[Test Subjects] gave semen samples that were analysed for sperm concentration (ie, number of sperm per cubic centimetre), sperm count (ie, total number of sperm in the ejaculate) and sperm motility.

Ms Arden found 425 cases where samples had been collected and analysed from unvasectomised men who had managed to avoid spilling their seed during the collection process and had answered all the necessary questions for her to test her hypothesis, namely that their [quantified core intelligence across several disciplines] would correlate with all three measures of their sperm quality.

They did. Moreover, neither age nor any obvious confounding variable that might have been a consequence of intelligent decisions about health (obesity, smoking, drinking and drug use) had any effect on the result. Brainy men, it seems, do have better sperm.

By implication, therefore, they have fitter bodies over all, at least in the Darwinian sense of fitness, namely the ability to survive, to attract mates and to produce offspring.

Now, what if you’re a really smart guy? :-)

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3905.html#

One of the main points made my Laughlin in this interview is that “anything that allows you to make money is not [shared or published]“. (As add’l context for those that didn’t listen to it, this is contrasted by “any information that allows [the owner of the information] to make money is published”.)

I would argue that, while there are undoubtedly industries where this is true, the state of the world is actually quite a bit different from the stark one painted by this idea.

Anything where craft matters renders this irrelevant. Harry Houdini published several books outlining in detail exactly how to perform his magic tricks. When asked, he said “Well. No one can do it like I can, now can they?”

I work every day on technology that is “open source”. The source code is published, very little is hidden behind the curtain. The work I do requires a certain level of craft, creativity, and innovation that is more the sum of manuals and source code.

There are flaws in the internet and it’s model, to be sure. The corporatization and monetization of it was inevitable and has some pretty serious side effects. Nevertheless, collaborative works like Wikipedia and the blogosphere community represent diametric opposites to Laughlin’s world view.

It’s an interesting idea, and the notion that we should question the source on everything is a sound one, but it’s neither new nor particularly poignant.

Remember, the dude didn’t win the nobel prize for philosophy. He won it for physics. I think that, if we question the source here, we’re simply seeing a man who is frustrated by his own inability to spread the knowledge in his head freely. (In the first few minutes of the interview, he brings up nuclear technology and how entire sections of knowledge in that field have been wiped from textbooks for security reasons.)

Furthermore, if my presumption is anywhere near the truth, this human desire actually backs up my argument further and serves to disagree with his. People want to share knowledge just because; it’s innate. So the act of hiding bits and pieces, as he asserts, is an unnatural act.

What do you think? Is there a damaging pack-rat mentality around information, or is Mr. Laughlin just blowing smoke?

Got that our of your system?

Ok. Well, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m still struggling to push a new build of another Great Idea That Will Make The World a Better Place(tm). It’s pushing. Er, copying. Er, updating. Wait… what does that script do again?

(The current brain-bandwidth is being occupied by Phlooq, a product designed to help content publishers leverage social networks to promote events. It really is a good idea, but I’m in the middle of Friday rant here…)

The beauty of running your own shop is flexibility. The company picks up your transportation costs everywhere (I sign my own expense reports now, damn it!). Once you have employees, you can even delegate most of your less urgent task items.

The bad side is that you never turn off. I haven’t worked this hard since… oh wait, never mind. I’m a workaholic. But, yeah, the phone woke me up three times this week with someone begging for help. Thankfully it was a client in good standing every time (nothing is worse than when the client who hasn’t paid you for three months makes that call), but still… yawn.

So, yeah, that’s why I haven’t been blogging. The $30 a month google sends me when I blog every day about Ron Paul and Vannessa whats-her-butt from High School Musical just doesn’t quite seem worth the effort when one is working Sundays.

Maybe Moses had something going there with that whole Sabbath routine. Heh. Keeping a bunch of nomads inspired while you wander around in circles for 40 years is a tough job — you need those Sundays off, damn it!

Anyhow, here are a few things I dealt with this month:

• Had an employee resign, then re-apply. I hired him back. Woot!
• Moved across town. Well, no, not across town. Eight blocks. It was still a move.
• Started offering health insurance to employees.
• Registered to Vote. Please do the math and vote for Obama. Unless, of course, you actually do happen to be in the top 5% of incomes, in which case, please Contact Me. I’d like to partner with you.
• Bought an iPhone. I have a full blog post in my head just around that, actually. Good thing I’ve written it. (sarcastic humor)

Okay, that’s enough for this month. Happy Friday!

My bad. He did finally get a replacement laptop shipped to him in the interim. After spending 30 hours of effort on it, of course. :-\

The following are not my words. I’ve copied and pasted this story directly from the source — a less-than-happy customer who happens to be in my mobile phone’s address book. I don’t own (or have a short position in) any HP stock.

–

I’ve always liked Hewlett Packard products. In the past, they’ve had good enough build and support to satisfy my needs. Lately however, the #1 company in customer satisfaction (who said this anyway?) has been causing nothing but trouble.

It all started around November 2006. Well that’s when I bought the laptop anyways. A brand new shiny Compaq V3000 customized to my needs with a 1 year standard warranty. After playing around with it for a bit, I completely reinstall the machine due to all the bloatware HP just loves to install for you. Now the machine is finally ready for use.

Fast forward to the Summer 2007. My sound card dies on me. I mean the computer has the “mute” light on and it doesn’t get detected at all…completely dead. After doing all the troubleshooting over the phone, the HP warranty kicks in and I send it off for repair. I do have to say the box to ship it off came the next day and within 2 weeks on the scheduled delivery date, I had the laptop back good as new. Of course, they had to re-image my computer but I let that go.

Fast forward to Spring 2008. The computer has now been upgraded with more RAM due to a gift and of course was completely reinstalled when I had gotten it back from repair the past Summer. By this time, the wonders of Linux have been discovered by me and I use Ubuntu as my primary OS. Now I get complaints from my friends that my computer is really loud (the fan is always on for some reason). I pay no attention although the computer does get pretty warm on the bottom. As I’m trying to burn a DVD, my hard drive dies on me. Neither Windows or Linux will boot and all my data is lost. I open the machine up and it’s a Seagate drive (which gives a 5 year warranty on their drives if bought from Seagate). Of course it’s not covered under any Seagate warranty and HP will make me pay for it. I buy a drive off of Ebay and install it myself. Once again, reinstall everything and get everything just how I like it. So far so good…

Let’s fast forward to Summer 2008 which brings me to the real story. By this time, I had started seeing weird things happen with my wireless card. Sometimes it would get detected on boot but sometimes it wouldn’t. Very random and no pattern to it. I decided to do a Google search and came up with something very interesting:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&dlc=en&lc=en&cc=us

Yes, HP has a recall on this and most of its mainstream laptops. Apparently the fan spins too fast or some other BS that HP wants to feed you and it makes the computer overheat and the insides melt and things die (yes, things really do melt). Usually the wireless card goes first and then the video card soon after which I hadn’t gotten to yet. It’s a free repair with free shipping so I decide to go for it. Let’s delve into the world of the best tech support in the business.

First phone call on June 18th, 2008:
HP Rep wants to troubleshoot my laptop before sending it off. When I tell him I only have Linux installed (by this time I use Windows so little that I forgot that have a dual boot) and he says they can’t help me. Great, the tech support people aren’t trained in Linux so they can’t replace a dying hardware part. By the way, Dell and other companies not only support Linux but also sell it on their machines if the customer wants to choose that option. I finally remember I have Windows installed and we go through all of the troubleshooting steps before the guys agrees with me that I can get my system replaced under warranty. I tell the guy that I can’t afford to have my hard drive wiped or re-imaged (I really didn’t want to go through the hassle of reinstalling and setting everything up again when this was obviously unnecessary). I am told that they will do what they need to and it will involve a re-image. After enough explaining to him that it’s not necessary, I get nowhere. I call his supervisor and the best she can do is send a request to contact me if they are to re-image anything.

Box comes on June 23rd, 2008:
Enough time has gone by but the box is there as promised. I keep the battery and wish I had kept the hard drive too but I figured it would only cause problems if I had removed it. I also included a big note on 8.5×11 paper saying I don’t need anything re-imaged and to contact me if they even think about it. Note is written in red and black sharpie in bold and is put inside the lid. If they open the lid, they will see the note. Off to HP it goes. A few days later I see online that the expected delivery date is back to me on June 31st. Awesome.

June 30th, 2008:
My laptop is supposed to come back tomorrow. I check the status online and the status is as follows:

Hewlett-Packard is awaiting the arrival of a part to complete your product repair. Once the part is received, Hewlett-Packard will expedite the repair of your product and its return to you. So that you may monitor progress, any change in status or expected delivery date will be posted to this web site as soon as possible.

Expected delivery date is still June 30th. Let’s hope I get it but I’m not too enthusiastic

June 31st, 2008:
No package for HP. Still the same status as before. New delivery date changed to July 15th, 2008. Also get a call from a guy from India telling me a part is on backorder and the new delivery date. He thanks me for being a customer.

July 14th, 2008:
Day before I’m supposed to get my laptop. Status hasn’t changed.

July 15th, 2008:
Same status. New delivery date is July 29th, 2008. Another phone call from India with the new delivery date and more thanks and appreciation for being a customer. See a pattern happening here?

First online chat on July 20th, 2008:
I come home from vacation this evening and first thing I decide to do is chat online with an HP rep. because I don’t feel like calling. The only thing I get from the conversation is a phone number that I should call the next day to get support.

First call to customer support on July 21st, 2008:
I get a guy from India who I barely understand and who doesn’t know anything. He wastes my time and reroutes my call to a guy in the United States. This guy is friendlier and more understandable and actually seems to understand my predicament. I need my laptop back repaired and HP isn’t giving that to me. He says there’s nothing he can do because he is too low in the chain of Customer Support but does assign me to a case manager. These are the people who can actually help you supposedly. I have no way of contacting the case manager so I have to wait for a phone call. While I’m at it, I send a nice e-mail to the CEO of HP through an online link. Of course it doesn’t go to him but someone has to see my kind words!

Later the same day, I get a voicemail from my case manager. She sounds very rushed on the voicemail and I can’t make out the correct phone number. I call the number that I thought was correct and get sent to the Case Messenger Voicemail. No hope of reaching anyone, I leave a voicemail on a machine that has an Indian voice saying the greeting that is barely audible. I call back Customer Support who tell me the number I have is one digit off. Finally, I can reach a case manager.

I get a hold of my case manager after being on hold for a little while. I’ve actually been on hold through every conversation so the music is getting quite annoying by this point. I talk to my case manager who can only tell me that “you need to wait for the 29th because your laptop is supposed to come then”. No matter what I tell her, she always says “I understand but your only option is to wait”. What about the option where HP can send me a replacement laptop because they’re at fault in every way! They sold me a laptop that broke several times, they admit it’s their fault and put a recall on the laptop, and then they push back the delivery date very 2 weeks by 2 more weeks. I don’t feel like I’ll ever get my laptop. The conversation ends with me requesting a new case manager which she doesn’t want to do. I go ahead and file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and also have a friend file a complaint in the internal Hewlett Packard system (yes my friend is an employee there). I spend the rest of the day researching problems about HP and find dozens if not hundreds of users posting their own horrible stories online about HP support and the black hole that is their repair center.

July 22nd, 2008:
I get a phone call from the HP headquarters in Palo Alto who are concerned about my issues. I have a very nice conversation with the lady who is actually sounding like she is on my side for once. She thinks that HP is wrong in this case and tries to help me. In the end, she promises to give me a new case manager. I thank her and feel like I may have gotten somewhere. My new case manager calls me later and leaves a voicemail. It’s too late to call him back so I will wait until tomorrow.

July 23rd, 2008:
I call my new case manager. He’s actually an executive case manager so maybe he can do something? I explain my whole situation in detail one more time although he should have my case all in his files. This guy doesn’t say he understands every sentence but throws in the word sir instead all the time. I rant and rant to him but all he can do is agree with my concerns and tell me to wait. They don’t offer replacements on my laptop because it is 2 years old he says (really only 1.5 years old) and is out of warranty. The recall means nothing and it only entitles me to a repair of the laptop. Whenever I go on a rant and finish, he doesn’t say anything for at least 30 seconds before following up with a “you have to wait”. I ask him if this goes on for 3 months, what will HP tell me then? He says that no matter what, my only option is to wait. This guy is getting me nowhere so I tell him that they are losing lots and lots of customers. People are having the same problem as I am and will never buy HP again. Companies are steering clear of HP as well now. And the first level support in India is horrendous. You can’t understand them and they don’t help at all.

July 24th, 2008:
I am going to call the corporate office again today and see if the only helpful person can do anything. Other than that, I feel totally screwed and at a loss for what to do. I need a working laptop and HP isn’t offering a replacement although I feel I deserve one seeing as though I don’t know when my laptop is going to come and when HP will actually receive the back-ordered part.

I’ll keep updating this as new developments occur but I don’t feel like there will be many of them.

Recap:
- HP doesn’t support Linux and aren’t sure what it is.
- HP has my laptop in for repair for over a month and a half promising to have it back every 2 weeks and not fulfilling that promise.
- HP doesn’t know when they will get the replacement motherboards in.
- HP won’t offer a replacement even though everything has been their fault from the start including the malfunctioning laptop.
- Every HP representatives solution is to wait it out.

As a side note, my latest case manager told me that some people have to wait for over 2 months and they just wait patiently. Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

I wasn’t sweating it a whole heck of a lot since, well, if there’s no new content, there isn’t much point, now is there?

Well, I went ahead and tried to login to my feedburner account today, and I was rudely informed that my feeds are screwed. Check out the screenshot:

To fix it, I went ahead and disabled my feedburner extension for now. http://fuery.com/feed lives again!

With that in mind, would you rather see one good article a month, or articles of moderate quality 2-3 times a week?

I just migrated to a new web host. It’ll be this way for a few days. Hey, at least I got around to writing about it! :-)

As for where I’ve been, well, no one’s heard from me in a long time… just busy. I’m hiring, though. Got LAMP and PHP skills? Or small business management? Product Marketing?

Hit me up…

The title of the blog itself is designed to be cheeky. While I do happen to think I’m smart, capable, and even a decent writer, mostly I just thought it would be fun to come up as the first hit when someone googles for “really smart guy”. :-)

Plus, apparently, according to a couple of close friends, I have claimed that “I’m a smart guy” once too many times at cocktail parties. I’ve since fixed this appalling character flaw (lol), but it’s also an homage to that inside joke.

About the Author
My name is Johnny Fuery. My experiences, both personal and professional, cover a lot of territory.

I wrote a couple of college admission essays earlier this year for UT Austin and UC Davis that talk pretty frankly about my personal life. I think there is far more in there than I’d include in this obligatory about page naturally, so I’ll let my essays do the talking.

My technical experience is documented somewhat in my only slighty outdated resume. It’s updated pretty seldomly, but it gives you a snapshot of my professional background.

While I no longer publish a great deal of personal information through Really Smart Guy, I hope that my writing maintains a personal flair and that my personality shines through. Feedback is always welcome.

Landlord Chops
I currently manage 18 units in California. I started managing real property in 1999 and have been doing it without any breaks as a sole proprietor ever since, with only some minor assistance in paperwork management. Real estate has been very good to me financially, but the nature of the business in my own experience has been one of razor thin margins. (If your cash flow is too positive, you’re not leveraged enough; if your cash flow is too negative, you’re doing something wrong and need to get it back to zero as soon as possible.)

I’d be richer in lifestyle, honestly, if I just rented a condo and didn’t spend my Sundays showing property.

That being said, the long term outlook, as with all things investing, are the point.

As for whether my advice is worth taking, friends and acquaintances often ask me for advice and I inundate them with jargon, because I’ve been doing it for so long. I know what I’m doing at a level that it often doesn’t seem helpful or newsworthy to write about it, so please feel free to contact me with a question. I’ll post your question anonymously (unless you indicate otherwise) and answer it for all the world to see.

Geek Chops
I’m a script monkey that likes to work with Textpad much more than Visual Studio. My strengths lie in troubleshooting issues and getting disparate pieces of technology that have no business operating together play nicely in the same sandbox. My aforementioned resume outlines the laundry list of acronyms in detail.

Turns out my whining is a bit more bemusing than I thought to a few more people than I thought.

Well…. I’m baaaaack. I’m going to be a bit more vague about my goings-on here, since it is remotely possible that my voyeurism was the cause of my recent banking frustrations.