correct me if i’m wrong

Apple works hard to hide the fact that you can buy cheap MacBook RAM at the fraction of their $150/2GB price and install it yourself. All it takes is these few simple steps:

1. Download the Crucial System Scanner.
2. Mount the drive and run the scanner.
3. Order the memory from Crucial. The scanner will take you directly to the correct webpage. The price as of August 28th, 2009 is $40 for a 2GB stick.
4. Buy a Phillips size 00 screwdriver at the hardware store if you don’t have one. This will cost you $5. I used a size 0 and it worked fine on my aluminum MacBook. A normal toolset may or may not have such a small screwdriver.
5. Follow the installation instructions here.

My late 2008 MacBook came with two sticks of 1GB, one in each of the two slots, so I upgraded to a total of 3GB. If you want to increase to 4GB, you’ll have to buy 2 2GB sticks and replace both your 1GB sticks.

Total cost:

$45.44 for a total of 3GB
$85.44 for a total of 4GB

I cringe every time I read a blog post purporting starting a company outside of Silicon Valley because “rent is cheaper.” I would eat my hat if I ever heard a failed entrepreneur lamenting “the expensive rent” in his quest for glory. The general intuition is simple: you gotta spend money to make money, and rent is a minuscule (i.e., negligible) expenditure if you’re truly building a real company with millions in revenue. These words never seemed to pack enough of a punch, though. Fortunately, Hacker News reader, Joel Sutherland, states it beautifully:

Joel: Low cost of living. For a tech startup, Ramen and split-rent costs about the same everywhere. A low cost of living generally means that the people around you are used to paying less for things. Silicon Valley is nice because the population has money and is ready to spend it and founders can get by for dirt cheap just as they would anywhere else.

Q: I don’t understand. It sounds like you’re saying rent costs the same everywhere. It manifestly does not.

Joel: If I’m going to quit my job for a full-time startup the difference between $500 on rent in Omaha and $1000 rent in SF is not large enough to optimize for.

Those numbers are probably exaggerated as well. If you really wanted to live cheap you could do $300 and $600 I’m sure. The point is that the difference between the costs of living decreases in an absolute sense when you are living cheap.

Paying double for Ramen is not a big deal if it means you are living in an area where there are investors.

I’m not going to state how the ecosystem pushes you forward in the competitive landscape, or cite the endless success stories, or elegize the world-class university system. I just want to keep a permanent record of this for reference.

I spelled out my goals at the beginning of this year. They are horribly outdated.

Revised Goals for 2009

1. Blog an average of once a week.
2. Read one book every two weeks.
3. Lift weights two times a week.
4. Become well-versed in machine learning.
5. Volunteer with students in science-related activities.
6. Ramen profitability for WatchUWant!

Long-Term

1. Speak four languages by the age of 30 (english, spanish, french, kanji)
2. Learn to box
3. Become a millionaire by 35
4. Rewrite book 7 of the Harry Potter series

Reflecting On What Went Wrong

My original goals didn’t exactly pan out. Stop reading here if you don’t want to be bored.

My first book of the year was Zen The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a philosophical narrative about how motorcycle maintenance parallels fundamental values. It has three or four solid themes that the author hammers home for nearly 500 pages. I eventually dreaded picking it up and it stalled my progress for months. I concluded that I don’t need to finish everything I start and so I moved on.

Lifting weights takes up too much energy to do three times a week, especially leg work outs. I compromised by doing two days a week of upper body and legs when I feel like it.

I was salsa dancing up to four times a week earlier this year, and improving quite rapidly. But then I stopped. This is a sisyphean skill, and as soon as you let the boulder roll down the mountain lifting it back up is a magnitude of effort harder than maintaining it.

I stopped working on iFlex and Wordisms to devote my time to WatchUWant. I would like to polish and release iFlex, time permitting.

I am looking forward to helping at the National Hispanic University in August, which is an organization designed to help Hispanics get degrees. This includes running after-school and summer programs for high-school students to obtain important college prep skills. I hope my volunteer work provides a basis for more community involvement later.