I found out today I’m on the StartupBus this year. More to follow…
Leaping into the Abyss: Homebrewing to Professional Brewing
Preface: I was recently asked to provide some links to my “online identities”, so naturally I googled myself to see what I was presenting. I came across an interesting tidbit from about 15 years ago on the site of an old business I was part of, and I’ve decided to re-post it here. Some of the references are a little dated, but I’ve kept the original text rather than trying to rework it. Even though the brewing industry and the economy and my own life have changed dramatically, I stand by what I said then, and still try to take many of those lessons to heart.
On May 16, 1998 Andy was a judge at the Second Annual Western New York Homebrew Competition at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in Buffalo, New York. That night, he was the guest keynote speaker. These are his notes from that speech.
Leaping into the Abyss: Homebrewing to Professional Brewing
Introductions
First, by show of hands, how many of you out there make beer? How many get paid for making beer? How many are thinking about becoming professional brewers? How many are thinking about opening your own brewery? How many have friends who have said, “You should sell this beer.” Does anybody have friends who have said, “You should sell this beer. Here’s a check for $500,000 to build a brewery.” No? Me neither.
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Downtime
The site will be down now-and-then over the next few days for some year-end maintenance.
Why I have to vote for Barack Obama
I should start by saying that I don’t think that Obama has been a particularly good president. I have a great deal of respect for President Obama personally, and I was somewhat enthused to vote for him 2008. But now I fall squarely into what the press has come to call “the enthusiasm gap.” I’m particularly concerned about his failure to improve transparency in the federal government, and his continuation of the Bush-era approach of thinking that the Executive Branch is immune from judicial oversight. See here and here for examples of what I’m talking about. Finally, I think Obamacare is a mediocre, watered-down solution to a very significant problem.
Which brings me to the elephant in my room. I have some medical history, and given the chance, medical insurers will turn me down. Nevermind that my medical issues are congenital, rather than self-inflicted, and that I’ve been insured from the day I was born to my current 45 years-of-age. If they can drop me, or avoid paying for “pre-existing conditions” they will.
I don’t really want to vote for Obama, but I can’t allow Romney (or any of the current crop of Republicans) to get elected. Romney has vowed to repeal Obamacare, and throughout the health-insurance fight, no national-level Republican offered any alternative. No matter how poor I think Obamacare is, it’s a tiny step in the right direction. And the Republicans have vowed to repeal it and though some claim they would replace it with something else, they can’t or won’t say with what. (Between you and me, they seem a lot more enthusiastic about the “repeal” part than the “replace” part.)
I can’t take that risk. So I can’t let Romney win. And I live in Ohio. So I have to vote for Obama.
Slides from iOS SQL Cipher talk are up
The slides from my talk last night at the Cleveland Cocoaheads meeting are up in the Downloads section. Thanks to all who attended.
Brush with Fame
So, in the last two days, I’ve been mentioned by name in the San Francisco Chronicle, and my work has been featured on Cleveland’s ABC television affiliate. I’m going to need to hire an image consultant.
Of course, they’ll probably want me to stop wandering around the house in my underwear. 
UPDATE: Before my head gets too big I should point out that the SF Chronicle article isn’t about me, rather it’s about the great Mary Burge, who has been Stanford Medical Center’s Transplant Social Worker for >30 years, and does an amazing and outstanding job; and is much more worthy of fame than myself.
The ABC piece isn’t about me either, but I helped.
Planned Downtime
The site will be down for maintenance this evening for an hour or so. I’ll probably start about 9:30pm Eastern.
UPDATE: Back up. The site was down for about a half-hour.
Slides from iOS External Accessory talk are up
The slides from my talk last night at the Cleveland Cocoaheads meeting are up in the Downloads section. Thanks to all who attended.
Catching up
So, I’ve been away from the blog for a couple years, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. Quite the contrary: I’ve been working with two startups (Codeswell and DXY Solutions), mostly writing Apps for iPhone and iPad as well as working on a new product for DXY which should come out later this year.
Among the more interesting projects have been:
- Cleveland Historical, a location-based App that allows you to explore Cleveland’s history through Cleveland State’s vast digital archive of pictures, audio, and video clips.
- C3, an App for researchers at the Cleveland Clinic who are evaluating student athletes for concussion. It uses the accellerometer and gyroscope in an iPad to measure “postural sway”, which has high correlation with certain types of concussion.
- U-Scan, a consumer-level automotive-service application, with an external hardware component that reads diagnostic information from your car and talks to the phone via Bluetooth.
I’ve also managed to do a little robot work, and squeeze in a couple of Stanford’s online AI classes. More on that in a future post.
Relaunch
After two years of inactivity, I’ve moved this blog to a new server and plan to start adding posts again in the near future. Stay tuned…