The box. That's what we're all trying to think outside of, right? Well, BarCampWaterloo , as an open source tech mini-conference is the perfect way to do that.

This Saturday, march 3. 11-5. At The Waterloo Accelerator Centre , just north of UW.

OK, so I don't actually HAVE the Nokia N95 yet, since it's not out until some time in March, but man, I can't wait.

I just got my phone bill for Munich and it's death. I make 200 minutes of phone calls in Munich, brutal. Why didn't I buy a SIM card? Oh, it's just too much trouble updating people about your new phone #, isn't it? Well, I didn't even think of it, I was so busy, and then I had to do a lot of phone talking even though I did try to keep it to a minimum. Still, with calls back to North America at $2 a minute, and calls inside Germany at $1 a minute, it added up $364.95.

Now I'm thinking, yes, the N95 is going to be expensive, but now I can justify the cost. See the N95 has built-in WiFi and SIP support, and so you can automatically route your calls through a SIP system. To start off with I can use something like Truphone or Gizmo which are like Skype, and both support calling out to regular phone numbers. So, anytime I'm in a hotspot I can make calls super cheap (including hotel room and conference centre, which is where I made most of my calls anyway).

In addition With the built-in SIP support the phone will now automatically roam back and forth between an available SIP stack that's provided over the WiFi connection. To start off with I can set up a SIP network at home and at the office. But SIP services are expanding into hotspots worldwide and so, soon, I will be able to send and receive calls via SIP in a TOTALLY AUTOMATIC way over WiFi connections that I roam into. Cool or what?

The bottom line: this phone can pay for itself!!!

Before I get into the post, a quick update, since I've been short on those lately. The trip to Munich was successful. I really enjoyed DLD. I posted a bit of a travelogue in my DLD07 set on flickr .

Anyway, to continue in my recent theme of writing about starting about a business.

I've been trying to sort out for a long time why the spreadsheet is so special. It has magic powers. I put in these numbers and I can make them dance.

Now I think that it's special because it combines two seemingly opposite traits. First, when I build a budget or a "financial plan" in my spreadsheet I make a lot of seemingly haphazard guesses. I put in hard figures but they're guesses. Like that I'm going to hire X people in Q4. Or they're oddly round numbers, like all PCs cost $1000. These numbers are essentially speculative.

On the other hand, the spreadsheet is so concrete. Even though I put in these nice round numbers, when it all flows through the chain of equations, it comes out in dimes and cents. I can see specific amounts broken down any which way I want. By department, by project, by employee. And I can make a small change and watch it ripple through the whole document updating all of the precise dollars and cents.

Ultimately, I can make the whole document even more concrete by fine-tuning the figures until they reflect some kind of shared reality that myself, my advisors, and my investors all agree upon.

So somehow, this consensual hallucination that I create (and then refine with my team) has the ability to progress over time, in a very gradual, almost invisible process, into a practical, solid document. At some point it actually becomes reality (or at least I can update it to reflect what actually happened, or compare real and projected results). That's pretty damned flexible.

PS I once saw an amazing short film or TV show about the history of spreadsheets. I think I found it on some bittorrent site some years ago but I can't find it any more. Any help would be appreciated.

Robert Heinlein is the source of some great quotes. Like TANSTAAFL, There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (I promise to prove it in another post). Also he had this one:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

My uncle has a hand-calligraphy version of this on his wall. Now, I happen to disagree with certain ones of those, but generally, that is, on the whole, I support the idea because I've always been a bit of a generalist.

Generalists have a problem in this modern world. Society these days is geared to specialists. Virtually any educational or job pattern wants you to specialize more and more until you achieve the maximum of achievement by being really, really good at some small area that no-one else can touch you in. Large successful companies love people like this. When I was younger I always felt that I didn't fit in (for example at CS school) because I would never be just interested in some narrow thing. I wanted to know about everything.

Now I've discovered that Founder / CEO is the perfect job for a generalist. Not only does it stretch you personally, but you need to become competent at so many things. To paraphrase Heinlein, a founder / CEO should be able to sell a product, balance a budget, hire an employee, invent a technology, build a team, design an office, pitch to investors, hold off creditors, look good on TV, speak to the public, write good copy, be friendly to strangers, prioritize like a maniac, envision the future, and create tomorrow. Miss too many of those and you're not going to make it.

To some people that might sound like a nightmare. Personally, I enjoy being able to turn my mind to so many different things over the course of the week. Repetition is boredom. And I like to learn, and there's always new things to learn in this job.

Of course Heinlein also occasionally was a pompous full of himself know it all (as projected into characters like Jubal Harshaw). But we all have our flaws.