Common experiences of dog owners 08/30/2011
 The other day I saw a man walking his dog down the street very early in the morning. He was wearing a bathrobe and literally was walking with his eyes closed. I realized that I knew exactly what he felt like, and I further guessed that there are many common experiences that dog owners share which are special and unique. Here are some of my favorites; please add your own!
Add Comment  I had a lot of fun helping to plan my wedding, and through the experience, I learned a ton about event coordination, business negotiation, and dealing with difficult personalities. It was all worth it, but I just wish it didn't have to be so tough. As I see it there are three general problem areas with the wedding industry right now: 1. Insane prices. The moment you mention "wedding," the tone immediately changes. All of a sudden, the other person is so extremely "nice" and warm, sprinkling congratulations and feigning curiosity into the details of the proposal. They aren't faking their delight, though; they are so extremely happy to have another person they can totally overcharge. Because saying "wedding" is basically the same as saying, "please charge me 50-100% above normal." I may sound a bit cynical, but it's just from being shocked so many times in hearing prices for various everyday things that are out-of-this-world high and which one would never pay on a regular day. For example, with venues, flowers, and invitations, I had numerous experiences of realizing that prices are sort of in their own "wedding universe" rather than based on cost or value add. This price bubble is further heightened and sustained through all the various media that cover the industry and that speak of $100K budgets like they're the new normal. The unfortunate thing is that in this industry, just like almost everywhere else, you get what you pay for, and if you pay top dollar, you likely will get better service than if you choose something cheaper. However, the general magnitude of prices in question is what is so frustrating. I wish vendors were more honest in the sense of not taking advantage of the joy of a wedding and the guilt of not paying for the "best" for one's "most important day" and simply provided great service at a reasonable price. That's obviously too much to ask (though I was lucky to find a select few vendors who did in fact do that with grace). 2. Sub-par quality. You'd think that with high prices comes amazing performance. Sometimes that occurs, but from my limited experience, it's less often than not. Unfortunately, wedding vendors are amazing salespeople who will show you their "best of the best" portfolio instead of their average wedding (like from a recent weekend), and so consumers are making their decisions on the wrong basis. Consumers do have a burden to do proper due diligence, but it would be nice if the industry didn't make their job more diffcult. It's frustrating to have to constantly fight for every "concession," where concession often means simply getting what was originally promised or discussed and which now turns out to be something premium or extra. Sometimes sub-par quality can be even worse, such as when your bride's wedding dress is destroyed by a dry cleaners that decides not to take responsibility for it (yes, true story). It's really unbelievable. 3. Poor ethical standards. This last point can be summed up simply with, "Be a man. Do the right thing." Or more elaborately, be a professional. This means being honest, not needing a contract to spell out every detail of behavior, and doing what you say you're going to do (something I realize most people can't accomplish). In the height of vendor negotiations, I had a long checklist of all the various contract sections that would always need to get added or removed and things to explicitly check in every contract or estimate. Nothing would ever be preset in the "form agreement" that was in your favor or as discussed or "sold" to you; it would all have to get argued to get included explicitly. It's frustrating when someone promises something and yet can't commit in writing. Besides contracts, which few will ever really enforce, actual ethical behavior is what's sorely needed. I remember visiting one cake vendor who rudely scoffed at our requests and said that she didn't want our business but if we forced her she would charge us $x (where x is an order of magnitude more than the next most expensive vendor). We also had one cake vendor who promised to do our cake but then bailed when we wanted to sign a contract ("sorry, got a celebrity wedding"). We even had our DJ bail on us the day before he was supposed to play ("sorry, stuck in Europe [partying]") -- it was a lot of fun hiring a new DJ on my wedding day. I realize this post has somewhat of a ranting nature, but I know I'm not the only one who's felt this pain. It'd be one thing if the prices were low and I were dealing with shady vendors; it's unbelievable when it's with ostensibly high-quality vendors charging ridiculous prices. That really needs to change. People need to step up, and prices need to step down. 'nuff said. Notes on Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! 08/24/2011
 I recently listened to the audio version of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman. It was a wonderfully personal, detailed, and amusing account of many of Feynman's famous stories. The book reminded me of several people I know in my own life that bear remarkable resemblances to him; it's curious how certain scientists and nerds can be similar. The book covered some of the stories around the major parts of Feynman's life, starting with his childhood, through his time in working on the atomic bomb, through his winning of the Nobel prize, and on to include his many adventures and misadventures with music, women, Brazil, and lock-picking. His stories were all written in a direct, matter-of-fact tone, the content of which was quite funny. Through the book, I ended up learning a decent amount of history, physics, philosophy, psychology, and about women, strippers, lock-picking, and Brazil. Not bad for one book.... Introduction
 I've been lucky enough this year to take two trips out of the country (and one hyper-local "stay-cation" for my anniversary organized by my wife). I enjoyed them all and learned many things, including checking off many items from my "do-before-I-die" list. Below are some of my favorite lessons and memories from these travels. (I also just saw Rio, which I really liked, and which reminded me of all the wonderful experiences I had in South America. I'm also reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and apparently the famous physicist also loved visiting Brazil and even played the frigideira for a winning samba school.)  1. Rio is sort of like the movie. The samba is loud (got to see a samba show with good music but slightly cheesy/touristy dancing), the people are crazy about Carnival, and the sights are beautiful. (The movie's Rio is definitely cleaner and has prettier birds, though.)  2. The cable car ride up to the Sugarloaf mountain is wild -- such a nice view! 3. The Christ statue at the top of Corcovado is much bigger than it looks. You can take some really fun perspective photos from up there, though. 4. Spanish and Portuguese are close enough. I found Portuguese to be like a melodic version of Spanish; I could get by just turning some ción's into ção's and talking about samba and Carnival (though clearly I'm kidding and there's a lot more to the language). It would definitely be fun to learn it more closely some day. 5. The beaches are beautiful, and they are the spot to be seen during the Christmas holidays. My favorite beach for swimming was in Buzios, a sleepy, less developed part of Brazil (the original home, apparently, of some pirrrrrrates). The busiest beach I've ever seen was in Santos on Christmas Day; it was no less than 10,000 people literally walking up and down the miles-long coastline, sporting their wares (some better than others). It was truly a cultural moment to experience that. 6. Doing tango in a century-old tango studio in Buenos Aires was epic. The creaking wood floor, the raspy Argentine tango record playing in the background with melancholy... it was like I was in a movie. (Having some yummy parilla afterwards is what's required to hit the spot.) 7. Flying is everything I thought it would be. I always dreamed of becoming a commercial airline pilot when I was little, and I got to start towards fulfilling that dream in July. I flew a Cessna from Santa Monica to Point Dume and back with Justice Aviation for a one-hour demo flight (my instructor was named Max too!), and it was truly awesome. 8. Be appreciative for every raspberry you eat; picking them by hand is quite a difficult undertaking. I know: I tried to do it at Underwood Farms, and got so annoyed with it after 20 minutes. Each raspberry has to be picked off by hand, and it has to be ripened just so in order to taste good. I no longer take these little berries for granted. (Another fun thing at Underwood is feeding carrots to the horses and trapeze-artist goats -- no joke!) 9. Biking on July 4th at the beach can be fun and dangerous. We did a bike ride from Venice to Manhattan Beach, which was really enjoyable, except for when the bike path was filled with barbecuing, boombox-toting pedestrians. There was even a section that featured a row of parked Chevy '64s with various "interesting" decorative elements. It was all cool; talk about LA diversity! Other fun stuff from the weekend included seeing the Houdini exhibit (and learning about the history of magic) and eating yummy food at Larchmont Bungalow, Red O, and Geoffrey's. 10. Manatees are the sweetest marine animal weighing close to a ton, and they're in extreme risk of extinction. (Turtles are the sweetest marine animal weighing closer to tens or hundreds of pounds.) I had the pleasure of swimming with (and kissing on the lips!) a manatee, dolphin, and sea lion in Mexico, and it was amazing. Learning about these creatures and watching how smart they can be was really inspiring. It was very sad to learn that 60% of manatee deaths are due to human causes like pollution or plastic bags getting eaten by them and poisoning them (they're dying less from natural deaths than from us!). I also learned manatees don't really have teeth and don't really bite; their color, size, and demeanor reminded me of my previous Neapolitan Mastiff, Marcello. (I also got the chance to swim with stingrays and a nurse shark with apparently no teeth as well -- not sure I believe all these "no teeth" tourist stories, but I'm thankful to have gotten out of there alive.) Love is not a potato 08/09/2011
 TheNextWeb There is a well-known Russian saying: "Love is not a potato." The first time I heard this, I thought it was ridiculous. It's like thinking you're smart by stating something completely obvious, like 2 + 2 = 4. However, I've grown to love this saying over time. I love its extremely simple language that can be understood by anyone. I also love that the more you think about it, the more you realize it means. I recently had a long, late-night discussion (with my avid commenter "S") of all the meanings to the saying. Below are what we came up with. 1. "Love" and "potato" are very different objects and concepts. This is the base, "obvious" level of interpretation. 2. You can easily throw away a potato (if it's bad or if you don't like it), but you can't easily throw away love. (This is my mom's interpretation.) 3. Potatoes are easy: skin (optionally) and bake. Love is not easy. It takes a lot of work. 4. Potatoes are pretty much homogeneous. Yes, there are lots of varieties of them, and I'm sure no two potatoes look exactly the same. But my sense is that there are way more varieties/qualities/types of love than potatoes. 5. Potatoes are static. You park one on your kitchen counter, and it will sit for as long as you want. (Yes, it will rot after a while, but that's very slow and gradual.) Love is not static; it is constantly changing and evolving. 6. Potatoes are a staple: a very simple, everyday food item. Love is not a staple; it is unique and celebrated every time it occurs (weddings, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, etc.). More on celebrations later (apparently, people celebrate potatoes too). 7. Potatoes are finite, concrete objects. Love is infinite, a concept. 8. Potatoes have pretty much one dimension. Love has many. 9. Potatoes are easy to mold and fit to your recipe. Love is not easy to mold and takes a lot of care in "harvesting." 10. Potatoes are a side dish. Love is the main course. 11. Potatoes must be salted, or else they're bland. Love is amazing as is. 12. Potatoes have many "eyes." Love is blind. 13. Potatoes have an expiration date. Love (hopefully) does not. 14. You pick the potatoes you eat. Love, more often than not, picks you. 15. Potatoes satisfy the lowest level of your needs on Maslow's hierarchy. Love satisfies needs that are 2 levels higher up the pyramid. 16. You can't make potatoes (nature makes them). You can make love.  17. Finally, thinking about the saying at a meta/philosophical level, it seems similar to Magritte's image of a pipe. "This is not a pipe," he writes. "Love is not a potato." It is an image of a potato. (?) After coming up with this list, we realized that this was somewhat of a stupid exercise. We wondered what object in fact could be more different from love than a potato. Thinking about that made us actually realize that love and potatoes, after all, have a lot in common as well: A. People have fought over both: potatoes and love. B. Both can go stale if left untended. C. Both have holidays: potatoes and love. D. Too much of both can be bad. E. Both are best when hot and sizzling. F. You can crush both if you try. G. Both can be enjoyed by many people together (sharing potatoes over a meal, sharing a sense of joint love in a family). What is your interpretation of all this nonsense? Notes on I'm Feeling Lucky 08/07/2011
 I recently finished listening to the book I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards. It was quite a long, detailed story, but I particularly enjoyed that level of detail, as hearing the "inside story" was what I was actually interested in. I learned about Google around 2001, when a friend showed me a search engine he claimed worked better (and faster) than Yahoo (that's when they were just showing the milliseconds to complete a query, which they still do to this day). When I got to college, I had friends who worked at the headquarters and even invited me there for meals (it was like going to Disneyland). It was really neat hearing the detailed account in this book from an insider and correlating that with my own personal experiences of the company and people I knew there. The story was written by a journalist who was tired of working at large corporations and wanted to experience the start-up life. He became Google's Brand Manager and continuously struggled with his own identity in the company and what his role was. It was humbling to hear about the internal politics and constant debates that took place between the initial members of the company on issues all over the board, like product features, EULA language, April Fool's jokes, logos, and UI design and copy. I felt like I could relate to the author because I too have experienced these types of debates and have felt similar frustration to his in the past. Overall, I learned a lot more about Google and the bumpy, windy road it took to where it is today. It's so easy to think they had everything figured out from the beginning; this book explains that there could be nothing further from the truth. Below are my main notes and takeaways from each part. Introduction
Ch. 1: From whence you came
Ch. 11: Liftoff
Ch. 17: Two speakers and one voice
Ch. 26: S1 for the money
Top 5 Chocolate Experiences 08/05/2011
 Sassy Minx I love chocolate. A lot. I've been lucky to enjoy a few interactive experiences where I got to enjoy chocolate on a whole 'nother level. Here they are below; let me know what you recommend I do next!
What is the clock speed of our brain? 08/03/2011
 itb.biologie.hu-berlin.de A few days ago, I was trying to remember a line in a song I had heard about 9 months ago. I heard the song at a karaoke event, and the singer had a funny accent and demeanor. I vaguely remembered the line contained an alliteration, and with that clue, combined with the funny accent, I was able to remember the moment after about 30 seconds of thought. It was those 30 seconds that then caused me to wonder how my brain did that. First of all, I was quite surprised I even could conjure up the memory, which was quite unimportant. Thus, the fact that I could do it in 30 seconds was surprising; however, why did it have to take 30 seconds? What was going on inside my skull? Was some huge table being scanned? Some map-reduce operation being done? Were old neural connections being dusted off and re-energized with electrical current for my old memory to be resuscitated? What's neat is that our brain consolidates memories and continues to work on solving problems and answering search queries while we sleep. What's crazy to wonder about is what part of "us" controls it while we sleep.... As far as I know, the brain doesn't operate at a typical "clock speed" like computers do (where the clock speed dictates how often a CPU goes from instruction to instruction). But what does control how quickly our brain works? Clearly it changes in speed and function over time as we age, and its speed can deteriorate with various diseases. So there must be something biological/physical that somewhat resembles clock speed. IQ? From a quick search, this article tries to tackle this question, but at a very high level (and the article's somewhat old). That got me thinking about another clock in our body, something a lot more like the clock on our wall and in a computer: our body's internal clock (circadian rhythm). I bet there are lessons both biologists and computer scientists can learn from each other in examining the parallels between our body's clock, our brain's "clock," and our computer's clock. And finally, how does parallel processing work? In a computer, it's like having separate little brains that can do very basic tasks like read and store numbers and arithmetic; but in our brain, is it that multiple neural connections are being formed continuously and it's just a matter of which ones happen to grasp our attention at any one time? As far as I know, people aren't really able to take a large problem, split it up into many parallel parts, and assign those different sub-problems to separate mini-brains. Or are we? Is that what intuition does? Or does intuition just leap ahead magically to some final answer and not worry about sub-problems at all? All of these questions fascinate me and make constantly wonder how our brains function deep inside. Notes on The State of PHP in 2011 08/01/2011
 I recently was lucky enough to attend a sold-out, uber-geek event featuring the creator of PHP, the programming language powering a couple small websites out there, including some you may have heard of, like Yahoo and Facebook. The talk was put on by LAPHP, and the speaker was Rasmus Lerdorf. The topic was "PHP in 2011," and it discussed how PHP fits into the current technology stack, followed by an overview of what you should and shouldn't be doing, along with a summary of new and upcoming features in PHP 5.3 and PHP 5.4. Rasmus Lerdorf is known for having gotten the PHP project off the ground in 1995 and has contributed to a number of other open source projects over the years. He spent 7 years at Yahoo and has since worked for and consulted with various startups. He was born in Greenland, grew up in Denmark and Canada, and has a Systems Design engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. The full "slides" for Rasmus's talk are here. From the moment I found out that PHP is a recursive acronym (standing for "PHP: Hypertext Processor"), I found the language cute. While I personally feel the syntax leaves much to be desired in terms of prettiness, the language clearly gets the job done. Below are my main observations and notes on the talk. Rasmus Background
PHP Background
On his mind for 2011
Recommendations
| About Max Mednik
Max is an avid entrepreneur and student of life. He is a graduate of Stanford and founder of Ridacto and AMA Capital. He is a member of the business school class of 2012 at UCLA Anderson. He lives in Los Angeles with his family and spends his free time enjoying his many hobbies and interests.  ArchivesJanuary 2012 CategoriesAll SubscribeConnectFollow Me on Twitter  Connect on Facebook   Shazam Tags |
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