Author: Bobby Rockers

Start-ups, technology, and youth

I have quoted or linked to Paul Graham a few times previously in this blog. But his recent speech at OSCON struck a code with me recently. Checking out his web site I found this little gem on start-ups and the place they hold in the future of technology innovation. If you get the chance read some of this other posts. Paul consistently presents a clarity with technology that is all to uncommon in writers today. As an example let me give you a couple of his quotes from OSCON:

“Blogs and open source software are made by people working at home. The average office is a miserable place to get work done. What makes them done are the very qualities we equate with professionalism. The average office environment is to productivity what flames painted on the side of a car are to speed. Start-up environments are more like home work environments. This is probably the most productive the company is ever going to be.”

“The bigger problem is that the people pretending to work interrupt the people who are actually working. With so much time on their hands, they have to take up the slack with meetings. Meetings count for work, just like programming, but they’re so much easier.”

“Open source (and blogging) has a Darwinian approach to enforcing quality. The audience can communicate with each other and the bad stuff gets ignored.”

“Business can learn about open source in the same way that the gene pool learns about new conditions: the dumb ones will die.

“The reasons companies have fixed hours is that they can’t measure productivity. The idea is that if you can’t make people work, you can at least prevent them from having fun. If they’re not having fun, they must be working! If you could measure what people really did, you wouldn’t care when people worked.”

And my all-time favorite:

“Someone who proposes to run Windows on servers ought to be prepared to explain what they know about servers that Google and Yahoo don’t know.”

!Constitution

There are an amazing number of mis-conceptions about the Constitution and what it says. This post by U.S. Constitution.net has a pretty good rundown of some of the most famous. Some of the mis-quotes I hear most often are “separation of church and state”, “right to privacy”, and “Judicial Review.” One that is not in the list is right for the press to protect their sources identity in court.

However, it is important to remember that the constitution DOES say (in the 10th Amendment) that

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Thus we have rights regardless of their explicit existance in the constiution.

The Reunion

This weekend was my 10 year high school class reunion. Actually it was not my class reunion, I graduated from Little Rock Catholic High School (CHS), but it was the reunion for what would have been my high school class (Rogers High, aka RHS) had I not moved to Little Rock. I missed the reunion for CHS because they had it the same weekend as my wife’s due date. The weekend as a whole was pretty amazing. We stayed at my daughters God Parents house (probably the most wonderful people I know) and Heather and I became God Parents to two very sweat (and stunningly beautiful) little girls. The reunion get-together consisted of a family night on Friday and an adults semi-formal social on Saturday. I went to both events and the after parties.

Many of the friends I had at RHS I still keep in contact with; while my very closest friends I see fairly regularly as they have remained my best friends. It was nice to visit with everyone, especially those that I had not actually seen in many years. But what struck me most about the reunion was change in social interactions between what had previously been warring parties. No one held over any grudges, no one cared which “group” you belonged too. With only a few notable exceptions, everybody had grown up. I was honestly excited to see everyone and they all seemed glad that I was there. A school, its students, and its faculty can be evaluated by the quality of its graduates. By that standard it looks like the Rogers High School Class of 1995 has reflected well.

I will post pictures when I get them. A special thanks needs to go out to Molly and Fairy forthe best class reunions I have ever seen; Susan and Pete for their gracious hospitality to me and my family; and Marie and James for the honor of being God parents to their girls. All around, it was one of the nicest weekends I had in a while.

Leadership: A Review

I got the pleasure of seeing Rudolph Giuliani speak at a graduation ceremony at the University of Oklahoma where he discussed his new book, “Leadership”. He was an amazing speaker and as such I decided to pick up his book when I got the chance. Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani and Ken Kurson gives an overview of Mayor Giuliani’s leadership focus and a narrative of his actions/reactions to the September 11th events. I found both aspects of the book fascinating and informative without being overly scholastic.

“Leadership” does NOT provide any staggering new insight into leadership techniques and as such will probably not be useful to students of management. What the book does do is to provide fascinating examples of select leadership traits in action. These “inside” stories were the most enjoyable part of the book. Providing a counterpoint, to the New York media, on Giuliani’s term as mayor.

The book was begun well before 9/11 and as such the material covering those events feels, at times, disconnected from the main theme of the book. But because the 9/11 events play such a huge role in bringing Giuliani’s leadership skills to our attention, the information is understandable and interesting for its own sake.

Overall I really enjoyed reading “Leadership.” Its a quick read with a great deal of information, and was well worth my time.

Be not overcome of evil

I extend my prayers, along with the rest of the free world, to all of London today. Our hearts and thoughts are with you.

“When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

IPTables Tools

I am constantly trying to get a better handle on my iptables configuration. Particularly when setting up NAT and IP forwarding. This article lists three tools for configuring and maintaining iptables firewalls. I had previously heard of GuardDog; but FireHOL and “Easy Firewall Generator for iptables” were both new to me.