Click the image to see the video.
Here’s a strange collaboration: “Bender” from Futurama and Al Gore in cartoon form appear in a promo for An Inconvenient Truth, which has been posted on YouTube. I never thought I’d ever hear Al Gore utter the word “pimp”.
My best math teachers and professors used to encourage the class to get a better feel for numbers by playing estimating games of all sorts: “How many jellybeans do you think are in this jar?” “How many bricks do you think are in the far wall?” “”How many houses are there on the next block?” This sort of estimating game has found its way into the interview process at Microsoft, where they ask questions like “How many gas stations are in the U.S.?” (Yes, the point of the question is to see how you go about solving problems and not to test your trivia skills, but having good estimation abilities is part of problem solving.)
Here are a few interesting sites and pages that I’ve come across recently that should help hone your estimation abilities by giving you a sense of scale.
First on the list is The Megapenny Project, which aims to help you visualize large numbers by showing you what different orders of magnitudes of pennies look like. It covers scales from oen penny to one quintillion (that’s one followed by 18 zeroes) pennies. Pictured below is what one hundred million pennies would look like:
I would be a bad Tucows employee if I didn’t make special mention of the bonus session of The Megapenny Project that uses cows: MegaMoo, which shows how large 1, 5, 72 and one million cows are. Pictured below is a cube made of one million cows, posed beside the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower for comparison. Note that if we decided to gather a collection of made up of one cow for every domain Tucows has under management, we’d need at least 5 of those cubes.
Taking things to a more cosmic scale, our next site on the list is The Size of Our World, which compares the size of Earth to the other planets in the solar system and our sun to other stars in the galaxy. If you thought it was a long trip to IKEA, wait until you see how tiny the sun is compared to some of the better-known red giant stars (better-known because their names have been used in Star Trek.
I can’t mention sites that cover varying scales without making mention of the classic educational film Powers of Ten, which was created for IBM by the office of those masters of gorgeous plywood designs, Charles and Ray Eames. The film expores a vast range of scale, from the human to the galactic, then back to the human and into the subatomic. Luckily, someone’s posted the whole film (it’s just under nine minutes long) on YouTube.
I’ll close this list with my favourite “couch gag” from The Simpsons. Since many of their writers are nerds, they’ve seen Powers of Ten and created what is probably the best homage to the film: a Homer-based recursive parody.
Pictured below is the inside of my knapsack as it appeared in the late morning on Thursday, June 22nd. The cute little creatures within are Tucows’ most popular pieces of swag: the beloved Squishy Cows. They fit quite comfortably in most adult hands and have a very lovely “give” to them.
I never thought these lovely creatures would ever get me into trouble, but the almost did that Thursday, while I was at the security gate at Accordion City International Airport.
“Excuse me, sir,” said lady behind the x-ray machine as my stuff emerged from its innards. “You’ve been selected for a random security check. Could you please collect your things and follow me over here?”
“Sure,” I said. Luckily, I wasn’t pressed for time. In fact, I had plenty of time to kill, as a storm that morning meant that the plane I was going to fly was still grounded in Chicago.
They opened the accordion case first, ooh-ing and aah-ing at it. They asked if it was an antique, and I explained that it wasn’t. It’s just that accordion makers are hardcore traditionalists and like that “old school” look.
What really got her attention were the Squishy Cows in my knapsack.
“Ooooh!” she squealed. “It’s so cuuuuuute!”
She turned aside for a moment and summoned a man in uniform. As he approached, he started putting on surgical gloves.
In the meantime, a couple of women in security company outfits came over to see what the squealing was about.
“Look!” said the security woman, “a cow!”. She held it up for her co-workers to see.
“Awwwww….” said one of the other women, who pulled another cow out of my knapsack. The other women gathered around to gape at the cows.
“Come with me, sir,” said the man, leading me away from the area.
“Why? What about my stuff?”
“Come. With. Me,” he said, a little more forcefully, reaching for my arm.
“Excuse me…” I said to the women, deep in a Squishy Cow-induced fugue state. “EX-CUSE ME!”
“Oh,” said the woman who initiated the search. She stopped the security man and said “No, no, no, not that kind. Waist-up search only.“
Jesus Christ, I thought, “waist-up?!”
“Are you sure?” he asked, with what sounded like a tone of disappointment.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Are you sure?” he asked again.
“Yes. Waist. Up.“
With a sigh that seemed to say “Denied the fingerbang again!, he asked me to spread my arms wide and proceeded to do a waist-up search.
And with the end of the search, my anal sovereignty remained intact. I took my knapsack and zipped it up before the cows could cause any more trouble.
(By the way, I didn’t coin the phrase “anal sovereignty”. Jon Rosenberg, author of the webcomic Goats, was the clever mind behind that gem.)
(This article also appears in Tucows Farm.)
“Paul Graham might have be the first speaker at this conference to quote the Old Testament,” said Nathaniel Talbott at the start of his presentation titled Homesteading: A Thriver’s Guide, “but he won’t be the last!” He then quipped that unlike Graham, he wasn’t going to contradict the Old Testament, so as not to put his soul in peril.
Like Graham, the talk he gave is applicable to people outside the Rails community or even outside the field of programming.
Consider the case of “Bobby”, a shopkeeper in Boston in 1870. Perhaps it might be more accurate to call him a shop manager, since he really doesn’t own the shop, but merely operates it for the owner. Through his work and experience, he knows the in and outs of running a shop.
Bobby is still a young man. He’s married, with a couple of young children. As a shop manager in Boston, he is limited; he’ll never have the money to own his own land and his own shop — he’ll always be in the employ of someone else.
He’s starting to hear things about the frontier — the great expanses of land out west, where the opportunities for a young, resourceful man like Bobby lie. If he took the train out west, he could own his own land thanks to the Homestead Act.
Sidenote: The Homestead ActThe Homestead Act, more formally called the Homestead Act of 1862, was a law that made large areas of land in the public domain available for claim by private citizens. If you were the head of the household and at least 21 years old, you could claim up to 160 acres of land — equivalent to a square a half-mile on each side — as long as you lived on the land for 5 years, built a home, made improvements and paid a $18 filing fee at the end of the 5-year period. Anyone, from established men with families from eastern cities to single women to freed slaves could be a homesteader. Thanks to the Homestead Act, about 270 million acres — roughly 10% of the area of the United States — was settled and claimed. For more details about homesteading, see this site. |
There is a 21st century equivalent for homesteading: building small, sustainable businesses that we own. Successful examples of such homesteaders are:
Why should you homestead?
One thing to consider is the concept of opportunity cost. Simply put, it’s “the value of the next best thing you could be doing”.
For example, if you decided to stay as an employee of a company, your opportunity cost is the money and benefits that come from being an independent contractor. Another example is the answer to the question “What could I be learning if I wasn’t doing what I was doing right now?”
Sidenote: Opportunity CostWhen I was working at a dot-com in San Francisco, I read an article in SF Weekly that permanently seared one particular type of opportunity cost in my brain. The article, titled Forgive Me, for I Live in the Marina, was about the Marina neighbourhood, an area reviled by people in the city’s grungier districts (say the Mission or Haight) for being “ground zero for the yuppie materialism that is supposedly L.A.-ifying our city”. In the article, a number of former fratboys and sorority girls, now yuppies, are profiled, and even years later, one stands out in my mind for its use of the term “opportunity cost”:
Maybe it’s me, but I always find it a bit unsettling whenever people apply business terminology to relationships. |
The opportunity cost that Bobby has to consider is what he’d be missing out on by staying in Boston and continuing to work for someone else and living on someone else’s property. Buying a ticket on the train heading out west is a risk, which he has to weigh.
Life is an exercise in risk management. Each of us has risk, which is tied to the limited amount of time that makes up our future. There’s a relevant bible quote: “So teach us to number our days, that we may multiply our hearts unto wisdom.” We don’t know what’s happening in the future; that’s the risk. Everyone in this room is at risk.
Prepare your outside work, make it fit for yourself in the field, and afterward build your house.
Bobby decides to buy a ticket and stake out some land in the frontier out west. The train goes all the way to the west coast, which leads to the question: where shall he stop along the way? He does research.
That question can be generalized to “Where do I want to be? What do I want to see? What interests me? How can I take my skills and do what I love?”
In the 21st century, the question “What shall I do, as I switch from being a shopkeeper to being a homesteader?” is still applicable. For example, if you’re currently a full-time employee, but want to start your own service-based business, you might say to yourself: “What if I started out by doing consulting? I’d still be taking in money and I’d learn about startups and business processes along the way.”
One of the cool things about land (in our 21st century case) is that it’s limitless. “You have limitless opportunities to turn your dreams into code,” says Talbott. Don’t think that all the space in the software world is taken; there’s plenty of room for everybody.
In the end, Bobby finds a town along the train route where he can set up a shop and stakes out some nearby land by the mountains where he builds his house.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep — so shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man.
As a homesteader, the work involved keeps Bobby busy — very busy.
Homesteading in the 21st century will keep you busy as well, so time management is of the utmost importance. Time is our most precious resource, because it’s non-renewable.
Nathaniel recommends David Allen’s Getting Things Done, a time management book that’s undergone a bit of a renaissance thanks to new-found attention from the geek world.
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
In the frontier, you’re in trouble if you’re on your own. Bobby needs help from the people around him, as and 21st century homesteaders, so do we.
There are three parts to “community”:
Family, neighbours and town all make up community.
Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but much increase comes by the strength of an ox.
Bobby has to till his land, and ploughing is very difficult without a horse or ox. He needs tools, which are basically multipliers — they multiply what you can do.
In our 21st century version of homesteading, “tools” doesn’t refer to just software development tools, but tools for all aspects of the business. Consider marketing — it’s a tool, since it’s essentially sales automation.
Remember, there are things that you can do that your tools can never do. Do what you do best, and let your tools do what they do best.
For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.
In 1800, Bobby would have at least toned down his activity on Sunday, if he didn’t stop working outright. We too need rest, a change of pace; it actually helps us do more.
Now by rest, what we mean is a change of activity. It doesn’t necessarily mean just vegging out. If you don’t take time out for yourself, you’ll become miserable, and what’s the point of doing something if you’re having a terrible time?
If your response to rest is “But I don’t have time!”, then you’re probably doing something wrong.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.
One of the values of Bobby’s actions is that he’s taking raw, untamed wilderness and building wealth. Better still, it’s not just for himself, but for his kids and their kids and his descendants to come.
Wealth-building is not zero-sum, and it’s not just monetary. It can also be time.
Many parents say “I just want to provide kids with the things that I didn’t have,” but in the end, things didn’t define who we were.
It was the non-material gifts from our parents that made us.
Homesteading, whether in 1870 or now, provides you with an opportunity to pass valuable skills onto your children. It doesn’t matter if those skills fill a marginal niche; if they please your customers, they’re valuable and worth passing on.
Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labour.
After 5 years out west, Bobby looks back at what he’s done. He’s no longer working in town, but on his homestead full-time. He enjoys the land he owns, the amazing thing he’s been able to carve out the wilderness.
What do you love?
There’s was a sort of fixation about apparent security, about landing a job at a place that would give you “cradle to grave” employment. Those days are gone, and the best course of action is to find work you love.
There will always aspects of our work that we don’t love, but they allow us to do the work that welove.
Never lose your love for people. There’s all sorts of things you can learn from them.
Never lose your love for learning and improving. It’s a continuous process, and it’s part of rest cycles.
Nathaniel runs into people who are just working at their job without passion, who surrendered to the 9-to-5. Don’t be like that!
Like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time…
One day, it starts to rain and Bobby can see it’s going to be a terrible storm, so he runs about securing things.
“Weather” in our 21st century homesteading metaphor is that which can’t be predicted nor controlled, just as in Bobby’s case. It can be your best friend and your worst enemy.
You have to watch out for assumptions! Of course, you’ll have to make them, but make sure you call those out and ask yourself: “What are the assumptions I’ve been making turn out to be wrong? What’s the worst-case scenario?”
If you have homesteading skills, they’re the most useful no matter what the current circumstances are. Consider how many people affected by the shrinkage of the contracting market, among whom were the Pragmatic Programmers. Thet took what they knew from the consulting business and applied it to the book business.
Homesteading skills will help you during evil times. You’re not dependent on your employer.
Be aware of debt — it’s a killer, especially to homesteaders. It’s also so prevalent in our society. Nathaniel’s goal is to be debt-free.
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, a time to die…
Nathaniel: “This is sort of a morbid way to wrap up the talk.”
After a long life, Bobby is dead. How is Bobby’s tombstone going to be different from the one he would have had, had he stayed in Boston?
All homesteaders cease at some point. One thing to consider is some kind of exit plan: once the usefulness of the company is over, what should be done? Let it peter out? Let it get bought out? You should decide.
Nathaniel went into a slight aside about how some large corporations have no exit plan and can’t even conceive of one; they exist to keep existing long after their usefulness, like zombies, the walking dead.
Knowing that there is an end also brings up important questions:
In order to live life well, we need to keep the end in view. In order to do a project well, we need to keep the end in view, too.
The one thing that Nathaniel wanted us to walk out of the presentation with was to reconsider our current situations. Are we happy doing what we’re doing?
He made an aside about why the lucky stiff — he clearly loves what he’s doing, which is making us laugh and leaving us scratching our heads.
We’re all at risk. That’s normal. We need to measure that risk, find out what right and wrong assumptions we’re making, and consider everything we do.
He exhorted the audience to “turn your dreams into code and make something that the person beside you can use”.
He suggested that we get involved in the modern-day equivalent of barn raisings. Find other like-minded people, prep up bunch of stuff, get some food and like the Amish, “help one of the neighbours raise their barn”. Come together as a community, and next month, build someone else’s barn.
(This article also appears on Tucows Farm.)
“Well, well, well…” said Paul Graham at the start of his keynote to much audience laughter. “I thought that having to speak just before Damian Conway’s classic rants on Perl and Klingon, with a complete multimedia slideshow would be the toughest gig I’d ever have to do, and now I hear I have to compete with a band!”
(The band he’s referring to is why the lucky stiff and the Thirsty Cups, whose amazing performance, The Professor’s Pudding, will be covered in a later entry.)
After warning the audience that he was going to contradict both the Old Testament and Yoda, he launched into his well-delivered and intriguing presentation, The Power of the Marginal. It’s an excellent polemic on the advantages of being an outsider, the corrupt tests that cause the jerks to rise to the top, how being on the outside leaves you free to take the risks that are commensurate with rewards, how small is beautiful and less is more, and why you know you’ve won when your work is being called “inappropriate”.
Although it was written and presented to a community consisting largely of software developers writing for a non-mainstream programming framework, The Power of the Marginal should be required reading for creatives of all sorts, whether you’re a writer, an artist, an engineer or a chef. If you are a maker of things or ideas, be sure to read this essay.
(This article also appears on Tucows Farm.)
I’m back from Chicago, where I attended the first international Ruby on Rails Conference, better known as RailsConf. Taking place from Friday, June 23rd to Sunday, June 25th, it was the largest single gathering of Ruby on Rails developers ever held. The vibe there was great — it was a mix of geek congeniality and collegiality at its best, mixed with a very palapable sense of “we’re onto something very big here!”.
Between the rather spotty wireless connectivity at the venue and the events that ran rather late for a conference of this sort, I haven’t had a chance to blog about the event until now. For the next couple of days, I’ll be posting notes and observations about the conference here on Accordion Guy and also on my work blog, Tucows Farm. There’ll be overlap between most of the entries in the two blogs, with the not-as-appropriate-for-the-work-blog stuff — such as the Tale of the Squishy Cows and the Overzealous Airport Security Guy in Latex Gloves — not going into the work blog..
Geek conferences are famous for what I call “hallway gatherings” — clusters of people gathered together around power sources, chatting and working away on their laptops. During the conference, a scene like the one below was very common:
The fourth guy from the left is none other than Chad Fowler, one of the brain trust behind the conference, Pragmatic Programmers author and all-round good guy. The guy in the black shirt who’s two positions to the right of Chad is Adam Keys, the funny geek who invited me to play accordion at his presentation.
While the gathering shown above isn’t unusual, what is unusual is the concetration of Macs. Wherever you looked, you saw a PowerBook or MacBook. Glowing Apple logos abounded — it seemed that there were 30 Macs for every non-Mac laptop. It seemed that among those non-Mac laptops, most were running some distribution of Linux rather than Windows.
I’m not alone in noting the abundance of Macs: check out this blog entry, as well as this, this and this.
Here’s a video where I did a quick sweep of a hallway cluster’s laptops after finding that they were all some form of Macintosh computer [3.7 MB QuickTime]. It’s all “Mac…Mac..Mac…”
It’s another interesting chapter in the rise of the Mac among the not-quite-mainstream programmer crowd, a trend that first became apparent during the first O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference back in 2002. All through RailsConf, I was reminded of Tim O’Reilly’s remarks in his 2002 WWDC keynote, Watching the “Alpha Geeks”: OS X and the Next Big Thing.
Seeing they were in the minority, Christian Metts handed out “Certificates of Nonconformity” to people sporting non-Macintosh laptops and took their photos. These RailsConf nonconformists were also photographed for posterity, and the photos have been collected in this Flickr set.
The most famous of the nonconformists was none other than the enigmatic Rubyist known only as why the lucky stiff, who posed in classic “why” fashion with his certificate:
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
Actually, I’ve been in Chicago since late Thursday afternoon and RailsConf since Friday, but the internet connection’s been rather spotty, what with 600 nerds all hitting the local wireless access point all at once. Things have been pretty good, and I’ll have a full report in a couple of days.