Author: Tony Tam
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link: Mike Long on Modern C++ and the C++ Memory Model
Mike Long on Modern C++ and the C++ Memory Model.
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link: 12 Books That Every Leader Should Read
(Photo from my restaurant I Privé) I listened to Bob Sutton’s podcast on Scaling Excellence Successfully podcast fro the Center for Social Innovation podcast at Stanford I checked out his blog and found a list of books he recommends. I’ve put To Sell is Human, By Dan Pink. in my SF library queue. (I removed the referral…
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Find that one true sport you love
In high school I played badminton for 4 years. I liked the sport, but did not love it. When I went to UC Berkeley, I join the badminton club and we trained and competed against other colleges. We would travel both days on weekends, come back as a team, have dinner together and laugh about the…
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Face to face meetings: when they are useful
I’ve struggled with having too many meetings where I didn’t find them useful, but I felt that there is 10 minutes of useful information so I go to get that info. This particular week, I’ve had several useful meetings. The 3 attributes of these meetings that made them particularly productive are 1) They are 30…
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Before paying for recurring service, know how they make money
I am in a position to evaluate different point of sale systems for a restaurant I’m invested in (I Privé). There are 3 different business models I have seen. Take a percentage of every credit card transaction, give away the hardware Hosted software, charge a recurring monthly fee per hardware device Sell one time hardware,…
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Having the hunger to standout
Out of a team of 10 people, how do you standout without making others look bad? Figure out what is the BHAG. Out of the 10 features, bugs, on the list of todo, what are the most important pieces that move the needle? Write down all your ideas about improving, developing those 2 things. Ask…
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Anything great worth doing is worth doing (almost) every day
If you want to start doing something and improve and do it really well, I suggest you do it everyday. Even if it is only 10 minutes a day, find some time to do it. 10 minutes a day, 365 a year is 3650 minutes a year, almost 60 hours. You will find that once…
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Spending time on things that matter
When you decide on what to spend your time on at work, try to spend your time that you can actually make a big impact. Otherwise in today’s corporate world, you don’t get credit or acknowledgement on it. Either decide not to work on it, or if you decide to spend X% of time on…
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Back of the envelope calculation
Embrace the fact that you won’t get the exact number right. But make sure to get the order of magnitude correct. Should you be getting 50, 500, 5000, 50,000 customers? If you get 30,000 page views, 6,000 clicks and 50 customers what that’s a good marketing return on investment? Once you have mastered being able…
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On passion
When you are working on something time passes by without you knowing it. When you start creating a list of things that you want to continue improving and you’re actually getting them done. Whenever you have a free moment when you’re thinking about it or doing something for it. You wish you have more time…
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Animation Video by C: Fish & Chips
C. attended a animation summer camp and did this awesome flip book animation http://bit.ly/fishchipsani
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Reading List: Think Like A Freak
Think Like A Freak – Currently just started, but already loving the way the authors encourage us to use data instead of intuition to understand the world.
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Git pretty graphics
A good graphic to have handy if you are using git
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link: What are the best life hacks to tackle procrastination? – Quora
What are the best life hacks to tackle procrastination? – Quora. “Work expands so as to fill the time available for it’s completion”
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Linux system tools cheat sheet
http://www.brendangregg.com/Perf/linux_observability_tools.png
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Reading : objc.io, James Patterson, Lisa Tse and Brendan Gregg
My reading list this week: James Patterson, Cross my heart I couldn’t put this kindle book down. One of his best best books and story line. The ending was interesting and left me really want to read the next book in Nov. Getting back to Objective C a bit on http://www.objc.io/ I love the simple and get…
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Android Tips: Centering TextView
Trying to figure out how to align a text inside a TextView for Android. Found the answer on StackOverflow <TextView android:textAlignment=”center” android:layout_gravity=”center_horizontal|center”
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The only sure way to safely destroy data on a harddrive
We spent the weekend destroying data on a hard drive
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link: Google’s Sundar Pichai Is the Most Powerful Man in Mobile – Businessweek
A good read on leader of Android. I learned about him during the Google I/O 2014 conference. http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-24/googles-sundar-pichai-king-of-android-master-of-mobile-profile#r=read Tony — http://iprivesake.com/ – Japanese fushion restaurant
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Math Get To 24 iOS App
My daughter C. designed the logo, intro video and the entire app screen for this fun math game. Try it out and let me know what you think. download on The 24 Game is an arithmetical card game in which the object is to find a way to manipulate four numbers so that the end result…
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Read: John Resig – Write Code Every Day
I want to learn from others on how to maintain good habits, one of those is to code everyday. I have missed a few days, but I’m very happy with my progress so far. It has resulted in 3 mobile apps published on the Android and Apple Appstores John Resig – Write Code Every Day
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Saturday reading on senior iOS Developers
http://sealedabstract.com/rants/lets-talk-about-sparrow/ Let me tell you how it actually is, because I write iOS apps. A fully-dedicated senior iOS developer is way more expensive than you think. I’m not talking about “some guy whose LinkedIn profile says he is a senior iOS developer, let’s send his profile to HR.” I mean, a person who can…
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Read: An iOS Developer Takes On Android
Nice article about some of the differences between development in iOS and Android. http://nfarina.com/post/8239634061/ios-to-android
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When not coding everyday, I am building a new sushi restaurant
My best friend Stan and I are building a new Japanese restaurant in Burlingame http://www.iprivesake.com/
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read: Larry Page: The Untold Story – Business Insider
Larry Page: The Untold Story – Business Insider.
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link: Apps To Help You Get More Done In A Day – Business Insider
Apps To Help You Get More Done In A Day – Business Insider.
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What is the best advice you have ever received? (from Quora)
This is from Quora Find something that fully engages your mind. And your heart. For that is the way to happiness. Push harder. Do better. Never give into complacency. Be wide-ranging in your interests, and decisive in your judgments. Give every opportunity the benefit of the doubt. Always go the distance. And don’t buy uncomfortable…
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iPhone version of How To Tip app
A quick follow up to the simple tipping app for Andoroid This is the iOS version of the How To Tip app
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Trello to track life goals
I use Trello to keep track of my long term life goals. I setup ‘organizations’ for ‘health goals’, ‘work goals’, ‘money goals’, ‘family goals’. Then setup boards for each goal. I still use Remember The Milk for single task todo. Using Trello allows for multiple taks for each goal. I also look over all the…
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Yahoo Open House on Node.js, Olympics, Personalization
’Tis the season to talk tech, have some drinks, and hang out at Yahoo! This Thursday we’re hosting our Pre-Holiday Engineering Open House and Good Time. If you made it to our first open house, then you know not to miss this one! We will be talking tech, serving cocktails + mulled wine + snacks, and…
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Yahoo Homepage and Verticals Open House
Ever wonder how often we release the Yahoo Homepage? Or how big a speed boost Yahoo Sports gets by doing Edge-side Assembly? Curious to hear the tricks we use to keep CSS bloat free and forward-compatible with things we haven’t even dreamed up yet? You’re in luck! Our engineering teams are hosting a casual evening…
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1-liner setup for your development environment
ydev setup <anything> I did an informal poll at Yahoo, and also with candidates who interview with Yahoo. When they join a new team, how long did it take to setup their dev environment. It ranges from 30 minutes to a day, and even several days. I asked them what if I pour water on…
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First Android App: How To Tip Calculator
How To Tip Calculator – Android Apps on Google Play. Calculate how much tips to pay. 10%, 15% or 20% Also includes a guideline on tipping in restaurants, bartender, barista, delivery person, hairstylist, cab driver, chauffeur, hotel housekeeper
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Link: How To Use Email To Alienate Your Users
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/02/11/how-email-alienate-users/
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28 Brilliant Tips for Living Life
Tips for living http://zenhabits.net/28/ My favorite is the one about expecting less and the one about telling the one you love that you want to spend the rest of your life with him/her.
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Picking Samsung Galaxy S3 over iPhone 5
In trying to pick iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3 to replace my Blackberry. I was torn and have switched back and forth for the last 4 days. I finally found an old document written on November 1, 2011 7:52 AM in Evernote. I wrote this document when I had the Blackberry and why I actually…
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Link: zen habits: The Tiny Guide to Being a Great Dad
zen habits: The Tiny Guide to Being a Great Dad http://zenhabits.net/great-dad/ “vision without execution is hallucination” – http://tonytam.wordpress.com/
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Heard In A Meeting : “Leaders Inspires Others To Follow Him, That’s All”
Also heard someone else added, either you are a leader or you are not.
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Link: NYTimes: Picking Stocks After Facebook
Picking individual stocks over the long haul is not a winning strategy. Read it at NYTimes
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Inspired By Alice Water’s Fireplace Fried Egg
All I Wanted Was for Alice Waters to Feed Me Then she picked up a large copper spoon with a two-foot handle. She rubbed olive oil into the spoon’s cup and cracked in one of the eggs. I saw the golden-orange yolk. Holding the end of the spoon’s handle, Waters extended the egg into the…
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link: “Happiness Without a Good Work Ethic Is Pretty Impossible.”
http://happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2012/05/happiness-without-a-good-work-ethic-is-pretty-impossible/ via Byline Happiness interview: Hugh MacLeod. Hugh is a cartoonist with a wildly popular blog, gapingvoid. He is the master of capturing a large idea in a single drawing, and a great deal of his work focuses on happiness: how to find happiness in work; how to have the courage to be yourself, do…
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link: State of the Computer Book Market, part 4: The Languages – O’Reilly Radar
http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/04/computer-book-market-2011-part4.html Large Programming Languages — 50,000 — 200,000 units in 2011
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Link: as happy as possible
http://mnmlist.com/happy/ And I don’t believe having any of those would contribute to greater happiness than I already have. Here’s what I do have that contribute to my happiness: Time Loving relationships Meaningful work Health Books Enough
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Goodbye Facebook, it’s been 3 months and I don’t miss you
Reasons I’m disconnecting from Facebook I don’t visit it often anymore, maybe 2-3 times a week It’s hard even for a technologist like me to keep track of new privacy settings that I have to actively manage It’s not something I’m proud to tell my child I’ve been on the fence about leaving anyways The…
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link: Stanford class on Designing Happiness
2 papers from Jennifer L. Aakar from her Stanford class on Designing Happiness http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/pages/documents/AllReadingInsights2.pdf http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/pages/documents/ThePsychologyofHappiness.pdf
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Pencil Sketch Of C.
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What Makes Us Happy And Motivated At Work?
It’s that time of year for me to reflect on why we are here working everyday. Please chime in with your thoughts. What motivates us to be happy and motivated at work? Money Recognition Being valued Making a difference in the world and self motivation Money is a great motivator, it’s an enabler for future…
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As A Leader, Do You Communicate Enough?
Heads up… Do you communication enough with your direct reports? What about your peers in the same group? What about other peers across the company? And your management chain, 1 level, 2 level and ultimately up to your CEO? How often should you communicate? What is the most effective way to communicate (email, face to…
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wow: Happy 17th Birthday Yahoo!
[slideshow] Yahoo! as a company is 17 years old today. I am very proud to be part of this ship for the last 13 years. Thank you for allowing me to join as employee ~900. I’ve learn so much from being thrown into the fire. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to build Yahoo!…
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BJ Fogg’s Behavior Grid: How To Form Habits
This is an interesting read from a Stanford professor, on how to form healthy habits as well as how Facebook became a habit for many people. I personally have been using this model for myself to remind myself to do push ups and drink water. Using motivation (getting stronger), ability (right before bedtime) and trigger (a…
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Wedding Wishes from the kids
Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 1 Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 2 Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 3 Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 4 Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 5 Drawings from Ryan, Will, C. for Wedding – 6
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We Got Married!
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11 Days Until…
I’ll be married to the woman of my dreams. Katherine and I have been a part of each other’s lives for 3 years. She is the most intelligent, kind, warm and thoughtful woman I have ever met. During the first few months of dating, she introduced me to most of her close friends. Her friends…
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New Espresso Machine
from http://www.alexduetto.com/
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Tony’s Metabolic Rate
I spent $40 today at Yahoo! to measure how many calories my body burns if I were just sitting down. I spent 15 minutes breathing in a tube and out comes a chart of how many calories I burn. It turns out that my body burns 1,872 calories, plus 561 calories with just normal movement…
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Link: NYTimes: The Joy of Quiet
From The New York Times: OPINION: The Joy of Quiet Trying to escape the constant stream of too much information. http://nyti.ms/u7fIA5
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I Believe in Consistency And Persistence « Tony | This I Believe
I submitted this to This I Believe website 10 months ago, and I received an email from them that it is finally posted. Here it is: I Believe in Consistency And Persistence « Tony | This I Believe. Many aspects of my life are based on 2 simple concepts: consistency and persistence.
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Thankful For Good Health
I’m thankful for having good health. I’m thankful for having enough time left on this earth to still dedicate my life to things that are meaningful.
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Link: NYTimes: How I Became a Teacher
From The New York Times: SCHOOLBOOK: How I Became a Teacher A first-year teacher writes: “As a high school student, I never once considered the training my teachers had received or what their personal teaching philosophies may have been. I did not know what a lesson plan was.” Now she knows. http://nyti.ms/w4rH4A Sent from my…
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Stupid App Idea: Goal With A Friend
I was trying to convince C. to work on this App with me, she didn’t really like the idea and thought it can be done with pen and paper instead. App: Goal With A Friend You: Set a goal Pick a charity, schedule a payment Invite a friend to help How much is it worth? Pay…
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Your Immediate Team Members Are What Matters
I love working for my manager, Cecilia. She is caring, funny, a good listener and a good person. I love working for my manager’s manager, my VP. He is strong, careful, a good listener and thoughtful. I love my co-workers, they are good, smart, passionate and caring. This is what makes me love my company,…
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Podcast: Living Without Work: The Long-Term Unemployed | KQED Public Media for Northern CA
Living Without Work: The Long-Term Unemployed | KQED Public Media for Northern CA. Treat people looking for work with basic acknowledgement of receiving their resume, follow up quickly after the interview.
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How I’m Learning To Getting Things Done Using Evernote and Remember The Milk
There are many articles and personal experiences of how people are using the GTD method to get things done stress free. I think the human bring is not built to not remember things and when you should do them. Hence the use of tools, paper to capture information is helpful. Here is what works for…
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How Do You Manage Your Incoming Queue To Get Things Done?
Hallway conversation with 2 co-workers today went like this. Tony: “Hey L., how come you were able to get your ticket resolved?” L: “Oh I commute with G. and he did it for me” G: “Happened to walk by, yeah, it was easy” Tony: “But if someone else asked you G., what would happen?” G:…
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How To Lead By Influence And Trust
I have learned a lot from John Thrall. while working at Yahoo! in the last 3 years. John became the leader for Yahoo! Media during a transition of the leadership position a few years ago. From the point of view of the rank and file, he looked to be young, high energy but an unknown…
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Why I’m re-energized to work at Yahoo! after Livestand iPad app launched
The Livestand from Yahoo! iPad app launched on Nov 2nd and became the #1 News iPad app and #2 overall app on the iTunes AppStore in 1 day. Today on Friday Nov 4th, it became the #1 app in 3 days on iTunes. You should try it yourself and compare it with Flipboard and Zite…
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Livestand from Yahoo! – #1 App on the Apple AppStore
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Livestand from Yahoo! becomes #1 News App on Apple Store
On November 3rd, 2011 Yahoo! Livestand becomes the #1 News app on the Apple AppStore and #1 overall free App
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Livestand T-shirt buys my loyalty
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link: How To Set Performance Standards for Your Startup’s New Hires – Yahoo! News
How To Set Performance Standards for Your Startup’s New Hires – Yahoo! News.
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Reading List Recommendation From A Transformed Co-Worker
1. Getting more : I finished reading, applied it. Should circle back again 2. Lean startup : he gave me a copy this week, will read 3. 4 steps to the epiphany 4. The checklist manifesto 5. Leadership and self deception 6. Jack welch: straight from the gut 7. Jack welch: winning
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Re: Teaching Kids Programming : Social Drawing HTML5 Canvas Part 1/5
I love programming and I love teaching C. about my work. I’m starting to document our work here on a new site http://kidsprogramming.wordpress.com/ and this is first post Teaching Kids Programming : Social Drawing HTML5 Canvas Part 1/5
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10 year anniversary of Sept 11th coming up i
I was the Yahoo! News engineers almost 10 years ago. Yahoo! News is working on a 10th year “9/11 Rmembered” http://news.yahoo.com/september-11-anniversary/ This was 5 years ago http://ycorpblog.com/2006/09/11/five-years-later/
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GTD and investing
In June 2011 this year, when I was looking at my investment accounts, I noticed that it had fully recovered from the nearly 40% drop since March 2009. I was in the middle of selling my house, moving into a new rental, planning for a wedding for next year and starting an investment in a…
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Father’s day card from C.
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Latte Art July 8, 2011
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“24” math game with kids and adults
C., K. and I started playing this game in Paris using a deck of cards and trying o use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to make 4 cards come to 24. Jack, Queen, King are treated as 10. Here are the official rules http://www.pagat.com/adders/24.html These are some of the samples: (6-4+1) * 8 = 24 (10…
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Simple Crepe Recipe
C’s school uses this recipe for their annual fund raising event. This year I used it to make 100 crepes. The only caveat is that you have to adjust the amount of milk so that the crepe’s consistency is to your liking. BASIC CREPES 1 CUP FLOUR 1 EGG 1 EGG YOLK 1 TABLESPOON OIL 1…
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Actively Maintain Your LinkedIn Profile : Ask For Recommendation Early
Something I started doing last year is to ask for recommendations on my LinkedIn profile while I’m still working at the company. Instead of only doing so when I have already left the company. LinkedIn’s value is the business contacts and also an online resume with real recommendations from people who are also on LinkedIn. …
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Making Annual Reviews Easier
Annual Reviews It’s one of the most important task people in large organizations need to do. But often we don’t spend enough effort and thought compared with the importance of annual reviews to their careers Most People Hate Reviews I’ve been doing my self review for over 12 years now at Yahoo! For the…
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quote: “Your mind can only hold one thought at a time.”
“Make it a positive and constructive one”
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“What Did You Learn?” : asked Carol Bartz
Today my manager at Yahoo! held an all hands for her engineering group in Yahoo! Media and invited our CEO to take some Q/A. It was wonderful to have Carol there to talk about why what we are doing in Yahoo! Media is important to the company. It was inspiring to hear her long term…
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Goodbye to a valued co-worker: Carlos C.
Carlos was first hired in 2007 into the US News team as one of backend engineers to work on http://news.yahoo.com/. He joined when the team was in it’s growing phase (from 2 in 2001, 5 in 2005). He started off working on fixing bugs, adding features to the modules on the web site. Then helped…
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*-public email aliases
How many meetings have you been in, or email exchanges with a selected small number of people. What you discuss and decided doesn’t get surfaced to the right people? How do you know where to send the information to? In general, how do you get the right information to the right people? I’m trying something…
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Yahoo! Taiwan team worked for 5 weeks for a killer product
The team was here and finally finished the first phase of their product. We are all very very impressed. Wait for end of June to hear more!
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Single Tasking In The World Of Multitasking
I have been wanting to be a proficient iPhone programming for 1 year now. I have tried 3 times to start but have stopped for various reasons. My most recent attempt has worked, and here is what I’ve changed Focus, pay attention to only one thing at a time I have created a separate account…
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Book: The Roadmap To 100
Some learnings from the book Pg: 204 1) Be a realist. Aging is inevitable. 2) Pay attention to your body. Get to know your body, your internal workings, better. Spend a little time in front of a mirror regularly. Ask yourself what you can do to make yourself healthier. 3) Move! Walk, Run, Fidget, Bend,…
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Getting People To Change Is.. Impossible?
That was my thought last year… however, I have changed my stance. The most successful way to get children and adults to change is to model the behavior yourself consistently. If you want people to act a certain way you model it over and over again. Don’t ask them to change though, just act on…
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Be Prepare, You Will Win Most Of The Time
Be prepare for meetings ahead of time. You will be in the minority and you will get more of what you want Have an agenda ahead of time and send it, you will likely get more time If you want to a decision to go your way, anticipate the arguments, the fear, convince the decider…
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Camelia from San Francisco
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Latte Art 03/1/2011
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Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011
From Evernote: Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011 C. and I did a time boxed 15 minute strip
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C’s Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011
From Evernote: C’s Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011 C. and I did a timeboxed 15 minute strip
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Self Monthly Review: 3rd Month Of Being Solution Architect For Media
I have a reminder to myself to review whether I’m doing what my job description is defined as Here is the job description and how I rate myself from 1 (needs work), 2 (meets), 3 (exceed) • Evaluates new technologies; builds prototypes if necessary 1 : I barely do any of these right now as…
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The Design Thinking Methodology
Trying to adopt this in my technical work at Yahoo! 1. understanding the problem to be solved 2. defining what one is trying to achieve 3. brainstorming ideas and potential solutions 4. getting feedback 5. prototyping a solution 6. testing the solution, and 7. repeating the process until a good solution is achieved.
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Marsh “You Choose I Write”
The summer wind softly fans across the marsh. The sound of the tall stalks swaying from side to side can only be heard by those who care to listen. The marsh is not a place to explore. It is a vast flat land, with seemingly large patches of water and tall grass repeated as far…
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“Getting More” book: be dispassionate
Pg. 72 What is the response to the statement “You’re an idiot”? The right answer is “Why do you think I’m an idiot?” The best negotiators are dispassionate, and continue to ask questions.
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Measuring Value Of Time Part 1/4
Time is one of the most valuable asset a human being has. There is a finite amount of time each day. There is a finite of time in our lifetime. And once the moment passes, you can not get it back no matter who you are and no matter how much power or money you…
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Taking Ownership Of Your Career
I have been mentoring several engineers and a common theme has emerged. We often don’t spend enough time actively managing our own career. These are the positive steps you should ask yourself. 1) The things I am working on right now, are they important and will they help further my career? 2) If they are…
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Living The Future (“I choose, write”)
This is a 30 minute piece of fictional story that C. and I are working on. She picks a word like ‘Newspaper’ and I write a 400 word story using that word as a central theme. I picked “eraser” for her. We call this series: “I choose, you write” —— Rusty looked in the mirror and…