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Text of the page (random words):
me much heartier yak friendly types in mongolia and figured out a way to separate the yak actually a rather large number of yaks from their sweet sweet hair their pursuit took them back to the far reaches of the tibetan plateau and then north to the steppes of mongolia where they experienced yak wool auctions tortuous rides in russian made jeeps large mugs of yak butter tea fiery local drinking sessions of the homemade yak milk liquor archi and naturally a lot of yaks flush with piles of yak hair they have crafted something you can use to keep your sorry ass warm brilliant and they ve been kind enough to share some yak facts which i being an unscrupulous blogger will copy and share with you over 90 of the world s yak population of nearly 15 million lives on the tibetan plateau in the himalayas lamps in tibetan monasteries are fuelled by yak butter yak cheese has higher amounts of heart healthy fats than cheese from dairy cattle yak polo played on yaks instead of horses was pioneered in mongolia a decade ago the first yakalo a cross between a yak and an american bison was produced through selective breeding in alberta canada in 2000 a major use for the yak s coarse tail hair is to create fake beards worn by actors in chinese opera in local communities yak bone is often made into exquisite handicrafts including combs buttons and ornaments the only natural predator of the wild yak is the tibetan wolf in mongolia yak milk is fermented in a leather pouch and distilled as a milk wine called archi in winter a wild yak can survive temperatures as low as 40 degrees c a wild yak doesn t reach full size until six to eight years of age amongst yaks living in the wild births usually occur in june and a single calf is born every other year dried yak dung is used as fuel on the treeless tibetan plateau the male wild yak can reach up to 6 5 feet high at the shoulder and can weigh as much as 2 200 pounds wild female yaks are up to a third of the male s size domestic male yaks are much smaller in size and weigh up to 1 300 pounds while domestic female yaks weigh up to 560 pounds even in the below freezing winters yaks have been spotted bathing in lakes and rivers this is because yak s warm coat provides insulation through a thick outer coating of long hair and a dense inner coating of matted shorter fur it is believed that the strength of yak wool comes from the high levels of amino acids contained within the fibres yak wool is very resistant to static electricity meaning garments a less likely to spark or cling to the body during dry conditions respect photo by travelwayoflife cc by sa from wikimedia commons sourced from eol no comments labels reviews pm in a can a k a is this the best part of being a pm hello again i m now 39 days into my new operations role and may i say i am loving it most of the time but that s pretty much life right one of the challenges of taking on a new role is making sure you stay far far away from the comfort zone of your previous role for me that comfort zone is being a product manager it s something i know how to do kind of like falling off a bike or setting fire to an abandoned car it comes easily to me also like juggling and hobo tracking i hear the voice of my board chairman echoing echoing you can t be the product manager anymore bob you re an operator now but you ve still got to find a way to get that work done have a nice day oooooo rattles chains sigh yes indeed and so faced on day one with the operator s challenge to assess a new opportunity to determine whether it can contribute to the sustainability of the enterprise i considered my assets and liabilities assets some reasonable amount of cash and freedom to spend that cash liabilities the clock no in house staff capable of doing the work no time to do it myself no holocaust cloak ok i can work with those i said and so i set forth to establish the pm in a can what is a pm in a can it sounds like prince albert in a can shh i sat down and asked what is the absolutely smallest set of information i need to make the best possible decision and came up with the following 1 i needed to develop a product concept and its value proposition 2 i needed to test that product concept with some people who could conceivably buy it 3 i needed a minimally viable product spec my favorite new acronym mvp 4 i needed a business model that challenged all of the assumptions of 1 3 i figured ok i really shouldn t ask one organization to do both of these because that s a fox in the henhouse problem of course an organization that heard happiness from the market on the product concept would conclude that there s a business model that could support that concept so i hired two sets of people to do the work serially and in doing so i realized something entirely terrifying about product management this part the pm in a can is the most interesting part of the entire pm job everything else is how to put it just work maintaining the story backlog just work going on sales calls just work negotiating with development around product delivery just work evaluating win loss assessments just work i could go on i won t because it s too depressing the very best part of being a product manager is finding brand new problems to fix and figuring out whether or not an investment in fixing them will advance the cause of the enterprise at least it was to me but now i ve got a sinking feeling that those opportunities are practically speaking 1 few and far between and 2 often co opted by clever operators who understand product development and so i arrive at the point in this post where i ask you my dear friends and readers if you agree disagree care wonder if green bay beat the spread etc because i m thinking i may have just figured out something that has vexed me for years why all the talk of strategic product management never seemed to translate into actual work because all of the most strategic work gets directed evaluated by others no comments labels operations product management monday july 29 2013 hello are you there why hello there i have a question for you are you interested in ack nak coming back from the dead as it were to again occupy that singular place in your reading habits it once enjoyed back in the day it would not be a product management blog per se but something product y because if the grumpy product manager can t raise 10k to help her write a book there s no market for independent pm voices simply put you re all cheap and i d be a fool to try and sell you anything also i m unlikely to want to live in airports and try and train people to become something they d likely end up not doing in 3 5 years anyways and blogging as a way of life or even as a pastime is vastly overrated it takes time to write things and writing things for free is a chump s game no i will entertain you with tales of derring do and whimsy and try and convince you to have me come and talk to you and your cohorts colleagues cow orkers conspirators on topics of an urgent and compelling nature some of which might have something to do with products 7 comments monday september 05 2011 recipe duck confit i am a devoted reader of the william brown project as i aspire to the lifestyle of the country squire i can see meself now strollin across the fields me dog at me side bringing a brace of coneys home for the wife to make some rillettes that s not quite what i was thinking about fair enough as i was saying one of the joys of m brown s website is the opportunity to discuss recipes with men not here s a bowl here s some chips open pour serve recipes ladies i speak of the actual process of preparing food for actual enjoyment through a process that involves heat sharp implements and fine ingredients i enjoy chips in a bowl shh you a recent discussion chez brown concerned that most perfect of foods duck confit it is my belief that you dear ack nak reader might be interested in such a recipe do you serve it in a bowl don t make me come over there there are many ways to prepare moderately good duck confit but most wonderful ways involve letting the duck sit overnight in an herb infused salt rub and then a full work day in the oven bubbling away gently in its own fat our preferred recipe is a variant of emeril s with thomas keller s salt rub formula as described in his book bouchon it is possible to pull of a decent confit faster our friend mr brown managed it but a longer cook time produces a more tender result duck confit a la bob procure 2 fresh ducks and process into 4 duck leg portions with thighs attached about 2 pounds excess fat trimmed and reserved 2 duck breasts split down the keel bone excess fat trimmed and reserved 1 tablespoon plus 1 8 teaspoon kosher salt 1 2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 10 garlic cloves 4 bay leaves 4 sprigs fresh thyme 1 1 2 teaspoon black peppercorns 1 2 teaspoon table salt 4 cups olive oil lay the leg portions on a platter skin side down sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the kosher salt and the black pepper place the garlic cloves bay leaves and sprigs of thyme on each of 2 leg portions lay the remaining 2 leg portions flesh to flesh on top put the reserved fat from the ducks in the bottom of a glass or plastic container top with the sandwiched leg portions sprinkle with the remaining 1 8 teaspoon kosher salt cover and refrigerate for 12 hours preheat the oven to 200 degrees f remove the duck from the refrigerator remove the garlic bay leaves thyme and duck fat and reserve rinse the duck with cool water rubbing off some of the salt and pepper pat dry with paper towels put the reserved garlic bay leaves thyme and duck fat in the bottom of an enameled cast iron pot sprinkle evenly with the peppercorns and table salt lay the duck on top skin side down add the olive oil cover and bake for 8 to 12 hours or until the meat pulls away from the bone you ll know when it s done whatever you do don t let it go too long as it will become something you ll rather not eat but you ll feel you have to and it will have the deep lingering taste of regret remove the duck from the fat strain the fat and reserve to store the duck confit place the duck leg portions in a container cover with the reserved cooking fat and store in the refrigerator alternately pick the meat from the bones and place it in a stoneware container cover the meat with a thin layer of some of the strained fat the duck confit can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 month now go make some 1 comment finally launch day arrives in january of last year i began work as the product manager for something called the encyclopedia of life a version of the product was already online at www eol org today the new version went live at that same url and i m having all of the standard product management emotions emotion 1 loss the work we were doing was secret and now it is not the team was galvanized by a common objective and that objective has been reached there are a number of other dimensions of this most unwelcome of emotions that i won t bother you with but they re all a flavor of it s over even though in reality it s just beginning don t expect it to make sense it s a feeling a bad feeling the worst feeling like someone died emotion 2 fear what if no one likes it what if it breaks what if the press doesn t think it s super fine what if we misinterpreted some of those requirements what if the beta testers were all just being nice what if someone else does it better and launches next week the never ending cascade of what ifs feels like someone throwing rocks at you from waaay up on a building the hits just keep coming you want to cover your head with a metal garbage can lid and move quickly through your day because you don t know when the next rock is going to land emotion 3 defensiveness i m sorry such and such a feature wasn t in the release plan i m sorry we weren t able to ship with that capability i m sorry that s on the known issues list i m sorry we ll be sure to get that into the next release i m sorry i m sorry i m sorry there s never enough time to do it all and inevitably there are people who are sad and i m sorry about that emotion 4 detachment ok what s on the list for the next release yes i know the new version still has that clean baby new car spring morning smell but you see product managers are tomorrow people and i ve been working on the next release for gosh a month now and let s start talking timetables thank you we re all very proud it s wonderful now about that next version we re wired differently we don t take victory laps we don t linger on current successes any more than we pore over current failures we move on if we re lucky and we ve got a the support of people who love us and b a team we respect admire and enjoy we can c move on without feeling like the one guy at a party who doesn t seem to get the fact that he s at a party and the point of the party is to be happy so with all that said i am actually happy at least when i m not parsing emotions one through four ps gosh the new blogger editor sure is swell pss travis jensen softwaremaven believes i am suffering from post shipping stress syndrome or psss i prefer to think of it as corrigan s disorder but it might explain why people think i am psssed lately 6 comments labels product management monday april 11 2011 wondering when to let go of your product focus i thought i had lost it forever but there it was in the bottom of a plastic bag full of crib mattress pads i discovered while cleaning out my basement my newton messagepad 120 nestled in its leather case with business cards from the long defunct newton source store in nyc tucked inside it four aa batteries and one backup battery later it booted up fine looking as tidy as it did in 1995 when it went missing alas its handwriting recognition is still awful and it won t let me set its date to april 2011 it s still as beautiful a piece of hardware as it was when it was new it s still delightful even all these years later for what it is but i ve moved on i wonder if the prodmgmt responsible for this device still think about it or if they ve moved on too they re all obviously doing something else today with their professional lives i doubt any of them still use a newton but they still have users some of them are very very devoted and i bet there are many more who would be ready to have their devotion restored under the right circumstances still most have moved on it s the way of things i don t think about my old products very often but i think about my old users customers i used to care about deeply back when i was very very devoted to delighting them i wonder if any of them are still delighted or if like me they ve moved on to other products other problems it s why as boss strouse once said you don t meet many product managers over 50 because by the time you hit that age you ve figured out that it is organizations that last not products if you care deeply about people and you re trained as a product manager eventu...