Time to revive my blog

I noticed that recently I carry many unfinished thoughts in my head waiting to talk to someone about them. That talk does not happen too often - so maybe I'll start dumping them here :)

Startup Communities

There is an interesting idea in Startup Communities by Brad Feld: the secret sauce of Silicon Valley is that it is a community. In the fierce competition, individualism and libertarian philosophy reigning in the high tech circles it is the help that the entrepreneurs receive from each other that is the key ingredient of a successful startup ecology. This would be a good explanation of why it is so difficult to copy the success of Silicon Valley elsewhere (and especially in Poland - I guess), and why the various government programs are often counterproductive - they are good at pumping money into high-tech - but money can kill the community spirit, because it is incompatible with the intrinsic motivation that is crucial for the 'help each other' attitude.

Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon

A few weeks ago I had a training in communication at work. The most memorable parts were about active listening and I-messages. They are also covered in the first chapters of Parent Effectiveness Training - I guess it is not a coincidence. I loved that book - if we believe in democracy then we should not teach our children that coercion is the way to resolve conflicts.

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

I've finished "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't" by Nate Silver. It was a good read - a systematic introduction to making statistics based predictions, easy to follow and quite interesting.

Why Aaron Swartz is my hero

Morozov recently so described internet activism:

This lack of curiosity about how the world works is the most pernicious feature of Internet-centrism. Armed with the Internet, its proponents do not much care about the larger objective of their reform. They prefer to notice only those elements amenable to Internet interventions and discard all others.

Compare that with Swartz book reviews. I wish in the Pirate Parties there were people like Swartz.

My new blog - BrudnopisPirata

For notes in Polish - http://brudnopispirata.blogspot.com/ (url updated).

Geeks contra SOPA

Today half of the Hacker News first page is about SOPA and in particular about call to boycot GoDaddy which appears to support that act.  This seems like a very effective strategy, because lot's of geeks do control websites hosted at GoDaddy and they have the power to push them out of business.  What is even more important is that it is such a good story: it is simple, unexpected, concrete and emotional - if reported by a credible source that would cover all the points that make a message stick.

Update: Apparently the geeks won this time: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_internet_wins_godaddy_flip-flops_on_sopa.php

Update: GoDaddy in damage control mode: https://plus.google.com/111996409013825587891/posts/7AMw7gDQ7Bi