"If you lack commitment, you'll just find that for some mysterious reason good things happen to your competitors but not to you. If you lack commitment, it will seem to you that you're unlucky."

From The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn by Paul Graham.

"[Why do so few would-be entrepreneurs] really think about what customers want? I think the problem with many, as with people in their early twenties generally, is that they've been trained their whole lives to jump through predefined hoops. They've spent 15-20 years solving problems other people have set for them. And how much time deciding what problems would be good to solve? Two or three course projects? They're good at solving problems, but bad at choosing them.

But that, I'm convinced, is just the effect of training. Or more precisely, the effect of grading. To make grading efficient, everyone has to solve the same problem, and that means it has to be decided in advance. It would be great if schools taught students how to choose problems as well as how to solve them, but I don't know how you'd run such a class in practice."

From Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas by Paul Graham.

We went to see the local roller derby team last night, and it was simply awesome. With a thrilling conclusion, the home team defeated the #1 team in the nation by a single point.

I decided to run 10 miles on the treadmill yesterday and finished in 1:53. It will take a few more of those to completely work off Thanksgiving though!

... everywhere you go (at the Freed house). Elise has lights on the deck, the big tree in the front (in candy cane pattern), on the front columns and all the front bushes. We also got our Christmas tree, as well as some schmoozing and homemade hot chocolate from a tree farm on Davis Drive (what a bunch of characters). Perhaps the best part was how bored the dogs acted by all of the decorations... been there, seen that!

Thanks to my wife's good driving skills, I was able to get a Rampage medal (!) in our last game of Halo 3 last night!

"You're much quieter when you're working than you are playing soccer." Guilty as charged!

This classic memory is from the first week of my freshman year at Penn State. I lived in an all-male dorm, and we had decided a good way to get to know each other would be a game of backyard tackle football. There were a couple of interesting personalities involved in the game, including Gary the football-crazed former linebacker, and Ankur the enthusiastic former debate coach.

The game was going well for almost an hour, with both sides evenly matched. Then Ankur caught a pass near the sidelines and was immediately leveled. He laid on the ground in pain as his sympathetic dormmates huddled with hushed breath around him. After a moment, Gary was the first to speak:

"Ankur, can you roll over twice?"

Ankur groaned, but there was a collective sigh of relief as Ankur was able to comply. We in the huddle didn't know what was medically appropriate, but we were glad to see the high school star step in. Gary spoke again:

"OK guys, he's off the field -- let's play!"

(FYI: We soon found out Ankur just had the wind knocked out of him)

Last night, I got back from a week-plus-long trip to Souderton, PA. I had the usual good time with lots of food, family, and friends. (There was also lots of driving, with both to and from taking 9.5+ hours each.) Mom had a Thanksgiving dinner on Turkey Day, and Mom-mom had one on Saturday. Both left me pleasantly stuffed. I even got to restock my snack supplies from the Green Dragon :-)

Last week my beloved giant goldfish Moby was found dead in our fish pond. No apparent cause of death, so we'll have to go with old age. Moby is survived by about twenty-five of his closest friends, who will have a much easier time finding food pellets in the spring, now that Moby is not eating nine at a time!