DayInTheLife - AWS, Marketing, Semantic Webs, Socializing
In some ways this was an ideal day, a mix of multiple challenging projects, events, learning, new people, old friends, progress.
10pm yesterday long shower, get surprise peanut butter and jelly cookies from neighbors.
Submit two proposal to flash conference in New York
12-3am work on liquid button script and research top converting buttons for sales pages, in typical mad scientist fashion hybridize them to create UBB "ultimate belcher button" make a blog post on it and send it out too my marketing list, as well as try to get some backlink love.
Discussion some investor stuff, help two people in my marketing class on their projects. Get two contractors back on track -really happy with $10 egypt team, thinking how it is being islamic that projects transcend religious differences. Connect with good friend on skype (this has been the week of reconnections).
In the background continue kick of watching music videos from the 80's some youtube...most seeing videos for the first time for songs I love, many I preferred not seeing the singers..some like Alphaville are kinda creepy.
3-8am work on Semantic Network layout algorithm,amazingly uneven terrain these sorts of features, some issues 10 per hour others are 1 per 10 hours....they all look the same on the JIRA
8-noon sleep (4 hours is not enough for the eyeballs)
noon-1pm get ready, debate on public transit, walk or car to Amazon Web Services Event, wish I could walk procrastinate so car becomes the only viable option.
AWS Cloud for the Enterprise Event at the super fancy Sofitel hotel
1:30-2:00 miss opening statements, then hear CTO of Amazon, on how and why the Amazon Web Services came to be and where they are going (to the degree that's not based on customers feedback),with most excellent english breakfast tea in a "cup" that is about 1/16th the size I normally drink tea out of.
2-5:00pm, see customer stories from reddit (small team lead by a cogsci guy), eharmony (using hadoop for matching) and two others, learn about best practices. 3 pages of dense notes many good insights about how AWS sees itself (useful if I make it in the startup challenge) and how to best use them. In background I continue to problem solve a binary search algorithm applied to looped data instead of lists.
6:00pm meet with Rightscale people and Ubuntu Server people. Figure out Ubunto vers CertOs as OS question. Opt not to network in crowded room as my head is too full and i don't really know who I am in this mixed crowd of mostly enterprise class people.
7:00pm - Pho and Thai Tea at favorite place a few blocks away Reviewing notees realize that I've come to the very end of this journal and this is the last in my pile. This one has lasted a record 3.5 months, and to be honest I haven't reviewed it hardly at all so I've probably forgotten 30% of the stuff I wrote down so I wouldn't forget it :)
7:20 Leaving the at the uber trendy Beverly Center, with parking lot flow as bad as the 404 on rush hour. Appallingly bad parking lot flow (?or is that bad design?) Hundreds of thousands of dollars in high end hardware that can take tickets or credit cards or cash in teh same slot perfectly isolated away form use by people earning probably 8-10/hr. Can't help but notice many yummy fashionistas, driving things like lexus hummers with "lexis <3 lex" with tv screens big enough i could watch the sponge bob episode a car length away. Ponder the metric of success "I want to be successful enough my wife doesn't *have* to work" to it's possibly logical consumerist conclusion.
7:40 min short power nap, the 3 'cups' of tea plus the thai tea, has done it's job in keeping me from going too deep, yet put me on the slightly irratable and quiet side of awake.
MINDSHARE LA
8:00 - strategize with Paul on Masquerade Constumes and transit to MindshareLA, with deep red conjestion on the google maps (which now niftily shows side streets)
8:10 - break out 16th century masquerade costume with rather distrubing mask..that looks especially freaky when I have my glasses on underneath it.
8:44 f- inally make it to mindshare after missing two major turns. Get several compliments and 'pets' from wearing the costume.
9:00 - : some great presentations including some fashion history (some dresses were 4ft wide! and either had to be collapsed or walk sideways to make it through doors), plus some reconnecting with many geeks and freaks.
10:15 - with preoccupation and tiredness, instant autism sets in and I lose interest in socializing at all, or even watching the writing dancing girl in the LCD projector. All seem like screen savers.
Walk to car meet familar and new geeks on the street. When asked what I am looking for, "world tilters, mad scientists, crazy inventors, performance artists"
Drive home, getting rerouted as a major part of Santa Monica Blvd is under construction, saved by GPS again.
11:pm - Sauteed Portabella + Zuchinni for "dinner" ...still wearing outfit, might make a good youtube vid series. Decompress all the geekery with roommate, and journal.
12:am back on Semantic visualization layout issues.
On marketing front get several new requests and good traffic on the button...just proof that information is increasingly not enough, the bar is getting higher widgets are good traffic getters.
1am break for chocolate chip ice cream run.
Tomorrow, more force directed network layout tweaks and Das Bunker 13th annual anniversary with fav Covenant.
10pm yesterday long shower, get surprise peanut butter and jelly cookies from neighbors.
Submit two proposal to flash conference in New York
12-3am work on liquid button script and research top converting buttons for sales pages, in typical mad scientist fashion hybridize them to create UBB "ultimate belcher button" make a blog post on it and send it out too my marketing list, as well as try to get some backlink love.
Discussion some investor stuff, help two people in my marketing class on their projects. Get two contractors back on track -really happy with $10 egypt team, thinking how it is being islamic that projects transcend religious differences. Connect with good friend on skype (this has been the week of reconnections).
In the background continue kick of watching music videos from the 80's some youtube...most seeing videos for the first time for songs I love, many I preferred not seeing the singers..some like Alphaville are kinda creepy.
3-8am work on Semantic Network layout algorithm,amazingly uneven terrain these sorts of features, some issues 10 per hour others are 1 per 10 hours....they all look the same on the JIRA
8-noon sleep (4 hours is not enough for the eyeballs)
noon-1pm get ready, debate on public transit, walk or car to Amazon Web Services Event, wish I could walk procrastinate so car becomes the only viable option.
AWS Cloud for the Enterprise Event at the super fancy Sofitel hotel
1:30-2:00 miss opening statements, then hear CTO of Amazon, on how and why the Amazon Web Services came to be and where they are going (to the degree that's not based on customers feedback),with most excellent english breakfast tea in a "cup" that is about 1/16th the size I normally drink tea out of.
2-5:00pm, see customer stories from reddit (small team lead by a cogsci guy), eharmony (using hadoop for matching) and two others, learn about best practices. 3 pages of dense notes many good insights about how AWS sees itself (useful if I make it in the startup challenge) and how to best use them. In background I continue to problem solve a binary search algorithm applied to looped data instead of lists.
6:00pm meet with Rightscale people and Ubuntu Server people. Figure out Ubunto vers CertOs as OS question. Opt not to network in crowded room as my head is too full and i don't really know who I am in this mixed crowd of mostly enterprise class people.
7:00pm - Pho and Thai Tea at favorite place a few blocks away Reviewing notees realize that I've come to the very end of this journal and this is the last in my pile. This one has lasted a record 3.5 months, and to be honest I haven't reviewed it hardly at all so I've probably forgotten 30% of the stuff I wrote down so I wouldn't forget it :)
7:20 Leaving the at the uber trendy Beverly Center, with parking lot flow as bad as the 404 on rush hour. Appallingly bad parking lot flow (?or is that bad design?) Hundreds of thousands of dollars in high end hardware that can take tickets or credit cards or cash in teh same slot perfectly isolated away form use by people earning probably 8-10/hr. Can't help but notice many yummy fashionistas, driving things like lexus hummers with "lexis <3 lex" with tv screens big enough i could watch the sponge bob episode a car length away. Ponder the metric of success "I want to be successful enough my wife doesn't *have* to work" to it's possibly logical consumerist conclusion.
7:40 min short power nap, the 3 'cups' of tea plus the thai tea, has done it's job in keeping me from going too deep, yet put me on the slightly irratable and quiet side of awake.
MINDSHARE LA
8:00 - strategize with Paul on Masquerade Constumes and transit to MindshareLA, with deep red conjestion on the google maps (which now niftily shows side streets)
8:10 - break out 16th century masquerade costume with rather distrubing mask..that looks especially freaky when I have my glasses on underneath it.
8:44 f- inally make it to mindshare after missing two major turns. Get several compliments and 'pets' from wearing the costume.
9:00 - : some great presentations including some fashion history (some dresses were 4ft wide! and either had to be collapsed or walk sideways to make it through doors), plus some reconnecting with many geeks and freaks.
10:15 - with preoccupation and tiredness, instant autism sets in and I lose interest in socializing at all, or even watching the writing dancing girl in the LCD projector. All seem like screen savers.
Walk to car meet familar and new geeks on the street. When asked what I am looking for, "world tilters, mad scientists, crazy inventors, performance artists"
Drive home, getting rerouted as a major part of Santa Monica Blvd is under construction, saved by GPS again.
11:pm - Sauteed Portabella + Zuchinni for "dinner" ...still wearing outfit, might make a good youtube vid series. Decompress all the geekery with roommate, and journal.
12:am back on Semantic visualization layout issues.
On marketing front get several new requests and good traffic on the button...just proof that information is increasingly not enough, the bar is getting higher widgets are good traffic getters.
1am break for chocolate chip ice cream run.
Tomorrow, more force directed network layout tweaks and Das Bunker 13th annual anniversary with fav Covenant.