My Journal

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

My friend Dan and I celebrated hitting 10 years this year with our software development company, 521 Dimensions. It’s a huge milestone — especially when you consider average American careers last about 40 years. I’ll never forget the early days of being in Dan’s dorm room drawing up different business models on how we could creatively make this world a better place.

We would stay up until 3 AM, drawing on a whiteboard while you could hear fans spinning and lights blinking from all of the computers that we re-purposed in a full-size server rack that we found on Craigslist.

10 years later, I still feel that creative energy, but the results are much different than I originally thought.

As software companies, we think we’re safe by chasing the “security carrot”. In reality, it’s our own tools that are leaving us vulnerable.

July 15th, 2020: The Breach

My co-worker Dan and I were meeting over a FaceTime call. Our discussion items were finished but we were talking about random, off-topic rants that we had on our chest (as our meetings usually go).

Just as we’re about the end the call, I glanced over at my other monitor. Dan was in mid-sentence when I darted through, “Holy crap. What the hell?”

“– What?”, Dan replied.

“Bill Gates just got hacked. Wait… did he? It’s coming from his validated Twitter handle”, I responded. I took a screenshot and sent this over to Dan via instant messaging.

“There’s no way that Bill Gates would tweet this”, I added with a lot of speculation.

Looking at my screen with confusion, I started getting concerned with how fast this tweet was spreading. The numbers of hearts and retweets kept climbing as my screen updated in real-time.

I copied the Bitcoin address and pasted it into Twitter’s search. The entire screen was filled almost the same tweet from various accounts. I then saw Apple’s Twitter account appear and watched many other validated Twitter accounts send out the same thing.

In a serious tone, I said “Dan, there is something very wrong with Twitter. This is not good at all.”

My wife and I had a good friend over for dinner and a documentary. We scrolled through the PBS app and settled on watching a documentary called “For Sama”. It won a bunch of awards, so we figured it would be good.

The film starts with raw footage of a mother, named Waad, singing to her daughter, Sama. While Sama is enjoying the lullabies with a smile, bombs start landing just outside of their building. Sama doesn’t even seem bothered by the explosions outside. It seems as if Sama finds this as a completely normal part of her young life.

Waad grabs Sama and rushes downstairs to take cover before another bombing happens. This is where we learn Waad is inside of a hospital where she volunteers to heal civilians who are being bombed by the Asaad Regime.

Throughout this documentary, you will witness Waad’s entire life dedicated to freedom. Not only do they write “Freedom” across various places of the city, but they stay dedicated to serving their city of Aleppo even after hospitals start becoming targets of bombings to destroy the city’s spirit.

Even more interesting, Waad writes the documentary as if it was a letter to her daughter Sama. She explains to her daughter why it was necessary to have Sama grow up inside all of this chaos and despair.

Guys, I cannot recommend this documentary enough. My jaw was dropped almost the whole time. The documentary is freely available on YouTube or the PBS app:

Yesterday, I went rock climbing in an indoor gym. It’s one of my favorite activities because this activity works my mind and body.

I strap in and start my ascent up the wall. Right away, I’m challenged with how to get my feet on the wall so I can position myself to the next step. I try a few options and finally get a position where I feel comfortable and go with it.

As I keep stepping up the wall, I am slowly reaching and “testing” each option I have.

I’m now at about 90% up the 35-foot wall, the end is clearly in sight. One more major challenge and I have this wall done.

With a firm stance on the wall, I see a route that I could take, but I pause to evaluate my other options. To get a better view, I pull my head away from the wall and look around.

I see a second potential route and then all of a sudden…. BAM!!! I completely fall off the wall. There was no warning. I immediately detached and gravity handled the rest.

Within microseconds of falling, the first thing to hit my mind was the phrase “Analysis Paralysis”.

Today is Halloween and I am terrified. Last week, Google announced they achieved “quantum supremacy”. Google claims their quantum computer can solve the same equation in 200 seconds where today’s world’s fastest supercomputer would take over 10,000 years.

We are creatures with short attention spans. This is increasingly obvious as we have hundreds of companies battling for our attention every day. As if ads and push notifications were not enough, we also have 15 different methods that co-workers, friends, and now grandmothers can reach out to us at any time of the day.

By the end of the day, we feel exhausted because of all of these disruptions turn into distractions. We weren’t able to get anything done so we look at our social feeds to “feel better”. Now we even get less done.

Here’s how to prevent getting stuck in that rut.