nehrlich

12:09 am: Everything is a Story
Posting about an idea that's been percolating in my head for a while now: Everything is a Story.

In other news, I do my first presentation as a Google employee tomorrow. Crazy!

07:38 am: Meeting Dynamics
A post about the dynamics of different types of meetings, from information transfer meetings to brainstorming meetings to progress report meetings. Not my best work, but I really wanted to post something so up it goes. I've got another set of posts percolating, but haven't quite been able to make them come together. Maybe this weekend.

09:36 pm: Self Haxx0ring
I accidentally haxx0red my mind today at work and share the story of what happened.

07:38 am: Language games
Language games, or a further elucidation on the stuff going on in my brain that provides context for my last post about faking it.

11:22 am: Faking it
Reflections on my tendency to try to fake knowledge that I don't have, and how that might be tied up in my generalist tendencies.

06:47 pm: Being a generalist
Thoughts on being a generalist. Uninspired, I know, but it's what I've been thinking about. I'm sure my brain will get more active once I'm working again.

02:21 pm: In California
It's official - I'm now a resident of California (or at least my mail is arriving here). I'm living in Mountain View, a two mile bike ride away from Google where I will be working. I am sharing a house with Janet and eventually Jofish, with a pool and fruit trees and things like that. Info about housewarming party forthcoming eventually.

Road trip details:

• Left Ithaca last Friday, and spent that night at Leper's place in Oberlin.
  
• On Saturday, got to Chicago in the afternoon, ran through the Art Institute before it closed at 5pm, walked through Millenium Park, hung out in Grant Park watching the Chicago Jazz Festival (Vijay Iyer was good, but Dave Douglas's Brass Ecstasy was awesome (they used a tuba for the bass line!)), then met up with Tappan for pizza and beer in Wicker Park before crashing.
  
• Sunday was driving to La Crosse, meeting up with Ouija for lunch - he took us to the awesome Trempeleau Hotel, and we ate fried fish sandwiches while watching a barge go past on the Mississippi River. Then we headed over to see Drea at her job as a naturalist at the Perrot State Park, and she showed us some fun things about her park (did you know there were burial mounds there?). Then we drove through Minnesota and into South Dakota before collapsing.
  
• Monday was driving, Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Black Hills, and a surprisingly good steak dinner at the Spearfish Chop House.
  
• Tuesday was more driving, then Yellowstone. Geysers are otherworldly, and make creepy disturbing sounds.
  
• Wednesday was more driving, lunch in Pocatello with a friend of my sister's who owns a restaurant there, then driving late into the night because we decided we were ready to be in California (but only made it to Winnemucca, NV).
  
• Thursday we celebrated arriving in California with a lunch at In'n'Out burger off of I-80, got the keys to the new house (pictures here), and moved in with a borrowed Aerobed and futon.
  
• And on Friday, we slept.

Anyway, I'm in town. Yay. We should meet up, or something.

05:29 pm: Favorite things to do in New York
I left New York this morning (now in Ithaca), but I leave you with a post describing my favorite things to do in New York. In case you were wondering. Which you weren't.

10:38 am: Nonfiction Roundup August 2008
One paragraph reviews of the books I've read this summer but haven't reviewed before I pack them away.

10:25 pm: US Open
I made enough progress packing over the weekend that I allowed myself to go to the US Open today. It was pretty awesome getting to see world-class athletes up close. And then watching a far-better-than-expected match between Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Phau, a German qualifier.

A few more errands and some packing tomorrow, the movers arrive on Wednesday to take my stuff away, and then I'm off myself on Thursday. Yikes!

10:20 pm: Fiction roundup August 2008
Apparently, I haven't done a fiction review on my blog since May of 2007, so I figured it was time for fiction roundup August 2008. Plus, I had to review a couple books before I tossed them into the donation pile.

10:34 am: Whuffie and social capital
More thoughts on social capital (aka "Whuffie") inspired by reading Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

06:01 pm: Personal branding
Following up on yesterday's post with thoughts on personal branding, with some detours into the challenges of job searching as a generalist.

08:13 am: Branding
Some thoughts on branding, and the peculiar way in which a brand is collectively constructed between a company and its customers.

06:53 pm: California, here I come
My formal announcement that I'm moving back to California, which will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody who knows me (plus I've been posting about the decision under friends-lock for weeks).

08:32 am: True Enough, by Farhad Manjoo
My review of True Enough, by Farhad Manjoo

09:26 pm: Information Rules, by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian
My review of Information Rules, by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian.

09:55 am: Dr. Horrible!
I posted about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog a couple weeks ago, but Act 1 is up now. So watch it.

Also, I posted about it on my "real" blog this time. And linked to The Guild because it's pretty funny if you're a gaming geek or just know one.

08:10 am: Abstruse Goose
Somebody on my flist pointed me at the webcomic Abstruse Goose, and the one they linked to was pretty funny so I read through the archives. I eventually got to the first one, which has a panel that says "THERE... ARE... FOUR... LIGHTS!". Therefore, I conclude the author must be somebody I know, because that would only be funny to people who hung out at the MIT Coffee Haus in the vicinity of 1993/1994. I know this, because I occasionally yell "There... are... four... lights!" and other people don't think it's funny.

The comic doesn't have an about page, the domain name was registered privately, so I'm not quite sure who this might be. Any ideas?

Edited: Oh, never mind. Apparently it's a Star Trek reference. I'm just not geeky enough. Pretty rare I get to say that.

11:33 am: Personality
My friend Charlie's startup, Path101, has a personality test available to try to match people with possible careers. It takes a while (10-20 minutes), but the results are kind of interesting, at least to me.
( Results behind the cut )