By J. Timothy King on September 25, 2007
Les Stroud is Survivorman. If you don’t watch the show, you may have seen ads for it on the Discovery Channel.
Les Stroud is a documentary filmmaker and survivalist. In each episode of Survivorman, he strands himself in a remote location, away from civilization, and survives for 7 days. All the while, he documents his experience, so we can see how he survived in each of the various situations he sticks himself in. In recent episodes:
- He makes his way across the Labrador tundra with no one but a team of sled dogs to keep him company.
- His hot air balloon is downed in the African Plains, and he needs to meet his “rescue team” on the plateau in 7 days.
- He is “lost” on Taroka Arm, in Alaska, about 100 miles south of Anchorage. (But try to calculate driving directions!)
There are two reasons I watch Survivorman. Continue reading “7 Entrepreneurial Secrets of Survivorman”
Posted in Entrepreneurship |
By J. Timothy King on August 22, 2007
Today, I came to a realization. I’m now officially an Old Fogey Software Engineer. You know, like those narrow-minded, intolerant, old-time veterans of the field I used to look down on when I was but a young Whippersnapper. They were so limited in their view, only being able to do what they have always done, always disagreeing with me, always putting roadblocks in my way, always wiping out my carefully crafted abstractions in favor of in-line code, always throwing out my object-oriented design in favor of procedural, always turning my portable, reusable code into use-once code. I never stopped to think that their objections might have been born from decades of experience and life-long expertise.
Now that I’m officially on the other side of the fence, I’ve discovered a new rule: When your junior colleague thinks his fancy object-oriented code is simpler than your straightforward procedural code, you know it’s time to raise your rates. Because they’re not listening to you, so you know you can’t be charging them enough. Continue reading “You Know You’re an Old Fogey Software Engineer When…”
Posted in Software Development |
By J. Timothy King on August 21, 2007
It’s summertime. Lazy days. Vacations. Time off. The kids are out of school. And only 17 16 15 days before they go back! (But that’s a different story.) I’ve been working part-time while they’re home with me over the summer.
Last Friday, my parents took us all out to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, and then we all saw The Simpsons Movie. (Worth seeing, BTW, especially if you’re a Simpsons fan.) The Rainforest Cafe is a theme restaurant, owned by Landry’s Restaurants. And there are a number of things they do there that serve as positive object lessons to all small businesses, in every niche. Continue reading “Secrets of Business from Rainforest Cafe”
Posted in Business, Marketing |
By J. Timothy King on August 7, 2007
For software developers, the new Intel Macs are the best thing since sliced bread. And someday maybe I’ll write a blog post listing all the reasons why. Of course, Apple has already highlighted some of the reasons in their ads, including that it has all the power of *nix and can run Windows software. Who can turn down a combo like that? (But some of Apple’s ads stretch the truth, at best. For example, my Mac crashes about as often as a Windows box.)
When I struck out on my own last November, I got a MacBook Pro to develop software with. And ever since then, I’ve had everything I’ve needed right at my fingertips. And I’ve been generally happy with my purchase. Continue reading “I Finally Threw My Apple Mighty Mouse Across the Room”
Posted in Humor, Technology |
By J. Timothy King on June 4, 2007
Seth Godin posted his opinion on the new logo for the 2012 Olympic games.
The 2012 Olympic Games Logo
Here’s how organising committee chairman Seb Coe described the new logo:
This is the vision at the very heart of our brand.
It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world.
It is an invitation to take part and be involved.
Seth noted that no, that’s not right. It’s just a jaggy picture. He’s wrong. It’s actually the word “ZOiZ.” But Seth was right about this:
If you are paying money to someone who talks like this, may I suggest you stop? And if you work for someone who talks like this, time to look for a new gig.
To paraphrase Jamie Hyneman of the Mythbusters, can we not do any more of these oogie-boogie marketing myths?
Rolling on the floor, laughing,
-TimK
Posted in Marketing
By J. Timothy King on May 15, 2007
I swear I had decided to write this before reading Pam Slim’s latest post about earning more by working less. But her thoughts dovetail so perfectly with mine.
Recently, the hiring manager at a client company reluctantly agreed to my rate. But he asked me please not to say anything to the other people on the team, because there are some working for a third that. It’s a great feeling, by the way, if it’s never happened to you. (A third? You couldn’t get me to sneeze for that much.) I had no objection to keeping my rate secret, since it is standard procedure. But that got me to thinking.
Continue reading “Here’s Why It’s Good For a Consultant to Tell the Employees How Much He Makes”
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Marketing
By J. Timothy King on December 31, 2006
“Once upon a time, there was a quiet, little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquilite. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you. In this village, if you saw something you weren’t supposed to see, you learned to look the other way. If by chance your hopes had been disappointed, you learned never to ask for more. So, through good times and bad, famine and feast, the villagers held fast to their traditions. Until one winter day, a sly wind blew in from the north…”
This past week I rented one of the best films of the last decade. It’s not a film I usually would have watched. Despite its awards and nominations, the movie got a mediocre rating on IMDB. And there was nothing I read to make me think I would find it any different. But I remembered some old friends talking about it years ago, about how in the movie they put ground chili pepper in hot chocolate. (Tastes good, by the way.) And then I learned that this was how the Mayans used to make it. And I love chocolate, and I love chilies, and history intrigues me. And I figured, “What the hey?” But I was unaware of what I was getting myself into. This is one of those films you have to watch over and over again, each time gaining some new insight. Most surprising, and most painful, and most inspiring, as I watched the film, I found myself identifying more and more with Vianne, the main character, in a way I never expected.
Continue reading “What Chocolate Says About Entrepreneurship”
Posted in Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Movies | Tagged Chocolat, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, innovation, Pam Slim |
By J. Timothy King on December 15, 2006
Writing is a communication skill. And they say that communication skills and the other soft skills are what programmers need today. Effective developers don’t work alone. They work with others in a team. And a team member needs to communicate with the other team members to be effective.
It’s like playing football. No one person can win the game on his own. Each player does his part to determine whether the team moves forward. The center snaps the ball to the quarterback, who hands it off to the half-back, who runs through a hole the offensive line has created in the the other team’s defenses. Or maybe the quarterback passes the ball to a receiver. Occasionally, the receiver is on a different page than the quarterback, and when the ball is thrown, there’s no one there to catch it. The play falls apart. Players either work together, or they lose the game. In football speak, this is called “not executing well.”
Continue reading “Does Bad Writing Reflect Poor Programming Skills?”
Posted in Software Development |