The stealing the network series is awesome. I just read "The Director" which was decent.
There are a lot of non-fiction books that read the same as a fiction though; Ghost in the Wires, The Art of Intrusion (really fun read), Fatal System Error, and of course if you haven't read Cuckoo's Egg, you should.
I can't believe the author of ToneLoc posts here. This blows my mind! Brings up a lot of memories of great times, hanging out at the st. louis galleria food court for 2600 meetings.
I think this is a missed opportunity. Terms may have been violated, okay, that warrants closing the account, do that, then donate enough money to her to help her out, and bask in the PR.
I fit the 30-something, 9 to 5'er demo, and I would not give up 20% equity for an extra 8 hours per week. I'd be much more likely to work out something, that allows me less pay, and more time while at the 9 to 5 to work on a side project.
This is a great idea (had it myself at one point); the problem is you would have to have buyin from the grocery store itself, and like a casino...the more time you spend in it the more money they make.
"A year ago, I was talking to a fellow start-up founder and I realized how much he likes to stick with his ideas.... I wondered: is this passion or simply stubbornness?"
The whole article is based on a false premise imo. There are a myriad of reasons why I would, or wouldn't listen to a suggestion from someone else.
The best I can do at least, is to listen to everyone, and try the often repeated suggestions, but if you are implementing every whim a customer suggests, you probably aren't operating optimally.
To be clear, the goal is not for the group to launch a product, it's to discuss mutually beneficial topics having to do with launching your own project.
I've owned a business, and Ive worked 9-5s, it's not an odd demographic at all, unless you buy into the macho bullshit about sleeping at your desk etc, by 20 year olds, who have never made a dollar themselves.
Can you do physical? I have found that carrying a pen, and a packet of sticky notes in my pocket at all times is the way to go. when I get home, Ill peel off the sticky, and organize it. I do it a little different though and organize things by "backlog", "Today", "tomorrow", "this weekend", "hold", because I find it suits the way I work as an individual (ie, I save stuff like washing the car for the weekend etc)
This isn't spam by any means; it manually collates the email addresses of thought leaders in your niche, and provides them to you. It's up to you to start a conversation.
It doesn't always though, with chef/puppet et al, you can write the code to throw up X (aapche w/ ssl etc), but unless you use a testing facility, there is no way to know for sure (other than manually checking obviously).