Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 19 of 78).

Warren Buffett’s letter to his editors and publishers

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett wrote a wonderful letter to the newspaper editors who became his employees. He touted the value of local journalism.

I thought about his words this week when, as I was read the Raleigh News and Observer, I realized I had learned of 90% of its stories from other sources. That’s fine for a newspaper, actually, if (and only if) the newspaper brings me depth I cannot get from other sources.

I expect to get the full story from the paper, not just a “teaser” for which the TV news is infamous. If all you’re bringing me is an abridged version of a story I’ve already read online, you’re not bringing me any value.

Though the economics of the business have drastically changed since our purchase of The Buffalo News, I believe newspapers that intensively cover their communities will have a good future. It’s your job to make your paper indispensable to anyone who cares about what is going on in your city or town.

That will mean both maintaining your news hole — a newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well — and thoroughly covering all aspects of area life, particularly local sports. No one has ever stopped reading when half-way through a story that was about them or their neighbors.

via Warren Buffett’s letter to his editors and publishers | JIMROMENESKO.COM.

Bees’ baseball season ends

Yesterday Travis’s baseball season ended with a whimper when late afternoon storms rained out his last game. Though thunder rumbled and rain fell, I sat in my car next to the field, hoping against hope that some miracle would occur and the game would go on. Sadly that miracle never came, and my phone soon rang with a call from Kelly, telling me that the parents of the other Bees teammates had thrown in the towel. I was surprised at how sad that made me.

Kelly and I agreed that we will probably miss the games more than Travis will. There’s something magically simple about being on the ball field, where one’s only worry is the game itself. All is right with the world. There’s something especially magical about watching as our son progressed and improved throughout the season. As an assistant coach, I’ve been proud to watch as Travis and teammates came together as a team.

With a five-run limit before changing up, our coach wanted to slow down the runs, giving our players as many batting chances as possible. As the third-base coach, I would wave runners on for a double or triple but more often I would hold them at third.

I guess I’m still trying to stretch out the game, trying for one more hit for Travis, or one more goal for Hallie’s soccer game, or just one more after-game hug.

Every season ends. the players grow up and move on, and we’ll never live that moment again. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?

Duke professor, billionaire debate higher education’s value

One day about a dozen years ago, I interviewed with a bored-looking Vivek Wadhwa for a sysadmin position with Relativity Technologies. I didn’t get the job, perhaps because I don’t have a college degree. In hindsight I am glad I wasn’t hired because Relativity soon tanked, finally being bought by Micro Focus (which also bought my former employer, Intersolv). Perhaps the company would’ve been more successful with a few more creative, independent thinkers like me.

Wadhwa is now making a case against forgoing college. For some professions that make sense, but for others like IT one does not need a degree to be successful. Sure, a degree is fine if one wants to work for someone else, but for many entrepreneurs that time is better spent making things happen.

The best thing college gives you is connections. If those connections can be gained through other means, like hackathons, user groups, or the like then one wonders if loading oneself up on massive student debt is as wise a move as it once was.

Experience is, and always will be, the best teacher.

Vivek Wadhwa, a former high-tech entrepreneur in the Triangle who now teaches at Duke and Stanford universities, is matched against billionaire Peter Thiel Sunday night in a CBS “60 Minutes” segment exploring the value of a college degree.

Thiel is paying 20 young people $100,000 a year to drop out or not go to college in order to pursue new business ideas.

Wadhwa says Thiel is sending the wrong message.

via Duke professor, billionaire debate higher education’s value on ’60 Minutes’ :: WRAL Tech Wire.

My dog’s walk memory

On the weekends, Kelly and I are sometimes slack at getting Rocket out for his daily walk. Whenever we neglect to walk him, he will spend the rest of the day nagging us about it. It never fails.

I’ve noted that the dog can forget many things. He can forget where he left his bone, he can forget that he hasn’t been fed, but he never ever seems to forget that he hasn’t been out for a walk.

It makes me wonder just how developed his sense of smell is. I’m guessing it probably takes up half of his brain.

Amendment One passes

I was disappointed that a majority of North Carolinian voters voted to enshrine discrimination to the state constitution Tuesday. Many pointed to the Bible as their justification.

The way I see it, God gave some people blue eyes and some people brown eyes. God made some people black, some white, some Asian, and so on. Likewise, God made some people straight and some people gay. It is not for us to question God’s wisdom! I’ve always wondered how some can claim to know God better than God Himself. Let he who is without sin …
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Tackles and tassles

As a Wolfpack fan and an alum of N.C. State, it might be easy for me to gloat about the academic scandal taking place with UNC’s football and basketball players. The vaunted “Carolina Way” that Carolina people love to preach has turned out to be amusingly hollow. It seems that academic performance takes a back seat to winning. It would be amusing under most circumstances.

Then I hear what N.C. Athletic Director Debbie Yow says about the Wolfpack teams and it makes me wonder: what’s to stop the Wolfpack from falling into the same trap? I don’t question Yow’s dedication to N.C. State at all but there’s more to winning than the win and loss counts. Is Yow equally dedicated to academic performance? If it came down to winning or looking the other way when academic shenanigans take place, what would Yow do?

The kind of money being thrown around in college sports is in doubt corrupting. I can only hope my school is strong enough to resist the urge to cut corners.

The Raleigh Rays?

After our fun Sunday spent at the N.C. State baseball game and today’s column by Caldon Tudor about the rising popularity of baseball, I got to thinking of big things. Like, major league things.

Raleigh can’t have its own minor league team, but what if it had its own major league team? What if Raleigh wooed the Tampa Bay Rays here and built a gorgeous baseball stadium overlooking downtown? Wouldn’t that be great?

Update 7:50 PM: Looks like I’m not the only one to think this was a good idea. From this site (date of posting unknown but Google Cache snapped it five days ago):

Is it true the Tampa Bay Rays are moving to Raleigh, NC?

by Baseball Fan
in Tampa Bay Rays

I heard they are moving because of terrible attendance to Raleigh. Also, their farm team is in Durham. The Raleigh Technicians?

Tidal wave of cool

I’ve been considering all of the cool little projects that are going on in Raleigh: Artsplosure, Hopscotch, CityCamp, SparkCon, First Friday, Kirby Derby, the Benelux Cafe Cycling Club, TriangleWiki, 1304 Bikes, Music on the Porch, Little Raleigh Radio, Oak City Cycling Project, greenways, a future whitewater park, a skate park, and many, many others. Each of these is a decent project on its own. Each creates its own little ripple. In Raleigh right now, these little ripples are coming together with other ripples to create little waves. Those little waves will combine with other little waves to make big waves, and soon those big waves will come together to create one gigantic wave that can’t be ignored.

Few might be paying attention now, but the waves are building that will soon wash over Raleigh in a tidal wave of cool.

Bricks vs. clicks

On pondering how Best Buy is going under, allegedly due to becoming Amazon’s “showroom,” I decided it’s quite the opposite. Best Buy is losing to the search engine.

How many times have you walked into a big-box store only to be completely lost and unable to find what you need? How helpful have the zombies in the blue shirts been in finding what you need? Who wants to have to hunt for a surly, clueless sales rep to help them when it’s so much easier to tell a search engine exactly what one wants and have the answer appear within seconds?

Search engines don’t hassle you with aggressive upselling, either. The now-defunct chain Circuit City used to do this and it drove me nuts. I’d have to fight off their commission-based sales associates to the point that it totally turned me off on shopping at their store. The sharks at Circuit City were the meatspace equivalent of pop-up ads.

I think big-box stores still have a chance, provided that they return to one of the time-tested methods of making customers happy: giving them what they want. Store associates should be well-versed in the products and also polite. Above all, they should be accessible. It worked for hundreds of years of retailing and it can still work – search engines and online retailers or not.

The costs of jury service

I found out yesterday that the jury duty I almost had to perform was for the Kathy Taft murder case. While I was willing to serve, I am feeling very fortunate today not to have been tapped for this case. I work as a contractor and get paid by the hour and the contracting firm that employs me would’ve only paid for the first 40 hours of jury service. The Taft case will likely drag out for months, putting us in a significant financial bind. The $50 a day with which the court would’ve compensated me would not have come remotely close to bridging the gap. This all aside from the emotionally traumatic impact the case will have on all its jurors.

If these factors often weed out good juror candidates, what does that leave for our justice system? What can be done to allow people like me to serve without the risk of putting us in the poor house? Should trials be shortened solely to minimize the disruption on jurors, or would that be denying the defendant his or her due process rights?
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