Economist article:Self-discipline on the Web

Software that may help keep distractions at bay

Freeware: SelfControl 1.2.2 Block distracting websites for predetermined periods of time   SelfControl is an OS X application which blocks access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time. For example, you could block access to your email, facebook, and twitter for 90 minutes, but still have access to the rest of the web.

(From Roger Bohn's blog: http://art2science.org/)

Back from rainy Silicon Valley...

Quote of the day:

"Engineering is a state of mind. What you learn will be obsolete in two or three years." - Roger Bohn

This quote came up when I was speaking to Roger Bohn about my recent career outreach trip to the Bay Area. The trip was a mixed bag. I visited some leading tech companies, including Netflix, Google, and Intel. On the one hand, we received special treatment from our alumni, but on the other, engineers are much more sought-after than new grads from MBA and MBA-esque programs.

Apart from repeated calls to network with everyone we know, the alumni gave us some insight on industry trends. The buzzwords in the Silicon Valley these days appear to be "Local, Mobile, and Social."  "Global and Digital" were also in vogue.Word of the day:
TOFF: informal term for a wealthy person


Idiom of the day:
"flash in the pan": someone or something that draws a lot of attention for a very brief time.

Word of the day:
PLUCKY: gutsy, feisty
Ex: It is easy to intimidate the timid, but not the plucky.

This is an incisive perspective on economic systems:

Life isn’t yin or yang; life is yin and yang. Europe, and the US, are “mixed” economies. (If the US were a purely capitalist economy, there would be no public schools, roads, parks, Social Security, MediCare, etc.)
For my money, nothing is going to work for everybody without population control and limits on personal wealth. Capitalism’s dependence on ever-expanding markets and cheap labor and raw materials is unsustainable. The social justice of socialism, (and environmental equilibrium,) is unattainable without limits on population. (How can you cater a party without knowing how many guests there are?) Social justice is also impossible when wealth is concentrated among a few individuals, yet the entreprenurial/creative spirit of human nature is essential to human progress.   -Ralph Averill