Freestyle Labs

Freestyle - A competition in which any maneuver or movement is allowed and competitors are judged on their artistic expression, acrobatic skill, and athletic expertise.

Labs - A place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study.

Research Projects

Finished Projects + Post Mortem

Interesting...

10/25/22
slow is smooth, smooth is fast - Jeff Bezos says it is one of his favorite sayings, originally from Navy Seals

5/10/18
When you know your 'Why', your 'What' has more impact, because you're walking in or towards your purpose. - Michael Jr. (old, but putting it up here just now)

4/26/18
Gentlemen, try not to become a man of success. But rather, try to become a man of value. - Albert Einstein

6/16/17
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
- Ode poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy, referenced in Willy Wonka

3/8/17
It's how they get you to give up. They say, "It's not that simple Vinny." So what's the truth? That it is. That if you just do the thing that they tell you, you can't, then it is done. And you realize it is that simple. And it always was. - Bleed for This

10/29/14
Be the change that you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi

10/27/14
See to it that no one misses out on God’s grace... - Hebrews 12:15

5/3/14
She told me to show you all now. And to tell you… her God can overcome even this.

4/20/14
If you've got 'em by the balls, their heart and mind will follow. - President Lyndon Baines Johnson

8/25/13
One's conduct should be modeled after a tree, the truck is rooted while its leaves flourish. Whereas one's attitude should be like a coin, square on the inside and smooth on the edges. - Ip Man

8/13/13
The right thing is really the difficult thing to do because it has consequences that are unpleasant sometimes. Otherwise, every one would do it. - Ben Affleck on Gone Baby Gone

8/4/13
When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to His children. "You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves." - Matthew 10:16, from Gone Baby Gone movie

7/22/13
I will survive. I will not fall into despair! I will keep myself hardy till freedom is opportune. - 12 Years a Slave

7/15/13
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. - Proverbs 28:1

7/8/13
Quitting while you're ahead, is not the same as quitting. - American Gangster

6/17/13
Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. - Albert Einstein

4/23/13
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

4/5/13
When you meet a person here you're happy because you feel you can help them. In the past, hunters would always leave firewood, matches and something to eat in their cabins. It's the taiga's way. There are no bad people in the taiga. Most bad people are where a lot of other people are. They can steal there. But out here they would not survive. Taiga cleanses you. This place makes you reflect on your actions. It cleanses your soul. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2nTmmOeLe8

3/28/13
For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. - 1 Samuel 16:7

3/24/13
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. - 1 Corinthians 1:25

3/23/13
I could tell you something. And you might think I'm a idiot. My family's one of the richest families in the world. But not with money. With love, kindness, tolerance and patience. Qualities that are worth more than money. And you can't buy that. They taught me how to love people for who they are and not what I want 'em to be. They taught me how to get along with people. They taught me to treat people the way I want to be treated. They taught me to treat each person for who they are, and not clump 'em together - 'cause we all different in our own way. That's the richness that I was brought up in. - Guy from end of The One Percent movie

2/24/13
There are no boundaries for an artist. No borders. Your art will be your voice. - Leonie movie

2/19/13
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you. - William Arthur Ward

12/20/12
To be happy, add not to your possessions, but subtract from your desires. - Seneca

10/6/12
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. - Isaiah 26:3

8/24/12
Put the risk upfront and get rid of the risk as fast as you can. - Kleiner

7/30/12
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Eliot

7/14/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Vp-RhB6fw

7/14/12
The poorest of all men is not the man without a cent, but the man without a dream... "Where there is no vision, the people perish…" - Proverbs 29:18

7/13/12
Puff told me the key to this joint, the key to staying on top of things, is to treat everything like it's your first project, like it's your first day, you know what I'm saying? Like he was [as] an intern — you just stay hungry. - Notorious B.I.G. also Alexis Ohanian

4/29/12
Creativity and entrepreneurship is an important thing to nurture!

4/26/11
This is obvious in retrospect, but never thought of this optimization before... when doing API calls to get lists of items, like on eBay/Etsy/Flickr web APIs, if it is slow doing large amounts of items, say 200, instead do 25 items x 8 calls, just do the 8 calls in parallel. Before I thought, dang, the API call is just slow, can't do anything about it. But I can just parallel process it for them.

4/26/11
Layered complexity

1/25/11
Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life. - Bill Cunningham

12/17/10
It's a shift from the wisdom of crowds to the wisdom of friends. It doesn't matter if 100,000 people like x. If the three people closest to you like y, you want to see y. - Sheryl Sandberg

11/1/10
If you analyse the function of an object, its form often becomes obvious. - Prof. F.A. Porsche

10/19/10
Meier liked to build a prototype as quickly as possible, then improve it based on what users do, and it’s the same at Zynga. At the same time, in both traditional design and social design, it’s important not to overvalue with users say they want. - About Sid Meier

10/15/10
A simple rule for those of you who are CEOs: rising revenues solves all problems. - Eric Schmidt

10/6/10
the interactions of one person... affect and organize the interactions of the people around them. - Chris Cox

9/23/10
Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push; just in the right place; it can be tipped. - Malcolm Gladwell

9/22/10
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. - Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's first law English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - )

9/22/10
But the basic thing that we've found from building social apps and this platform ourselves is that almost any experience or app can be better if it's social and it has your friends with you. - Mark Zuckerberg

9/20/10
Do something remarkable.

9/3/10
I've discovered that what you inherit may not be as valuable as what you earn. - Jamie Johnson

8/16/10
Risk takers we break the rules. - Jay-Z : Brooklyn We Go Hard

8/15/10
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, - Galatians 5:22

7/17/10
The trick isn't adding stuff, it's taking away. - Mark Zuckerberg

7/16/10
If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine. - Jim Barksdale (former Netscape CEO)

7/10/10
"Marketers have always known that the best way to sell something is to get your friends to sell it," says Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer. "That is what people do all day on Facebook. We enable effective word-of-mouth advertising at scale for the first time."

7/6/10
weapons of marketing: scarcity, fear, authority, association, trust, perception, social proof, and call to action - Jeremy Schoemaker

7/2/10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. -prov 9:10

6/18/10

6/17/10
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible. - Dieter Rams

2/17/10
You can become complacent. You can say, 'I'm successful,' which is the kiss of death. In America it's hard to wake up hungry. It's frightening. You can become complacent and wake up tomorrow totally homeless. - George Forman talking to Robert Kalin

2/03/10
The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein

11/18/09
God gives people money to see how you're going to handle it. - Leigh Anne Tuohy

10/30/09
There is always a way. When things look like there's no way. There is a way. To do the impossible, to survive the unsurvivable, there's always a way. And you? You and I have this in common. We're inspired. In the face of the impossible, we're inspired. So if I can offer one piece of advice...Today if you become frightened...instead become inspired. - Dr. Issac, Grey's Anatomy

10/13/09
I'm not a business man, I'm a business, MAN! - Jay Z

10/12/09
Minimum cognitive dissonance - Sean Parker

10/12/09
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking some stuff you're not moving fast enough... Making mistakes is ok. At the end of the day the goal of building something is to build something, not to not make mistakes. - Mark Zuckerberg

10/5/09
Still, Page told me, he does not see Google as a content company. Google's computers can "aggregate content; we can process it, rank it, we can do lots of things that are valuable. We can build systems that let lots of people create content themselves. That's really where our leverage is." - Ken Auletta

8/26/09
PHP, I can do anything I want with it. Basically it's my "bitch" (The line in his resume that got him the job). - The one and only A.J. Cates.

8/25/09
The dictionary defines charity as simply the act of giving voluntarily to those in need. It's taken from the word "caritas," or simply, love. In Colossians 3, the Bible instructs readers to "put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." - Scott Harrison

4/29/09
Observation, your first child really stops being your little baby and feels like your big boy once you have your second baby. Lucas feels so big now!

4/28/09
"The Days Are Long, But the Years Are Short." - Old saying about raising children

4/15/09
Observation, food your parents or siblings spit out is gross, but your own child's spit up chewed food feels the same as your own spit up. Now I understand the feeling my parents have, I always thought it was gross before, but it really is love in disguise.

4/3/09
...if you actually like using CVS, you shouldn't be here. You should be in some mental institution, somewhere else. - Linus Torvalds

2/25/09
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. - Albert Einstein

6/20/08
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. - Stewart Brand, in Stanford commencement address by Steve Jobs

4/15/08
People are inherently self-centered. - Jonathan Neddenriep

4/08/08
Perception is reality. - Business principle relayed to me by David Cohen

3/25/08
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Szent-Gyorgyl

3/12/08
YouTube, buoyed by Google cash, can afford to challenge entertainment conglomerates in court. Not everybody else can. - News article by Greg Sandoval

3/5/08
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay

3/5/08
I don't believe in the no-win scenario. - James T. Kirk in reference to the Kobayashi Maru exercise, he cheats to win

1/21/08
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas Edison

1/17/08
A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing. - Warren Buffett's philosophy

1/12/08
Whenever Antaeus touched the Earth (his mother), his strength was renewed, so that even if thrown to the ground, he was invincible.

12/24/07
Talent does what it can, Genius does what it must. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

10/2/07
The brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things - Professor Randy Pausch

10/2/07
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. - Dan Stanford

9/13/07
Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours. - Les Brown

9/12/07
Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. - Shel Silverstein

5/31/07
You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead. - Steve Jobs quoting a Beatles song to reference to Steve and Gates' relationship

5/2/07
Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something, you got a dream, you got to protect. People can't do something themselves they tell you you can't do it. You want something go get it. PERIOD! - Will Smith Pursuit of Happyness

4/13/07
I do think building rich internet applications is an important part of web 2.0. I don't want to dismiss it, because we are able to build richer application platforms today. But it's ultimately about network effects, and where do you build services that get better the more people use them? And it's also about the databases that get created as a result of those network effects. - Tim O'Reilly

4/11/07
I don't think we would have gotten where we got without the Netscape deal and we certainly wouldn't have gotten the Netscape deal without a really valuable lesson in persistence. - Joe Kraus

4/11/07
We were too young to realize that existing companies' biggest problem is legacy. Period. They can't focus on new businesses because they've got to manage their old ones. - Joe Kraus

4/11/07
"Families are like fudge... mostly sweet with a few nuts."

3/25/07
One thing we learned from our research with users is that most people don't click on the "next page" link. So, we got rid of it. We're now finding that people who use Live.com look at more search results than they used to.

3/15/07
This is not to say that the team does not collaborate on decision making across their respective areas, but making each person the ultimate decision maker over their area paid huge dividends for MyBlogLog.

3/15/07
In times of great trial and when disaster strikes I used to ask, where is God? But now my plea has changed. Instead of asking, where's God? I ask, where are God's people? - Gary Haugen From International Justice Mission

3/8/07
You can do no great things, just small things with great love. - Mother Teresa

3/8/07
There's nothing worse than a rock star with a cause - Bono

2/23/07
The more we take, the less we become. A fortune of one that means less for some. - Sarah McLachlan

2/21/07
Life is a gift of God. It is a gift to be protected, defended, promoted. - Father Robert Ochola

2/21/07
I know a girl she puts the color inside my world. (That would be Michell for me!) - John Mayer

2/20/07
Growth: Tune homepage, feature differentiation. Viral, embedded players, and "send to a friend" buttons to increase visibility. - JumpCut Case Study

2/16/07
maintain a "healthy disregard for the impossible," - Larry Page

2/14/07
Great companies are built by entrepreneurs who want to change the world. They have a basic belief that they will be rewarded for either defining a new market or redefining an old one. They do not want to be bought by Google or Yahoo!, they want to be the next Google or Yahoo!. My parents used to tell me two things about starting businesses, "if it's easy, everyone would be doing it" and "easy money seldom is easy." - Gilman Louie at Alsop Louie

2/2/07

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent.     They imagine.     They heal.
They explore.   They create.        They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can
change the world, are the ones who do.

1/11/07
"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not." - George Bernard Shaw

1/11/07
"I am only one, But still I am one. I can not do everything, But still I can do something. And because I can not do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." - Edward Everett Hale

12/13/06
The best marketing in the world is to give people products they love. Give them things they want to tell others about. Make your customers your salespeople. - Jason Fried of 37Signals

12/13/06
"Jim made it clear that their goal is to help their users, not to maximize the company's profit," - Ben Schachter about Craigslist, UBS Internet analyst

12/11/06
Reid Hoffman [an early investor in Flickr] said, "You can always do it again. And the amount of money that you'll make on this will change your life in a way that you'll be able to be entrepreneurs the rest of your lives."

11/29/06
Yea, I need you, I need you to hate, So I can use you for your energy - 50 Cent

11/29/06
I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said "I am terribly sorry but there is nothing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself." He said "Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that would help." So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt. He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure. Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile." - Bright Eyes from the song "Bowl Of Oranges"

11/26/06
Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength. - Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

11/25/06
The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you succeed. - Chinese proverb from Bob Parsons, CEO, Go Daddy

11/17/06
"In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

11/17/06
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs

11/17/06
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. " - Albert Einstein

10/15/06
Most Inventors and engineers I've met are like me - they're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone - best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don't believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. Because the committee would never agree on it! - Steve Wozniak with Gina Smith from iWoz

9/30/06
At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them. - Grey's Anatomy

9/21/06
"To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness." - Mikhail Gromov about Grigory Perelman

9/18/06
"Those who risk nothing, do nothing, achieve nothing, become nothing" - David Jefferies (motorcycle racer)

9/17/06
"we don't have a formal way of doing this, Paul just went ahead and did it."

9/15/06
Heard an interesting saying today: "Do well by doing good."


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