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Full Title: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
ISBN: 978-0-316-01792-3
Get it cheap.

Summary: Malcolm answers the questions of how truly successful become that way. Ben Franklin rose from virtually nothing, for instance, to sit with kings. Outliers explains how people in Franklin’s position do work hard but also get very lucky, come from the right family, and in some cases born in to ‘correct’ month.

What I thought: After reading The Tipping Point, I was a bit reluctant to grab another Gladwell book but I tried anyway. I found this text quite interesting though. The examples used clearly construed how a person not only truly needs to work their butt off to get ahead but also needs to get really really lucky.

I just got out of a PJUG talking about WebSockets. I am now standing in the windy night waiting for the train and thought I would let you all know.

I have not found a good way to copy and paste on this phone, so you will need to do your own searching today.

WebSockets are a new-ish way for web clients and servers to communicate. This is bi-directional though. Unlike the typical AJAX (client to server) method used today.

PJUG was your typical nerd-alert affair but free pizza and knowledge of new techologies for people more smarter than I was worth it.

This phone warms the hands nicely!

As the fanboys were quickly to point out, the iPad came out recently. No, I did not get one. And will not be getting any type of tablet any time soon.

Fast Company is asking if Amazon’s iPad app is a Kindle killer.

My short answer is no. The Kindle was a Kindle killer. Two reasons:

• The medium to large sized consumer electronics users are not going to want to carry a device that does a single task, forcing them to have an additional device. Although it might do that task very well, in the long-term it was be absorbed into other products in its category. As screen technology gets better, devices will produce a black and grey retro ‘reader’ viewing mode.
• Amazon is not a consumer electronics company. It is retailer. It sells other people’s stuff. Its core business will eventually suffer if it distracts itself.

Amazon’s iPad app is a very smart move. Their goal should be to get people to buy and read more books. Producing various mediums for folks to achieve this goal will benefit their company’s foundation.

Yesterday, Jason and I traveled over to the John Ross building for an information session about its upcoming auction. For all of you who are wondering, wow, this is a nice building.

Going into the day, I was still leaning toward actually attending the auction. Yes, yes, I know I said I would not buy a house this year. Looking at the possible purchase prices of some of these units, I was curious enough to get more information.

The building was open to the public, so we went through about a dozen units. I found two units I was really, really, really interested in 1618 and 2018. Both are the same floor plan – one bed, bath, and study – facing Southwest.

I spoke with two realtors while traversing the building. One basically told me I would be an idiot to not – at my age – buy one of the units. The other thought anybody who bought was an idiot since purchase prices were expected to be 60% of the minimum auction price. This person also told me unit 1218 – same floor plan as I liked – was a short sale she was trying to sell. The most recent offer on that until was $215k, putting it at ~40% increase.

Those purchase prices plus huge taxes and larger HOA convinced me to not buy – again. Although it is a lovely place in an area of town that is most likely going to boom, I still should not buy.

When I was unemployed last October, I filled some of my time creating a gun rack. I would not say this is the most fanciest rack I have ever seen or even very impressive. I just could not justify not having my guns on display. Now over the window is my office are my two guns. Other than their color they are identical.

In case you were wondering, my favorite gun manufacture is Nerf. It is the ideal manufacture for fighting tyranny, terrorism, or defending any future fort I might build. I posted a picture of my fabulous creation below.