Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 18 May 2006 05:08:00 GMT | 2 comments
In today’s age, the trait of being very senstive to our emotions is highly extolled. Books about boy’s problems usually boil down to the solution that boys would be better off if they were more like girls in this regard. So I recently poised the question to some friends “Are there any traditional “hunter” characteristics of men that are still useful in today’s world?” No-one could come up with an answer. But watching my son pitch at his baseball game today, I thought of one.
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Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:11:00 GMT | 1 comment
A lot of people think it is a little weird that I put so much personal stuff in my web site and blog and I can understand their point. However, here are some reasons why I do this.
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Posted in Random Thoughts, All About Me
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:55:00 GMT | no comments
Marx was right; he was just 150 years to early.
In the Communist Manifesto published in 1848, he outlined the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” as the next step in society’s development.
Of course we have seen how this principle has failed miserably when applied to anything that is resource limited. Who would work hard growing food if others would just take it all away? This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union during the grain crisis of 1928 when the Politiburo set too low a price for grain and, when not enough was sold at this price, they seized what they needed. The next year, the peasant farmers engaged in massive hiding of grain which resulted in an agricultural collapse.
However the situation changes greatly when dealing with software. Since distributing software over the Internet costs essentially nothing, making software available to whoever needs it doesn’t take anything away from the creator. So open source software is the perfect embodiment of this communist principle: those that are able to contribute do, and those that need it can take it at will.
Marx also envisioned a stateless society where there was no central power exerting control over its citizens. This is another stark parallel to open source.
So while the ideals of communism have not been successfully applied to society, many of these principles can be vividly seen in the open source software movement.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:31:00 GMT | 3 comments
So what is the “college experience”?
This was a topic on this week’s O.C. that got me thinking that maybe some people had a much better experience in college than I did. Without going into too many details, here are some of the highlights of my Berkeley experience:
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Posted in Random Thoughts, All About Me
Posted by Max Dunn
Sun, 12 Feb 2006 18:25:00 GMT | 1 comment
None of us are right all the time. Even the smartest person is probably right only half the time. But the only people that are truly foolish are those that don’t know this, and think they are always right.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:13:00 GMT | no comments
Here is an article that discusses how the advent of ad-free TV on video iPod is terrifying advertisers:
This provides support for my theory that the video iPod, PVRs and TV-on-demand will cause major and fundamental shifts in the way companies do advertising.
For years, advertisers have kept their heads in the sand when confronted with the reality that many viewers are simply not watching TV commercials. However, these new technologies will force them to confront reality when people start paying for their TV to be ad-free.
And where will companies put their billions of advertising dollars once TV is no longer a viable way of delivering their message? Why, the Internet of course!
It is already starting to happen. If you read your news on [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/) or [USAToday](http://www.usatoday.com/) you will see ads in many strategic places. And unlike TV, they can track exactly what you see and click on, or even force you to view the ad before showing an article or video clip. This provides a way to customize and target the advertising message that was never possible on TV.
Ads work. That is why billions of dollars are spent on advertising every year. And when TV is no longer a viable way to promote those ads, those dollars will shift, mainly to the Internet, causing a huge upheaval and tremendous opportunites for those Internet companies that can capture these ad revenue.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:46:00 GMT | no comments
We have a tradition in our family that on our birthdays, we can do anything we want (within reason). We call this our “Anything Goes” day.
Maxie likes to spend his birthday playing video games and eating ice cream all day long and Claire likes to spend hers watching TV and eating ice cream all day long.
My birthday was yesterday and it was a little different from that. For breakfast, Suzanne made me eggs benedict and for dinner, flank steak rollups with a nice bottle of wine and chocolate torte for dessert. The kids were on their best behavior and didn’t fight during the day and offered to walk on my back. The day was a little rainy so I wasn’t able to go surfing and I couldn’t reach anyone to go go-carting. So the only special thing I did during the day was to get a massage.
In the afternoon, I started to get a little depressed because I wasn’t doing anything very special for my Anything Goes day.
But then in the evening, I thought about the fact that I was living in a nice, warm house, I had my pick of whatever food I wanted to eat and wine I wanted to drink, I had a wife and kids that loved me and were going out of there way to do whatever I wanted, and we were all healthy and happy.
So I started to realize how incredible it was that nothing particularly out of the ordinary needed to happen on my birthday to make it special, because God has blessed us in so many ways that everyday is very close to my ideal Anything Goes day.
Posted in Random Thoughts, All About Me
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:26:00 GMT | 3 comments
Our church (PBCC), has been doing a series on the 10 commandments. Several weeks ago, Brian Morgan talked about keeping the Sabbath a day of rest. This point really struck home for me because I tend to work all the time and especially since I have been retired, there is not much difference between the week and the weekend.
So I decided to give it a try and set my first goal to not turn on the computer on the weekends. And since most of the work that I do is on the computer, and I tend to get sucked into one thing after another when I am on the computer, not turning on the computer forces me to do other things, like relax.
I have done this for 3 weeks now, and I have to say it hasn’t been easy not to even check my emails on Sunday, but it has made my Sundays much more relaxing.
So I apologize if I don’t answer my emails or seem responsive on Sundays, but I am probably taking a nap on the couch, reading a book, or playing with my kids.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:50:00 GMT | no comments
It is interesting that sometimes incredible portions of conversations are dominated by talking about other people. For instance, some dinner conversations consist entirely of lines like: “Did you know that so-and-so said that?” and “Can you believe that so-and-so did that?” Often these are not even people that we all know, but just “my daughter’s classmate’s mother” or “this guy I know at work.”
Now gossip is commonly thought of as talking negatively about other people, but it seems to me that this idle chatter about remote people qualifies as gossip too.
The biggest problem with this type of conversation is that it crowds out the possibility of really meaningful discussions. It is certainly easier to talk about other people’s problems and struggles rather than our own.
Not all discussions about other people fall into this category. For instance, if someone is having problems with a boss, teacher or acquaintance, it is often helpful to describe the situation in order to get advice. Likewise, if a friend is having a problem that is similar to one that has been dealt with successfully by someone else, it is helpful to describe what the other person did to overcome the situation.
But when the conversation turns to other people in an idle way, maybe we should pull it back to the people present and ask how the other person is doing and what challenges they are facing, or share our own fears, successes, shortcomings and challenges, in order to make our conversations truly meaningful.
Posted in Random Thoughts