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Showing posts from November, 2010

Life Hacks

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According to Wikipedia: Hacking  refers to the re-configuring or re-programming of a  system  to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer. It used to be the hacking had quite a negative connotation, like a hacker trying to get to your personal information.  Now there are many kinds of hacking which can actually lead to a better life. Sugru  is a silicon material that sticks to other materials and cures at room temperature, letting you transform items to products that suit your personal needs better. Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox is a new gaming device that allows the user to control the system with body motion.  Within the first couple days that it was available for customers, the online community hacked the system to allow a multitude of interesting new uses, including digital puppets , controlling a Roomba vaccuum with hand motions, and displaying a normal video in 3D space .  Check out one of the hack a guy did for the Wii, which

Work for a Large Company or Start A Business...financially which is the better option? The Grand Disconnect.

When I started out on this journey, I had a theory.  It was a grand theory, that I had hoped to be true, as I am an idealist.  Let's start at the beginning. I was working at a large corporate America company, making a very reasonable salary.  I noticed that we billed out our engineering staff at around $120 an hour to companies.  Yet, our take home pay was around $30 an hour.  How could this be, I wondered?  How is it that a company can bill another company so high for your time, and as the employee you only receive a small fraction of that.  That did not seem fair, after all, you were the one doing the work! So, I extrapolated from this that if you wanted to make your fair share of money it was only reasonable to go off and work for yourself.  Thus you could make the amount closer to $120 without giving the 75% to the company for having their name on your business cards. It's now three years later, and its safe to say that I have new insight to all of this.  It's ver