Tag: Tampa Florida

Rain-bow start

It’s not an optical illusion. It’s real.  Has always been there and it’s called light. But somehow, this afternoon, at the start of my run around the park, I saw a rainbow. Nature conspires to create a rainbow for Southern California. Breath-taking is its beauty.

People paused and took pics from their I-phones. It’s a rare sight indeed, consider there wasn’t even a drop of rain.

It’s always been there.  Just another way to show itself, light that is.

We need sunlight and its photosynthesis effect.

The cycle of dawn to dusk.

We keep hearing “life is too short”. And then, we hear that in places like Alaska, the days are long.

Which is true? People must be talking about Kairos vs Chronos.

Timeliness vs the conventional 24-hour cycle.

(BTW, it’s news cycle now. So we all know what happened with Isaac upgrade to Hurricane category 1, or  GOP kicks off their meeting in Tampa,  etc…).

We are inundated with trivia. News that trigger curiosity but trivia still.

Then we learn to tune out the top and the side bars (advertising).

Then we grow desensitized and disengaged. If world citizens are “compassion-fatigue”, not so much because they wore themselves out from doing good, but because they threw the baby out with the bathwater i.e. news, as presented to us in current forms-  that they might miss out an opportunity to engage or be warned.

I got a good laugh today, when my roommate showing off his once-$600 film camera. Who would sell him films and develop them nowadays?

Change comes that quickly.

And might you, the guy is still young. Not your grandfather with his black-and-white momento.

So, we get on, with RIM down, Nokia down, Sony struggles and Amazon rules (the Cloud).

That quickly.

But nothing is new. All that happened before. Just like the rainbow I saw today.

Just another way for nature , which has always been there, to be in our face, with a new spin on an old story line. Inviting and daring discoverers to go where no one has ever set foot before.

RIP Neil Armstrong. You got to see that picture of them in an isolated trailer, with President Nixon looking in from the outside.

It could have been their coffins, given the 60’s P.O.V.  In fact, there had been a prepared speech,  just in case they didn’t make it.

Now, with giants’ shoulders as platform, let’s stand tall, be confident and grateful that we have less fear of the irrational. And best of all, a majority of us will have long to live, love and  learn more than those before us, who I am sure had seen an occasional rainbow as I did today, and perhaps had also wondered: is it an act of God? Is this lucky or what? To have such a symmetry painted on the sky, for free and for all.

Stay hungry, stay curious

The first advice was from Jobs, a college drop-out, in his commencement speech.

The second, recently, was the gist of a NYT op-ed by Brooks.

Those are mantels of would-be entrepreneurs.

Where else can you find people who are willing to sleep (if at all) in sleeping bags and code for days on end, with no prospect of a pay check?

Interns for life.

Meanwhile, exchange students protested inhuman “trafficking” at Hershey‘s outsourcing arm.

No more sweet spot there at sweet factory (after the students realized that taken in all the expenses, they ended up working for free). Interns for life.

At least they learn a thing or two about voicing their opinion within the confine of  the law.

We finally enter an age where muscles and machines (physical layer) are counted less than mind (application layer). A recent WSJ most-read by a VC guru was all about “software eating everyone’s lunch”.

Just try to fight drones, or robot cops.

BTW, it’s been a lost decade, with 9/11 as one bookend ( the two planes knocking down the Twin towers), and  the other, two helicopters (albeit one was left behind) getting back at Bin laden. It is to show how much harm done by one man’s hyper-imagination, and how much good our collective brain are capable of (a recent Tampa youth just wanted to copy Columbine, instead of applying to Columbia).

Stay hungry, stay curious. Drop out if you lack the passion for staying in (a Venture capitalist argued just that when he offered a contest for new ideas from would-be entrepreneurs, college degree  not required).

But stay curious. There are a lot of unknown unknowns out there. Learn to connect the dots, and recognize the patterns. Spot the trends.

And don’t forget to stay curious even when you were no longer hungry.

Because someone will eat your lunch before you know it. Borders, HP (computer division) and Nokia, have all learned this hard lesson. No rest for the weary. Not in this century.

Not when machines like Watson can start “swamping”, guessing your next move.

And quit when you are ahead, like Steve Jobs. Learn calligraphy. Learn something about something. Stay curious.