Seeking Coastal Utopia

Maybe we should even restate it by saying that simple is always better. “eyeglasses with black frames” by Jess Watters on  Unsplash Simple. The word itself is simple. The opposite of complex, the opposite of making it so confusing that it requires three people to work on it. It is as simple as one element, one piece. Simple is elegant in its scarcity. When you say “ wow, that was simple, ” you say it with a smile. When you say “ wow, that was complex ” it is usually prefaced or closed with expletives. Now, this is not a treatise against technology, even though technology is taking over. It is adding more complexity to our cars (e.g. self-driving vehicles) or that our appliances are now connected to the web and have browsers and screens built into them, enabled to determine where you are short on foodstuffs. There are (lots of) times when you want simple. It is recognized that self-driving vehicles are required to be complex because of the daunting task for eng...

We are an angry country right now — these are angry times. “fried egg in bowl” by KS KYUNG on  Unsplash There has to be something in the water, maybe it is all the pharmaceuticals we are peeing into our drinking water? Are there mind altering brain waves coming through social media to make us angry ? Somebody, please get me the aluminum foil! You wake up every day, you breathe one more breath, your heart continues to beat. You are able to move on through the rest of the day. Some days there are more bonus points than others, but guess what? You are still here, in this moment, and you have the choice to make — be a jerk or be nice. Hopefully, you choose “be nice” since that is how you wish to be treated. When you meet people every morning on your way to wherever it is you go every day, how do you greet those that you know? What sort of look do you have on your face? Is it a slack, deeply drawn face? Is your face pinched in pain or thought? Is it a scowl because the li...

“red number neon signage” by Karolina Szczur on  Unsplash A lot of you are probably thinking, what is Rule Number 6? Others are probably thinking what happened through 1 through 5? There are no other rules. Benjamin Zander described Rule Number 6 in his book The Art of Possibilities . Here is a vignette from one of his talks and he describes rule number 6 how it came into play. I have been keeping Rule Number 6 as guidance with the blogs I have been creating. It has been helping me remain grounded (what?!? I don’t have more followers? WTF!) reminding me to keep from being too serious. It allows me to enjoy this more, being slightly less competitive and hopefully making it enjoyable for those that discover these readings. Stop being so serious For that matter, what does it mean to be so serious? How can anyone be so serious? I remember as a younger dude and saying “ serious as a heart attack ” — I suppose that is pretty damn serious. A simple project management trick...

Manual central switchboard 1900 — B ritannica Back in the olden days, the late 1980's and early 1990’s — days of the 80286, 80386, and 80486 Intel processor chip series, there was concern over switch costs, which was the identification of chip latency and overall utilization based on the number switches and their frequency. Effectively a reduced capability due to the “cost” of switching tasks in a multithreaded environment. However switching costs are in today’s vernacular when it relates to investments of time and money; such as changing suppliers, changing brands, or even changing products. There is a physical and psychological investment in developing those original supply bases, in that it costs effort, both mentally and physically, to change brands. For example, you wish to change banks. Think of the switches, the changes you have to make from all the accounts you have. Deposits, automatic payments, checks, debit cards, all the changes that have to take place. The amount of...