COMPLETELY RANDOM THOUGHTS on business sparked by twitter…. I live just south of Malibu, a city filled with the type of houses God would have built if he only he’d had enough money. Often, I’ll take the afternoon off and go hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, peeking into the backyards, tennis courts and golfing…
Last week, I was relaxing in bed reading a book when my daughter, Julia, came storming into the room. She demanded, “Mom! Have you heard of SOPA?” I informed her that yes, in fact, I had. She said she had read about it on Google and written a letter to her Congressman. Students in her…
Seriously, someone has to say something about Codecademy ‘s courses. I feel like the little kid in the story The Emperor’s New Clothes. You know, the one where supposedly the clothes are made from cloth only really intelligent people can see, so no one wants to point out the emperor is actually naked. With a…
I have been doing the Codecademy javascript lessons, along with 200,000 other people who joined up for Codeyear , resolving to complete a lesson a week and learn to code javascript better. So far, the lessons have been pretty easy. Inspired by Sheila Tobias’ research (see her book, They’re not dumb, they’re different ) suggesting…
I am pissed. As a small business owner, I am feeling very, very disappointed that there is certainly some law out there that would impose penalties if I drove on over to Riverside County and bitch-slapped Darrell Issa. I’ve grown cynical enough in my old age and after having run a small business since 1985…
I have been inspired by John D. Cook who does 11 tip accounts on twitter, each updated with a new tip, Monday through Friday. There is a Unix tool tip, an Algebra fact account, and nine others. How cool is that? Not being nearly as cool as him, I decided I’d just throw out a…
The third of my four daughters was being questioned about her training before the last Olympics, and answered; My mother was the first American to win the world championships, so I called her for advice, and believe me, Mom is always brimming with advice, whether you want it or not … In fact,…
After watching Black in America: The New Promised Land, about eight black entrepreneurs trying to get traction in Silicon Valley, I read some of the articles on line about it and some of the comments (always a mistake), comments which served up further proof that there should be some sort of IQ requirement to use…
I watched Black in America: Silicon Valley, The New Promised Land with Soledad O’Brien on the accelerator for black entrepreneurs. It was a terrific show and I highly recommend it. An interesting comment was made by one of the venture capitalists when O’Brien asked him why a white, wealthy male like him cares about diversity…
Anyone who has ever taught has probably had this experience … you are reading a student paper and think, “I really don’t understand what he/ she is trying to say here.” Like most professors, you probably assume that in these situations, the students aren’t very clear on the concepts themselves. You’re probably…