David Acevedo's Blog

How do you create them? That is my goal for the new year. I had the wonderful experience of re-doing my wardrobe with a friend. I got to learn that I bought clothes that were too big and I thought just right was too tight. We went shopping one day and it was fantastic, there was a synergy of purpose and while neither of us liked shopping, we had a good time. Suddenly I got while women liked shopping. It wasn't shopping. It was the experience with friends that combination of energy, unity of purpose and team work. I want more of that in the new year. This last year ends with the realization that one family partnership was bunk. And suddenly I had a profound feeling of loneliness. I didn't like that. But how do you create them? What's the magic involved that occurs easily in some cases but like a flaky fairy fails to appear in others?

I've always found it weird that there was no Nobel Prize for Biology. There is one for medicine, but that's not the same. Especially when you consider that the Lobotomy procedure won its creator a Nobel Prize in Medicine. The impact of not having a Nobel prize in biology is rather far reaching. Not only is the prestige such a prize brings to a institution like a University not there but lacking a Nobel prize decreases funding to areas like basic biological research and ecology that are vitally important but not directly tied to any industry. Chemistry has an industry, Physics has engineering, but non-medicine biological sciences doesn't have an industry. All this global-warming studies aren't funded by the solar-energy lobby, they're funded by Universities and grants. So a Nobel prize would really help there. Having a Biological Noble prize would help the environment which in reality helps us all. Take for example the Colony collapse of Bee hives. Research in Eu...

Incredible! But the first 64-bit browser out of the gate was Internet Explorer, typically known for leading from behind, IE 9 is a really nice 64-bit browser. I mean 64-bit browsers are nothing new, Firefox, Chromium have had 64-builds for a while, but for Linux. Windows remained 32-bit bound. However now with the Flash plug-in being 64-bit, there is no excuse. Firefox even has a 64-bit build on it's nightly page . And now Opera Labs has a 64-bit build. The rise of the 64-bit browser is a welcome happening as it brings with it speed and stability. My Firefox Nightly build just eats up the regular 32-bit bound Firefox. Additionally 64-bit browsers will be able to access a lot more RAM memory than their 32-bit (4GB RAM maximum) predecessor which should increase performance.

I'm starting a Non-Profit in Puerto Rico in 2012 that will revolutionize entrepreneurship on the island through the use of mentors in the broad Puerto Rican diaspora and the Hispanic community. I don't know how to do this, and I'm doing it anyway. There is a Buddhist story about a man that is poor and living on a hut. Underneath the hut is a large cache of gold but the man starves for lack of money; not knowing the wealth he possessed. This is so true, for there is no worse poverty than the poverty of the mind , not seeing the options that could be taken is far worse than having no options . And this is what I want to see impacted directly by my Non-profit. Entrepreneurship is a state of mind . It's how one approaches life, failure and risk. It's not about making money, the same way the human body is not about eating, shitting and sleeping. Money, profits are necessary like food is to the body, but the Olympic marathon runner doesn't run to eat ...

Update: Nov. 2012 . I no longer recommend rbenv, I now recommend RVM (ruby version manager) since both require Xcode to function. And the latest JRuby (1.7.0) now defaults to 1.9.3 and doesn't require the --1.9  switched to be passed or a JRUBY_OPTS variable set. (I also updated the post to reflect the proper capitalization of JRuby vs. Jruby, which is incorrect.) ----- Installing the latest version of Ruby on Mac OS X is a bit more complicated than it should be. There are no .dmg installers and the built in version 1.8.7 is quite old now.  There are various ways of installing ruby on a Mac and here is a list from the least painful to the most annoying. Using JRuby or MacRuby are the least painful way to install Ruby 1.9 to OS X. They come with their own .dmg installer, it's easy and fast. Unfortunately JRuby (although it includes 1.9) defaults to 1.8 so you have to go into your .bash_profile file and add a line there. See previous blog here . Note that because ruby...