Friends Up
Taking pictures of my friends at the California Academy of Sciences
Nancy decided to go for the scrunch look:
Taking pictures of my friends at the California Academy of Sciences
Nancy decided to go for the scrunch look:
So I went to the Academy of Sciences last night for my friend, Denilyn's, birthday. I got there really early to get some planetarium tickets, and just went around taking pictures. I ended up taking pictures of mostly people hanging out. This place is so cool, it's my third time and I still love it.
We've been at the new Yardbarker.com Headquarters for a few weeks now, and I haven't taken any pictures! We're still in San Francisco, heck, in the same building, but different floor. The layout is nicer, we have more conference rooms, and it's of course a fun place to work.
Lots of good stuff coming down the road for Yardbarker. Features galore! Here are some pix:
I'm in love with taking photos with my iPhone. I'm never looking for perfect quality, sharp, well exposed shots, but more composition. It's always really handy and super discreet.
I'm also completely infatuated with public transportation, and the stories it shows you in the form of riders. Here's a shot I snapped while on the N Judah Muni train today:
I picked up the 8 prints today from Photoworks SF! These prints are all from my photos that I am donating as a fundraising event for the Relay for Life 2009 in Palo Alto, CA. They will be going up for silent auction all day Saturday August 15th, winner announced at 9:30pm.
Here they are (btw checkout the sweet Brazilian Hardwood floors at my girlfriend's apartment):
The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. Took this last weekend when the fountain was off! There's usually a huge fountain going on that destroys the surface, but that night it was off, and we had a great reflection in the water.
I was also able to snap a picture of Issa taking the same shot. The shot below is handheld at 5000 ISO:
This weekend, August 14th through August 16th, I will be volunteering at the Palo Alto Relay for Life event. This event is the annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society that also plays a role in trying to spread awareness about cancer, it's symptoms, as well as the free services that the American Cancer Society provides. It brings the community together in a very rewarding and powerful way.
I am not blessed with wealth of money to donate, but I am blessed by my health and my ability to volunteer to help and to make the small difference that will make people's lives out there possible. I have prepared eight prints, two taken specifically at Relay for Life events, and others throughout my travels and general photography runs. The prints are 100% donated by the awesome Photoworks San Francisco print company. They also gave me a discount for mounting the prints for 50% off on some simple displayable "frames". Eight of them cost about $64, so at $128 actual price, they are giving me a gigantic discount. I also stopped by the store Michael's today to buy eight matching picture stands for $7 a piece. Not too shabby. Friday morning I'll head over on MUNI to Photoworks to pick up the prints. I've always gotten my prints there, and have always been happy.
My plans for the weekend will be helping logistics set things up on Friday evening in Palo Alto, then helping all the setup Saturday morning. I'll put my tent together and display the eight prints, accompanied by cards that tell a little bit about each print. The prints will be sold in a silent auction type setting, starting at $45 a piece. Too cheap you say? Well hopefully it won't just sell for the $45.
My goal is to sell every single print! And absolutely 100% of my time, my expenses, and the proceeds from the print sales are going to the American Cancer Society and the lives they help.
In this economy (don't you just love paragraphs that start with those three words?) all organizations are hit hard, including the American Cancer Society. There just aren't that many resources anymore. The Palo Alto Relay for Life has been struggling for awhile now, and we really really need volunteers to help with the event. If anyone out there is able to come out Friday evening, anytime Saturday, or anytime Sunday before 2pm, please let me know! It would be amazing, and you would be so awesome to come help out. For those who can't stay long, please come participate as well, it's an incredible experience.
Lastly, I'm also part of a team that will be taking part in the actual Relay part of it all, and we're trying to fundraise through donations as well. If you have some ability and interest, donations will go a long way. And again, even though we do have donations, the things that really help (other than a million dollar check =) are the awesome volunteers that come out and help. The huge committees that start strenuous organization a year in advance are all volunteers, and 99% of the people you see at the events are volunteers organizing it all. They are supported by the staff of ACS who are also running around crazily getting every loose end tied up. It's motivating and inspirational, I'd highly suggest participating and/or educating yourself on this good cause.
Donations are accepted here. More information on the Palo Alto, California Relay for Life event can be found here. And below are the prints to be auctioned at the event:
And big warm thank you's to all the people who have been very supportive, who help donate, who help volunteer, and make this cause that much better. Hope to see you guys at the event =)
You're young, maybe a kid with no responsibilities, or you're a young professional trying to pay back school loans or making a name for yourself. Being young means you can take risks and take on huge challenges that your health, lack of responsibilities, and general recklessness allows. Serious young professionals are those who won't accept general half-assery, and surround themselves in nothing but bettering their lives at 100%. I think we all agree, that a studious student is better than one that gets kicked out of school because of grades, or a young professional landing huge deals and starting big companies is better than one who lives at home and watches TV all day. But can we all just step back for one second and look at what's more than the "fastlane" you're trying to merge into? I'm not going to suggest to look at the world in a third person view, say with the voice over of James Earl Jones, nor am I suggesting to take part in any notable issue that has some faint connection to you where it may "one day affect you negatively." But there is a very big possibility that your ability to perceive the world as anyone other than you, is hindered by the fact that you only talk to senior partners at firms, CEO's with more connections than galaxies in this existence, or read super important news backed by media giants. I once was told in a photography forum, by a "professional" photographer, that by volunteering my photography was complete insanity, and him probably feeling insulted that I volunteered and got gigs, told me that "I bet, no, I am absolutely certain, that whatever you do programming can be outsourced to someone who could do a better job for cheap." OK, given that statement is probably the most ignorant and immature thing you could ever say, it shows a lot. He has completely persuaed himself that what he heard once on the news about outsourcing programmers to China or India was becoming popular and and effective, is a blanket for all tech industries and programmers in the world. He immediately knows exactly how the tech industry works and tells it as so. But because he has never really met or talked to anyone other than "professional" photographers on a forum, he has no idea what I do. And I think we can all agree that this may be his own fault. He only cares about photography, that's all he reads, hears, and learns about. And of course, I'm not saying he needs to know all about code and entrepreneurs in the tech world, but he should know better than to stay in his little cave, seeing little shadows on the wall and thinking that's exactly what life is like on the outside. He has no idea! Be careful to not be caught up bettering your own life, thinking you're young and this is your chance to become the next best thing, and missing out on everything going on around you. Opportunities arise sometimes in not just bettering your life, but making part of your life understanding and bettering the lives of others. Talk to people and understand industries you are not familiar with, maybe stuff you have never thought of being interested in could turn out to be an amazing untapped opportunity. What if there's a way to make chopsticks even cheaper than they are now, with higher quality? Sell to every single restaurant and you'll make way more than a Facebook app. The simplest things in life can make the most out of your own. *cue james earl jones voiceover machine* There are also noble causes that are very rewarding, and especially at a young age. Saving the environment, or beginning to better your own life, by helping someone else with theirs. I'm not saying donate money, but use that boyish or girlish energy to it's extent to help others with things they cannot on their own. I have been to many Relay for Life events, which are annual fundraisers for the non-profit American Cancer Society, and I am sad to say I rarely ever see young professionals volunteering and helping out. Why are the majority of the people kids, and older seniors? Kids are forced to do community service, otherwise they'd be flirting with girls, playing on the jungle gym, or on their computers playing World of Warcraft. Older seniors are way closer and more involved because cancer is more commonly found in older people. Either because at a young age it wasn't treated, or just old age. They've lived long enough to meet people who have been affected by cancer one way or another, and are there because they've been taken out of their cave in a very tragic manner. Again, generalizing here a bit, there are exceptions... can you as a young professional be one? Why wait to be dragged out of the world you've put yourself into? There is absolutely no excuse for being too young and too busy to step out of your world to see opportunities to be rewarded outside of self achievement. Stop narrowing your entire world to chasing your ideas and monetization plans, and observe the world outside of your own, learn about the way some things are, help other people in even the smallest of ways be able to live in the first place, and you will quite possibly find the reward you've always wanted, maybe in a different form or context, but equally fulfilling. Being a customer, user, client of your own product is the best situation ever. And being that person is not just a simple 10 minute talk or a single volunteering event, it's much more than that. Really understanding what you're building something for has to be achieved by really being that kind of person. And for the heck of your health and sanity, get out there and do something else once in awhile.
This isn't an article about my experience, it's not an article to promote anything I have, and by no means is this meant to tell you what you should think. In fact, this has nothing to do with me, and I have nothing to gain by it. Does that make you feel better about reading this?
There's this nervous community out on the internet right now, a niche of entrepreneurs who are also developers. In a nutshell, people have coined this group of nerds and geeks, "hackers". The work that these people do cannot be replicated, outsourced, or specced out. These are the kind of weirdos who think of good, fun, and promising ideas, then execute with their own engineering abilities.
Coming up with a good idea is easy. It's not as easy as sitting in your chair right now, taking a break from reading this article, and thinking for maybe 10 minutes to come up with something amazing. Easy as in, anyone could do it. Anybody can sit and read about the world's problems, and think of solutions for them, then researching or already knowing (look at you) technology that can actually provide real means to the solution. It takes some time, and it takes a lot of brain juice, but other than some dedicated time, ideas cost nothing. They're cheap. You can trade them, give them out for free.
Development is pretty easy as well. Again, not as easy as programming off a specification that has all the right decisions and business goals supporting it all, but any competent developer out there can make basically anything. What are the limits here? Hardware and other technological barriers? Mostly. Otherwise it all works.
So when you have a great idea, and you have a great developer, you can make something amazing. Who cares? That's the hard part. The people who listen and like what you've made are those who already like you. People who already know who you are, and you are an actual person to them. Otherwise, if you have no crazy educational background, awards, job positions at big companies, nobody takes you seriously. The benefit of the doubt is not given. Every slight controversial or weak point in your product is seen as a direct reflection of the blemishes of your very existence. Worst of all, if the idea is sound, and the development if more solid, people doubt you. Reasons? Competition sure, or is it the denial that another person could possibly make something cool other than you? A person who has no name behind them? No funding? Can't be, the model must be flawed.
Sure I might be generalizing, or missing all the other great people who definitely don't think this way, but there's no doubt these kinds of feelings are present in a lot of communities of hackers out there.
So how do no names really get out there? Well whatever the answer to that is, there are a few things you should not do. Never, under any circumstance, try to promote your own product for yourself. People hate you immediately. If you're trying to sell something to somebody that makes you look good, makes you money, and might be useful to people, you will fail. If it's useful, people will find a way where it's not useful. If it's an amazing product, they will find the bugs and early issues and dismiss this as a newbie project that will get no recognition. If that's the reaction of the masses, no PR like techcrunch would ever fathom writing something good about your product.
That's not to say you shouldn't build something useful, it's the approach of telling the world about it that's different. Either you build something people think is fun, and they don't rely on, or you build something that will help others build their own projects better (stay away from Weddings, if you screw up the wedding, you've just messed up someone's entire life, hah). If you help people become successful so they can make a stronger pitch, they love you. Of course, if you make something ridiculously dumb, brainless, and worthless, they have no problem trying to prove their status over you with great suggestions of their own. But if you have something great, make it sound like it's for the masses.
So what was just said?
Hello!
I am a developer and entrepreneur.
I have a passion for volunteering with documentary photography for good causes, charities, and non-profits. See my pictures on flickr
You should follow me on twitter @kineticac.
