I had gone to do a little play dev work and discovered that my AWS machine was on a version of Ubuntu for which support had long-ago ended. I’m setting up a new AWS host, but it’s taking a little while to get everything sorted back out. So if my sites seem “a bit off” for the next couple of days, that’s probably why. Like for some reason, the permalink structure of my wordpress instance doesn’t seem to be working. If you see anything else, let me know.

I have two really smart friends who are building MailRank. I don’t know more than they’ve posted online or made inferences from their name, but I think they are trying to make email distinguish between the stuff you do care about (mail from your spouse) and stuff that’s not spam, but you don’t care about (mail from the bike shop, mail from your mom). If it works (and, to be sure, I’ve got no idea how it possibly could), I’d love to get a “biff” style notification of “mail I do care about”!

I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Or at least it feels like it while I’m in the shower. But, if ever there were a guilty pleasure of mine, it’s a long, hot shower. Both the water required and the power required to heat that water are a wasteful luxury. As I was musing this over in the shower this morning, it occurred to me that most of this waste is because the water going down the drain that is still “mostly hot” and “mostly clean.” It just got me wondering how hard would it really be to reuse that water? It would need to be filtered some and warmed some, and maybe the filtering is “the rub”. But I didn’t get too much time to think about the complications. I ran out of hot water!

This morning, I had a simple, but I think profound realization. Wealth creation is not a zero-sum game. For me to be wealthier, I do not need to make you poorer. Now, I’ve known this before. You probably have too. But sometimes it feels like it, because of the exchange of money, and the erroneous conflation of money with wealth.

Wealth has been in the back of my mind for some time. While I’ve not read Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and haven’t finished Think and Grow Rich, I’ve still been thinking about wealth, economics and the stock market in a background way. I’ve also recently read this Wired article on the current state of the market and the AI that runs it. I’m about half way through True Names by the esteemed Cory Doctorow. Finally, I am the unexpected anarchist. Or at least I’ve been well exposed to the fundamental tenets of Austrian Economics.

I had a rather basic revelation this morning, namely that the creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game. As in this oft-quoted exchange between Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn:

“Sho, there’s ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of ‘em if I wanted to.”

“Well, why don’t you? Becuz you know mighty well you can’t. This is a pretty early tick, I reckon. It’s the first one I’ve seen this year.”

“Say, Huck — I’ll give you my tooth for him.”

“Less see it.”

Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:

“Is it genuwyne?”

Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.

“Well, all right,” said Huckleberry, “it’s a trade.”

Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the pinchbug’s prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.

Wealth is created in the exchange.

All of this feels like it would be a virtuous circle of wealth generation. Ever accelerating through innovation, efficiency, and labor until we have reformed every atom into its market-optimal configuration for the moment. And while there are plenty of pundits pointing at the impending singularity, looking around at everything from violence and protest in Egypt, Tunisia, to those hawking the Big Issue on street corners, it doesn’t feel like we’re in a run-away, exothermic reaction of creation of wealth, intelligence. Indeed, the first Google suggestion for the continuation of the phrase “Global Financial” is “Crisis”.

Some might say it’s all drained away in a “cognitive surplus” (that hates pigs).

Others might claim that the wealth-destroying state is the control rod dampening the reaction.

One possibility, of course, is that we are in the middle of an explosion of global wealth – and it’s just hard to see. Having been recently “made redundant,” I have a strong sense of financial retrenchment myself. But, I recently bought a 10-year old car (’01 Outback) which is “better” in many ways (comfort, AWD, fuel economy, etc.) than the car it replaced (’94 4-Runner) that I bought only 3 years old. Which was already in a whole ‘nother league from the car I’d previously owned (’73 Bug). The new (to me) car though, of course pales in comparison to today’s state of the automotive art. So our collective condition improves, but we aclimate readily. It’s easy to marvel at the opulence on display in castles of antiquity. But the kings that lived there would have marveled at the comfort of beat up, old recliner, or the ability to take a hot shower. Admittedly not something everyone has today, but remarkable progress, regardless.

In the maelstrom of daily life, it’s easy to see the local minima and maxima. I think I simply need to continue to be mindful of the simple fact that wealth creation is not zero-sum. For me to be wealthier, I do not need to make you poorer. Indeed, it may be that the only way to make me wealthier is to make us all wealthier.

I like Virgin Airlines. I particularly liked my transcontinental business class trip on Virgin America. I like the Virgin lounge in Heathrow. And I LOVE business class when east-bound transatlantic. I’ve had worse nights of sleep in hotels than on that “red eye” (I’m looking at you Barcelona Pensione!) Obviously, I’m a Virgin flying club member.

That was then. This is now.

Now, each transatlantic flight comes directly out of my own pocket and I’m in uncertain financial waters as I try to start a transatlantic business. We’re in floundering early stages. We’re on the prowl for the cheapest office space that will keep us working together and out of the home. We’re taking jobs because they’ll bring income, not because they’ll play to our strengths. And, I’m looking to get across the pond at rock-bottom prices. For my next flight (planned for mid-March) I’ve been comparison shopping. BA is $50 cheaper than Virgin flights, and while my BA flights have been quite nice, and they offer more flight choices, there are other reasons to avoid BA: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8274750/British-Airways-cabin-crew-vote-for-fresh-strikes.html

I’ve looked at Virgin’s “Miles + Money” – If I spend 3000 miles instead of earning it, I can save $30, or less than 5% of the ticket cost.

So, I looked at what if I just do “Miles”. Well, I can’t return the first week of April. Nor the second week of April. Indeed, of the 30 days in April, there are just 8 I could possibly return on. Further, I spend a good percentage of miles, and still pay $416.00 in “Tax, Fees and surcharges”, and of course, I’m still in the back of the plane. That’s over 60% of the cost of the ticket if I’d just bought it! My “loyalty” to Virgin doesn’t seem to be so valuable after all.

After much humming and hawing, I signed up for broadband in Virginia with Comcast. I’m wary of them based on their filtering, and other subscribers talking about their dropping idle connections (sometimes, long-lived SSH connections are handy). But I wasn’t able to get much bandwidth from CenturyLink due to my location. So far, speedtest looks downright awesome. Here are the results from my new connection in Virginia.

Here’s what I get at the inlaws office where I’m working now. The connection at their home isn’t much better.:

So, we’ll see how much “neighbor contention” plays a factor in my available/usable bandwidth. But I’m sure looking forward to moving into the home in VA and sitting on the end of that fat pipe!

I had a dream last night about a statue. That’s all I remember about the dream – the statue. The statue was titled “The Many Muses of Flight”

It was all white as if carved from white marble. It had a man in Dickensian garb complete with top hat leaping up, but he was only partially distinct from the white marble mass which was primarily shaped like the plumes of smoke from the early stages of a rocket launch. Further up the column of marble smoke – about head-hight and taller to the man, all manner and size of bird arced out of the plume in all directions.

It was such a real thing in the dream, I mistook it for a memory so had to google it. Apparently, it was not a memory (or at least not a worthy phrase) as Google helpfully provided:

Showing results for The many uses of flight. Search instead for The many muses of flight

I was thinking recently of things I’ve done, places I’ve been. At forty, I still feel young. New to the world, even though my body isn’t capable of what it once was. Looking back though, I’m astonished and overwhelmed at the people and events that have found their way into my lives.

Sometimes at Thanksgiving, the holiday has just come and gone. Good food, good friends and family. This year, though I spent a little bit of time reflecting. I count myself genuinely lucky for the breadth of experiences I’ve had, people I’ve known, places I’ve been.

Thank you.
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If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

I don’t recall if that was formally part of my upbringing, but for the most part, I take it to heart. I’ve been pretty quiet lately.

In part, it seems to be the norm for social media too. It’s OK to be momentarily frustrated by something, or to need help with a task, but if it’s not funny, engaging, or a bit of over-sharing, it doesn’t belong in your tweet or your facebook update. So I’m blogging this instead — an environment I expect to be more real, and more conversational.

I’ve come to a bit in life where I’m lost. I don’t know what to do from here. I’m not even sure how to figure out what to do from here.

Linden Lab is ceasing UK operations, and we’ve come to mutually agreeable terms about my separation from service.

In a sense, that’s all I can say about that. But it’s thrown a bunch of other life stuff into upheaval. I don’t know where to live now. I don’t know what to do for income. I don’t know what’s next, and it’s frustrating. When I was laid off from EA back in 2001, I went though a period of “self discovery.” Maybe it was good for me. It’s kind of hard to tell. It was freeing, but also difficult. Further, back then Carolyn had an income and it was just the two of us. I don’t feel like I have the luxury of transition time this time. But I don’t know where to go from here.

Working with the lab has taught me a few new things and re-enforced some earlier understanding. In arbitrary order (and quite incomplete):

• I like making a difference.¹
• I’m good – maybe even very good. There are some people who are great.²
• I like a short commute.³
• I’m pretty climate neutral⁴
• I like working with people. But a small-ish number of people.⁵
• I like working with geeks.⁶
• I like not working.⁷
• I like leadership roles.⁸
• I like individual contributor roles.⁹
• I like work.¹⁰
• I like money.¹¹
• My comfort zone is in my comfort zone, with just a little bit outside.¹²
• I like to learn/grow. ¹³
• I like variety.¹⁴
• I like having an office.¹⁵
• I don’t mind following. ¹⁶
• I don’t have an agenda.¹⁷

So how do I apply those learnings to what’s next?

I want to go back to the Bay area because of the wealth of opportunity (and geeks) there. But it’s expensive (I like money) and there’s almost no way to have a little commute.

I want to stay in Brighton – I’ve helped pull together a good team of folks – and we’ve found a way to stay together and help perpetuate what we’ve built (Go http://singinghorsestudio.com/ ! )

I want to try something completely new. In my job for the lab, I got to travel to Israel for work. It was a stretch for my comfort zone, but a good one. I keep hearing about jobs in Dubai. I’m curious. (variety)

I’m not immune to the siren’s call of friends and family. We could go back to Charlottesville. We could live pretty cheaply there and (possibly) provide a good, stable environment for Sam’s formative years. There was a potentially interesting opportunity with UVa but how flexible is it? How creative is it? Is there anything there outside my comfort zone (in a good way!)?

Everything feels like a compromise. Every single one of those. One thing I learned in mediation training in college: A compromise is a lose-lose situation. Everyone gives up something they wanted to get to an agreement and it’s hard not to focus on the loss. Seek a win-win instead.

What’s my win-win? Where do I go from here? I don’t know yet. I have enough experience in life to believe it will be good. There’s value and joy even in this transition as frustrating as it is. Currently each option excludes something from the others I’m not yet willing to give up. Yet I detest “analysis paralysis”. The time for action approaches, but I don’t even know what the action will be yet.

1. There’s an excellent TED talk by Dan Pink on Motivation: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html In short, he claims that after fundamental needs are met, we’re driven by Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. I think this isn’t quite one of those, but similar.Return to body↩
2. I get some pretty good feedback in a variety of contexts. But I’m still in awe of some people who seem to have both depths and breadths I cannot probe or sometimes even follow.Return to body↩
3. A simple train journey is not too bad. The time can be used for something, but I haven’t found a commute that’s actually a simple train journey. And even so, I’d rather have the time either at home or at work.Return to body↩
4. When we lived in Virginia, I said that having four seasons was important to me. Living in California, I discovered that not to be true! Moving to England from California was a change, but I’m still not fussed about the weather.Return to body↩
5. There’s a concept referred to as Dunbar’s Number which is the limit of how many people can be in your “clan” – EA was too big. We all worked for a renowned company, and so there was a baseline respect, but we weren’t related. For a while, at least, at Linden Lab, we were familyReturn to body↩
6. In other words, I like working with not just people, but deeply technical people. I’m never going to be on the crest of the geek social wave, but I like the in-jokes of memes, LOLcats, /b/, threadless, foursquare, think geek, religious wars (vi -vs- emacs, brace style), in addition to thorny problems elegantly solved whether it’s the latest in NoSQL, or applications of Map/Reduce, or fascination with new/upcoming languages like erlang or haskell. It’s how I like to connect to the worldReturn to body↩
7. It can be hard to do, to leave “work head” but there’s so much else out there. I want to:
   • fly
   • sail
   • hike
   • bike
   • tour
   • eat
   • motorcycle
   • read
   • play
   • explore
   • build
   • learn

   There’s just _so_ much out there!Return to body↩

8. I get a lot of self-satisfaction from being “the boss”. Which is good because it’s also a lot of work and a pain in the ass some times.Return to body↩
9. I went back to being an individual contributor at Linden Lab, and it was great. I got to actually make stuff instead of just helping coordinate information flow.Return to body↩
10. I get into what I’m doing – whatever it is.Return to body↩
11. There was a time where Carolyn was the primary breadwinner. We did fine. Our needs were met, but there wasn’t much left over for “toys.” I like “toys”!Return to body↩
12. I like to have a sense of control over what I’m doing. I like to feel like I have relevant experience or knowledge to build from. I like to be stretched, a bit.Return to body↩
13. This relates directly of course to stepping outside the comfort zone, so it’s a bit of a balance.Return to body↩
14. My very first job was one of the best in that way. From day to day, I didn’t know if I was going to be applying fiberglass patches to canoes, breaking concrete with a sledge hammer or selling a tent. This can even be seen in my career that has spanned a range of tech and rolesReturn to body↩
15. I was completely open / warm to the “open office environment” – and when Linden Lab was a small organization, and when I was new in that organization, it worked pretty well. As it got bigger, it worked MUCH less well and became a constant distraction and irritation.Return to body↩
16. If you can convince me you’re smart, and have some idea/passion, and are a good ideological fit with me, I can take direction. I can follow you, and help you succeed.Return to body↩
17. A friend of mine has been shaping his career around a vision of something he’s wanted to build since he was like ten years old. I … haven’t been. I like being flexible, adaptable, curious.
    

    To bend like the reed in the wind, that is the real strength.

    Return to body↩

Saturday: Ditchling Beacon to Devil’s Dyke (route) (photos)
Sunday: Lewes Castle to Brighton (route) (photos)

Originally, this weekend, we had planned to train up to Gatwick and from there to take a trail along to Pooh Corner and the Hundred acre woods. We had that queued up for Sunday so decided to go for a walk on Saturday. Only we slept in on Sunday because Saturday’s walk tired us out, so we gave up Pooh Corner in favor of Lewes Castle. We took the train up to Lewes, spent some time in the castle, had a pub lunch and then found our way home on our bicycles.

So, Saturday, we walked from Ditchling Beacon to Devil’s Dyke. This is a hike that we’d been meaning to do for some time. Simon and I had ridden that path before, and it was one of the “bus-to-bus” hikes we’d read about some time ago. This is a well documented route mostly along the South Downs Way. It’s so great to have the downs in our back yard like that. We caught a bus up to the Beacon with a cranky bus driver who laid on the horn at kids darting across the street, wouldn’t open the door for an old lady 15ft from the bus stop while he was stuck at the light, etc. We got to see bus-repair in action though. We pull into one bus stop, the driver opens the door and a repairman steps on board, takes the cracked side mirror off, puts a new one on, adjusts it for the driver, steps off and away we go again.

Look there

From the parking lot, I show the girls where I had my spill the previous weekend and then we start up to the top of the hill where the Ordinance Survey marker is. After a diversion there, we’re off along the path. Coming toward us in clumps were a few “trailwalkers“. We weren’t especially impressed until we looked up afterward and found that the people we’d been seeing had already done something like 80 of the 100km they were going to walk that weekend. Clearly these people were going to finish the first day! Wow!

Jill Mill

Looking for a place to stop, I remembered that the “Jack and Jill” windmills were not too far into the walk, and suggested we go there. I am so glad we did. It turned out that Jill was open – at least the upstairs bit. It was so amazing to be in the windmill as the blades spun around. The whole mill creaked and rocked lightly in the wind – it was almost like being aboard ship. And so fascinating to see all of the gears and power-transfer mechanisms. Not to mention just the size and weight of the blades. I’m often astonished at the feats of engineering that have gone into “simple” things and “Jill Mill” was no exception.

We continued our hike after that, watching more trailwalkers come toward us, making our way along the edge of a golf course, climbing up out of a valley, and winding up at Devil’s Dyke no problem. We did just miss one bus though, so we ended up needing to wait for not quite an hour and a half for the next one. Fortunately, there’s a pub there so the time passed pretty quickly.

Lewes Castle

Then Sunday we slept in. Deciding what to do given that we felt like we needed a full day for the trek out to Pooh Corner, we settled on Lewes Castle. Back in ’08 we tried to take the train to the castle, but it ended up being a bus (they were working on the track) and the castled turned out to be closed (for renovation.) It was dark and wet that day. Today was the complete opposite. The train ran smoothly and on-time. We had no problems getting our bikes on and off, and it was a lovely sunny day. We had talked about riding there and taking the train back, but we wanted to be sure to have time at the castle and had we done things in that order, it would have been riskier.

An archer
takes aim

So, we took the train there, biked up the hill from the station to the castle, paid our admission and started in. There’s not a lot to the castle, but what was there was really neat. The obligatory clockwise-ascending circular stairs (better for defenders from above), the stone work, the crenelated turrets, the cross-shaped windows for archers, etc. And lots of plaques explaining this thing or that. There were even clothes to try on, a kiddie crane for “building a castle” and so on. Not to mention gorgeous views of English countryside. It really was a neat spot.

Carolyn descends

Just outside, we grabbed a pub lunch and accidentally came across a “Thomas Paine lived here” house, and tested my map-reading skills as I planned our route back. It turned out quite well except that one spot that I thought was a bridle way was actually a footpath and the footpath was actually up several flights of stairs. Once we had that sorted out though, we trekked across a rarely-used road, over beautiful hill and dale, up a mountainside so steep Sam asked if it was a cliff (I even had to walk bits of it – only because I was towing Sam, I’m sure. *cough* *cough*). And finally, back down into Brighton. It really was a lovely ride on a lovely day – made more achingly so by the brevity of our time here.