Curt Doolittle

Form: Quote Commentary

  • SPEAK IN A MANNER COMPREHENSIBLE TO THE COMMON PEOPLE “To speak in a manner inte

    SPEAK IN A MANNER COMPREHENSIBLE TO THE COMMON PEOPLE

    “To speak in a manner intelligible to the multitude, and to comply with every general custom that does not hinder the attainment of our purpose. For we can gain from the multitude no small advantages, provided that we strive to accommodate ourselves to its understanding as far as possible: moreover, we shall in this way gain a friendly audience for the reception of the truth.”

    – Baruch Spinoza

    He could have put a footnote in there about how damned hard it is. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-08 13:24:00 UTC

  • POSTMODERNISM AS THE INVERSE OF CRITICAL RATIONALISM “Critical rationalism recom

    POSTMODERNISM AS THE INVERSE OF CRITICAL RATIONALISM

    “Critical rationalism recommends that we should focus all of our effort on a search for truth in the absolute sense, and that we should jettison any attempt to justify. Postmodernism does the opposite. It recommends that we should focus all of our effort on a search for justification, and that we should jettison any attempt to discover the truth in any sense whatever.” – Kenneth Allen Hopf

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-08 13:20:00 UTC

  • WORDS ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (From Rodrigo) [quote on] 1. The product is only as

    http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/printCHOICE WORDS ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (From Rodrigo)

    [quote on]

    1. The product is only as good as the plan for the product.

    2. The best teamwork is a healthy rivalry.

    3. The database is the software base.

    4. Don’t just fix the mistakes — fix whatever permitted the mistake in the first place.

    [quote off]

    I was telling the guys yesterday that their rivalry was a good thing. Denis is always fighting for user simplicity, and Kyrill is always fighting for shipping the product and rich feature functionality devoid of ‘hacks’. Dennis is intuitive and impluslive and throws ideas out quickly to see if they stick. Kyrill is a physicist and engineer, and he thinks every idea through all the possible steps. I said “you know, I couldn’t go out and hire for this if I wanted to. THis is the most awesome value to the business I could ask for.”

    Of course, it doesn’t help that they’re arguing furiously over some bit of nuance while Vitaly, Alexey and I shake our heads, look for the waitress, and try to get a refill of our coffee. 🙂

    It’s freaking priceless. Really.

    Now, a second thing that I find no one agrees with me on any longer, and I say that ‘the database is the application’. I love my diagrams. I use pretty colors. I model them in detail. And for me, the ERD is how I capture the requirements. The UI is open to constant revision. It is art. It is psychology. But a database is a bit of math that represents a business problem in the form of the relational calculus.

    Databases correspond to reality. Databases turn me on. Every kind. Doesn’t matter. Faster, richer, all the better. Don’t like code other than triggers back there.

    ———

    “

    “

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 14:49:00 UTC

  • PSYCHOLOGICAL PRICE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP “No one said building a company was easy

    http://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica-bruder/psychological-price-of-entrepreneurship.htmlTHE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRICE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    “No one said building a company was easy. But it’s time to be honest about how brutal it really is–and the price so many founders secretly pay”

    Secretly hell.

    I tell everyone, pretty openly, that the difference between entrepreneurs and everyone else is little more than work capacity and pain tolerance – and not much else.

    The average person cannot imagine how hard it is on your mind and body. Because they literally cannot imaging working that hard, bearing that must risk and surviving that much stress.

    And then the government wants to tax you MORE and the american people want to call you EVIL and SELFISH, when, and if, as is rare, you capitalize on years of work, sacrifice and suffering.

    You wonder why the republicans own small and medium business?

    ‘Cause they know, appreciate, and respect it.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 14:07:00 UTC

  • IN THE HUNTER GATHERER STAGE “It’s like pre-Sumerian civilization,” says Brad Co

    http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/printSOFTWARE IN THE HUNTER GATHERER STAGE

    “It’s like pre-Sumerian civilization,” says Brad Cox, who wrote the software for Steve Jobs NeXT computer and is a professor at George Mason University. “The way we build software is in the hunter-gatherer stage.”

    John Munson, a software engineer and professor of computer science at the University of Idaho, is not quite so generous. “Cave art,” he says. “It’s primitive. We supposedly teach computer science. There’s no science here at all.”

    Software may power the post-industrial world, but the creation of software remains a pre-industrial trade. According to SEI’s studies, nearly 70% of software organizations are stuck in the first two levels of SEI’s scale of sophistication: chaos, and slightly better than chaos.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 06:55:00 UTC

  • DID IT ON PURPOSE: THE POWER OF POLITICS I love you Paul. I really do. You’re br

    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/books/how-the-economy-was-lost-the-war-of-the-worlds/WE DID IT ON PURPOSE: THE POWER OF POLITICS

    I love you Paul. I really do. You’re brilliant. You’re an incredible critic.

    But the conservatives figured out that we had to bankrupt the state before it destroyed us. So what did we do? Everything possible to bankrupt it. What will we do once it’s bankrupt?

    Gut the state.

    And I plan to dance on its entrails.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-02 17:07:00 UTC

  • IMMIGRATION IS ONLY “GOOD” IF YOU EXICLUDE THE COST OF NORMS. What was the cost

    http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2013/Kuehnimmigration.html#.UiT7RV9yIDw.facebook(SIGH) IMMIGRATION IS ONLY “GOOD” IF YOU EXICLUDE THE COST OF NORMS.

    What was the cost to america of the violation of the 14th amendment?

    What is the cost to america of political friction?

    Without accounting for ALL COSTS it’s NOT economics.

    It’s finance.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-02 16:57:00 UTC

  • TALEB’S RECIPE FOR A GOOD DAY : (Humiliate An Economist!) 1) Smile at a stranger

    TALEB’S RECIPE FOR A GOOD DAY : (Humiliate An Economist!)

    1) Smile at a stranger,

    2) Surprise someone by saying something unexpectedly nice,

    3) Give some genuine attention to an elderly,

    4) Invite someone who doesn’t have many friends for coffee,

    5) Humiliate an economist, publicly, or create deep anxiety inside a Harvard professor.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-02 14:51:00 UTC

  • IF ‘EQUALITY’ MEANS WE CAN ONLY MOVE DOWNWARD INTO DEGENERATION?

    http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/shhh-teen-mob-that-raped-2-women-was-black/WHAT IF ‘EQUALITY’ MEANS WE CAN ONLY MOVE DOWNWARD INTO DEGENERATION?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-31 06:34:00 UTC

  • THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the

    THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER

    “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the more one can do with the data stored in that language.” – Tim Berners-Lee

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:30:00 UTC