November « 2009 « Michael Doornbos

30Nov/090

Don’t cheapen your message

When you say:

I want to get to xxx followers on twitter
Help people listen to me
Join this site to get more attention/followers/money

You cheapen your message and damage your credibility. If your blog/site/application is worth paying attention to then these things will happen on their own. Instead of begging for it, why don't you take that energy and apply it to being more interesting?

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20Nov/090

Kids always find robots #TEDxNASA

Posted via email from Michael's posterous

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20Nov/090

Morning at TEDxNASA

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Michael's posterous

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18Nov/098

On saving NASA

I noticed a new Twitter hashtag this morning for the first time: #SaveNASA

I love rallying cries.

I also love the huge list of things that the world benefits from as a result of NASA over the last 50 years.

BUT (come on, you knew there was a BUT in here)

Making lists of things accomplished in the past isn't enough to get programs funded for the future. They are a by-product of other goals.

Great by products, but they are still by-products. The result of something else.

By-products don't get billions of dollars in funding. The chance of some by-products is also not a good motivator.

Programs that have vague half hearted goals don't get the American people's support. Without public support, congress has a difficult time giving a program money.

It's the reality of the situation, whether or not you think it's right or fair.

We need our leaders to make a decision about the space program. A bold decision that motivates entire generations to step up to a common goal. To become something bigger than we are.

Only that will save NASA.

Filed under: Think, space 8 Comments

17Nov/090

A dangerous productivity killer

Some people like Tetris, or snood. I just want to be Luke.

The Star Wars Trench game is available on the iphone. Get it at http://www.loopinsight.com/2009/11/17/star-wars-trench-run-game-released-for-iphone/

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10Nov/090

Installing Google Go on Ubuntu 9.10 x86

This is for x86 processors. You need to change the 386 to amd64 if that's your chip architecture.

First create a bin directory in your home directory if you don't have one already:

mkdir $HOME/bin

Then edit your .bashrc file and add:

export GOROOT=$HOME/go
export GOOS=linux
export GOARCH=386
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

Then reread your bashrc file:

source .bashrc

You'll need some packages installed to build it:

sudo apt-get install bison gcc libc6-dev mercurial

Now check out the code and build it:

hg clone -r release https://go.googlecode.com/hg/ $GOROOT

cd $GOROOT/src
./all.bash

That's it.

Filed under: How-To, Linux No Comments

10Nov/090

The problem with open blogs

There's an interesting trend lately. There has been a surge in new wide open groups where the barrier to join is basically that you want to join the group. Then anyone in the group is given access to post whatever they want on the group's blog.

While the trust of individuals is a cool in a Utopian kinda way, two big problems emerge for me:

There is no overarching guidance on the group's message. In fact just the opposite is the case, the group's message is often completely buried somewhere
Some people really can't write and shouldn't be allowed to be the voice for a large group

In a world where there are billions of voices all shouting at the same time, we need to work on focusing our messages into more succinct ideas that stand out.

I'm not sure what the solution of this problem is, but the problem is shouting very loudly at us and we've become very good at not listening.

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