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The Dip
A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
The Dip
To get things started, it is paramount to set the terminology straight. There are basically two kinds of curves present in almost everything we do.
The Cul-de-sac
This is a type of curve where no matter how hard you try to push forward, you keep hitting a dead end. A situation or job that will not get better regardless of the amount of effort expended.
The Dip
This is a type of curve where near term satisfaction and accomplishments are present shortly after embarking on the journey. Once this initial high has plateaued, the participant is in store for a sizable dip that takes a significant amount of effort and perseverance to fight through. This dip is long enough that the vast majority of people in it will quit before making it out on the other side. Society depends on this. If everyone made it out, there would be no scarcity on the other side. For the scarce few that make it out on the other side, tremendous rewards await them.
While describing these types of curves, Seth mentions that it's important to identify which type of curve you are facing. If you are facing a cul-dec-sac, quitting is not only a good idea, it is the right thing to do. Every minute spent in a cul-de-sac situation is a minute that can't be spent elsewhere. If you find yourself in a dip situation, it is clear that there is light at the end of the tunnel and your perseverance will likely pay off in a big way. It's your job to see through on this. Quitting at the bottom of the dip is a waste of your time and effort.
This book challenges conventional wisdom, especially ideas like "Quitters never win, winners never quit". According to Seth, winners quit all the time, they just quit the right things. This is an important concept and one with concrete examples that occur frequently. If you find something that is a cul-de-sac or a dip that you are not willing to see through, the best action is to not start.
Finally, the book is filled with witty one liners and ideas that spark the imagination. A couple of my favorites are listed below.
Being the best in the world is seriously under rated
The Problem with Infinity is that there is just too much of it
The Wrongest Advice: Being well rounded is the secret to success.
If you had a life threatening illness, would you be seeking a well rounded doctor or one that is highly skilled in the one area you care about? Almost no one would be looking for a doctor that was good at golf, martial arts, and restoring antique cars.
Up and Coming Management Series
Posts on organization, productivity, and all things related to management
For the one or two of you that are still subscribed to this recently stagnate blog, sit tight because I will be injecting life into it again. Instead of the technical topics of years past, I plan to write about the current topics that are the most important to me. More specifically, information management, organizational processes and productivity enhancing routines. Much of the content will be based on things I've read from top selling books intersected with my own twisted interpretation and experience. Stay tuned.
Leopard Purrs but not without a hair ball
Like all the other Apple nerds in the world on Friday, my brain didn't wander far from the 6pm release of Mac OS X Leopard. I arrived at the local West County Apple Retail Store promptly at 5:50pm. As I walked in, I saw a line that started near the entrance of the store and went down about 60 yards. As I got closer to the "end of the line", I noticed that instead of ending it made a 90 degree turn and went across the mall to the other walkway. That walkway wrapped 90 degrees as well and stacked up back towards the apple store(although on the other side of the mall). This section of the line actually went past the apple store. The line was basically U shaped and I was at the top right tip of the U. The store opened a bit late, probably 6:05 or so but the line moved immediately. For as many people that were there, it was pretty efficient. After 30 minutes of waiting, I entered the Apple Store and was greeted with a Leopard handout and a black t-shirt celebrating it's launch. While I'm not a big fan of black t-shirts, I accepted the gift with gratitude. I plan to wear it whenever I want to annoy my non-geek friends.
After entering the store, I walked directly back to the counter and stood in a very short line of two. I checked out minutes later. Bottom line is that I went from last in line at 5:50pm to exiting the mall before 7pm. Not to shabby if you ask me. My expectations were that I'd be there a minimum of 2 hours so I was pretty happy about saving the time. One thing that struck me as odd about the whole event was the number of people that were in line and didn't buy the new operating system. I saw many people walk in, get their t-shirt, look around a bit, and leave. This seemed very weird to me then and still does now.
So now for my day and a half assessment of Leopard.
The Good
- The archive and install feature worked flawlessly and seemed faster than every other OS X install that i've done in the past.
- The eye candy is very nice, it seems like the LCD on my 17" MacBook Pro got detailed with high gloss polish. Seriously, everything seems more vivid.
- Spaces has a very fluid feel just like Expose.
- System Preference Cleanup. Sharing and Network are more clear and concise now.
- Finder Updates make the finder feel more like the iLife apps.
- Mail's new features ToDo's and Notes are long over due but I'll be sticking with RememberTheMilk.com for now
- Tabbed Terminals may allow me to say so long to iTerm. This remains to be seen though, I've been pretty happy with iTerm.
- iCal didn't maintain my calendars and I had to sync my iPhone to get them back
- Time Machine, Time Machine, Time Machine(See next paragraph)
Let's just say that the idea of time machine was the main driver behind my upgrading. I probably would have bought the OS anyway, but this was the number one feature that I wanted. The implementation of time machine is not quite what I had expected. All along I had been expecting to hook an external hard drive up to my Airport and have time machine backup wirelessly. After all, the main machines at my house are my MacBook Pro and my wife's MacBook. Time machine was suppose to save me the idle time hooking up external hard drives and copying data for hours on end. After booting up leopard for the first time, I was prompted to connect to my AirDisk without doing anything. Now that I could access the drive, I headed straight for Time Machine in System Preferences. Upon arriving, I could not find my air disk. Hmmm, I thought. I went back to the find and made sure I could copy a file there, which I could. After years of being abused my Microsoft, I wrote it off to needing a reboot. I rebooted and only received more of the same. I found the answers I was looking for, but not the ones I wanted. It seems somewhere along the way Apple removed the Air Disk feature from Time Machine. Google cache can retrieve an older version of the page where it exists, but the current features do not include this. Now I'm right back to hooking up external hard drives again only to use a new backup tool. Not exactly the experience I had hoped for. After reading more on this, it seems there is a work around for time machine. Not supported I'm sure. The work around involves pluggin the drive directly into the mac and letting time machine run once. While it's doing this, you need to execute a few unix commands to create a hidden file with appropriate permissions and ownership on the external drive. Once time machine completes it's first run, you hook it back up to the Airport and it will then be used by time machine. The fact that I have to do this work around tells me that the AirDisk is probably not to stable. Only time will tell.
My next rant on Time Machine is about this pesky window that is present when it is running. Is this really necessary? I have it minimized but I wish I could hide it all together and never see it again. 
My last rant on Time Machine is around configuration. I personally don't need hourly backups. I'd be fine if time machine ran int he middle of the night every night. Hey Apple, where is the configuration? Your assumptions that I need hourly are not accurate!!!
Tomcat Hosting Anyone?
Need reliable host that doesn't break the bank.
Can anyone out there recommend a reliable java hosting company? My requirements are as follows.
- Must support tomcat 5.5
- Must allow me to restart tomcat without putting in a ticket
- Must have IMAP email
- Need enough diskspace that I don't have to delete email constantly
- Must allow mysql access
An Open Letter to Steve Jobs
First off Steve, I highly doubt this was a decision made recently. My guess is that this twist was in the playbook a while back, probably pre iPhone release.
With that being said, this is brilliant marketing. By lowering the price by 1/3 or $200(really $100 since my argument is that the overcharged on purpose knowing this was coming), Apple expands the target base of potential iPhone owners. The $100 Apple Credit to early adopters takes those that were already enamored by Apple and it's products to a new level. I know several folks with an iPhone and I haven't heard a single one of them complain about the price after they purchased it. By giving these fanatical people a free $100 credit(in their mind), they will likely be sold on Apple and their products for a lot more than just the iPhone. Think of all the people that are PC users that bought iPhone at $599. The Mac Mini price point of $599 might be a good option for those in the market for a new computer with a $100 credit. Assume that this occurs and some small percentage of people buy a Mac Mini and eventually join the cult. This is the gift that keeps on giving.
Now, what was the risk in pulling this off? The only thing I see is less iPhone sales during the launch due to the inflated price. Since Apple has a cult like following, this risk is lower than it would be for the average company. In other words, some people will buy Apple products because of their brand loyalty without regard to price or competitive pricing logic. The functional quality and head turning beauty of the iPhone was bound seal the deal for another large chunk of the risk factor audience. Finally, if all else failed, Apple certainly had the media hype going and could have triggered this price reduction early on to salvage any hit that they took.
Since I'm not a marketing guy, tell me where I'm wrong...
Here is the link to the document that inspired this late night post.
An open letter to iPhone owners from Steve Jobs