Arhiva completă: engleză

It is also the only ocean not being defined by the continents around it, but by a specific current: the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC).

The Earth has finally attained popular recognition for its fifth ocean, with a decision by the National Geographic Society to add the Southern Ocean around Antarctica to the four it recognizes already: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.

Although the designation of the frigid waters around the icy southern continent as a separate ocean has kicked around for almost 100 years and is widely used by scientists, until now it has not had popular backing.

But on June 8 — World Oceans Day — the society announced it would henceforth be labeling the Southern Ocean as the fifth ocean on its maps of our planet.

From here: Earth’s fifth ocean just confirmed | Space.

I have some people that I “talk” to a lot via Whatsapp, iMessage, Messenger and the likes.

And it kinda annoys me when they say “hi!” every f’in time we restart the discussion.

I think the reason for this is that I see it as a continuous discussion, with bigger breaks, while they see it as different chats/discussions every time.

Well… it’s not like a phone call, ok? :)

I didn’t know this existed, but it’s so true: bullshit asymmetry principle.

Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage that emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.”

Brandolini’s law on Wikipedia

I use lots of SD cards (well, micro SD) to install different OS-es on the Raspberry Pi. The problem is that a lot of the times I can’t use the SD card on another computer anymore because I can’t format it for my Mac, let’s say.

Well, I found SD Card Formatter, a free app from the SD Card Association that solves this issue. And here it is, just so I don’t forget about it, because it’s not the first time I “discover” it.

I really, really, really want this. I tried to get in earlier, but Q1 2022 was the earlier I could get in, after 30 minutes of trying.

Anyway, I love the idea of playing anywhere, anytime, almost all my Steam games. I have the Switch, as well, but I don’t really like most of the games they have on offer (I own Witcher 3, Zelda, Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim, Mario Odyssey, among others). I love the handheld form, I would really love to be able to play the PC games I want (especially older ones, since for the new ones I kinda have the PS5).

Here’s a video of Linus from Linus Tech Tips using the Deck, as well:

In case you want to know what’s new in iOS 15. I didn’t follow too much this year’s release, so this short article is quite good: it gets me up to date without the need to read a lot :)

This year’s update is also a bit different because you don’t have to update to iOS 15. If you’re fine with iOS 14, Apple won’t force you to make the jump to iOS 15. You’ll still receive security patches. Some people will simply dismiss iOS 15 altogether.

It seems like a small change, but it actually says a lot about the current state of iOS. Apple considers iOS as a mature platform. Just like you don’t have to update your Mac to the latest version of macOS if you don’t want to, you can now update at your own pace.

From here: iOS 15 adds all the little features that were missing | TechCrunch.

Here’s a look at the changes on iPadOS as well.

In case you like the new Apple TV+ show “Foundation” (after Isaac Asimov’s books), you should listen to the accompanying podcast, as well. The executive producer of the show, David S. Goyer, participates in all episodes and he goes pretty deep into the decisions they made that were different from the books.

An entertaining 30-40 minutes per episode, if you enjoyed the show.

Here is the link: Foundation: The Official Podcast

I’ve added a Plex server on a Raspberry Pi 4.

Here are the links to all the resources I used (in case I need them later and for anybody else that is interested):

How to Install Plex on Raspberry Pi 4
Plex not seeing the files on the external SSD
How to Install Subzero plugin (for subtitles). Where is the plugin folder located.

Update, 1 year later:

We sold the boat. While the experience was amazing in a lot of ways, I also found it difficult to live on a small boat. I would try the experiment again in a few years, but I will try and buy a bigger boat. A catamaran would be the best :)

“I’m gonna live on a boat!”

Even saying the words out loud is weird. But yes, for at least a few months, we’re gonna live on a boat. Our boat, to be more precise. A home away from home.

The boat is a sailing yacht from 2010, a Bavaria 32 Cruiser. Her name is Lavender. The size is 32 feet. That’s a little bit less than 10m. For all accounts and purposes, in the world of cruising sailing vessels, our boat is quite small. When I told Ovidiu, the guy that owns the biggest sailing school in Romania, the same one I attended, that I wanted to buy one, he said: “Oh, a MI-NI-MUM of 40 feet!”. Well…

To give you an idea, the living space is smaller than a studio. I touch the ceiling with the top of my head when I’m standing. I’m 1.84m (6 feet) tall. I’m also touching both ends of our bed when I lie in it. Head and toes.

Did I tell you the space is small?

I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a space this small, even when I was a student. And it’s two of us now. And a really, really active dog. Cute, but waaaay too active most of the time.

So, why, then?

Well, I’ve discovered sailing in 2015, when I decided I needed to have a hobby that takes me away from the computer screen. Then, over the years, I went sailing with friends, a week at a time. And I always asked myself: is it possible to do this for longer? And slower, not in a race to go to as many places as possible in a week, the rental period?

As you can see on YouTube when you search “sailing”, yes, it’s possible. People live long term on their sailing boats. They sell everything they own and they move on their boats and sail around the world.

And it sounds amazing. But truth is, I love my PS5. I love my car and the road trips. I love my home, I love living in a city with a multiplex cinema and I greatly enjoy a fast internet connection for work and play. I’m writing this on a really, really, bad connection in Greece and trust me, we don’t realize how good we have it with a fast and stable internet.

But I really, really want to see how it is to live on a boat. I want to wake up in cute marinas and harbors, in small bays, next to small beaches and greek tavernas and enjoying the sunrise on the water. I want for time to stand still when it takes you 6 hours to sail 30-40kms.

So, yeah. For 3-4-5 months a year, we’re gonna live on a boat. We start in Greece, which we love, and visit all the islands around here until we get bored. In a year or 2, or in 10. And then move to Italy, maybe. Or Croatia. Or Spain.

Or, you know. We could hate it. And that’s when we sell the boat and go back to living all the time in the house we love, with a really good and stable internet connection.

Until then, though, we’re really excited to see what’s next. We still need to put the boat back on the water, since it’s been “on hard”, as they, since 2020. So we need to sand it, repaint it and add what is called as “antifouling”. And we need to clean it thoroughly before moving in. And then sail away to the closest island.

If you are interested in what we’re gonna do, stay connected. I’m gonna write about this, we’re gonna make videos about this.

Oh, and do you remember the cute, active dog I was telling you about? He actually has an Instagram account where we post more things in real time. You should follow it. More than 94,000 people already do :)

This is an email I posted on the newsletter for The CEO Library, as part of a Startup Founder Reading plan. Here’s the entire 16 books list

So you kinda know what to expect from your entrepreneurial adventure. You also have a product, a team and you know how to pitch. You maybe got a small angel investment, as well.

Still, how do you get users? How do you tell people where to find you and why to use your product?

Well, this is what Ca$hvertising is for. Or its complete name, CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone by Drew Eric Whitman. Please, ignore the clickbaity title, which is actually not bad, once you think about it, and read the book anyway.

Reasons to read the book:

• It gives you guiding principles around creating and improving your ads
• It pushes you to see ads as a tool to be used, not as a creativity contest
• Gives you suggestions on influencing the potential users.

Look, I’m not telling you to lie about your product or anything like that. But you can say one thing in different ways, one way being the one that gets you the users.

Story time: when we started MavenHut, the best way to get users to your app, fast and effective, was to use Facebook Ads. Of course, that meant spending money, money we didn’t have. Well, we had about $5/day, but it certainly wasn’t enough to make an impact on our business. Or so I thought. I mean, it cost me around $1-$2/user, it really wasn’t enough.

Then someone recommended “Ca$hvertising” to me. And once I understood what I can do, I got to the point where I would bring 3 users in the app for every 2 cents I spent (yes, 2 users/$0.03). Yes, they were users from “cheaper” countries when it came to ads, like Argentina, Mexico or Colombia, but they were real users, that could give us feedback on our apps. This is how we got the first 15,000 users in Solitaire Arena. Then Facebook’s “virality” brought more. Eventually, we got users from the more “expensive” countries, as well, by reusing the ads that worked in the ones we targeted initially. By the time we sold Solitaire Arena we had more than 30 million installs across platforms. And it all began with Ca$hvertising and $5/day.

Of course, not everybody wants to buy ads. But the same principles that make good ads also make good copywriting and good content. So read the book anyway :)

If you want to see some of the processes we used to bring the first users (when we only bought ads for US users), here’s an article I wrote on my blog several years ago: MavenHut’s First Step, A Click and A Form: A Case Study on Starting Your Startup with Less than $200

Bobby

P.S.: Ah, you’re right, I almost forgot the book recommendation in case you already got through Ca$hvertising. Or if you read fast. How about Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins. While it’s a bit too early to apply most of the principles in the book, I think it’s a good read to give you a blueprint for how you should run your company and how the company should be built.

P.P.S: One more thing: if you read any of the books, let me know through the contact page on the site or at getintouch@theceolibrary.com. Or reply to this email. I want to hear from you, to better understand what you want to read and if the books are interesting for you.