Drew Yates

I’m going into genomics.

What more is there to say about yesterday’s hot market?

The biggest new player is Facebook? Listen, Facebook is OK. Owning a social graph may be an interesting asset. But when biggest, most exciting leader in the market helps teenagers share inanity with their friends? Fuck this. What the hell was I thinking by taking this shit seriously?

The last big thing was Google, and GOOGLE gets me any information about anything immediately. Holy holy shit. What else is there to do after Google on the web? What was I thinking to chase yesterday’s big thing?

Good bye.

“Christopher” left the following quote in comment for Richard Dawkins is a Pompous Ass and an Idiot

Too bad so many self proclaimed atheists cannot get beyond the revenge of the nerds factor

I felt that was worth repeating.

I say this without addressing the actual substance of the belief. Frankly, if my opinion on the matter isn’t obvious by implication, you probably don’t belong on this website.

On news.ycombinator.com, somebody posted this this startup for review: Much Closer.

And so: Andrew Yates’s Official Review of MuchCloser.com, colon, Narrative.

John firmly shut and bolted the door to his studio apartment. It had been a long day, but his project had made some tangible progress.

John switched on the PC and, standing there a moment, dropped his coat. Did it seem like Windows was taking forever? Must be time for a reinstall… maybe this weekend. Quickly, John popped a frozen dinner into the microwave. It was optimal to let the microwave run while he waited. Watch the scroll run left to right to right to right…

John liked being efficient.

The perfect internet configuration sprung to life on screen as if prompted by that familiar, slumped release into the desk chair. It felt like home. Yet another meandering night of technical news and internet pornography. It was so, So … hmm … oh, ? .. click. … .

BUT WAIT! SUDDENLY MUCHCLOSER.COM APPEARS ON THE SCREEN!

SWEET MOTHER HOLY FUCK FUCK THIS I HAVE TO GO OUT TO THE BAR! John snatches his laptop (carefully pre-screened to muchcloser.com, of course) and dashes out!

wait. John forgot his wallet in his coat. Sigh… which key is this? God damn it…

Wait, should I wear the coat? It’s not that cold, but it might be, but I’m not sure if I want to take this with me all night. Well, I guess I could always check it… yah… wait! do I have cash? Uh… no, better grab some quarters… … uh … Ok, mental note: get quarters at Safeway… Wait, I can just stop at Wells Fargo on the way, sort of, ok, mental note: go to ATM. Isn’t it like… it’s like 15% to get cash from the fucking bar ATM right… but then, it’s $3 dollars to buy a beer at the bar, so it’s not that big of a deal

SWEET MOTHER HOLY FUCK I HAVE TO GO!

And John goes to the bar. And John plugs in his laptop and fires up muchcloser.com, setting it carefully on the black perforated foam mat on the end of the bar as to avoid unnecessary electrical risk. And John chats up the ladies. And the ladies chat up John! And John suddenly is wearing a stripe-y shirt! And suddenly, all the dudes are wearing stripe-y shirts! And all the ladies want to dance! And the ladies think John is super hawt in his stripe-y shirt and want to dance! And John is a super great dancer so he fucking fucks every girl in the bar in his super stripe-y shirt! And all the stripe-y shirt dudes are actually pretty sweet except that one douche who tries to fight but doesn’t because John is like “I know martial arts and I will fight you all right now but yah right I’m busy so pff” and they all line up to give John high fives and start fights! And John is like

“FUCK YES FINALLY ALL MY EFFORTS LOGGING AND SORTING MY PERSONAL SOCIAL DATA ON MUCHCLOSER.COM HAS PAID OFF AND I WILL NEVER HAVE TO MASTURBATE TO INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY EVER AGAIN I AM A GOD!”

So after a huge night out on the town (and everyone is like: hi John! And John is like, wait a sec, and half-opens his laptop in the cradle of his arm and tries to quickly navigate muchcloser.com with that crappy little clit mouse but that’s hard! because the laptop is hard to balance and where is this guy on the list and jeez just wait a sec oh right your name is Hey, Rich!), John walks into a Denny’s where John Doerr, who was recently hired by Sequoia, hands John a dufflebag of cash to buy MuchCloser.com.

Ding! dinner’s ready!

• Learn Python (and build something interesting with it)
• Move to San Francisco with entrepreneur friends
• Consistently be able to do V4 bouldering and 5.10c+ wall at the rock climbing gym (without cheating)
• Change jobs to be working with a team
• Get the resources and Build and Launch Glaukai
• Launch at least one other significant venture with a team
• Release at least one auxiliary project per month (takes less than 40 hours to be appreciated)
• Get Personal Finances in order
  • pay off credit card debt
  • open ING saving account, start saving
  • get health insurance
  • refinance car
  • start retirement account Roth IRA
  • net monthly income to $11k by end of the year
• Start a real relationship with a girlfriend (2 time flings are getting very old)
• Clean up this blog, start a topical blog without the personal journal stuff
• Actually do some more artwork!
• Learn how to advertise (online in particular, but other media, too)
• Hire an assistant

It seems to me that setting ridiculously audacious goals like “start a bank” and “be a liquid millionaire by 25″ are goals one reaches by achieving a foundation of many smaller important yet understandably achievable goals.

I’ll come back and periodically review and revise these.

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Ba-ba-BE-HOLD!

Ivy-League Walmart Prep Apparel at WalmartPride.com (coming soon)

Ivy League Wal-Mart Hooded Sweatshirt
$24.99

Ivy League Wal-Mart Sweatshirt
$20.99

Ivy League Wal-Mart Organic Cotton Tee
$16.99

From the Economist: Hunter-gatherers: Noble or savage?

The era of the hunter-gatherer was not the social and environmental Eden that some suggest.

Q. Why does misery and inequality seem to coincide with technological progress?

A. Because the dead don’t fill surveys.

I never understood why this wasn’t intuitive… especially when I can buy 500 multi-vitamins for less than an hour’s worth of pay…

Heck, I can do absolutely nothing and the government will feed me save Armageddon. (that one spends food stamps wisely is another matter)

In the wild, doing nothing is called “starving.”

I’ve noticed that I conjugate verbs to what I’m thinking, not to what I say.

For example:

He said there was some issues…

From my speech, you can infer that I know more than I’m saying. Specifically, I probably know “the issue” specifically, not that I’m repeating an ambiguity relayed to me.

In this case, this is true. I knew the specific “issue” and my grammar implied that.

for girls who may or may not frequent my office

1. Co-workers of your mother are not for flirting practice.

There are only three morally-acceptable, safe targets for flirting:

1. Your happily married father
2. Your asexual grandfather
3. Your dog

Cats are for grown-up girls and are for advanced man-substitution behavior only. (important!)

2. (Male) Engineers are not cats.

This is a common misconception. Like cats, engineers can be cute, non-threatening, and affectionate (when they’re not annoying). They may also stay up all night and secretly want to kill you. However, unlike cats, engineers rarely shit in boxes and probably want to fuck you (see 3).

3. All men want to fuck you.

This is a little-white-lie like gravity or Jesus that’s safer to believe outright than the complicated, ugly, overweight, unavailable, or statutory rape-ish truth. Better play safe than sorry! (see 1).

4. Learn to control your body language.

Oops! Not every guy is as tolerant of disrespect as the vanilla engineer variety! Your brain may be saying “I’m just chilling with my platonic dude friends, dude” but is your body saying “tee hee, look at me! I’m so cute and sexy and I want all your attention!”?

Observe and beware the following watch list:

• playing with hair while talking, neck exposed, wrists exposed, other self-touching and self-rubbing gestures
• touching men, especially above the elbow or on the leg
• gymnastics, especially headstands and cartwheels
• any kind of leaning or “snuggling,” especially under blankets during movies in the dark

5. Beware Compliments

Not sure if your positive, go-go preppy attitude is too flirtatious in mixed company? Imagine you’re one guy talking to another guy and reapply the situation via the Gay Test (see example below).

Your Compliment: You have such striking eyes.
Gay Test Translation: I want to put my penis in your butt.

Ambiguous? Less so.

Free Bonus!

6. Stop With The Ivy League Sweatshirts

While I’m sure the world is due a splash of class, I urge you to reconsider your casual-yet-status-conscious preppy attire. Rather than shamelessly brand yourself with whatever Ivy League(ish) label, I suggest a greater ambition:

Why settle for a mere university when you can push The World’s Number One (#1) Retailer?

Check out these stats:

2007 Sales: $348,650.0M
One year growth: 10.5%
Net income: $11,284.0M

Woah!

Here is a quick label-upgrading guide to better announce your affiliation with America’s most successful institutions.

Stanford: Walmart
Yale:Walmart
Harvard: Walmart
Brown: Walmart
Walmart: Walmart

Seriously. Maybe it’s sample bias.

I just write about the quite ordinary thoughts of some guy in his twenties. The most exciting thing I’ve done was tear up my resume and drive to California. People do that all the time. Not everybody, but surely, lots of people.

Yah, I have idea about “changing the world” and “doing great things,” but so do lots of idealistic kids. Yah, I’ve made some progress that could be arguably justified as meaningful, but many others have done more better sooner.

Not that many people read this site. But sometimes do I get emails, which I do appreciate, but it’s odd. I’m not being self-depreciating, I’m being realistic. I do my best, and maybe I’ll create something truly meaningful, but really, I know that the great are the few lucky picks in a ping-pong lottery machine of people like me.

Here’s to a fling to oblivion! Huzzah Y-chromosome away!

ping!