A Letter to Facebooks Founder - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

A Letter to Facebooks Founder - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times:

"Nonetheless, the natural forces encouraging a cash-out can work in this bargaining dynamic. It will inevitably force you to find some type of exit for your co-investors. ... The question is how hard and fast they can push you toward this inevitability."

Terrific article. Thank you, Deal Professor.

Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes firing bows and arrows | Mail Online

Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes firing bows and arrows | Mail Online

I'm fond of such kind of stories. However, the first question I ask myself is "how true is that" ? ;)

How can I chat outside Google network? (and invite Twitter from Gmail)

Google Apps for Administrators - How can my users chat outside the Google network?: "How can my users chat outside the Google network?"

Spending time away from my laptop, I got used to have Gmail window to be opened with Gtalk in it. However, when I tried to add Twitter there (twitter@twitter.com), I have not chance to get it really invited. It just stays there as Invited and nothing changes.

So I blamed Twitter for the first few days about this problem. As I discovered this is not a problem of a Twitter, but a Google Apps thing. There is no way you can chat with users outside Google Apps or Gmail without altering your domain's SRV records.

You can see the Google's help on how to add to do this. Here are the things that I set for my domain:

_xmpp-client

_xmpp-client._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 5
weight = 0
port = 5222
svr hostname = talk.l.google.com

_xmpp-client._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5222
svr hostname = talk1.l.google.com

_xmpp-client._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5222
svr hostname = talk2.l.google.com

_xmpp-client._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5222
svr hostname = talk3.l.google.com

_xmpp-client._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5222
svr hostname = talk4.l.google.com

_xmpp-server

_xmpp-server._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 5
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server.l.google.com

_xmpp-server._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server1.l.google.com

_xmpp-server._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server2.l.google.com

_xmpp-server._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server3.l.google.com

_xmpp-server._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server4.l.google.com

_jabber

_jabber._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 5
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server.l.google.com

_jabber._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server1.l.google.com

_jabber._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server2.l.google.com

_jabber._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server3.l.google.com

_jabber._tcp.qwe3.com SRV service location:
priority = 20
weight = 0
port = 5269
svr hostname = xmpp-server4.l.google.com

Well, it wasn't the most friendly setup and it's not a clear thing when you get your domain deployed to Google Apps. However, fortunately, they have a solution. ;) (And you can do this fix through the Godaddy's TotalDNS).

Where are they now? | The Industry Standard

Where are they now? | The Industry Standard

Very interesting review about the pretty popular (someday) startups in late 90s and where are they now. The most interesting and, I think, the most known one is Kozmo, that was described in the movie E-Dreams. Strange that they missed govWorks from the documentary movie Startup.com.

Черный властелин

Черный властелин. Без комментариев. :)

Few bad things

Few bad things happened today. Well, everything started with a good thing. Apple service center (in Texas) has received my laptop, fixed it (replaced a lot of things), and sent it back. And all that was yesterday, within one day. Today, I've received a call from Apple store, telling me that I can come and pick up the laptop. That was really fast and really cool.

However, when I got home and turned it on I discovered a few, but pretty unpleasant things. The display case, when the lid is closed, in deformed and bent from one side. Not a major problem, just a few millimeters, but, damn, that was something I didn't order.

The other thing was that my display started to blink (flash), like it could not hold a brightness level. I've tried to play a little bit with brightness and it got pretty stable, however, still a pretty unpleasant thing (and a work-stopper! nobody who has got eyes should ever work on a blinking screen intentionally ;).

The last thing is over heating. The laptop got very very hot in the area between the keyboard and display (a small area about few centimeters wide) during 10 or 15 minutes. It was so hot, that I didn't feel safe when putting a finger on it. Well, I know MacBook Pro's are pretty hot things, but not that much. I had it for more then a year, so I can compare it to real thing.

Well, I came back to Apple store and told them about my problems. So, guess what, they told me to leave a laptop for one week more. What the fuck. I mean, this really sucks. While I am very satisfied with their attitude and willingness to fix things, and do this fast, I am extremely disappointed about staying without the laptop for two weeks. I also don't like the fact that I didn't have these problems before. This is something that should never happen.

AppleCare looks to be a good service, but not that good on quality control though. Hopefully, they can solve my problem pretty fast.

I am out of my laptop again. This makes some pressure for me and makes me think about getting an extra laptop for special occasions (did you say MacBook Air?). I like the idea, but it's too expensive at this moment (about $2K).

Как я делал солянку

Как я делал солянку. Сборную, мясную. Описываю рецепт приготовления, чтобы самому не забыть.

1. Покупаем мясо на кости, желательно говядину, но свинина тоже пошла на отлично. Правда получилось жирновато. Варим в пустой воде около часа.
2. Через час (мясо пусть варится) нарезаем мелко мелко лук. На сковородку бросаем самую жирную колбасу что есть и чуток обжариваем, чтобы лук потом жарить на этом. Колбасу убираем, кладем лук, обжариваем до полуподжаренного состояния, золотисто-зажаренного.
3. На крупную терку натираем морковку. Нарезаем один-два небольших соленых огурца. Морковку и огурец добавляем к луку. Жарим дальше, до совсем-совсем зажаренного вида. Можно добавлять чуток масла (я добавлял оливковое), но лучше не злоупотреблять (маслом). Можно добавить чуток огуречного рассола.
4. В бульйон добавляем паприку, лавровый лист, чуток перца. Пусть варится дальше.
5. Нарезаем кучу разной колбасы, сосисок, ветчины, мясо, короче рубаем все что есть под рукой. Небольшими кусочками, откладываем в сторонку.
6. Нарезаем соленый или малосольный огурец, пару штук, или штуки три маленьких совсем.
7. В зажаренный лук и морковку добавляем две столовых ложки томатной пасты, добавляем воды, чтобы все плавало, но не сильно, накрываем крышкой, тушим, чтобы не было очевидной жидкости.
8. Выключаем бульйон, процеживаем, обрезаем мясо с кости небольшими кусочками, кладем в бульйон, засыпаем туда протушенный лук, доводим до кипения, засыпаем огурцы и мясо, треть или полстакан рассола. Пусть поварится минут 7.
9. Нарезаем мелко зеленый лук, укроп, петрушку, немного. Маленький кружочек лимона. Штук 10-15 маслин (черных). Выключем суп, бросаем все сверху (пусть лежит на поверхности), накрываем крышкой, пусть стоит минут 20-30.

Готово.

P.S. Солянка лучший способ от похмелья. :)

Quicken for Mac v. ?

Being out of my laptop and out of my normal work place, I just realized that I'll also miss the Mac Quicken. I'm using it pretty often for keeping my budget on track.

Today, as I realized that I have nothing now, I started to revise the available online alternatives. Well, as I started with looking for a free ones, I ended up with mint.com and expensr.com. Few minutes later, I sadly found out that mint.com is aiming very different target then Quicken. The expensr.com is somewhat closer, however, I still didn't find it to be useful as much as Quicken.

It looks to me that the accounting software needs to stay desktop application. However, it would be a terrific idea to be able to sync the online and offline versions of Quicken, so I could use Quicken for basic operations online, and still keep my desktop version for full features.

It's sad that Intuit decided to keep Online Quicken as a separate product, that is not sync'ed and not connected with desktop ones. I would be happy to pay an extra few bucks for that.

The Wealth Report - WSJ.com : The Homeless Billionaire

The Wealth Report - WSJ.com : The Homeless Billionaire

...and at some point, I feel that he's right.

Damn, I need a backup laptop

Yesterday my MacBook Pro has gone for repair to Apple. I had a long list of concerns and guy at Genius bar was very patient listening to them and listing all of them for recommended repair.

The worse thing of AppleCare is that they do not provide a replacement laptop. Well, they provide a loan program for iPhone when you're sending yours for repair, so what about the laptop? It's way more important then some cell phone. I have a few spare cell phones at home so I can live perfectly well if I'd ever have to send my iPhone for repair. But I don't have any extra laptops. Hopefully the guys at Apple's repair center would be fast enough, because I miss my laptop a lot.

My friends gave to me an old Dell Inspiron B130. And it'd be great if the cooling fan of it would work. It does not. It freezes the laptop every 5-10 minutes and this is really not a thing I can use as a laptop. :( So I have to share the laptop with my wife and this makes both of us pretty unhappy. ;)

Portable drive iomega 120G and MacBook Pro

This is my review of Iomega Portable Hard Drive, FireWire 400/USB 2.0, 120GB Silver - 33634 on Apple MacBook Pro laptop. I'm not a hardware geek, so don't suppose this review to be very accurate from the technology stand-point. I'm a regular end-user and I just want to be happy with my gadgets. ;)

Starting from the unboxing.

Pretty nice device, pleasant for touch, pretty slim and narrow.

Has a reset button, can be switched into three power modes (USB/Firewire, Off ;) or 5V DC).

I found Firewire cable to be pretty short and nice. I remember people complaining about the length of the cable and found it to be too long. Well, not in my case. ;)

After connecting the device to the port it was found immediately. I've started the transfer of 10G folder with numerous files and Finder estimated it to about 11 or 12 minutes. However, it gave me more then 2 hours on 60G folder with about 50K of files in it. Although this is very rough and (I guess) very inaccurate, it's still much better comparing to my experiment with WD. I also tried to transfer 744M in one file and I got 9.3MB/s average. And on 4G file it gave me 15MB/s, so it speeds up a little bit. Again, I do not know if this cool or not, but it works for me well.

When I clicked on cancel, the transfer immediately stopped. I don't know if there is an issue or not, but I remember having hard time with different external drives that made Finder's copy stall for hours after canceling the action.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the device, but it'll take me some time to drive it crazy and to discover its fool-tolerance. ;)

P.S. Just found out that the device came in FAT32 and it can't accept single files more then 4G in size. I have got a few Parallels images about 8G long and I can't put them on the device.

Сранный UPS и необъятная Калифорния

С утра день не удался. Сегодня должны были привезти мой Iomega Portable Hard Drive, FireWire 400/USB 2.0, 120GB Silver - 33634 c Амазона. Как назло, отправили его не из центра в Bell, CA, а из мухосранска в Техасе. Для этих целей был выбран UPS, опять же назло мне.

Девочке-водителю из UPS утром оказалось просто взападло искать парковку перед нашим зданием, из-за чего она наглым образом развернулась, решив что привезет посылку мне завтра. Однако она не подумала, что завтра я не буду дома, поэтому посылку не получу. Завтра пятница, а стало быть в субботу и воскресенье я посылку тоже не получу. Более того, понедельник есть Memorial Day, и никто нигде работать не будет тоже. Стало быть, я в пролете до вторника, при том условии что девочке снова не обломается искать место для парковки.

Я бы отнесся к вопросу спокойнее, если бы не спешил в AppleCare со своим MacBook Pro, пока на него не закончилась гарантия. А в таких случаях нужно бэкапить данные, ибо врядли кого-то будут беспокоить мои проблемы. :) Слава богу, бэкапить хватает, порядка 50G навскидку.

Пропущу звонки UPS и попытку понять, а какого хера собственно, договорились что девочка будет тариться посылками в ближайшем UPS Store, который находится в 1 миле (~1.6 км) от моего дома. Туда-то я и подойду за своей посылкой. В качестве исключения, чтобы не ждать до следущего удобного случая или избежать поездки за 25 миль в ближайший хаб UPS. Но тогда-то еще я не знал, что не будет у меня машины под рукой (совершенно забыл :). Хотя бы это не испугало, если бы не проливной дождь с грозой и молнией начавшийся приблизительно за час до условленного часа Х (склонен думать что это час Ху, более чем час Икс).

Ненавижу Калифорнию, а особенно Южную, за то что здесь люди без машины не люди. И не плане того, что их ущемляют, нет, не дай Бог :) В плане того что на полтора километра дороги остановки есть две-три автобуса, который ездит раз в сорок минут, зато блять четко по расписанию. А остановки, в тоже время, без навеса над головой. Стало быть, разницы стоять под дождем или идти под дождем - особой нет. Результат один и тот же.

Хотя вышел я в перерыве между ливнями, я был качественно настигнут (с ребенком на руках) приблизительно посередине моего пути (как туда, так и обратно) песдатейшим проливным дождем. И если Ванька первую часть пути браво бежал, то после того как принял душ, категорически отказался мочить ноги в лужах и залез мне на голову. Это существенно усложнило мой путь.

И живу же вроде не в полной жопе, не на отшибе и не на ранчо, люди живые вокруг, мили полторы-две до центра города, самого что ни на есть. Проходя эти полтора километра пути я с трудом нашел пару мест где можно хотя бы передохнуть от перебежки, не нахлебавшись при этом дождя. Я жил и в Днепропетровск, и в Москве; и в жопах, и в центре городов - но нет такого, сука, бесподобного ощущения пустыни нигде, как тут. Такая себе, урбанистическая пустыня. И вроде люди вокруг, а спрятаться негде.

Посылку я забрал, сейчас буду распаковывать. И ждать с нетерпением когда я же свалю наконец отсюда куда-то где есть нормальная среда обитания. Например, в San Francisco.

Garr Reynolds @ Google Talks

Garr Reynolds presentation at Google. Gay Reynolds is the author of Presentation Zen book, that I very recommend.

OCMT CHP/MSF course

Yesterday I registered for O.C.M.T. FBRC-0613-08B course in Anaheim, CA. I'll be busy during the Friday 6/13 for theory and all weekend "mastering the riding skills". ;) Well, it's almost a 40 miles drive from my home, however, it's the earliest one in my area. All others are more then two weeks later from this course or even ending up late in July.

Actually, I was pretty surprised to see that Basic Riders Course (BRC) is booked up toughly for a month in advance (almost everywhere!).

What is BRC?

The Basic RiderCourse is a three-day course taught by RiderCoaches certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) using curriculum developed by MSF. Upon successful completion of the Basic RiderCourse, students are given a Certificate of Completion of Motorcycle Training (DL389). The motorcycle riding test given by the DMV may be waived with this certification and graduates may also qualify for insurance premium discounts with some motorcycle insurers.

RiderCoaches will start you off with straight-line riding, turning, shifting and stopping. You'll gradually progress to cornering, swerving and emergency braking. In the classroom you'll learn about the different types of motorcycles, their characteristics, and how they operate. The RiderCoaches, all experienced motorcyclists, will advise you on what to wear for comfort, visibility and protection. You'll find out how alcohol and other drugs affect your ability to ride safely. A very important segment of the course will show you how to create your own strategy for riding in traffic, and how to deal with critical situations. The course concludes with a knowledge test and skill evaluation.

Why do I need it?

I'd like to get a) skills for handling bike safely (helpful), and b) get the rid of DMV behind-the-wheel test. I had one when I was getting my Class C (usual car) driving license, and, damn, I don't want it to happen again.

iTunes CyrFix

For those who missed the release of iTunes CyrFix, here is the link back to it http://prokhorenko.us/itunescyrfix/. That page is completely in Russian. However, I doubt this is a problem. Otherwise, why do you need Cyrillic support then? ;)

The code has got some issues and might not work for all "problematic" names in your iTunes. But I found it to be usefull in the most cases for myself. Hopefully, you'll find it useful, too. ;)

Drop me a line if you have any quesions.

iPhone pseudo-GPS code (iLoJack)

This is an iPhone pseudo-GPS. The one that I called iLoJack. You can download it here at http://prokhorenko.us/white/iphonegps.zip.

Yes, it works. ;) There were some issues, but I'll give you a chance to discover them and fix yourself. ;)

I've developed a simple wrapper to run the Erica Sadun's findme-muchbetter to get the location of the phone and send it to Twitter. Also, it uses Erica's pingwifi, however, I didn't find this to be useful for myself (and my iPhone).

Your iPhone has got to be jailbroken and should be running a decent software update. I don't remember which one is the absolute requirement, but as far as I can recall 1.1.3+ was okay. If you are not sure what all this mean, you should better stay away. I don't think you can screw something up with my application, but you definately can end up with full restore. ;)

It's a pretty smart wrapper (with the most of constants left at the top of the script), but you've got to be tech savvy and kind of geeky, too. It knows how to use proxy. So, it'd be helpful if you're using T-Zones and don't want to pay any penny more. ;)

I didn't have any spare minute to provide an Installer.app wrap for it. There were few guys that volunteered to do this, however, I'm not aware of any repository that carries such an application. I also included a small code that allows your iPhone to wake up from the sleeping in specific period of time. (No source code for it, but I will include it upon request. Just leave me a comment here.)

The archive has a .plist file that you need to use for starting the keeper.sh when the iPhone boots up. Everything else would be done by keeper.sh and twee.sh. Make sure that you adjust them for your situation. They are pretty simple, but you still need to understand at least something about /bin/sh. ;)

Here are some notes on installation:

1. Make sure you have BSD subsystem installed.
2. Upload all files to your iPhone to some directory.
3. Use Terminal.app from computer or directly from iPhone.
4. Change to the directory where you uploaded files.
5. Run cp -v ./com.qwe3.twee.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.qwe3.twee.plist
6. Run cp -v ./findme-muchbetter /var/root
7. Run cp -v ./pingwifi /var/root
8. Run cp -v ./twee.sh /var/root
9. Run cp -v ./keeper.sh /var/root
10. Check /var/root/twee.sh for your proxy settings (if you are using T-Zones you may want to use the proxy for curl) and for your Twitter username and password.
11. Check /var/root/keeper.sh for timing. I found 20 minutes to be good enough. When the phone is sleeping, the updates are coming every 30 minutes (keeping in mind that you set your Mail.app be checked every 15 minutes). When the phone is up, the updates are coming every 20 minutes. You can find the best numbers for yourself.
    
12. Launch keeper launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.qwe3.twee.plist

Feel free to use the code or to share it with anyone. If you want to use it for commercial application, drop me a line and I think I can get a written license for you (but you still need to come up with a deal with Erica for her code).

One more domain name

One more domain name is going for sale: HITHINT.COM. You're welcome with your propositions.

Two domains for sale

Two domain names for sale:

1. FUNDSEED.COM
2. WHATUHAVE.COM

Ping me back with reasonable propositions.

Shotscreen

Shotscreen goes for sale. Shotscreen is one of my projects that was raised from the raw idea, ready for a beta release now and it is going for sale.

Shotscreen is an online screen casting. It's written in PHP and Java. It can work on any platform that has JVM (Java Virtual Machine) installed, it could be either Windows, Mac or Linux (or any other Unix flavors, you pick one).

Shotscreen:
..."Do you want to create a demo video for your Web site? Are you developing a help guide for your service and want to make it easier to use and understand? Are you working with customers trouble issues and want to get a better feedback from them? You need a screencast. What is a screencast? Wikipedia says: a screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. Just as a screenshot is a picture of a user's screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of what a user sees on their monitor. We can help you to make it easy, intuitive and hassle-free. You will get your screencast recorded and uploaded within few clicks. You can download it to your computer. And you can share it with anyone"...

Why Shotscreen is good? ..."This is a dedicated service for creating, managing and sharing screen casts online.

• No software needs to be installed. All you need is a Web browser.
• No worries about expensive storage and maintenance. Servers can be a headache and it's on us!
• No charges for network bandwidth or computer time.
• No compatibility issues. Our service works on Mac's, PC's, Linux'es and even something else.
• No training needed. Our site is easy and straight forwarded. Our support is always here to help you."...

I'm completely out of time to keep it on track and I don't want to leave it as-is.

Either the domain name shotscreen.com or a whole Shotscreen project are open for bids. I'll consider any reasonable proposition.

If you'd like to try Shotscreen first, the invitiation code is a bosstalks08. I don't remember how many slots are left free, so feel free to ping me back if it doesn't work for you (I'll issue you a new one).

Once again, I'm open to any reasonable proposition and I will consider domain purchase only propositions as well.

Feel an arrow...

I'm in the middle of Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. It's a pretty nice book so far, however, not the easiest reading.

Nice point mentioned in the book that I'd like to share. When you're developing a presentation, make sure that you think like a person who's got shot by an arrow. Yu are not dead (yet), so you're limited in time and the answers that you will receive are goint to save your life. I guess, you would not ask what is the brand of the arrow, what is the distance you got shot from and what color is the arrow, would you? It might be interesting to know, but not now and not here.

So, it works out that the good presentation (and presenter!) are going to answer two simple questions.

1. What is your point?
2. Why does it matter?

That's it. Good thing to remember though.

The bottom line: I would recommend giving a look at this book to anyone who's preparing presentations.

Portable drives for Mac

I've been looking for a nice portable external drive for my MacBook Pro. It's one of the first editions with the 2.0Ghz, two USB 2.0 and one Firewire 400 on-board. It's got about 90G HDD and I don't feel comfortable anymore with more then 30G of photos and music now. What's even worse is that I need to visit AppleCare as soon as possible for some issues that I experience with it, and my gut feeling is that I'm going to leave my laptop for repair. As you know, the data gets lost in such cases. ;)

My first try with portable drives was Maxtor (that I received as a present). I don't remember the exact model, but it had only USB Y-cable (one plug to drive, two plugs to laptop: one for data and power, another one for power only). It didn't work very well. It requires both USBs to be taken to get enough bus power. And this doesn't sound okay for me. I still have my Canon camera, numerour memory sticks and (!!) iPhone to be plugged somewhere and I hate the idea turning my workspace into wired nightmare with USB hubs all around.

My next try was Western Digital My Passport 160G portable USB drive (WDME1600TN). This little toy was looking pretty nice, I got it for $94.99 in Circuit City (some clearance item), and, guess what?.. it worked fine. I mean, it was okay with having just single USB. Unfortunately, it worked out to be pretty slow, and my Finder estimated 25G folder transfer to take more then 5 hours (wow!). I don't know if this is okay for a USB 2.0 complaint devices, but this is not okay with me.

I was almost sold to Verbatim Smartdisk 120G portable USB drive (item #96534), available on sale for $49.99 at Memory Depot (and shipping free with code FREESHIP). However, I have found some reviews saying that the whole Verbatim Smartdisk line doesn't work well with Mac laptops, as far as they produce low power on USB. I decided not to try it.

So, my next shot is Iomega Portable Hard Drive with both Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 ports, 120GB. I ordered it a few minutes ago on Amazon for $79.99 with free shipping and no tax (yet ;). I found some positive reviews for it saying that it might be a good choice for Mac laptops. Hopefully, it is. We'll see. While it might be as slow as the WD one, it's cheaper. ;)

Вымирающий интеллектуал

dadakinder: МНОГОЕБЛЯ И ВЫМИРАЮЩИЕ ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЫУ

Он прав.

Гавенный AT&T

Уважаемые товарищи, приехавшие в США и незнакомые с реалиями местной телефонии. Пожалуйста, не подключайтесь к AT&T. По-крайней мере, телефонной связью. Вы имете шанс быть трахнуобманутыми капитально.

Looking for a CTO?!

Hacker News | Where to find a good CTO for your startup?

People,

CTO is a Chief Technology Officer. This is a business executive position, for a person who takes care of the IT in the company. Very often it is the most important technical person in the company. However, this is not a person who writes code on a daily basis. This is a personal who takes care of long and short term technology directions (both strategic and tactical), focuses on business side of research and development processes and makes decisions about software to be used in the company.

CTO is not a developer. Developer (in the most cases) is not CTO. CTO is a top executive position. He (or she) doesn't need to code, it would be the waste of the time. Although I am a believer that CTO should have a substantial development experience, he does not need to develop any more.

While the person from the post I'm referring to is looking for a top technical person, this is definitely not CTO.

Directors' duties

Very interesting article on director's duties under the law.

What are directors’ duties and what can they do to protect themselves in a sale of company? : Startup Company Lawyer

In three easy words: it's shareholders, shareholders and... shareholders. A bit longer version: a. make sure shareholders make money, b. make sure you choose the buyer to get the maximum bucks and only that, and c. make sure shareholders know your thoughts, even when you are sleeping.

Культ

Отмазка: я не психолог, не юрист, поэтому все сказанное ниже не претендует на единоправильность. Но так есть. :)

Я страшно ненавижу культ (личности, предмета, состояния). К сожалению, жизнь связывает меня с людьми, которые этот культ воспитывают, прививают и культивируют.

Вот типовая ситуация с которой я столкнулся немедне. Не буду называть имен. Возьмем гипотетического дядю Петю. Который когда-то где-то заработал денег (не много, но на жизнь хватает). Который имеет много желания больше никогда не работать за деньги; и, к счастью, достаточно умен для этого. А есть еще и "группа риска", подверженная внушению, убеждению и проникновению. Естественно, дядя Петя с вожделением окружает себя такими людьми. Которые аж из трусов выпрыгивают, чтобы заглянуть дяде в рот. Иначе можно упустить драгоценное слово ясноликого и прозрение будет утеряно нахернавсегда.

Во что этот превращается? В секту. Возьмите типичный форум (опять же, без имен), где каждый третий поклонник Пети задает вопрос, адресованный Пете. Причем, вопрос не обязательно из сферы влияния IT (та индустрия, в которой относительно состоялся Петя). Оказывается, комбинация успех (деньги) + относительный авторитатизм в отрасли способно породить мнение что Петя теперь знает все, обо всех и везде.

Что получается дальше. Петя, вместо того чтобы придушить культ личности на корню, оставив себе признание как эксперта в области (что, в принципе, считается одним из наиболее правильных форм авторитета); так вот Петя вместо этого умелой комбинацией отмалчивания и двухсмысленных комментариев в стиле "Да, я таков", культ стимулируют к развитию.

Только кроме укрепления позиции "великий Петя", но создает клонов-ушлепков, который сутками сторожат врата форума, выжидая вопросы адресованные Пете, и начинают (мысленно превратившись в Петю) отвечать, так, как они считают что он бы ответил. В итоге, Петя как личность расстворяется, превращаясь в неопределенную жижу, массу гавна, пардон, мусора.

Как бы нелепо это не звучало, но это простой пример из жизни. Который может быть нанесен на любую отрасль, начиная от бизнес в IT, заканчивая простым жизненным стечением обстоятельств. Вывод напрашивается простой: авторитет должен быть в жизни каждого, а вот кумироподобный культ надо убивать.

P.S. Накипело.

Anonimo's

Вот совершенно сумасшедшие часы, которые безумно красиво смотрятся на руке (хотя по картинке это можно и не понять), имеют красивую историю и стоят почти $6K (пожалуй, единственный минус).


После моего последнего приобретения часов Moscow Classic "Vodolaz" 3133/01461051 (подробнее можно почитать и посмотреть здесь), стою перед проблемой Anonimo v. Panerai.

Не то чтобы я расчитываю получить ответ на свой вопрос в блоге, но мнения услышать было интересно. За Panerai перевешивает только его value в качестве инвестиции. Сейчас их имя сродни Rolex.

Restart'd

Очередная перезагрузка собственного блога, успех не гарантирован.

Мое понимание блога, ЖЖ, журнала, дневника и просто собственного сайта крайне расплывчато. У меня бывает ситуации три в жизни. Первая, когда хочется что-то написать, но не больше двух-трех предложений. Тут twitter оказался на подхвате (с подачи братца). Вторая ситуация, когда пишу что-то, непонятно зачем, непонятно почему, обычно хернячепуха какая-то или для самого себя - чтобы не забыть. Ну и третья, когда накипело. Имею за плечами больше сорока (40) напечатанных статей и во мне оно (желание писать) иногда просыпается. Хотя я и успешно с этим борюсь отсутствием времени.

Зачем пишу? Скорее всего своего рода эксбиционизм, только в скрытой, безопасной форме. Прокричать хочется, хочется чтобы многие меня услышали, только вот если захотят бить, я виртуален нах. Ну и кроме того, писал уже выше: иногда есть что-то полезное и интересное рассказать. Даже если никому не понадобится, сам для себя запишу, на будущее.

Почему live.prokhorenko.us? Потому что live. Потому что мое. Конечно я не люблю под-домены, но Google'вский движок не хочет сука давать в маппинг с подкаталогами, а заливать и хостить на свое сервере не хочу, там и так есть чем заняться. Но сделал все еще и в виде prokhorenko.us/live, поэтому кому как удобнее.

P.S. Писать буду на русском, английском, и может даже украинском (примечание автора: это наврядли).

P.P.S. Почему пишу, зачеркиваю (вот так), но все равно пишу дальше? Проба пера потому что.