Josh Walsh

Ben’s battle with Ewing’s Sarcoma has finally come...

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:22:17 -0500

Ben’s battle with Ewing’s Sarcoma has finally come to it’s end. It’s not the end that any of us hoped for, and it’s not the end that he deserved.

I’m so sorry, Cathy.

Memory Eternal.

Beards for Ben

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:16:00 -0500

This morning I was asked if I had stopped shaving to raise money for cancer. Embarrassingly, I had not. I look terrible with facial hair, always have, but that didn’t seem to be enough reason to dig my razor out of the suitcase.

Then it hit me. Sometimes we have to do things we aren’t comfortable with in order to do something good.

Our friends Ben and Cathy have been battling bone cancer for way too long. Sad to say, he ~~has few days remaining~~ passed away on Feb 20, 2011. While they have made their peace with the situation, peace doesn’t pay medical bills, utility bills, or any other kind of bills for that matter.

My public humiliation = $$ for Cathy’s future.

With your help I can go to professional business meetings with cheetos in my goatee. I might even get my beard stuck in my coat zipper while shoveling snow.

Help me, won’t you? Every $10 donated is 1 day I’ll go without shaving.

~~Donate with Paypal or Credit Card~~ Donations have ended. Thank you everyone, this has been amazing!

Clara Mae Simons (Aug 25, 1914 - Jan 22, 2011)

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 11:27:12 -0500

Natalie and I went to bed at 11:30 last night. Neither of us slept very well. There was a pit in my stomach the size of a small watermelon. As I tossed, the melon turned as if to continually make it’s presence known. Even the quiet comfort of Grandma’s bed couldn’t lull me to sleep.

At 1:30am I heard Grandma’s phone ring. Grandpa’s footsteps downstairs were faint as he walked to the phone. I knew my phone would ring momentarily. I don’t remember what my mother said to me, but the words weren’t necessary. I knew why she was calling. Great Grandma’s time was coming.

She passed this morning at the age of 96. While her memory was fading — she surely wouldn’t know me if she saw me — my memory of her will last forever.

She lived to see some amazing things, through some awesome times. She was 15 years old when the stock market crashed. She was 25 when Hitler sent 1.5 million troops to invade Poland. She never drove a car, but if she had it probably would have been a Model T. Perhaps her teenage years were spent with her hair in a bob, wearing a vibrant skirt and dancing The Charleston.

But she never spoke of those times. Instead she spoke of family and friends. She beamed a loving smile in everyone’s direction, even when she couldn’t remember who they were or why she loved them… she just did.

In the end, it’s not the journey of your life that was important, it’s the people you bring along with you.

"Try as I might, I will never be able to bring myself to use this word to mean “to tell a..."

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:57:00 -0400

“

Try as I might, I will never be able to bring myself to use this word to mean “to tell a story” or “to make a confession.”

Thank you for sharing that sad account of your most embarrassing moment.

In my view, the object of the verb should be a real or abstract commodity, not a narrative.

The king was deposed because he refused to share his wealth and power.

Perhaps it’s because, in the more old-fashioned usage, sharing (and, by extension, whatever was being shared) was an inarguably good thing.

Children should be taught to share their toys.

But being invited to share our personal history can feel like an invasion of privacy, and when someone else shares in that way, it’s possible that the process can turn out to be a burden or an imposition, rather than a desirable act of unselfishness and generosity.

”

- Professional writers discussing the word Share.

From Apple’s built in Thesaurus.

"Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, once said that his method of design was to start with a..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:48:07 -0400

“Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, once said that his method of design was to start with a vision of what you want and then, one by one, remove the technical obstacles until you have it. I think that’s what Steve Jobs does. He starts with a vision rather than a list of features.”

- Fred Brooks, author of The Mythical Man Month.

Princess Jasmine

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:06:00 -0400

A Sultan’s daughter is not called “Princess.” Rather, they are known as “Sultanic Highness.” Shame on you, Disney.

Source: Wikipedia

Update: After asking around, it appears they are also known as “Amira”/”Emira” or “Turkish Prenses.”

"The man or woman snoozing in a chair with a magazine or book is a person who was being given too..."

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:15:02 -0400

“The man or woman snoozing in a chair with a magazine or book is a person who was being given too much unnecessary trouble by the writer.”

- William Zinsser in his book, On Writing Well.

"The experience of using Microsoft Sharepoint is just like deciding to build a house. Your friend..."

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:28:52 -0400

“The experience of using Microsoft Sharepoint is just like deciding to build a house. Your friend picks says “I know just what you need,” takes you to Home Depot and tells you “everything you’ll need is here,” and leaves you to build your house.”

- Jared Spool

Facebook Privacy Issues Spark Internal Disagreement, Challenges To CEO

Fri, 21 May 2010 09:27:14 -0400

Facebook Privacy Issues Spark Internal Disagreement, Challenges To CEO:

The fact that anyone would post a picture of them drunk, passed out on the floor of a dorm room, covered in cheese-whiz is amazing to me. You wouldn’t post your credit card number to your facebook page, yet some people are sharing information which can be even more damaging to their future.

Zuckerburg clearly wants people to be more public. Fine, but if you offer privacy settings, enforce them.

The reality is, in a company with 500 million accounts, privacy issues are going to happen. However, they certainly should not have been this brazen.

"You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because behaviour does not..."

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:37:54 -0400

“You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because behaviour does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behaviour), it is not possible not to communicate.”

- Paul Watzlawick’s First Axiom of Communication

"Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in."

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:49:07 -0400

“Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.”

- Alan Cooper, About Face

"Edward Tufte has been appointed by the Obama administration to oversee the way the stimulus money is..."

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:39:00 -0400

“

Edward Tufte has been appointed by the Obama administration to oversee the way the stimulus money is being spent. This is quite possibly the smartest thing this president has done. Here’s the money quote:

“If your numbers are boring, then you’ve got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won’t make them relevant.”

”

- Jonathan Penn

"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a..."

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:30:03 -0400

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

- Sir Winston Churchill

"Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are..."

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:41:40 -0400

“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli

"The effectiveness of a research report is inversely proportionate to the thickness of its binding."

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:54:35 -0400

“The effectiveness of a research report is inversely proportionate to the thickness of its binding.”

- Wilkens’ Law

"Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors…..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

“Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors… Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory”

- Andrew Carnegie

Yamaha Recalling Pianos

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Yamaha has recalled 20,000 pianos due to a problem with the pedal sticking, causing pianists to play faster than they normally would, resulting in a dangerous number of accidentals.

The sticky pedal also makes it harder for pianists to come to a full stop at the end of a piece, making it extremely risky for audiences.

Appreciating and Perceiving Beauty

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A man played six Bach pieces on a violin for 45 minutes in the Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning. During the time he played, approximately two thousand people passed through the station. Of those, only six people stopped and listened, and then only for a very short while. The greatest levels of enthusiasm were displayed by young children, several of whom tugged on their parents, asking to stop and listen, but without success.

This concert, enjoyed by virtually none of the two thousand in the station that day, was given by the renowned violinist Joshua Bell, playing some of the most intricate pieces ever written. Two days before his concert in a theater in Boston had sold out with ticket prices averaging $100. [This] challenges us to ponder what we each are missing. In a common place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

[Summarized from the Harvard Business Review]

I found a clip from the event on YouTube:

The Microsofting of Apple

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The Microsofting of Apple:

This guy doesn’t get it. If Apple is gaining market share, it’s because the experience people have with their products surpasses the products of others.

Take the iPad, which instantly shed the moniker “Jesus tablet” once it saw the light of day. It’s a blown-up iPod Touch, rolled out not to be insanely great but to give Apple an entry in the netbook derby.

Apple is in the business of creating great user experiences. Their strategy is to make casual computing more comfortable. It’s not about the hardware or the software. It’s about the experience you have with their product.

The iPad looks like a device optimized to patronize the iTunes store.

Totally right. Apple is in business to sell products. What’s wrong with that?

Apple refuses to support Flash, which delivers 75% of the video on the Web. […] Flash would also allow iPhone and iPad users to consume video and other entertainment without going through iTunes. Flash would let users freely obtain the kinds of features they can only get now at the Apple App Store.

With a modern browser, like Safari, this isn’t true. HTML5 in Safari natively supports video without flash. It’s a far more flexible, and accessible way of delivering video.

And what about Apple’s decision to exclude Flash? Apple and its supporters stake out aesthetic and philosophical grounds: Flash is buggy. Flash is a power hog. Flash is “proprietary” (horrors). Flash is used to create those annoying Web ads

The leading cause of browser crashes are caused by memory leaks in plugins. We know what plugin they are talking about.

While I only commented on a few key pieces of the article, I fail to see the connection to Microsoft.

A simple rule that made me lose 5 pounds in a month

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I vowed to start taking better care of my health last November. I’m not obese, fat, portly, flabby, or gross by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t living a lifestyle that made me feel healthy.

I started a real exercise regimen in December, but prior to that I made a simple dietary rule for myself. This rule on its own was responsible for my losing 5lbs in a month. It’s not super impressive, but it was a health change that I made without altering my lifestyle or my busy schedule.

The rule: When you are thirsty drink water, and only drink something else when you aren’t thirsty.

It’s that simple. When you crave a soda, have one. But, don’t have one just because you are thirsty.