UNC Chapel Hill, my alma mater, had a nice profile of me in the Computer Science Quarterly.

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I wrote two blog posts at the MindTouch blog today that I think are of import. The first is about Open Core models. The second post is about my belief in open source.

80% Of The Functionality For 500% Of The Cost

The title of this blog post could be: Why open source matters to me, but I like the former because it’s racier and I hear that gets readers. Anyway, I was prompted to write this because of a comment and question posed me by a MindTouch open source community member that really is best answered/satisfied by me explaining this and also sharing my ideas about Open Core. At any rate, to answer why open source matters to me I really have to respond from two distinct perspectives. First I’ll answer it on a personal level and then as the CEO of an enterprise software company.

Here is my “Aaron hat”. I received my degree in Computer Science from UNC-Chapel Hill where I did pretty much all my course work, like most CS students, on an open source stack. I’ve helped to start several non-profits tasked with bridging the digital divide in under-served and predominately minority communities where I primarily used an open source stack. I’ve owned a couple small businesses in which I benefited a great deal by building on, guess what, primarily an open source stack. So, let me tell you on a personal level I have very strong convictions about open source. There are many reasons, but I will present you my top two.

Read more….

Roy shared this spectacular time-lapse video of Franklin Street (the main street in Chapel Hill) after UNC won the championship game.

Timelapse: Franklin Street after the victory from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

Watching the bonfires flare up is pretty nifty.

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On our family walk through Mission Hills this morning I snapped a few photos.

Here is a local market near Ashby’s pre-school that always stands out for me as being oddly out of place. Also, it has “Hommus” on the front window.

It’s not as attractive as the previous photo would imply. Here’s another flattering photo, and I write this with a modicum of sarcasm. As you can see the building is oddly shaped, which makes for a great contrasts of light and shadow, but it also has an odd number of advertisements…errr…proclamations?

And now, a big ass bee. This thing was the size of a silver dollar and looked like it was from the Triassic period. That’s right, pre-Permian extinction. 😉

And for a finish, Roe and me.

Parenting is awesome.

Here is Ashby near my office with a penguin she adopted that was meant for Roe and was given by Steve and Brigette. We were having a wonderful father – daughter Saturday a couple weeks ago.

Brother and big sis.

Laaaaaadieeesss….

Awesomeness

Enjoy. 🙂

I’ve long posited homophobes have gay tendencies. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Being gay that is. Well, here you have it. My suspicion is confirmed! Well, not exactly, but my assertion is definitely strengthened.

Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?

Adams HE, Wright LW Jr, Lohr BA.

Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-3013, USA.

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

via Pubmed, PMID: 8772014 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

Is it wrong I find this irony hilarious?

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When the wingnuts teabagged the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they teabagged the socialists,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they teabagged the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came to teabag me,
there was no one left to speak out for me,
they all had their mouths full.
– from a reader comment at TBogg

You know who I mean: John Maynard Keynes. He’s in vogue (again). Economists are like fashion, they have a thirty year cycle.

Mukund misquoted Keynes on Twitter today. He wrote:

If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.

I responded with:

By the transitive property, if the bank owes you billions of dollars it owns you.

The actual Keynes quote is:

If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.

As quoted in The Economist (13 February 1982), p. 11. Close enough. I think the transitive property can still be applied here. Obviously I’m referring to our government bailout of the banks. An FDIC intervention doesn’t sound so bad to me. Although, I’m not sure the FDIC could scale to the level required by Citi and Bank of America.

When confirming the quote I came across this unrelated Keynes quote I find especially agreeable:

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

Right on.

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In the event you’re not familiar with StoryCorps, which means you’re not an NPR listener (and therefore lame 😉 , here is how they summarize themselves:

Our mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.

Since 2003, over 35,000 everyday people have shared life stories with family and friends in our StoryBooths. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the Library of Congress. Millions listen to our broadcasts on public radio and the web. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind.

My family had a pizza joint just around the corner from the El Dorado when I was a young child.

I love the StoryCorps project. This is another great story captured by the project and it warms my heart in these anxious times.

For other great stories give The Moth Podcast a listen.

Gifts make me feel warm inside. Thank you Hannah for the slippers:

Also, thank you all for the stickers that now adorn my laptop (and the dozen in my backpack that will soon). And thank you all for the tshirts that have been mailed to me or left for me at the MindTouch booth during the Web 2.0 expo.

Gifts are good. 🙂 Feel free to mail more to:

555 West Beech St #501
San Diego CA, 92103

As always, you can email ErinL At MindTouch Dot Com your tshirt size and physical address and receive a MindTouch tshirt via mail. Sharing is good….