Merce Cunningham, who performed a revolutionary role in modern dance (not really my thing, but interesting), was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 1985 when he was 66. He performed until he was 70 and his company only dissolved recently (2011) two years after the end of his life.
During the interview he talked about his approach to dance as he got older (play the whole thing or go to 15 minutes into the interview to hear what he says about dancing as he got older). This led me to think in terms of setting goals just a few years out – 3 to 5 years – rather than planning tasks that would take 10 to 20 years. Sure, you should think about the long-term strategy, but in planning your more immediate work, you should only plan a few years out.
[Photo: from PBS “A Lifetime of Dance” 2001]
I have adopted two primary working rules that guide my participation in projects:
- Even while thinking ahead 10 or 20 years, plan only those things you can accomplish in 3 to 5 years;
- Only participate in events and organizations where you can make an actual and immediate contribution. Go ahead and attend events where you can learn, but be sure they are aligned with the contribution you wish to make during your 3-year-plan.
The first goal makes it possible for me to accomplish things that I can quantify and see. The second goal helps me “not waste my time.”
Geekiest of the geeks — amateur radio operators! (AKA “Hams”)
As a geeky little introverted kid, amateur radio was not really my thing, though morse code (CW) was kind of neat and a fun challenge. It also meant I didn’t have to think of much to say. I never was much for small talk.
For almost two months I’ve been quite aware of how the US Congress wants to impose their will on the Internet as a whole. Aw, comeon—e
The SOPA and PIPA bills being considered in the US Congress allow blocking of domain names by someone who simply makes a complaint. Technically they apply only to non-US-hosted web sites that are pirating digital content, but once the “machinery” is in place, they could be used to block any domain whatsoever, and without due (legal) process. And also, technically, the only person who can complain and get a domain blocked is a digital (music, text, art) rights owner, but in practice this will be almost impossible to enforce.
This morning at 12:30am I shut down my last Apple X-Serve — intentionally.
I upgraded storage to RAID, and I boosted their RAM memories, but other than that these machines were real troopers with plenty of compute power. I saved a lot of money by owning my own boxes and just buying electricity and bandwidth from Maccius.
By 2010 I was paying more for the virtual servers than for the real hardware boxes, but I was hosting far more sites in a more flexible manner. And Apple decided to exit the dedicated server business. So no hope of replacing hardware, and no more server software upgrades.