Coding for 1221 is DONE!!!
I have just written the last hundred lines of code for the site... And I am
FINISHED
And now I'm headed off to In N Out to get a Cheeseburger animal style, Fries, and a water with lemons to celebrate. Yee yee yee!
This just says it all.
"The Fountainhead", speaking of Gail Wynand
He had taught himself to read and write a the age of five, by asking questions. He read everything he found. He could not tolerate the inexplicable. He had to understand anything known to anyone. The emblem of his childhood--the coat-of-arms hedevised for himself in place of the onelost for him centuries ago--was the question mark. No one ever needed to explain anything to him twice. He learned his first mathematics from the engineers laying sewer pipesl He learned geography from the sailors on the waterfront. He learned civics from the politicians at a local club that was a gangsters' hang-out. He had never gone to church or to school. He was twelve when he walked into a church. He listened to a sermon on patience and humility. He never came back. He was thirteen when he decided to see what education was like and enrolled at public school. His father said nothing about this decision, as he said nothing whenever Gail came home battered after a gang fight.
During his first week at school the teacher called on Gail Wynand constantly--it was sheer pleasure to her, because he always knew the answers. When he trusted his superiors and their purpose, he obeyed like a Spartan, imposing on himself the kind of discipline he demanded of his own subjects in the gang. But the force of his will was wasted: within a week he saw that he needed no effort to be first in the class. After a month the teacher stopped noticing his presence; it seemed pointless, he always knew his lesson and she had to concentrate on the slower, duller children. He sat, unflinching, through hours that dragged like chains, while the teacher repeated and chewed and rechewed, sweating to force some spark of intellect from vacant eyes and mumbling voices. At the end of two months, reviewing the rudiments of history which she had tried to pound into her class, the teacher asked: "And how many original states were there in the Union?" No hands were raised. Then Gail Wynand's arm went up. The teacher nodded to him. He rose. "Why," he asked, "should I swill everything down ten times? I know all that." "You are not the only one in the class," said the teacher. He muttered an expression that struck her white and made her blush fifteen minutes later, when she grasped it fully. He walked to the door. On the threshold he turned to add: "Oh yes. There were thirteen original states."
That was the last of his formal education.
Just like Live.com, Microsoft is way too late on the Zune
I've already predicted that the Zune is going to be a terrible failure for Microsoft. I have been reading a lot of news about it, and I came across this article at Forbes. So, the features that the Zune will have on the iPod is wireless song sharing and a subscription based music download service (instead of the pay per song model by Apple).
There have been quite a few companies that have tried to go with the subscription model; Napster being one of the most noteable. According to this article, "Apple's iTunes has maintained more than 70 percent of the PC-based digital music download market throughout 2005." As far as MP3 players, the iPod has an 83% market share.
This is starting to sound similar to something else... Um... Oh yeah! Microsoft Live vs Google. By the time MS realized that you could actually make a lot of money in the internet search business, it was way too late for them.
And the same is true with the Zune. When it comes out, if anyone at my school or church buys it, I'm going to personally make a point to clown them. No, the Zune is NOT cool. It's NOT hip. It's NOT sexy. It's not an iPod. People walking around with the Zune will feel inferior to iPod carriers. That's my prediction.
:)
20-30 hours of work devoted to one class each week?
This must be a typo... Or some type of sick joke. I'm taking two AP classes this year, and in the course description for one of them I quote it -
"Students are expected to spend at least 20 to 30 hours a week or more for this course and it is because it is an Advanced Placement or college level course, and during the short summer the semester is cut in half. "
Ok, there is absolutely NO way that this can be right. You couldn't make me devote more than 30 hours a week to all of school; much less one class... That's 30 hours that you could be learning something relevant. Learning a new programming language, writing up marketing plans, developing a start up. Come on, this is just pushing it. 30 hours devoted to one class ? My parents work 40 hour weeks, and you expect me to take 6 hard classes. That would be 180 hours a week devoted to school. Never. Ever. Ever. Maybe 18 hours... Now that's reasonable.
I think what my entire reason for posting all these blogs about high schools comes down to this: I want applicable real world lessons from my classes and teachers.
I'm going to be presenting some stuff to Will C. Wood's Student Government class in a few weeks about technology, apparently they are looking to bring their school up to date! I can't wait.
The Microsoft Zune is a failure, already
Packaging is everything. Anna Nicole Smith is stupider than a rock, but she's hot (or used to be) and she sold. The iPod became a smash hit because it looks good, it's sexy. Looking at pictures of the new Microsoft Zune? For Microsoft to be successful with the Zune, this is what they need to do
Fire all their designers. Every single one of them. They all suck, and the UIs the make are pitiful. Go down to San Francisco and hire a bunch of extreeeemely creative guys. Cause Redmond is full of nerds, not designers.
Go back to the drawing board, with Zune AND Windows Media Player. The fact of the matter is WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER SUCKS. I don't care what you think about it. It doesn't hold a candle to iTunes or the iTunes Music Store. Not only is the Zune media player incredibly ugly (and a terrible attempt to copy the iPod) but combine it with Windows Media Player, and that's what I call a recipe for DISASTER.
Well, I hope Microsoft takes my advice. It won't look too good on their quarterly reports: -$500mm in development/manufacturing/marketing costs of a TERRIBLE PRODUCT.
But hey, I wish Microsoft luck.
Say goodbye to desktop apps.
Came across this while going through feeds. He expresses EXACTLY how I feel. Great job "A VC"
“If” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Read at Ayn Rand's funeral
Taking the SAT Subject Test
I just registered on collegeboard.com. Taking it in mid October at Rodrigez... If you're going, let me know! I don't feel like going on another rant right now about people studying for the SAT. I think they should give you the test at some random time when you're totally not expecting it, and somehow make it illegal to study for the test. Then it would be testing kids on what they REALLY know, not what they STUDY for.
At my job, I don't get hours and hours to STUDY flash developing when I get a new client. I have to learn it all and KNOW it before I get the client.
The SAT should be the same way too. But whatever, let kids study for it. Good for them.
Did I go to school today?
Every year seems exactly the same, I'm already into the routine. Block schedule 8-10, 10-12, 12:30-2:30. Classes become blurs, days become blurs, weeks become blurs, until you're at the end of the quarter. Another fourth of the way there. The end of the first quarter is already just a month or so away, and I feel like we're just beginning in every class.
I just got out of the bathroom (which means I was sitting there reading) and I tried to remember anything that happened at school today. I forgot what classes I even went to today. I have no idea what I learned. When you get into the routine of school, classes start to fly by so fast. I sit in class listening for the first ten minutes, then zone out and think of other stuff I could be doing for the next hour and a half, then come back to earth for the final ten. Not good, but it's how I make it through every day without killing myself with boredom. Then I come home and have to go through the drudgery of homework. I think school should be left at school. We shouldn't be working 12 hours a day in high school (school = 6 hours, homework = 2 hours, job = 4 hours+).
This all just seems like a waste of time. What's the point of taking classes that are completely erroneous to not only your college major, but waste memory in your brain. At the end of the day, my brain is filled with so much useless crap that I wish I could drain it somehow. Why do I need to take AP Psychology and Government if my college major is Business/Econ ??? I understand why I'm taking Trig, AP Stats, Spanish (bleh), and English 12. But AP Psychology and Government really blow my mind.
Being a well "rounded individual" is a bunch of BS too. When I hire employees for Okapi, I want them to be good at ONE thing, and ONLY one thing. Whether it be developing, designing, or marketing. I don't need a personal that can "do everything," because those are the people that are decent at a lot of things, but aren't great at one thing. Which is exactly what the public school system is turning out; kids that are decent at a lot of subjects, but not extremely skilled in one.
Whatever, I'm just pissed off right now. I just feel like High School is wasting my time. And after this, I'm going to need to get college over with so I can start REAL LIFE. You can learn all you want, but at the end of the day, if you don't take your head knowledge and apply it to real life, you're just wasting time and brain space.
Bleh.
Rob Lindstrom is the greatest designer on earth
I don't care what you say. Rob Lindstrom is hands down the best graphic designer that ever lived. And I don't care what anybody says; I will never change my opinion.