What to Read
If you’re choosing software, I wrote a somewhat irreverent guide on how to do that. Even software engineers will find it useful.
If you’re a developer, I wrote a career course. If you’re early in your career, it’ll add a million dollars to your lifetime earnings by giving you a clear, upward path. Supposedly knowing a little about negotiation adds a million bucks (compound interest, etc.), and this goes way beyond that. Many (most?) senior devs don’t know this stuff.
If you are considering going to college, or have a kid, I wrote how you’re probably going to waste $200K on your education. But also, how not to waste that money.
If you’re curious about how America will radically change over the next 5-10 years, I wrote about the rise of the robot chauffeurs. Or as most call them, autonomous vehicles. I spent weeks researching it, and can’t tell you how many times my mind was blown.
I also give talks on careers and programmer productivity, if you need a speaker for your conference. Reviews have all been positive.
While I’m changing how you see the world, here are three documentaries that have done that for me:
Latest Articles
Mark Suster Talks Startups At Innovate Pasadena
This morning at Innovate Pasadena I got to see Mark Suster speak on startups. Here's my report. Funding For those looking for funding, he recommends his one coffee per week method. This where you have coffee once per week with someone who can increase your chances of...
The Information Diet
I've just started experimenting with an "information diet" and the effect on my productivity has been enormously positive. This concept was invented years ago and at the time I thought, "sure, I guess some people need that." But not mois! However, after years of...
Image Carousels Don’t Convert
I thought of titling this "Image Carousels Are Evil," but that sounded too melodramatic. But think back to your school days. Ever been reading a book and have some kid shut it on you or swipe the pages so you lose your place? That's what reading carousel content feels...
Buy Facebook Ads and Lower Customer Engagement
Most people know that buying likes from click farms is a waste of money. After watching the video below, I learned that buying legitimate ads from Facebook is almost as bad. It is filled with click fraud (fake likes), which destroys legitimate engagement due to FB's...
Passive Agressive Call to Action Buttons
Marketing is hard. It certainly doesn't help when all these stupid jerks come to your site, check it out, and then take no action. I mean, you made it very clear what they should be doing on your site, but they just don't follow instructions. Pisses you off, right?...
What Stifles Startup Growth in OC?
Last night I attended an Orange County Tech Startups event on the future of innovation and startups in OC. Shervin Talieh put together great panels and I heard some interesting stats provided by journalist Chris Casacchia of the Orange County Business Journal (we need...
Prague: Thoughts and Observations
I spent the whole summer in Prague, the longest stay of my trip. It is without a doubt the most architecturally beautiful city I've ever visited, and I can't imagine that any city in America comes close. We have our natural wonders, that's for sure, but we're too...
Upcoming Talk: Intro to Talend Open Studio For Data Integration
At the next Orange County Java Users Group meeting I will be giving an intro talk on Talend Open Studio. I chose to speak on Talend because I found it to be a highly productive tool for creating data integration (ETL/ELT), schema migration, and batch processing jobs....
Kyiv: Thoughts and Observations
"Let me show you a miracle." said the beautiful Ukrainian woman. "Give me your hand." Without a second thought I placed my hand in hers. Then, despite my immediate protestations, she pulls out a fancy 2-sided emery board and begins buffing and polishing my right index...
Tokyo: Parting Thoughts
Tokyo is a city of wonders and isolation. I wanted to wait until I left to write this up, because I didn't want to besmirch the city. Keep in mind, I had the highest hopes for Tokyo, and expectations are everything. Tokyo is clean and modern, perhaps more than any...