Note: this post appeared originally on the Sonya Labs blog.

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Of all places, I never would've expected to build my startup in Pittsburgh. I moved to the 'burgh from Chicago when Sonya Labs got a seed-stage investment from AlphaLab. It is not so unfathomable that I'm here, though, it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Even Paul Graham, a Pittsburgh native, who is famous for advising that startups go to Boston or Sillicon Valley says so!

Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people. The top US Computer Science departments are said to ...

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At least for a good while. I guess life is what happens to you while you make (or execute?) plans.

My spirits are similar to those experienced by fellow physics-grad-school-drop-out turned entrepreneur Andres from octopart when embarking in his new endeavor. Main difference is that I don't see my life as languishing in mediocrity because of being in grad school. In fact, I'm leaving with a heavy heart and a great deal of nostalgia to pursue what is obviously a better path for me for the immediate future.

I'll come back one day.

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Startuping has been on my mind a lot as of late and as a result there were over 600 unread items on my google reader. So, I finally sat down and started marking things as read without reading them, un-marking the ones that seemed more interesting, starring, reading the ones that were short enough to be quick, and that sort of a thing. Annoying. Why doesn't the reader do this for me? It should know by now what I like. It is a good friend of mine. I go see it every day. But wait, this is a meta-problem ...

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I'm not half as cool as to have Greek heroes and turtles, so I'll introduce Steve in their stead. He is a real person. He goes to graduate school with me. But, otherwise he is my diametrically opposite evil twin. We've had almost-heated arguments on things like public health care, US foreign policy, ethics, economics, and we always seem to take opposite sides. Maybe I exaggerate. Whatever.

Steve: May I ask you a philosophical question?

rz: Are you talking to me? Oh dear lord. Only as long as you promise me that I'll be done "answering ...

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It is that time of year when google starts taking applications for GSoC. The Google Summer of Code is a neat idea, really: pay a bunch of students enough to live on for the summer in exchange for them contributing to open source software. While the aim is very different, GSoC remindes me of how REUs work. This got me thinking...

Consider how science and technology work. Some talented person(s) is passionate enough about his science to pursue it at great costs. I'd even venture that most of us would do it "for free" as long as we ...

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Materials

These are the learning materials I have and will be using. Since I've been studying this stuff for a little bit I know a little about them. In no particular order:

Aitchison and Hey, Gauge Theories in Particle Physics

For some reason I was intimidated by the title, but this is an excellent book to get your feet wet with. Focuses on the conceptual parts more than the math and therefore it often leaves you hanging as far as believing what you are writing. I'd say start any topic here and don't get hang up on ...

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I've been struggling with personal productivity as of late. I seem to not be able to get too much done. However, the situation has been improving slowly and I thought I'd share the things that have been working.

I started by reading Aaron Swartz's personal productivity guide. It is full of good advice, so I won't try extracting any of it here. It is worth the read.

Optimization

People often don't understand my obsession with having, knowing and using keyboard shortcuts instead of my mouse. Said obsession kicks in specially when I am writing web-related ...

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