Shatner: 'Star Trek' is way better than 'Star Wars'

[Thanks to Kirk]

xkcd

xkcd

John Sculley interview

John Sculley interview.

Really good managers want to turn one-off projects into as much of a routine process as they can. I am a project-centric leader. I like to work on projects and solve tough problems. Whereas a really good manager will say, "How do we replicate the processes so that when a problem comes up like this again we can routinely solve it?"

My Kindle interview

I was interviewed about ereaders.

Bitter rant of today

I suddenly understand the popularity of Twitter: the 140-character limit makes sure anything and everything said there is completely content-free, just like the popular bottle-feed culture demands.
"Let's have a debate."
"Great! But we must stick to 140 characters per statement. This makes sure nothing is ever said which requires thinking for me."

Stephen Wilkes photography

[Thanks to TCGirl]

Stephen Wilkes photography.

Unfortunately it's one of those accursed Flash site which prohibits giving direct links to anything, but these are from Fine Art/ nudes and /day to night.

Follow-up on Google

I’m Not Liking Google Much These Days, article.
Google+ has not merely positioned itself as a more secure version of Facebook. We found that out when Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, over the weekend, revealed that Google+ is fundamentally designed as a national identity service

Steve Ballmer - Developers

(You can find the source videos here and here.)

Maybe it would be more lovin' to stop making fun of him after ten years. But heck 1) it's still damn funny, 2) The music is cool. 3) Somebody behaving like that on stage has thrown away all claim on dignity all by himself.

Olympus Pen Lite custom grip

Richard Franiec continues to make custom grips for high-end compact cameras which inexplicable are missing grips. I have his grip for the Canon S90, and the new one for Olympus Pen Lite (aka "E-PL3") seems equally gorgeous, and I've already ordered it. If I were a camera maker, I'd buy the design off'a him. 

The Pen Lite, by the way, is pretty amazing. I think it's the smallest Micro-Four-Thirds camera yet, and it still manages to have a flip-out screen, and the fastest auto-focus on any compact camera yet (as fast as on DSLR cameras). All of those are traits which I have valued highly in cameras for a long time. (The much bigger and more expensive E-P3 doesn't even have a flip screen.)

It'll be interesting to see how it performs with the upcoming 45mm F:1.8 portrait (short tele) lens, a sort which has been missing from the platform until now. The lens is supposedly very good (lenses of that focal length often are), and not even very expensive (unlike the new 12mm wide-angle lens). (To get the 35mm equivalent focal length of a M4/3 lens, just double it.)

Aw, buggrox!!

I just got the captcha (distorted confirmation word) "buggrox" on another blog. For sure I'm gonna use that for swearing!

It's funny, "bugger" is a very common mild swear word for Brits, but really it means having anal intercourse, so it's weird that it's not a bad one.

It's funny, I wonder how it's decided what's rude. The F-word is still bad, but not as bad as the C-word. Hmmm, I think that it's connected to social guilt about oppression in the past, since that word was aimed at the female gender. The fear of offending makes us take the side of the offended, thus building up the strength of the feelings of being offended, which increases the fear of it, which...

Traditional foods

I've been having Traditional Danish sausage and cheese for lunch for days, since my sisters brought some with them. It's delish to a Dane, but man, I'd almost forgotten how fatty it is. I feel so heavy after eating.

But I guess most "traditional" foods are not exactly what people would call Health Food these days. I once had a "traditional English" lunch in a restaurant, lots of bacon and sausage, positively swimming in fat. I nearly couldn't stand up after that meal!

I suppose it's connected to most people having physical work in the olden days, whereas the most we lift these days is the computer mouse. If you work hard in the fields or such all day long, it's more desirable to get a 3,000-chalorie meal. But we still often want the heavy meals, 'cuz they kick off the ol' brain pleasure centers.

"Fail Safe Investing"

Many, if not most, books I've read on investing say that stocks are the rocket ride to riches. But even if it is true in the long run, which I'm not sure about, it seems to me that it takes hard work and an iron stomach to handle that roller-coaster ride. Especially now, when disaster bells are clanging all over the world.
For people who like reasonable financial security without having to worry too much about it, there's a book which our long time reader Timo recommended me a few years ago: Fail Safe Investing by Harry Browne. It has a simple philosophy of four kinds of investments which balance each other out: They will never all go down simultaneously.
And here's an article which shows how that golden advice is more relevant now than ever.

Update: Jan said:
Thank you! I love Harry Browne's investing ideas.
It's designed to preserving your money during troubling times and so far has done admirably well.

Update: here's an interesting article from a favorite site: Lemmings. (This site can be trusted.)