This weekend I had a hole drilled through my skull. I read that this increased one’s consciousness permanently. I read about the supposed de-conditioning properties. I read about more parts of the brain working simultaneously as there would be more blood up there to help this happen. The arguments for it all seemed to be quite lengthy, quite detailed, thought out and researched, and very intelligent. The arguments against it were based solely on the opinion that it is ‘crazy’ and talk like, "What’s more conscious than conscious?". I heard from an acquaintance on telephone that she was glad she had done it, felt more mental energy, and had days of brilliance. I came to believe that the key to a permanent consciousness increase was a hole in the skull, to restore the full brain pulsation of infancy. After several months of research, discussion, speculation, watching surgical videos and trepanation documentaries, and even an actual viewing of a trepanation, I decided I certainly did want to be trepanned, and sought a way to do it.

omg

Trepanation

The Founders Dilemma

"I have all these talented individuals yet I am not able to get them to execute [my vision] as a team." -Lament of a Triangle visionary founder.

Underlying the inner workings of high potential, emerging technology companies is a unique pattern of conditions and issues that can either bolster or block success. Properly managed, these conditions produce extraordinary success. Left unchecked, they result in a debilitating and chronic syndrome that becomes the Founder's Dilemma.

What can founders do to avert and to counter the Founder's Dilemma and thus assure successful execution of their vision?

Startups are fucking hard.

Business Leader | March 2001 | The Founders Dilemma

The future of Alacrity Ventures

Though I've enjoyed some aspects of being an angel investor, I enjoy working with creative people to innovate new products more. I expect to spend most of my time in the next few years continuing to explore social software and collaboration tools, and the new product opportunities that may evolve from them.

Thus I expect that any future angel investments I make will be more along the lines of Gifford's style of investment in Consensus Development: a small investment of money and a large investment of time. Harold and Gifford both feel the same way. Currently we plan to continue monitoring our existing investments, but don't plan any new investments unless we can take a more active role in the firm -- for instance Harold is a board member in Vapore.

I swear to god, its like he's begging to come on board at Industrial Memetics. Rattle, Decius... drop this guy a line.

Life With Alacrity: On Being an Angel

Angel Investors in the Southeast.

Angel Investor Directory

I am convinced that Sun Microsystems is a good buy. Anyone priced servers lately? Their Opteron line of servers is about half the price of a comparably priced Dell, and their servers are also the most energy efficient. Their Opteron servers can run Solaris, Linux and Windows and be fully supported for each. Their standard warranties are some of the best in the industry. And they are winning numerous awards for such innovations as ZFS, Dtrace, etc. And Java isn't going anywhere as a language, and Sun's Ultra servers are the best servers for running Java apps.

SUNW is about $5 a share. Sun is leaking money, so its cheap. But their revenues are enormous. I think we could see a potential buyout from Apple in the next two years. Either way, I think that a 10 bagger return on SUNW in the next 3 years is feasible. They have a new CEO, and I think we'll see a major round of layoffs as part of their restructuring.

The fundamentals of this company are sound: they've turned themselves around in terms of their products, which are now excellent. Sales are going to reflect this, and that is when the analysts will give a buy recommendation. Get in now on the strength of the products and ride SUNW to the top.

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/explaining_our_share_gains

That link explains the share gains.

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/putting_a_chill_on_the

As does that.

Buy SUNW

Key Specifications

* One AMD Opteron processor
* Memory capacity up to 8 gigabytes
* PMI 1.5 Server Management Daughter Card or IPMI 2.0 embedded Lights Out Management
* Up to 1TB of onboard storage
* Compact 1 RU form factor and multiple 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems

The X2100 M2 is bad ass. Dual core Opteron server starting at $945, fully equipped for my needs for less than $2K shipped. A comparable Dell at that price has a celeron in it.

Sun is going to make a comeback.

Sun Fire X2100 Server Family - Technical Specifications

Pre-Hole Hawg, I used to examine the drill selection in hardware stores with what I thought was a judicious eye, scorning the smaller low-end models and hefting the big expensive ones appreciatively, wishing I could afford one of them babies. Now I view them all with such contempt that I do not even consider them to be real drills--merely scaled-up toys designed to exploit the self-delusional tendencies of soft-handed homeowners who want to believe that they have purchased an actual tool. Their plastic casings, carefully designed and focus-group-tested to convey a feeling of solidity and power, seem disgustingly flimsy and cheap to me, and I am ashamed that I was ever bamboozled into buying such knicknacks.

It is not hard to imagine what the world would look like to someone who had been raised by contractors and who had never used any drill other than a Hole Hawg. Such a person, presented with the best and most expensive hardware-store drill, would not even recognize it as such. He might instead misidentify it as a child's toy, or some kind of motorized screwdriver. If a salesperson or a deluded homeowner referred to it as a drill, he would laugh and tell them that they were mistaken--they simply had their terminology wrong. His interlocutor would go away irritated, and probably feeling rather defensive about his basement full of cheap, dangerous, flashy, colorful tools.

Unix is the Hole Hawg of operating systems, and Unix hackers, like Doug Barnes and the guy in the Dilbert cartoon and many of the other people who populate Silicon Valley, are like contractor's sons who grew up using only Hole Hawgs. They might use Apple/Microsoft OSes to write letters, play video games, or balance their checkbooks, but they cannot really bring themselves to take these operating systems seriously.

This is funny. I like Unix and Drills too.

I realize this is an analogy and everything, but its one I relate to. I spent months last year building a house. When running electrical wire, one uses a dril like this with a 1" or so bit. If it catches on a knot, one is in for some pain. The trick is to hold it tight enough to drill, but loose enough to let go if it catches. One does indeed hear stories of people being spun around by these drills. Thats because sometimes you've got to give it all you've got, really lean in there, to get the hole drilled so when it starts spinning, you're committed to spinning with it.

So they invented a drill clutch. You set the tension you want it to cut out at, and when it catches, if you've got it set right, the clutch will let go and you won't get spun around. These drills cost several thousand dollars, and so are only available to dedicated crews who have someone in them with authority who has done got 'spun.' They also add complexity to each drilling operation: the clutch tension must be set.

I don't know how this affects the Unix situation except to say that this problem was addressed in drills, but Unix still can't get undelete?

Unix as a drill Neal Stephenson

Introduction

So you have a perl script. And it's too slow. And you want to do something about it. This is a talk about what you can do to speed it up, and also how you try to avoid the problem in the first place.

When perl is not quite fast enough

Nobody does weird like the Japanese. Sometimes it's deliberately weird - like those anime films that consists mainly of demons killing each other in bizarre ways. But what to make of Zuiiken English?

This program seems to be geared towards helping Japanese people learn to speak English, but its methods and scenarios are strange to say the least.

Take a look at this clip for example:

Learning English, Japanese-style Archives

Claim: Student mistakes examples of unsolvable math problems for homework assignment and solves them.

Status: True.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: The Unsolvable Math Problem