But it wasn’t until I read this story on Slashdot that I really got fascinated.  From the story:

‘These days the buying public looks at a $9.95 eBook and pauses. It’s not an automatic sale,’ says Locke. ‘And the reason it’s not is because the buyer knows when an eBook is priced ten times higher than it has to be. And so the buyer pauses. And it is in this pause—this golden, sweet-scented pause—that we independent authors gain the advantage, because we offer incredible value.’

It was fascinating to me that we could be seeing a sea change in the world of books.

While I’ve been a great consumer of books on the Kindle, I hadn’t yet explored the seller’s side of this new world.

So, I took the ebook I wrote a few years ago (called “Forget the Parachute, Let Me Fly the Plane“) and re-formatted it for the Kindle.  In the process, I updated the content and added in some new material.

And it’s selling in the Kindle store for $2.99.  As of this writing, it’s in the Top 25 in the “Job Hunting” sales list.

My thought: would you trade a cup of coffee for some solid career advice?   I hope to find out.

Technorati Tags: career advice, forget the parachute, kindle

I have trouble with that definition, as I don’t believe that maturity is driven by the results of one’s decisions but by the cause. As I get older, I look around and I see striking differences between what drives the actions of those around me. A lot of my friends act in a way that would be considered incredibly mature – they’re stable, responsible, and stoic. They pay their bills on time, they manage to raise their kids not to become sociopaths, and they go to work every day.  They have faithful long-term relationships and they save for retirement and for a rainy day.

Yet I see a difference in what’s creating that behavior. Some of those friends are driven to their “mature” behavior by personal insecurities and fears that aren’t much more sophisticated than the six-year-old who is terrified of the monsters under his bed.  They save money (for example) not because they want to be profitable and well taken care of in their old age, but because they’re terrified that tomorrow, someone’s going to take it all away from them.  They’re faithful to their wives not because they’re building a relationship that will be fulfilling in the long-term, but because they’re afraid of the horrors that will befall them if they cheat.

And I have a problem with the idea that maturity is all about social norms of behavior… because some of the most mature and wise people I know are ones who defy conventional definitions of “being a grown-up” at every turn.

So, I’ve been playing around with a different definition in my life and trying to see how that definition affects the way that I live. Maturity, in this working definition, is a sliding scale – not a state to be achieved. The scale is simple: maturity is directly proportional the timescale that we consider in making the decisions of our day-to-day lives.

If we think about the least mature among us (e.g. the above-mentioned six-year-old), it should be obvious that most of his/her decisions/thoughts are made on a short time-scale.  I’m hungry now, so I eat.  I’m not happy with you because you won’t give me ice cream, so I hate you forever.  (The psychologists call this an inability to delay gratification.)

If we look at those who we consider the most wise and the most mature, we see a different time-scale in action in their behavior.  As an example, I looked up some quotes from the Dalai Lama (who I would think most would agree to be a pretty mature guy).  What amazed me about that page is the number of quotes about the future – and not just his own personal future, but the future of our species.  He thinks about the world not in terms only of “when I grow up”, but “when I’m no longer here”.  As an example:

“If you must be selfish, then be wise and not narrow-minded in your selfishness. The key point lies in the sense of universal responsibility. That is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If we exploit everything available, such as trees, water and minerals, and if we don´t plan for our next generation, for the future, then we´re at fault, aren´t we? However, if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment, and with all our neighbours, will be well balanced.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – how would my life be different if, in each moment, I was making decisions with an eye not toward what feels good now, but what would be the best for me in 10 years.  Or 20 years.  Or what would be best for those around me on the day of my death.  Or 100 years after I’m dead.  How would each decision I make be different?

And I’ve been finding that it leads to a different way of looking at my life.  One that I’m beginning to quite like.  (Although, I have to say, it starts to make most US political debates look pretty ridiculous, given that the time scale of their thinking is never more than about 2 years long… which probably maps pretty well to the time scale of the “average” American these days…)

As a reader, do you think about what time scale you make decisions on?  How do you make decisions around your finances, your relationships, your health and your career?

Technorati Tags: delay gratification, maturation, maturity, time scale, wisdom

Nowhere do I find this more evident than in the Byron case.

Look, let’s be blunt: from everything we know about what Byron was doing, it was kind of stupid. He was acting as an agitator to the G20 security establishment. He wasn’t being particularly subtle. He was trying to stir up a response, and he did.

I think it’s clear that he’s guilty of mischief. He’s certainly an agent provocateur (def: “a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.”)

Joshua Errett over at NOW Toronto described it best:

“What Sonne was actually trying to do is expose security inadequacies of the G20, as is the role of the hacker. His intent was never to harm, and any crimes he allegedly committed were entirely victimless.

That the justice system can’t see the deep shades of difference between Sonne detailing security lapses and petty vandalism is an outright shame. And, in some ways, discrimination. If Sonne had been a cowardly Blac Blocker, bail would have already been set. There certainly seems a different set of rules for hacking.”

With the ruling yesterday that Byron will remain in jail until his trial and be unable to have any contact with his wife during that time (unless in the presence of lawyers), there’s little question that he got the “rash action”.

And it’s clear that Canadian society has made its statement on how it intends to deal with dissent – zero tolerance.

In contrast to Byron’s crimes, those who steal $30-$50 million, dangerous offenders, those who kill while drinking and driving and crack dealers all go free on bail.

This is one of the more disturbing issues with the case – not that Byron wasn’t guilty of being annoying, but that the treatment he is receiving at the hands of the justice system in Canada is far more harsh than those who commit far more significant crimes that leave people hurt, dead or destitute.

Free Byron.

Technorati Tags: byron sonne, canada, dissent, free byron, overreaction, politics, stupidity, supression

And that doesn’t even mention that the picture that they’re using makes him look that way.  (As an aside: in my 11th grade journalism class, we spent a lot of time talking about how pictures frame the news story that you’re reading.  Before you ever even start the Globe and Mail coverage of this story, you’re greeted with a blurry, grainy picture of Byron looking like he’s about to blow up a building.   Regardless of whether the facts  support the charge, our minds are primed with all of the times that we’ve seen a terrifying looking psychopath looking very similarly to this picture… and we read the story with that bent.)

Unfortunately, the reality seems a little less glamorous. If you read Byron’s Twitter account, you’ll find that Byron was being little more than the opinionated activist that he is. “An agent provocateur”, as someone told The Star. He talked about investigating the fences and posted video of the fences. He talked about how the cameras were being set up in locations that were likely to be used by activists. And he was pointing out that the amount of money spent on “security” for this conference was a little out of range.

One of the things that Byron has been most pilloried for in the news was the talk he gave a few months back on radio surveillance (a decent account can be found here).

Amazingly, Byron even posted the slides to that supposedly “provocative” talk on his Twitter feed. (I’ve put the same slides here for the BitTorrent challenged). Read them… there’s nothing in there that suggests anything but a security professional talking about insecure radio transmission.

Let’s give a different picture of the guy that used to work for me. Byron’s a very smart and well-rounded engineer. While he wasn’t the top producer on the team, he was someone who I valued a great deal from a management perspective. He was vocal and would push others to come to the table with their best (even when he wasn’t up to their level). He was the member of the team most willing to call out others in a meeting. It wasn’t just internal… he was even willing to call out a vendor in a blog post. (Note that since I wrote this, nCircle took the orginal post down)

Above all, Byron Sonne was always an ethical person and someone who I trusted a great deal. And I agree with the assessment that Jesse Hirsh made in an interview with The Toronto Star:

“I suspect that this may just be a stunt and perhaps a stunt that got out of hand,” Hirsh said.

Regardless, it’s a shock to me that this would lead to an arrest and incarceration. None of the posts made threats or suggested potential for harm. His talk is innocuous. And this all looks like a very large over-reaction from a police service that felt somewhat embarrassed that someone was publicly calling them out on their failure to encrypt their communications and poor placement of security cameras.

Technorati Tags: arrest, byron sonne, inappropriate pictures, influence

I’m especially jazzed by my newest post: Risk and Understanding all of the Variables. I’ve been annoyed of late about the financial newscasters oversimplifying the state of the economy through their use of the Dow Jones, and I finally sat down and did the analysis that I knew would show how misguided that view of risk management is.

Please check it out – it’s a fun one.

Technorati Tags: currency risk, financial risk, neohapsis, neohapsis labs