Monday, November 28, 2005

evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups: "#1: Be Narrow
Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.

#2: Be Different
Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the specialist will almost always kick the generalist's ass. Third, consider doing something that's not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name. Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How many blogging companies have 'blog' in their name, RSS companies 'feed,' or podcasting companies 'pod' or 'cast'? Rarely are they the ones that stand out."

Props to this guy! Most of the items off his list is exactly the same as my profs at CMU!

Tom

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Just Try to Sleep Tight. The Bedbugs Are Back. - New York Times: "In the bedbug resurgence, entomologists and exterminators blame increased immigration from the developing world, the advent of cheap international travel and the recent banning of powerful pesticides. Other culprits include the recycled mattress industry and those thrifty New Yorkers who revel in the discovery of a free sofa on the sidewalk."

my apartment is invested with one giant bed bug, it likes a clean kitchen and recylces often.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Unexplained Mysteries :: Invasion of the Chinese cyberspies: Titan Rain: "It was another routine night for Shawn Carpenter. After a long day analyzing computer-network security for Sandia National Laboratories, where much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is designed, Carpenter, 36, retreated to his ranch house in the hills overlooking Albuquerque, N.M., for a quick dinner and an early bedtime. He set his alarm for 2 a.m. Waking in the dark, he took a thermos of coffee and a pack of Nicorette gum to the cluster of computer terminals in his home office. As he had almost every night for the previous four months, he worked at his secret volunteer job until dawn, not as Shawn Carpenter, mid-level analyst, but as Spiderman--the apt nickname his military-intelligence handlers gave him--tirelessly pursuing a group of suspected Chinese cyberspies all over the world. Inside the machines, on a mission he believed the U.S. government supported, he clung unseen to the walls of their chat rooms and servers, secretly recording every move the snoopers made, passing the information to the Army and later to the FBI.

The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter's eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn't until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies."

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Untitled Document: "Master Tu Jin-Sheng's Penis Qigong Tips
Penis qigong has some specific prohibitions that can be useful advice for any qigong practice.


1.Watch what you eat very carefully
2.When you wake up in the morning, do not urinate. Instead, exercise to sweat it out.
3.The hours from 11 PM to 1 AM and 11 AM to 1 PM are not good times for exercise, but good only for meditation.
4.For every season there is an appropriate focus. Summer: Shen (Spirit) Autumn: Sui (Blood Circulation) Winter: Jing (Vital essence) Spring: Qi (Life energy)
For this type of training you must have a teacher, otherwise you might get hurt. "

Remember sweat it out! Wowers...

What I ate today

What I ate today


1 pound of turkey
One tray of sliced beef
One gallon of satay source
10 fish balls
One slice of pecan pie

More to come…

Monday, November 21, 2005

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:
8.6
Mind:
8.8
Body:
7.6
Spirit:
8.3
Friends/Family:
5.5
Love:
10
Finance:
9
Take the Rate My Life Quiz


the junk food questions brought down my score grrrr.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Sleep apnea doubles risk of stroke, death - study - Yahoo! News: "In fact, in the early part of the study, people breathing through CPAP machines seemed to fare worse.

Bradley told Reuters that heart failure patients are given the machines to drive water out of the lungs and reduce the work of breathing. They also may help the heart beat more effectively.

Although using the machines during the 5-1/2-year study did not help patients live longer, they did improve the efficiency of the heart and let patients exercise more."

hmm....

Sunday, November 06, 2005

NP'S -- THE INTUITIVE PERCEIVING-MODE TYPES: "4. NP'S -- THE INTUITIVE PERCEIVING-MODE TYPES
INTP -- Introverted Thinking Aided By Intuition

Main Characteristics

INTPs exhibit the greatest precision in thought and language of all the types; they tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies in thought and language instantaneously. The one word which captures the unique style of INTPs is architect - the architect of ideas and systems as well as the architect of edifices. This type is found in only 1 percent of the population and therefore is not encountered as frequently as some of the other types.

INTPs detect contradictions in statements no matter how distant in space or time the contradictory statements were produced. The intellectual scanning of INTPs has a principled quality; that is, INTPs search for whatever is relevant and pertinent to the issue at hand. Consequently, INTPs can concentrate better than any other type.

Authority derived from office, position, or wide acceptance does not impress INTPs. Only statements that are logical and coherent carry weight. External authority per se is irrelevant. INTPs abhor redundancy and incoherence. Possessing a desire to understand the universe, an INTP is constantly looking for natural law. Curiosity concerning these keys to the universe is a driving force in this type.

INTPs prize intelligence in themselves and in others, but can become intellectual dilettantes as a result of their need too amass ideas, principles, or understanding of behavior. And once they know something, it is remembered. INTPs can become obsessed with analysis. Once caught up in a thought process, that thought process seems to have a will of its own for INTPs, and they persevere until the issue is comprehended in all its complexity. They can be intellectual snobs and may show impatience at times with others less endowed intellectually. This quality, INTPs find, generates hostility and defensive behavior on the part of others, w"


is this me?

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Hawaiian food :(

Egg tart

ack!
Today

breakfast

shrimp
korean bbq beef
veggies

shake for lunch
during the weekend.... I went buck wild!

ate hotdogs hamburgers steak

Tom

Sunday was good... until i had the black bean korean noodles yums yums...

blogger for word is nuked on my machine... it never works properly i think i probably have some plugin that mucks with it. oh wells!

tom