Category: Life

Life

French Medicine

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date September 18, 2011

Ian Morrison: “Carte Vitale. The French have a ubiquitous electronic smart card called Carte Vitale that contains basic health information on the patient. It is really a portable electronic health record and insurance card. Doctors also swipe it through a card reader for billing purposes.”

I picked the above snippet because my brother, Jay, is a medical professional and is interested in stuff like this, but this article goes way beyond that. Read the entire article. It’s pretty darned interesting and foreign to most Americans.

I’ve been saying it for years, Americans don’t know how to live.

Wonder if I can get my lovely wife to move to France? Probably not.

Tags Medicine

Life

My 9/11

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date September 11, 2011

Kim came in the bedroom and said “Rob, they hit the towers.” I was groggy, it’s was close to six in the morning. I stumbled out of bed and walked into the living room. The TV was tuned to the news and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A live shot of World Trade Center One, smoke billowing out of a giant hole. Kim went on “They say it’s terrorists.” I didn’t have anything to say, what could I say.

Tower Two hit We sat stunned and listened to the punditry speculate on what was really going on. Fifteen minutes later we watched in horror as a second plane came into view and slammed into the second tower. My heart was racing. Was that a replay of the original hit? No, couldn’t have been, Tower One was in view as the plane hit. All I could think was, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, ARE WE AT WAR?

We were glued to the TV. We watched and listened. Then Tower Two collapsed. Not long after that Tower One came down. We were horrified. I don’t know how else to describe how everyone felt.

I sat on the couch for a while, the news was pretty much showing the same stuff over and over. We didn’t know what was going on. I got up, took a shower, and got ready for work.

I arrived at work sometime after nine, and tried to get through to CNN and MSNBC. Web sites were flooded with traffic, I couldn’t get through. Dave Winer’s Scripting News was still up and running, so I kept refreshing it every few minutes while trying to get through to CNN. Hitting CNN seemed futile, I stuck with Scripting News.

I was still working at Microsoft at the time. At some point that day we all received email saying we could go home. I was so distracted I couldn’t get anything done so I went home.

I wrote how I was feeling that day, and in the days to follow. Remember, we didn’t have Facebook or Twitter back then, just a nice network of webloggers. (Start where the link takes you and scroll up.)

Robert Scoble’s son, Patrick, provided us with a bit of hope at the end of the week with a beautiful picture. I saved it. The original link to Robert’s Manilla page is gone. I have no idea where that post lives now. It seems like Robert has allowed his weblogging history to disappear. That’s a real shame.

Tags 9/11/2001, Tragedy

Life

Police helped Apple employees?

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date September 5, 2011

CNN: “Four San Francisco Police officers escorted Apple investigators to a home in the city’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, the statement said. The two Apple employees searched the home while the officers waited outside, police said. They did not find the item there and declined to file a police report, according to the statement.”

Does that seem backward to you? Why would the police wait outside? This is either horrible reporting or horrible police work.

I hope it’s horrible reporting.

Tags Apple, Backwards, iPhone, Weird

Apple Life

August 24, 2011

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date August 25, 2011

That’s a day a lot of us will remember. It’s the day Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple. I wanted to record it here because all the talk on Twitter will disappear at some point and I want a permanent record of it.

Here’s the full text of his letter.

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Appleâ€™s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Appleâ€™s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

I wish him well. I really, really, do. Forget about Apple, Apple will be just fine, I’m more worried about the condition of the man.

Life

Chew on That

Jerry Fahrni: “Median household income in 2009 in the US was approximately $50K. Median NFL player salary is approximately $770,000. That means the average person in the US has to work about 15 years to earn that. Think about that for minute. Now do the math on these: Cowboys signed Tyson Smith to a four-year, $12.5 million deal which is entirely guaranteed. Bengals signed A.J. Green to a four-year, $19.6 million deal, all of which is also guaranteed. Denver signed Von Miller to a four-year, $21-million deal. The players are complaining that these contracts are â€œlowâ€. Chew on that for a while.”

Yes, I’d ride the pine for $770,000 a year.

Life

Happy Anniversary Love

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date August 14, 2011

It’s our 24th wedding anniversary. I have to pinch myself sometimes. I can’t believe the woman I fell in love with so long ago has put up with me for 24 wonderful years.

We’ve come a long way. Here we were then.

And today.

Each year has been a blessing and I look forward to many, many, more.

I love you Kim Fahrni. Always have, always will.

Tags Kim, Our Wedding

Life

T.T.F.N LEVEL, I Still â™¥ You

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date July 29, 2011
6 Comments on T.T.F.N LEVEL, I Still â™¥ You

It’s true. Today is my last day with LEVEL Studios. It’s hard to say goodbye to a place like this, especially when you do love her and her people. It’s been a fun year, but it’s time for me to move on.

Why?

That’s the hard part to explain, because I really do love this company. It’s full of smart, energetic, people. It has a great company culture and fantastic leadership. The “problem” falls squarely with me.

They're bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun... Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the native client experience. I’ve had the honor to work with a team that created a new segment in Windows drawing applications and I’ve worked on native iOS applications and I LOVE that experience. I think User Experience, or UX, is so important and I believe the best way to provide that important experience is through native API’s provided by the platform vendor. So, yes, I’m going back to writing desktop software. No, it’s not on the Mac, or iOS, even though I’d love to do that. I’m going back to writing Windows software. That’s right, back to C++ and Windows! I can see my fellow LEVEL’ites rolling their eyes. That’s ok, I likes me some native clients. It’s in my blood.

Where?

Where is a great question. We’re staying in San Luis Obispo, we don’t plan on leaving this place. I’m going to work for a company called CygNet. They’re a product company. From the CygNet website.

CygNet Software provides enterprise software and industry solutions that collect, manage and distribute essential operations data. Robust, proven and evergreen, CygNet extends customer horizons with improved operational efficiency and increased market responsiveness

I’ll be working on products used to collect and analyze data from Oil and Gas Pipelines, and I get to work on UI again! Yes, I’m pretty stoked about it!

On the LEVEL

LEVEL is a definite powerhouse when it comes to the web. In fact I’d encourage young up-and-coming web developers or designers to consider LEVEL as a place to start your career. You’ll learn loads. LEVEL is chock full of great web developers, not to mention fantastic designers.

A wonderful boquet of flowers. Oh, yeah, and there’s this great group of folks, they keep in a dark room, that develop great, high performance, highly scalable, web services. One of our web services is serving near four million users worldwide, and growing every day. Yes, LEVEL can build these things. Shhhhhh, keep that under your hat, it’s a secret!

Would I work here again? Absolutely. That’s what made this decision so tough.

Epilog

I don’t believe in saying Goodbye, goodbye is forever. I’ll just say TTFN *Le Publetta.

*Le Publetta is a combination of LEVEL, Publicis, and Rosetta. I think it’s a strong name, don’t you?

Tags C++, CygNet, Job, LEVEL, Windows

Life

Free State Initiative

Post author By Rob Fahrni
Post date July 28, 2011

Free State Initiative [Hat Tip @arsydotorg]: “Our mission is to create one or more Free States somewhere in the world. Our strategy is to seek out a potential partner country or countries which are willing to host a Free State in a scarcely populated region with little or no natural resources.”

This is very interesting. Want to reboot? This could be your chance.