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People who know me personally know that I'm rarely serious. In person, I tend to crack jokes and be jovial. I'm rarely serious about things -- at least on the surface. But one thing I do take seriously is friendship.

There is little I won't do for my friends. And my capacity to forgive slights (real or imagined) is pretty big. It takes a lot for a friend to get me upset because all actions performed by my friends tend to be filtered through my rose-colored glasses. 

The downside to this is when that friendship is not returned. One-way friendships are hard. If a friend gets mad at me, I'm inclined to assume that I did something wrong and must make good on whatever I did. As I've gotten older I've gotten better at recognizing when someone has a legitimate reason to be unhappy with me and when they're just being a bit narcissistic.

The biggest source of harm to my friendships has been my job. I am the principle owner of a small business. And when I was less experienced I thought it was a great idea to try to bring friends into the company. Bad idea. It can end badly.

One example of this that stings on a regular basis is when a good friend of mine joined the company. He was a great software developer and just a great guy to have around.  This was in 1996 when the company was riding high in the OS/2 market.  Unknown to us, the OS/2 market was on the verge of collapse.  By the summer of 1997, our revenue had dropped from millions per year to a few hundred thousand. We were dying.  The distributors and resellers who sold our software went bankrupt one by one owing us hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. 

Because my friend was so good at what he did, he was also well paid.  By mid-summer 1997 I told him, "Barring a miracle, we're going to have to lay you off by end of November."  We just couldn't afford him anymore financially. He seemed to understand at the time. And November came and no miracle occurred. So I had to lay him off. It was the lowest point in my career and one of my lowest points in my life. The company I had spent years building up was falling apart around me. It was the only time in my life I can say I've experienced real depression.

I thought I'd made the right business moves. We had made award-winning software but people weren't buying it anymore.  The market had gone away almost overnight.  Windows NT 4 had come out and our OS/2 market had swiftly moved to it leaving us with a set of products nobody wanted anymore.

And so we had to lay people off. My friend, because  his outstanding skills correlated to an equivalent salary, was one of the first to go.

Realistically, I should have started laying people off much sooner as the company was in desperate shape by summer 1997. I felt very guilty in having to lay off my friend and put my primary concern into trying to ensure that he had as much time to find new work (which he did fairly quickly since, like I said, he is an exceptional software developer). 

Since he was my friend, I wanted to make sure he was taken care of. So I made sure he had months of advance warning. And afterwards, I made sure he had a good severance package (that I had to borrow money to provide). I made sure everyone we subsequently laid off had warning and severance packages (just not to the same degree). Ultimately, nearly everyone else was laid off too pretty much in order of their salary.

The company ended up surviving on life support and by early 1999 we were starting to recover. Ironically, loyalty did save the day -- loyalty from our former OS/2 customers who were anxious for Windows versions of our software. Their pre-purchase of Object Desktop for Windows (sight unseen) provided the capital to keep going and turn it into a real product. But that was a ways in the future and we had no idea that day would ever come.

Meanwhile, my friend never forgave me. He and his wife subsequently made it clear that they would generally avoid anything me and my wife attended. We have the same shared group of friends so this tended to make things awkward.  And as my instincts tended to do, my view was that I deserved this. After all, I had laid him off and he had every right to be sore.  But it took a long time to realize just how sore he was.

As the years passed and he had quite evidently moved on job-wise and done well, the first tinglings of realization started setting in. We would invite him to birthday parties and LAN parties. We'd send them Christmas letters. Invite them to get togethers. And in return, nothing. No response. And he was clearly boycotting any event that I was going to be at with our shared friends. 

I think that last part, more than anything, brought me around to realizing that he was being unreasonable. I say that because if one of my good friends was having a get together and invited me and I was able to come, I would come regardless of whether someone else was there that I had a problem with (real or imagined). Because friendship should trump any sort of grudge or whatever.

It's not fair to put your friends into awkward positions of having to choose between friends. At least if it can be avoided. The threshold of pain should be high before you start putting your friends in the position of having to make choices.

Having given this situation a lot of thought over the years, I'm confident that no reasonable (or even remotely reasonable) person would conclude that my friend's experience was anywhere near the point to justify his reaction.  This wasn't a divorce or something, he got laid off with a near half-year notice and found another high paying job within weeks. Not exactly a trauma there. He wasn't wronged or misled.

It also started to bug me that this was a black mark against my wife and I.  Because no matter how you slice it, when person A is angry with person B, people are going to think that person B must have done something bad to person A to have earned their ire.  And having looked at things with the benefit of hindsight, my wife and I have concluded that we hadn't done anything to deserve this. And it wasn't until this year (7 years later) when they blew off our invitation for our 10 year wedding anniversary that my wife and I finally got really annoyed. Until that moment, we could easily have considered everything as "water under the bridge" and gone out to the movies together no harm done.

We didn't wrong him. We were good friends to them. The idea of arbitrarily throwing friendships away over unintentional slights is beyond me. Particularly without talking about it. Friendship is important. My wife and I enjoy being around our friends and hearing about their good fortunates and being there for them when they need us.

That's what friendship is all about, sharing your life and your hopes and your joy with other people who are doing the same thing. Love and friendship are the closest things on this earth to real magic. Each friend makes us better, richer, fuller.

And like I said, even with the benefit of hindsight, I can't think of anything I reasonably should have done differently that would have somehow appeased him. I was a good friend. I did the best I could. And there was nothing else I could do. His reaction and subsequent actions show that maybe he was never a true friend. I just don't see how a true friend would do this.

I suspect many people reading this have had friendships that were one-sided. Friendships where you were the one who had to always reach out to them. Or friendships where the "friend" sees things only from their own perspective without concern to how their actions may cause distress or harm to others.  I feel bad for those people because good friends, truly good friends, are the stuff that helps makes life great.

True Friendship is powerful. You feel excitement for their triumphs. Happiness for their good fortune. Sadness for their set backs. And whether you have only a few friends or many friends, each friend is invaluable and precious. And the loss of even a single friend is sorrowful.

BEST OVERALL icon package along with the user vote! Tell us which icon package you felt was the best one of them all!

Tonight I'll be on CNBC's "Bullseye" show.  It's on at 6pm EST (my segment will be on around 6:30).  I'll be driving into Detroit for the satellite hook up. 

With the political season ramping up, it's going to be pretty exciting to see how things turn out. Things are so close and could go either way. Perfect timing for the game. 

The Political Machine is a strategy game in which players take on the role of a campaign manager of a US presidential candidate.  Players must raise money, take out advertisements, win endorsements and appear on popular TV news shows to answer tough questions about today’s most pressing issues. 

 

What we really like about The Political Machine is that it will encourage more people to learn about American presidential politics. The candidates really are different and their positions on the issues are based on principle even if their opponents don't necessarily agree.

 

The game tries to reflect the real issues people are facing. The game's model isn't poll-driven but instead issue driven which has delivered a remarkably accurate model for the electorate.

 

Now, where did I put that suit...

Now's the time to add your voice in. The BEST overall Winamp skin will soon be decided by the judges and then a User's choice award for best Winamp skin will be coming up as well! Let us know what 5 Winamp skins you think are the tops in order!

The Political Machine's statistical model is not poll based. When we designed it, we concluded that since ultimately it's a video game, we should only concern ourselves with the macro-based statistics.  That meant not worrying about day to day fluctuations in polls. Instead, the goal was to use data (political party registrations, exit polling, census data, etc.) that was publicly available to get a clear understanding of the people who live in the states.

From there, we then look at the political issues of the day and determine, to best of our ability, how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents feel about a given issue. The Political Machine, hence, has an issue-driven model rather than a poll-driven model. Depending on what issues matter at the time of the snapshot, different candidates have different advantages. The model has an error factor of around +/- 3% and it cannot take into account with great precision the effect of advertisements, endorsements, speeches, TV interviews.  The Political Machine has all these things but our top priority was ensuring the game was fun and so the effect of those 3 things (ads, endorsements, interviews) has more to do on the "fun factor" than anything else.  But still, it does seem to display an interesting level of accuracy.

Of course, we're only in June and the issues still need to be tweaked between now and election day. Consider below:

June 2004 model (minus ad effects)

The census data in The Political Machine doesn't change. Instead, the evaluation of different issues change.  Move the economy slider down and Kerry does better. Bring up global tensions and Bush does better. Which issues will matter in November may be quite different than they are now.  But according to the model -- which again is not tweaked based on polling data beyond what the % of registered Democrats and Republicans are in a given state, it seems to roughly reflect the current polls -- Kerry has a 2% national lead over Bush according to the poll.  One should point out that third party candidates like Ralph Nader are not factored into here. But it is our view that Nader is not likely to have a significant impact anywhere other than perhaps Wisconsin.

If the election were held today, based on the issues as we evaluate them today, Kerry would win 305 to 233. The big state going against Bush right now that is on the edge is Ohio. Ohio could go either way and the economy has a lot to do with that along with a host of other factors that could slide one way or the other.  That said, typically our models favor the Democratic opponent.  Minus advertising, Republicans tend to be slightly behind. But in this election, the Republican candidate has a significant advantage in campaign funds (contrast that to Dole in 1996).

Here is one potential Bush victory path. Through effort in Wisconsin and Iowa and victory in Ohio, Bush manages to win by a mere 2 electoral votes.  However, that assumes Bush wins in West Virginia also.  In this scenario, the election is decided in Ohio and West Virgina with help from Wisconsin and Iowa.

Some polls shows Bush leads in Oregon and Michigan.  We don't claim our model is the end all be all predictor. It is, after all, a video game for consumers. But barring a strong third party candidate,  we don't see that happening.  Similarly, despite Mr. Ridge's position in the administration, Bush is not likely to win Pennsylvania.  Kerry should pick Gephardt as his running-mate as it gives Kerry his bet shot at picking up both Missouri and Iowa which, Bush needs to win at least one of them to win.  But candidates don't always pick who they should pick. Bush, for instance, picked Dick Cheney instead of Tom Ridge as his running mate which cost him Pennsylvania and led the way to the Florida debacle.

The states to keep an eye on are these:

1. Ohio

2. Wisconsin

3. West Virginia

4. Iowa

5. Missouri

6. Arizona

National polls are kind of interesting but not terribly useful because they tend to have a +/-2% to 3% level of error which, unless a candidate is able to have a definitely 2% lead, doesn't indicate who would actually win the election. What really matters is who is winning in these 6 states. Bush must win nearly all of these.

Election 2000 results.

The Political Machine's statistical model is not poll based. When we designed it, we concluded that since ultimately it's a video game, we should only concern ourselves with the macro-based statistics.  That meant not worrying about day to day fluctuations in polls. Instead, the goal was to use data (political party registrations, exit polling, census data, etc.) that was publicly available to get a clear understanding of the people who live in the states.

From there, we then look at the political issues of the day and determine, to best of our ability, how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents feel about a given issue. The Political Machine, hence, has an issue-driven model rather than a poll-driven model. Depending on what issues matter at the time of the snapshot, different candidates have different advantages. The model has an error factor of around +/- 3% and it cannot take into account with great precision the effect of advertisements, endorsements, speeches, TV interviews.  The Political Machine has all these things but our top priority was ensuring the game was fun and so the effect of those 3 things (ads, endorsements, interviews) has more to do on the "fun factor" than anything else.  But still, it does seem to display an interesting level of accuracy.

Of course, we're only in June and the issues still need to be tweaked between now and election day. Consider below:

June 2004 model (minus ad effects)

The census data in The Political Machine doesn't change. Instead, the evaluation of different issues change.  Move the economy slider down and Kerry does better. Bring up global tensions and Bush does better. Which issues will matter in November may be quite different than they are now.  But according to the model -- which again is not tweaked based on polling data beyond what the % of registered Democrats and Republicans are in a given state, it seems to roughly reflect the current polls -- Kerry has a 2% national lead over Bush according to the poll.  One should point out that third party candidates like Ralph Nader are not factored into here. But it is our view that Nader is not likely to have a significant impact anywhere other than perhaps Wisconsin.

If the election were held today, based on the issues as we evaluate them today, Kerry would win 305 to 233. The big state going against Bush right now that is on the edge is Ohio. Ohio could go either way and the economy has a lot to do with that along with a host of other factors that could slide one way or the other.  That said, typically our models favor the Democratic opponent.  Minus advertising, Republicans tend to be slightly behind. But in this election, the Republican candidate has a significant advantage in campaign funds (contrast that to Dole in 1996).

Here is one potential Bush victory path. Through effort in Wisconsin and Iowa and victory in Ohio, Bush manages to win by a mere 2 electoral votes.  However, that assumes Bush wins in West Virginia also.  In this scenario, the election is decided in Ohio and West Virgina with help from Wisconsin and Iowa.

Some polls shows Bush leads in Oregon and Michigan.  We don't claim our model is the end all be all predictor. It is, after all, a video game for consumers. But barring a strong third party candidate,  we don't see that happening.  Similarly, despite Mr. Ridge's position in the administration, Bush is not likely to win Pennsylvania.  Kerry should pick Gephardt as his running-mate as it gives Kerry his bet shot at picking up both Missouri and Iowa which, Bush needs to win at least one of them to win.  But candidates don't always pick who they should pick. Bush, for instance, picked Dick Cheney instead of Tom Ridge as his running mate which cost him Pennsylvania and led the way to the Florida debacle.

The states to keep an eye on are these:

1. Ohio

2. Wisconsin

3. West Virginia

4. Iowa

5. Missouri

6. Arizona

National polls are kind of interesting but not terribly useful because they tend to have a +/-2% to 3% level of error which, unless a candidate is able to have a definitely 2% lead, doesn't indicate who would actually win the election. What really matters is who is winning in these 6 states. Bush must win nearly all of these.

Election 2000 results.

The 4th week of the GUI Olympics has been completed. The GUI Olympics is an international user interface design contest featuring many of the best graphics designers from around the world competing in a series of user interface challenges.

This week saw the best OS user interface design (using Stardock's WindowBlinds) and best themed media player skin designed for Nullsoft's Winamp.

Visit here for the full results of this week.

 

The GUI Olympics is an inter-website user interface design contest to see who can come up with the best skins and icons for Windows. On the skins side in 2004, the tools are WindowBlinds (to skin the Windows GUI) and Winamp 5.  The icons are packaged with Stardock IconPackager.

 

Week 4 results:

EVENT: Best Pseudo-OS WindowBlinds visual style (skin that one could imagine coming with an alternative OS)

EVENT: Best Themed Winamp Skin (skin that sticks to a particular theme)

 

Week 3 results!

Event: WindowBlinds - Most creative visual style

Rank	Author	Skin
	MikeB314	Airlock
	essorant	Pixel 8
	^^Gabriel	G-Pod
	treetog	Antares
	danilloOC	Sektor

Event: IconPackager - Best themed (icons that fit a specific theme) icon package

Rank	Author	Skin
	treetog	Thunder Storm (Icons)
	volter15	Smile 3 ))
	farid nafar	HFN Sapphire

Event: WinAmp Pro - Most usable Winamp skin

Rank	Author	Skin
	Andrew Mackowski	EMP 2
	Anemovatis	AR7
	kriptoner	D-Reliction

Event: WindowBlinds - Best themed visual style (a visual style that fits a specific theme)

Rank	Author	Skin
	treetog	Thunder Storm WB
	- vf -	Alloy Bezel 4
	Scarebear	10pin
	EventHorizon	Mime

Event: IconPackager - Best Pseudo-OS icon package (an icon package that you could see coming with an operating system)

Rank	Author	Skin
	Miloszwl	d3A
	Leothar	Amdio
	Rokey	The Last Order

Event: WinAmp Pro - Best power user Winamp skin

Rank	Author	Skin
	Andrew Mackowski	EMP 2
	a-t-o-m-i-c	Impulse
	Muniom Designs	Resurgence

 

Coming up: The best OVERALL skins and icons!