• “But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.”
• “We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom – or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life.”
• “No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it.” Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.
• “Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.”
• “The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions – and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons.”
• “We must also confront the larger challenge of mandatory spending, or entitlements.”
• “By 2030, spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone will be almost 60 percent of the entire Federal budget.”
• “Our Nation needs orderly and secure borders.”
• “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”
• “We need to encourage children to take more math and science, and make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations.”
• “Today, having come far in our own historical journey, we must decide: Will we turn back, or finish well?”

Are there problems of national scope and scale that should rank higher than these? If so, we must identify and agree on them. If not, we must get on with the (civil) debates that lead to lasting solutions.