I'm a 40 year old father / Technologist - living and working in NY. I'm working on several projects at Wajig.com -a web hosting and content management company with a pretty good idea about how to manage and promote web content for users in a simplistic effective fashion.
Peter Hallen
A thousand kisses deep… (Leonard Cohen)
You came to me this morningAnd you handled me like meatYou’d have to be a man to knowHow good that feels, how sweet
My mirror twin, my next of kinI’d know you in my sleepAnd who but you would take me inA thousand kisses deep
I loved you when you openedLike a lily to the heatYou see I’m just another snowmanStanding in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen loveHis secondhand physiqueWith all he is and all he wasA thousand kisses deep
I know you had to lie to meI know you had to cheatTo pose all hot and highBehind the veils of sheer deceit
Our perfect porn aristocratSo elegant and cheapI’m old but I’m still into thatA thousand kisses deep
I’m good at love, I’m good at hateIt’s in between I freezeBeen working out but it’s too late(It’s been too late for years)
But you look good, you really doThey love you on the streetIf you were here I’d kneel for youA thousand kisses deep The autumn moved across your skinGot something in my eyeA light that doesn’t need to liveAnd doesn’t need to die
A riddle in the book of loveObscure and obsoleteAnd witnessed here in time and bloodA thousand kisses deep
But I’m still working with the wineStill dancing cheek to cheekThe band is playing Auld Lang SyneBut the heart will not retreat
I ran with Diz, I sang with RayI never had their sweetBut once or twice they let me playA thousand kisses deep
I loved you when you openedLike a lily to the heatYou see I’m just another snowmanStanding in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen loveHis secondhand physiqueWith all he is and all he wasA thousand kisses deep
But you don’t need to hear me nowAnd every word I speakIt counts against me anyhowA thousand kisses deep
The beauty of math
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111 9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888Brilliant, isn’t it? And look at this symmetry:1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111 9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888Brilliant, isn’t it? And look at this symmetry:1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Dinner with my son…
The most fun I ever have. Im not a religious man, but I thank god for children and the laughter they bring.
First bike ride in three years.
POV: Me on my back after a 2 mile bike ride. Do you see the spots I’m seeing?
Unethical Hiring Practices
Have you ever been interviewed for a position and been asked permission to have your credit checked as part of their background checking process? I have, and I don’t understand this. Why does an employer need to check your credit? Okay insert B#!#$%# excuse here; that it’s a valid way to verify someone’s character as being solid. I understand that if the position you’re applying for involves handling money, or is a high level management position, the company could be at risk hiring someone with a dodgy credit history. However; there are a hundred ways that a person’s credit could have dark spots on it. Divorce, illness, family and emotional problems. None of these things come up on the TRW report, just the payment history.
Does this mean you don’t want this person working for you?
With the current divorce rate in the U.S. pushing against 60%, you’re going to be hard pressed to find someone in their thirties or forties who has not been divorced. With the economy at an all-time low, you may also be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t missed a payment or has been late on their mortgage once or twice.
Never mind that tangent, here’s the deal.
The company you’ve applied to work for is not extending you credit, actually it’s the contrary. You are extending them a form of credit. How do you as a prospective employee, know that the company you’re applying to work for is reputable and up2date on their financials? If they’re not a public company you really can’t tell. You could check against the Department of Consumer Affairs to see if they have complaints filed against them, but you’re really taking a risk that they are not going to go belly up and leave you high and dry without a job. If you ask me (and you didn’t but too bad), the risk is on you as the employee, not the other way around.
Another practice hiring companies are doing is asking for your social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and in one case I heard of a company asking to login to the candidate’s web based email. That’s F%$#ing crazy! Maybe soon companies will want to have a home visit, or sift though your curbside garbage bags to ensure you’re recycling.
I personally think this practice is bordering on illegal, and prejudicial at best.
The kicker is: when you’re hired for a job, in most cases, you are placed on a probationary period; not given benefits, or 401K, or anything besides a paycheck for 90 days, and sometimes longer. The hiring company can terminate you at anytime without cause during this period. They will not have to pay unemployment benefits, or health insurance, and are at little or no risk to terminate you. If they determine the level of your performance inside the 90 day window to be unsatisfactory, the they just let you go. No risk no foul. I think that is enough protection for a hiring company.
What do you think?
Cloud Based Options
Cloud computing has got some attractive offers out there. I’m going to speak about two options I think are viable for most small to medium sized businesses.
Option one - Gmail Standard Edition:
Google now offers email hosting for companies looking to host their email in the cloud. With the current costs of traditional exchange hosting, a small business should really consider the value of a cloud based solution. For one, the SPAM filtering you get out of the box from Google is amazing. Two, on the Standard Edition; you get 50 users with 7 Gigabytes of storage per user, with 10 mail aliases per user. That’s a 500 mail destinations for nothing. Three, you can brand your domain name i.e. mail.domain.tld and you can brand the login page with a company logo. Not bad for zero cost.
Option two Amazon EC2:
Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing is a terrific resource for reducing costs and operational risk. I’ve setup my company’s website (wajig.com) inside the EC2 cloud and have to say that I’m very happy with the cost and ease of scalability for our infrastructure. With features like EBS and Elastic Load Balancing we can scale to meet demands rapidly and with minimal out of pocket expense. My hosting costs have gone from $100s a month to a fraction of that since being on EC2. With software like iAWS for the iPhone, you can take snapshots of your data, add IP addresses to your AMI instances, and many other features right from your iPhone.
The biggest benefit for small companies moving into the cloud has got to be the ability to get out from underneath your current IT department. Poorly managed IT groups can hold a company hostage with missed deadlines and bloated budgets, never mind the depreciation that small companies face when purchasing hardware or managed services from other third parties.
My next post will be on the pitfalls of both of these services and what you should watch out for when moving into the cloud. As with any new technology, there are lots of things to consider when making a move of this proportion.
Google Apps free email hosting
I’ve setup my company domain (wajig.com) in Google Apps Free version for email hosting. It’s great, there’s all the SPAM filtering features you get in your regular Gmail account + Apps, Calander, and more. 7 Gigs of mail storage per user, up to 50 users, and 10 aliases per user account. Why wouldn’t ANY SMB under fifty employees use this?
Posterous Rox!
I recently setup Posterous to auto post all my blog updates to FB, Twitter, tumblr, posterous, and several of my other blog pages. All I can say is “Geenyus”. Big applause to the guys at Posterous for creating this service. I recently heard about them while listening to #TWIST on iTunes. Great job guys.
“two flat tires and one good spare”
Pete needs a bike pump. “God sit’s in his rocking chair, he’s got two flat tires and one good spare, emperor’s in his underwear.”
