February 2018 – Page 2 – Hi! I'm Dave Paola

A desert

While discussing an upcoming vacation with someone I know, we talked over the various possible camping destinations in California and nearby. I went off-roading on the Mojave Road last year and discussed the desert with them.

Then, I happened across this photo on the web:

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Q: Where do you think this photo is from?

A: Mars. (source)

I thought it was fascinating that the picture looks just like a desert you might see in southern california, Nevada, or Utah.

I can’t wait to see the first photo taken with a smartphone by a human stepping foot on the red planet. Imagine receiving a text message from another planet with a selfie in the desert of Mars, or from the top of Olympus Mons.

Interviews with Jeff Bezos, Dara Khosrowshahi, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet

On my recent drive from SF to Tahoe, I listened to the following interviews, and really enjoyed them. Maybe you will too:

Jeff Bezos: Lessons in management from 2017 (36m)
Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi (45m)
Bill Gates: How the world will change by 2030 (15m)
Conversations between Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (1h:15m)

I particularly liked hearing from Uber’s new CEO. I am fascinated to watch what happens with that company.

Readers: I’d love to hear from you! What’s your favorite such video? Got any gems?

Weekly Roundup

A bit of a shorter week, I’ve been a little too busy to do a whole lot of reading. But, here are my favorite links from this week:

In 2003, Jeff Bezos talks about the electricity revolution vs. the gold rush
The Co-founder relationship
A career guide for the recovering software generalist
How Haiti became poor
Neat writeup of how lamprey fish are motivated, and how we are too: Guyenet on Motivation
SMBC throwback to a Calvin & Hobbes strip
The 10 toughest questions Bill & Melinda Gates receive
A (startling) map of the world after 4 degrees of global warming
Photos of the moon? Or pancakes?
The incredible launch and landing of Falcon Heavy. Start the video at 20:00 and watch until the end.
Here’s a cool photo of our sun partially eclipsed, taken over Manila Bay
Do you believe writing software is a craft? It might be theatre.
Steven Sinofsky tweeted a really great….thread? tweet storm? Whatever it was, I wish it was in a blog post format. Anyway, it’s about Apple’s software development practices. (Sinofsky was President of the Windows division at MS for years.)

Have a great weekend.