Engineer2Entrepreneur

My latest iPod Garage article is up.

Link: Welcome to 2005, the Year of the iPod Garage.

I love to listen to my iPod while doing yardwork, it turns the dead time into something far more enjoyable for me, I actually like doing yardwork now, because it doesn't feel like wasted time. It is spring and things are nice and warm in Colorado and the grass is beginning to grow. Last weekend I mowed and aerated the lawn, I spread that out over a couple of very tiring days. I jacked into my iPod and spun up some different things.

A-380 flies.

Link: Superjumbo jet soars; will it sell? .

The A380's four-hour sortie past the snowcapped Pyrenees removed any doubt that the behemoth capable of carrying as many as 840 passengers is airworthy.

I used to work for PanAm and they were the first to use the 747. I think it is great that Airbus has built such a large aircraft but I wonder about how popular it can be.

They are touting the A-380s lounge, Jacuzzi and casino capabilities. The 747 had lounges when it first went into production but they did not last long. Lounges just don't produce much revenue. The casino configuration may be worthwhile but then legal issues come to the fore.

I am sure that some Asian airline will get the all economy 840 seat version. They already have 500+ passenger all-economy seating 747s over there.

One thing I really think is missing is a front window for the upper deck. I know it is a challenge, just look at the cockpit, but it would have been fun having some kind of window there. that would make the plane far more popular and those seats very valuable.

It is too bad that they don't do barrel-rolls any more. "Tex" Johnson doing one with the 707 really sold the plane.

It isn't an issue of structural strength, since is barrel-roll is only a 1G maneuver. The only thing you really have to make sure of is to be far enough off the ground to make sure you get all the way over while the wings aren't providing lift.

CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS

Link: Peaktalk - CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS.

My favorite is Lead and Golds Strategy article.

These executives have to make strategy for the long term because business success is transitory and lacks the decisiveness one sees in military history. The flip side of that is that failure can be sugar-coated and papered over. In war, victory is the ultimate metric; in business, there is a fog of numbers that can be made to point in many different directions (at least for a time.)
...
Zbigniew Brzezinski once wrote that large bureaucracies do not have strategies-they have shopping lists. That sums up the output of the strategic planning process in most businesses as well. The end result is a grab bag of initiatives and budget items larded with some wishful thinking and trendy buzzwords.
...
The historian Michael Howard wrote a brilliant article ("The Use and Abuse of Military History")* on the right way for officers to study military history. He offered up three general rules:

1. Study in breadth. Look at wars and campaigns over a long sweep of time. Look for both similarities and discontinuities.
"Only by seeing what does change can one deduce what does not."

I suspect that had executives done a better job on this score, billions of dollars would have been saved during the Internet bubble. Someone who has studied the "old new things" will not get trapped in the hype around the "new new thing".

2. Study in depth. Look at a single campaign by reading a variety of histories, memoirs, letters, diaries, etc. Recognize the confusion, chaos and varying perspectives at work. (Clearly, this is the antithesis of the classic business case study.)

3. Study in context. Do not just look at the military action, study the sociology and politics of the nations involved. Again, these are perspectives that are usually absent in the analysis of strategy foisted on executives and students.

* The essay can be found in Howard's book The Causes of War.

This is some great stuff. Being able to define what the end goal is supposed to look like is very important but don't let the numbers try and hide the reality.

iPod: weapon of choice for the introvert?

Link: iPod: weapon of choice for the introvert?.

Ten Laws Of The Modern World - Forbes.com

Link: Ten Laws Of The Modern World - Forbes.com.

• Moore's Law. In 1965 Moore (he co-founded Intel three years later) noted that components on silicon chips were doubling every year. In 1975 he amended that to every two years.

• The Back Side of Moore's Law. This one says that digital stuff gets 30% to 40% cheaper every year--at the same performance point.

• Andy and Bill's Law. It went like this: "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away."

• Metcalfe's Law. Metcalfe said the usefulness of a network improves by the square of the number of nodes on the network.

• Gilder's Law: Winner's Waste. The best business models, he said, waste the era's cheapest resources in order to conserve the era's most expensive resources.

• Ricardo's Law. The more transparent an economy becomes, the more David Ricardo's 19th-century law of comparative advantage rules the day.

• Wriston's Law. He said capital (meaning both money and ideas), when freed to travel at the speed of light, "will go where it is wanted, stay where it is well-treated...."

• The Laffer Curve. Cut taxes at the margin, on income and capital, and you'll get more tax revenue, not less.

• Drucker's Law. Contribution puts the focus where it should be--on your customers, employees and shareholders.

• Ogilvy's Law. Ogilvy wrote that whenever someone was appointed to head an office of O&M, he would give the manager a Russian nesting doll. These dolls open in the middle to reveal a smaller doll, which opens in the middle to reveal a yet smaller doll...and so on. Inside the smallest doll would be a note from Ogilvy. It read: "If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants."

These are very powerful.

Must resist.

Link: FrontPage - Mentat Wiki.

I haven't totally explored this wiki yet but it's fascinating so far.

I know I have to increase my memory, and I can't just pop in a stick of RAM so I have to do it the hard way. One of my projects is to work on my name and face recognition skills.

There's plenty of traction on this slope...Aaagh!

I've been busy with things but this is really scary. since it shows that the current advice will not help you.

Where are we going...and why are we in this handbasket?

If you thought Terry Schiavo was bad this is much worse. Even a living will won't help you.

This is in stark similarity to what happenedbefore.

Lots of people are telling us after Terry that a living will will protect you. That does not appear to be the case.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Martin Niemoeller

I have been to Dachau, the evil of that place is sunk into the very rocks. Even in bright sunlight a darkness hangs over that place. We don't want that to happen here, but it has started anyway. "Never Again" has become "As Soon As Possible."

The worst thing is the loss of trust. It looks as though a second opinion is worth nothing in the medical profession now. You have to do the research yourself.

My mother died in a hospital when everyone was at home asleep, did she die or was she "helped?" We don't know yet, but the question hangs in the air, and at the Final Bar the books will be opened and everyone will know.

The breakdown of the division of labor is a terrible thing, it will destroy the world more effectively then anything else. If we cannot rely on "experts" we have to become experts ourselves the trouble is that it takes precious time. It will take about 6 months of full time effort but you can become expert in one thing in that time. But the opportunity cost is a terrible price to pay.

I have got better things to do with my time then to double check my "expert" but I may have too and that is a bad thing for everyone over time.

Carnival of the Capitalists - April 18, 2005 | Gongol.com

Link:
Carnival of the Capitalists - April 18, 2005 | Gongol.com
.

A better organized CotC. Some very interesting articles in this issue.

President Bush uses an iPod. And Congress is debating iTunes DRM.

Link: Welcome to 2005, the Year of the iPod Garage.

President Bush uses an iPod. And Congress is debating iTunes DRM.

My Latest.

Trevor F. Smith: Exterior: Speed read your own text

Link: Trevor F. Smith: Exterior: Speed read your own text.

This is something amazing. It actually blows my mind. I can read at speeds up to about 2000 wpm, which is so fast it is kind of annoying, most books are over too quickly, I prefer trilogies or longer. I got to that level of speed reading through sheer repetition. I read a lot of books.

The thing of it is maybe we aren't teaching how to read in a way that supports speed reading. We teach kids to sound out syllables and force them to read dull and boring books in school. So they don't gain a love of reading.

This could be something that changes all that.

[Note to self, learn more about this.]