Julio’s Musings Around Columbia County, New York

Back in the day, slightly before the advent of the Internet or World Wide Web, the best way to either anonymously take a dig at someone or laugh at their expense was writing/reading the graffiti on the bathroom stall.
Mind you, I was never a writer - just couldn’t remember to bring a pen with me for those moments and I thought it was somewhat lame anyway. But reading it was a great way to spend the time you had.

Most bathroom stalls had no room for any more scribbling and it was just scribbling on top of scribbling. Sometimes it was racist, actually during a part of my growing up in New York when race relations were not what they should have been, it seemed like 1/3 of the scribblings were taking shots at every race with all sides freely involved.

Now it has moved to the WWW where the likes of Silicon Alley Insider (I won’t put the link as I don’t want to confer “link juice” to them) have become the bathroom stall but with all the inherent power of vast distribution / SEO and a multitude of contributors who previously wouldn’t dare take a chance at defacing public property.

You have a gripe with someone? now you can anonymously thrash them and think you won’t be caught by writing a slanderous comment about them on a post hopefully related to where they work. Of course if there is the will there is the way to trace who the suspected anonymous commented are but it does require a lot of “bothering” and generally isn’t worth the trouble.

Anyway, the bathroom stall lives on as a metaphor on the Web and for those that are lame enough to slander anonymously, think about it- no one cares enough even in a negative way to write about you!

Pretty impressive on first view! If I am not listening to “What the Web is listening to now (music.aol.com) or Spinner’s Song of the Day, this is what I listen to for free music.

Tags: Pandora, Jittr, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

It has been sometime since I have taken the time to blog something. On a lazy hazy Fourth of July 2009 , distracted with a Twilight Zone marathon , I take this opportunity to write something and get back into the swing of being disciplined.
Lots going on at work which has been the primary distraction from being able to blog. All Work and no play has been the tak for the past two months as our company seeks to become the “world’s largest startup”. Very exciting to say the least but lots of nervousness as it represents a challenge similar to leaving home for the first time.

Just came back from India a few weeks ago on a very tightly scheduled trip that allowed for no time to soak in the India culture and street scene though I stay get a chance to stay at the Leela Palace which is what can be considered a 5 Star Hotel with every whim taken into account though because of the business schedule it did not lend itself to satisfying whims.

Success has many Fathers, where Failure is an orphan. One of my favorite sayings and one that is very noticeable in every area whether it is politics of a governing nature or office work politics which is where most of us experience it the most.

It is wired into us to gravitate to what appears to be working or turning out well and to retch from what is not. Also it is probably quite natural to blame what didn’t work right and prevents a success on someone else and to take a disproportionate sense of our own contribution to the successful endeavor.

In the field that I spend my time in (Technology development), it is probably a more observable manifestation though I also don’t believe by much. My experience has been that most of the reasons for success are clearly centered around a very small number of people. 2 or 3 bright, hard edged developers with a clear product focus and requisite skills to make ideas happen. They know writing code is not just an academic exercise. An executive with the confidence to confer considerable authority on the small group of developers and playing a balancing act of nudging the effort in a certain direction, giving more authority when needed and taking it back as the project reaches a stable point. Of course others on the team fill in the gaps that are necessary to purvey something which will be viewed as success but usually they are replaceable.

One of the risks is if something is a budding success, not quite there yet but viewed as having that potentiality too soon, then the “Fathers” mushroom and smoother the poor effort before it can be truly birthed.
Most budding successes eventually are deprived of the necessary oxygen to survive as those wanting to be part of the success jump on and smother the effort.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares

The Twitter Phenomenon. Keep track of what your’s truly is doing all day long.
From jumping on the subway to a staff meeting after staff meeting.
You think your life is boring? Fear not!

Tags: Twitter, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Will have to add a photo when I have it but need to get this post in before my memory recedes. This week visited Club 21 on West 52nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in New York City. As our business office is adjacent to this well known establishment and we are moving downtown this week, a friend and business colleague decided what a better way for a send off then to splurge for lunch at one of the true power centers in New York City. Our quest for the Club 21 Hamburger fueled our anticipation. So after dressing up (you need at least a jacket for lunch) we made the 50 foot trek into the rarified space of a New York institution. Immediately we (or at least) I felt elevated well beyond my relatively paltry position in the world of New York business. Though the football helmets and toy trucks hanging from the ceiling provide the sense of a “boys’” club, the treatment from the staff is classy to say the least. We were swarmed over by sommelier and other wait staff who’s role I didn’t even know. We quickly got to the point and told them we were here for the burger. Now mind you, its a $30 burger. That is not a typo.
Throw in the “creamery cheesecake” we had for dessert and you have over $100 for lunch for 2.
Notwithstanding the high price, it was well worth it and I suggest all you business , high-roller types make the pilgrimage at least once to see how the other 1/10 of 1/10th of 1% lives.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, New York City

Though I now find myself in Dublin, Ireland on my next leg of a two week trip to London and Ireland, I wanted to write a few more words around the Future of Web Application Conference (FOWA).
One of the most enjoyable though not educational aspects of the conference was the live filming of an installment of “Diggnation”. In the main auditorium in front of a standing room only audience, Kevin Rose and his sidekick Alex Albrecht (or maybe its the other way around) kept the crowd pumped,yelling and screaming with their adolescent politically incorrect banter while drinking whatever free beer was provided by the sponsors or fans.

Though I did not take an actual count, I suspect the audience as was the conference itself was about 95% male. The largest number between 20 and 29 years of age but there were 30 and 40 somethings as well to keep me from feeling anachronistic.

All and all, it was very interesting to be part of a group who truly believe they are re-making society and have that fleeting dream of becoming rich at the same time. It reminds me of the adolescent years and rock bands and thoughts of becoming the next Led Zeppelin or something similar. Now of course, behind all that facade it was just about finding and attracting girls. Sadly, the crowd at the Future of Web Applications hasn’t been as successful based on my visual survey of the scene.

Tags: FOWA, Future of Web Applications, Diggnation, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

FOWA

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares

I find myself in London, England at the moment attending Future of Web Applications FOWA for short. Excellent “dork” fest of folks in the Web development space getting together to hear each other speak about the Web and what’s happening and where its going.

Great way to make a living if you can. Pundits on the Web. I have tremendous respect for the folks presenting especially those that have taken action and established their own companies irrespective of the attendant risks. I don’t believe risk-taking of that caliber is for only the young but on the Web, or at least at this type of conference, its interesting to see those with Cult-status are barely out of college age.

I guess its humbling for me being over 29 years old listening and taking pointers from these 20 somethings but .. what the hell, I will take the pearls of wisdom from whomever.

Trying to finish this blog entry quickly so I can get to the live filming of Diggnation live from the ExCel Center.

Tags: FOWA, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Haven’t written a post in about a week. I have been locked away in Northern Virginia (Reston to Sterling and back) for the past week. Hard to get inspired in a place like that, at least for me So, I became inspired to write about how uninspired I was. Mind you, things are not bad, not complaining or whining. Its been a week chock full of work and useful work at that but I would rather be somewhere else, 250 or 350 miles North of here.

There isn’t much to this post, seems rather pointless. On a good note, I will be flying back to New York on Wednesday morning on a business trip. I can already feel the excitement building..

Dapper Dossy Visits the Rocketettes at Radio City Music Hall

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

I met up with Dossy Shiobara in New York City this week (shown here posing in front of Radio City Music Hall in standard tee-shirt garb). I hadn’t seen him in months since he left his position as Super-developer at AOL. With trepidation , not knowing if had started going bald or maintained his ripped physique or what I would see after 6 month hiatus, I setup a lunch appointment in the City to catch up.
Well here he is looking better then ever and in excellent spirits. Obviously doesn’t have the combined weight of approximately 5 layers of managers telling what to do on his shoulders.

He was happy to pose and fine with me blogging around something as trivial as a lunch date. You see, Dossy is good SEO regardless of the content. Dossy is the CONTENT!

Anyway, you can go to his blog and see all his delicious links or sprinkled between them read up on what he has been up to in the past half a year.

Tags: Dossy Shiobara, Julio Hernandez-Miyares