October 30, 2009

Too Much Ambition

By Jeff

Aim High

Is Too Much Ambition a Bad Thing?

Well of course it is, right?  Surely too much of anything can be bad, and it certainly seems obvious that too much ambition can lead to being a workaholic, having no social life, not making time for one’s family, and other such unpleasant things.  However, if you look at successful entrepreneurs, it would seem that many of them have had their ambition and their work negatively affect aspects of their lives such as the ones I’ve mentioned.

Its not that simple, unfortunately.  You can’t simply say “oh, well clearly I just need to have less ambition.”  Insane amounts of drive and ambition is half of what makes a lot of successful entrepreneurs able to accomplish the things they do, besides having to have a number of other qualities.  The trick is, of course, to find a balance.  This may seem obvious but it is far easier said than done.. I know from personal experience.  I have never had any lack of ambition.  I blame (or thank, depending on the day) my dad for this fact.  Indeed, my bursting desire to ‘do great things always’ has been quite the double edged sword at times.  I want to do everything, and I want to be expert at everything I do.  This isn’t really a conscious decision, its just the way I’ve always been.. I manage to do a pretty decent job at this goal, but it also causes me to bite off more than I can chew all too often.  I’ve become aware of this tendency in myself all the more as I’ve gotten the chance to interact with other high-achieving individuals, and I notice in them a set of common traits which I believe are symptomatic of letting your ambition get the best of you:

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Posted in Entrepreneurship, Zen | Tagged , , | Leave a comment
October 20, 2009

New Blog Theme and Separation of Concerns

By Jeff

I’ve had this on my todo list for quite a while, but finally I have changed my blog’s theme (the cat just wasn’t doing it for me) and separated my locost build log into its very own wordpress instance.  You can find it here.  Personal and work-related posts will get their own separate blogs as well.  Copies of previous posts will remain on this blog so as not to break permalinks, but for current posts on the matter check personal and work.  My plan is for this blog to focus on exactly what the title says: topics pertaining to entrepreneurship, technology, and zen.  That’s pretty broad of course, so let me explain a bit. Read More »

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Technology, Zen | Leave a comment
July 13, 2009

Back after an extended hiatus

By Jeff

Well, I’m back with my blog after being absent for quite a while.  Look for updates and changes in this space over the coming days.

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June 23, 2008

Free Piano Sheet Music

By Jeff

I found this wonderful piano sheet music site the other day, and just thought I’d post it here to share with you. This blog is where I got the sheet music for Comptine d’un autre: http://my-piano.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

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June 21, 2008

Locost update – Miata disassembled, build table done..

By Jeff

Well, its been a while since I’ve updated on my Locost build.  First, I will post some text from my locostusa.com log:

 

Posted Jan 25th, 2008:

“Today I bought a donor car, finally. Its a 1991 Miata with 250k miles on it. 100k miles on the engine. What’s really cool about it, is it has a Jackson racing supercharger on it, and full exhaust from the headers back. Of course, I don’t care about the exhaust other than its worth some coin.. I paid $2500 for the, but I think I ought to be able to recoup most of that, especially if I sell the supercharger. 

I’m waiting to start working on the chassis until I totally strip the donor, so that I can measure everything and appropriately decide on my chassis size. 

I also need to sit in eVo-x’s car (book frame) and see how my size-13 feet fit.. From the sound of it, I’ll need to go with a Mcsorely 442, or perhaps the design presented in the Gibbs book, which is a “221″, I believe. We shall see. I would like to go with as small of a frame as I can and still fit. 

Oh, and also, I bought 450 lbs of steel last week.. I know that’s a ton, but I got a good price on it and wanted to get a bunch of everything. The 4′x8′ sheet of 1/8″ (11 gauge) plate weighs 160 lbs! 

My steel list: 

1″SQR tubing, 16GA, 20′ lengths, 9 pieces - $115.56 
3/4″SQR tubing, 16GA, 20′ lengths, 2 pieces - $22.72 
1/2″Round STD (.84″ OD x .109″ Wall) 21′ lengths, 2 pieces - $35.70 
Sheet, 11GA x 4′ x 8′ – $87.62 
Sheet, 16GA x 4′ x 8′ – $52.00 
Cutting Fee – $7.50 
Subtotal – $321.10 
Taxes – $25.69 
Total – $346.79 

 

 

Now that I actually have everything I need, I will try to post a bunch of pics this weekend of the garage, the donor car, and the steel.”

 

What I’ve done since then…

Not much, unfortunately.  There was actually a lot more work after pulling the engine and drivetrain to fully disassemble the car.  After I pulled the engine/drivetrain/suspension, I moved the car out into the driveway on moving dollies, where it sat for about a month.  BAD IDEA!  When I went to move the thing back in, I discovered that it was completely and thoroughly infested with ants and a few other kinds of insects.  Ugh!  I spend a couple weekends spraying bug spray all over the thing after I pulled it back in the garage.  I also made sure there were constantly pools of bug killer liquid surrounding the four jackstands, sort of like a moat, so that no insects would escape the miata with their life.

Well, now the bugs are all dead, and the thing is almost entirely disassembled, except for some A/C components and the rear bumper (I didn’t have the courage to remove it at the time, for fear that there were still some ear wigs living inside, but they’re probably dead now).  I’ve yet to sell any of the parts on craigslist, including the shell itself!  Ugh.  Space is definitely one thing I don’t have right now.

 

In other news.. I built a.. build.. table.

I was originally planning on building it with steel, but then I realized how much cheaper wood is.  It actually took me two tries to build the thing to my satisfaction (the first one was done with mails, and imprecisely; this one is very square and held together with screws), but now I have a table that should be able to hold at least 1000 lbs (and is on wheels to boot!).

 

Please forgive my photos linking you to flickr right now.. I’ll try and resolve that soon so that you don’t have to keep going to an external site.

IMG_0185 IMG_0182 IMG_0181 IMG_0178 DSCN3350 DSCN3185 DSCN3124 DSCN3100

Posted in Locost | 2 Comments
June 20, 2008

Craigslist Tutorial for everyone!

By Jeff

So.  You have a piano sitting in your dining room that never gets played.  You have a bed that’s tucked away in storage.  You have a car that you need to sell.  You wish desperately that you could easily sell these items without paying someone to display your ad somewhere, but you don’t know what to do!

Paging Mr. Craig on isle 4, Mr. Craig on isle 4, please

Craig’s list, that is.  Craig is a man from San Francisco who decided to make a very simple and free website, called craigslist.org, to allow people in his same town to easily buy and sell just about anything, back in 1995.  Initially, the service was only available for San Francisco (the Bay Area, specifically); however, it has grown to almost every major city in the U.S. nowadays.  The beauty of the service is that it is localized, i.e. the ads you see will be posted by people within a 50 mile radius (give or take) of you, so you can go look at the item before buying.  No more sending money on the internet and then wondering whether your item will actually show up!  Conversely, if you’re selling something, its much nicer to deal with local buyers, rather than to have to worry about shipping something.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking that you don’t know anything about computers, and aren’t comfortable with selling things on the internet, even if it is craigslist.  Wrong!  A few weeks ago, I showed my slightly computer-challenged mother (no offense Mom!) how to post an ad on craigslist.  She was selling a canoe.  Within only 5 hours, the thing had sold!  Oh man, was she hooked!  Since that time, my mom has sold or helped friends sell nearly a dozen things through craigslist!

Good for her, but I’m not your mom, genius.  How are you going to teach me?

I thought you’d never ask.  For your viewing pleasure, I have created a video which goes through all of the steps required to post something on craigslist.  This is just the first in a series of videos I plan on creating about craigslist.. Video #1 is all you really need to post something on craigslist, while the future videos will be tutorials on how to make your ads look nicer, and have more and bigger pictures on them.  

Hope you enjoy! Please leave comments if you think this video rocks, or if you think it sucks, and you want me to do it differently somehow.

 

Posted in Technology, Youtube videos | Tagged , | 3 Comments
June 20, 2008

The most beautiful Piano Music Ever: Comptine D’un Autre Été

By Jeff

This song is from the movie Amélie, which is itself quite a beautiful film. This is my new focus on the piano.. Hopefully I’ll film myself playing this sometime soon.

 

Posted in Piano, Youtube videos | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment
June 20, 2008

Flickr Fanaticism

By Jeff

I’ve just recently become infatuated with Flickr, in combination with my iPhone. Specifically, there is a third party app called iFlickr that makes uploading pictures from your iPhone a snap (pun intended). For people with a non-jailbroken iPhone, sending a picture to Flickr involves taking a picture, and then emailing it to your Flickr email address. With iFlickr, however, you have a customized Camera application, where upon taking a photo you get the option to “Send to Flickr”. Once you tap this button, within a few moments your picture will be displayed on your Flickr site.

By your powers combined..

Now, combine this coolness with the awesomeness that is WordPress, and a neat little plugin for it made by tantannoodles, and you get something that makes posting pictures on ones blog so streamlined that you may need some aviators goggles. Observe:

TanTan_Flickr

Picture 7

And that’s it!  All you have to do is click on one of your pictures, and it becomes one with your masterful writing.  As you can see, this plugin makes the addition of photos to your blog posts a piece of cake. I’m enthralled by it.

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June 19, 2008

The Face of Computing in 2038

By Jeff

I had to write this for a computer science ethics class. I didn’t really put much time into it, and perhaps at some point I’ll revise it.. but upon rereading it I thought it was pretty good. Here it is for your enjoyment.

            Thirty years from now, computers will be even more ubiquitous than they are presently.  Your clothes will contain computers that monitor and log your vitals; your contact lenses or glasses will contain computer monitors that allow you wireless access to the internet, which may be controlled via the chip implanted in your brain, or perhaps your baseball cap will contain non-invasive sensors to read your thoughts.

            You will no longer have to drive to work; your car will drive itself.  As a result, traffic will become multiple times more efficient, and automobile accident related deaths will reduce dramatically.  Cars will be able to safely travel over 100 miles per hour, thus longer voyages will become far easier to make.

            We will have neural-computer interfaces available to the rich, and virtual reality will take on a whole new meaning.  Applications ranging from training simulations for the military, to virtual (yet very real) meetings with parties half way around the globe come to mind.  This will be another enormous society-changing breakthrough in computing.  Keyboards and mice will be nearly extinct by this time, as the 2d or 3d displays will be directly touchable at the very least, or will be controllable simply by thinking the commands.

            Huge ethical debates will have climaxed or be near it by this time; truly intelligent computers will be on the verge of birth.  It will be possible to modify your baby before he or she is created to make them as intelligent, good looking, strong, and healthy as possible.  Not to mention the power to choose whether they’re a girl or a boy, what color hair and eyes they have, and other such things. 

            Human augmentation by digital means will be available.  Prosthetic limbs and organs will be highly advanced and able to function nearly at the same level, if not at a higher level, compared to the originals.  We may even have electronic devices that  repair and replace certain parts of your brain as they age and die, extending your life by decades.  Perhaps we will have the ability to “download” a humans consciousness on to a computer, thereby giving them eternal life.

            The possibilities are endlessly terrifying and exciting simultaneously.  We humans are obviously thrill-seekers, as a group, and so our technological advancement will continue at an ever faster pace.  It is difficult to predict exactly what the next five years will bring, let alone the next thirty years.. but one thing is for certain: Thirty years from now, the face of computing will be almost unrecognizable to consumers of the present.

 

 

Posted in Technology | 3 Comments
January 21, 2008

My first Locost build post

By Jeff

Well, I finally have my very own build log. Almost a year ago, I became interested in lotus 7 replicas. I’m not even really sure what happened to make me interested in such a car, but I’ve been researching and considering building one for a few months now.

Over Christmas, I got a couple of books I was asking for. The two that mattered the most were: How to Build a Cheap Sports Car, and Build your own Sports Car: On a Budget. Also, I’ve done a lot of research and reading on the http://locostusa.com forums.

Anyways, after reading through those two books, and also buying a Lincoln Electric Pro-Mig 140, I made up my mind that I was going to get started on building a locost. My plan was to build my chassis based on the “book” frame, and to use a Mazda Miata as a donor vehicle.

I want to use a Miata for a few reasons:

  • Used Miatas with over 100k miles can be procured for fairly cheap (under $3k easily)
  • Miatas are very reliable and cheap to maintain. Engines frequently last over 250k miles
  • Lots of locost builders have used a Miata donor before me, so I will have lots of “expert” knowledge to tap into
  • Miatas come with double wishbone suspension on all four corners, and since I want to do independent rear suspension, this is perfect!
  • I’ve driven Miatas before and I love the responsive feel of the engine. Its got an awesome torque curve that is very fun to play with.

Anywho, I’ll post some pictures of my garage and when I construct my “build table”.

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