Writer’s Block has been overcome
And I just read great quote #198274182379821 from Ayn Rand
That something happened to you is of no importance to anyone, not even to you. The important thing about you is what you choose to make happen - your values and choices. That which happened by accident - what family you were born into, in what country, and where you went to school - is totally unimportant.
AAMMEENN
The worst case of Writer’s Block ever.
It's been about 13 hours (started at 10am today) since I sat down to write this essay. And I still only have 4 sentences. I have never had this happen in my life, this has got to be a Writer's Block record for me.
Does this happen to anyone else?
Starter For 10 is great
I loved this movie, saw it down in LA last weekend. Apparently they're going to release it in a bunch more places on March 9th, so you should go out and see it.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5007445115681130468]
FizzBuzz :D
In a recent blog post on Coding Horror entitled Why Can't Programmers... Program?, they talked about the fact that the majority of so-called programmers are useless when it comes to solving problems. Apparently they give people 10-15 minutes in an interview to solve this simple problem.
After a fair bit of trial and error I've discovered that people who struggle to code don't just struggle on big problems, or even smallish problems (i.e. write a implementation of a linked list). They struggle with tiny problems.
So I set out to develop questions that can identify this kind of developer and came up with a class of questions I call "FizzBuzz Questions" named after a game children often play (or are made to play) in schools in the UK. An example of a Fizz-Buzz question is the following:
Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".
Most good programmers should be able to write out on paper a program which does this in a under a couple of minutes. Want to know something scary? The majority of comp sci graduates can't. I've also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.
I suppose I could have written it in Ruby, ActionScript, PHP, ColdFusion, and JavaScript. But I just learned Python, so I figured I might as well do it in that.
for i in range(1,101):
if i%3 == 0:
if i%5 == 0: print 'FizzBuzz'
else: print 'Fizz'
elif i%5 == 0: print 'Buzz'
else: print str(i)
Count it. 6 lines. Took 5 minutes. Gotta love Python. I don't know why I'm bragging, that was a joke.
My view on Writing
I came across this quote today:
Anybody can say you can’t write. Let no one say you don’t.
This really sums up what I think about writing and blogging for myself. It's kind of funny, I have been thinking about a post to write about my view on writing in these last few weeks; this said it all in one sentence.
I know I can't write -- I am terrible at it. I have always been an analytical/math kind of guy, but I know that I need to be able to write if I want to have a great job when I get older (i.e., CEO). This is the #1 reason why I have blog, it forces me to write (writing for school just doesn't help me anymore). And I have found that the more I wrote, the faster I can write. I get better ideas, am able to organize my thoughts much faster, and it just gets easier and easier. The same has been true with me and reading.
I also created a new desktop background, and there are these two quotes on it:
Keep Fighting - Keep Running - Keep the Faith
and
An inventor is a man who asks "Why?" of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind (Ayn Rand)
Ok back to my never ending to-do list :)
The Future of Education
High Tech High, a charter school in Silicon Valley, is closing. I found out about this thanks to Scoble (ROBERT SCOBLE KNOWS EVERYTHING! -- Starter For 10, great movie :D). I wrote a little comment on that post, and I think I should just copy and paste it here:
This sounds a lot like the charter school I attend in Vacaville, about 45 minutes away from SF. I am an 18 year old Senior at Buckingham Charter Magnet High School (www.bcmhs.org). We too are a small (less than 400, including staff) school, and we are currently located in the middle of a shopping plaza (kind of weird to explain to people). We too are underfunded. We too have a teacher, student, and parent body of people that are grateful to be attending such a great school. There is nothing more motivating to students than a teacher that *loves* to teach. This is rare, but it seems like they are a commodity at Charter schools.
The public school system has been a *complete* failure, and in the future, all of these schools will be moving towards the small, community-oriented charter system. There is going to be a privatization of education in the near future. The educational problem that we face in America is much like the Social Security problem: large Public Schools have been a disaster, and charter schools are the only way we have been able to fix this problem.
I believe Buckingham is in it’s 5th or 6th year as a school (I am a senior), and we have quickly climbed to the #2 school in our district as far as performance. There is obviously something unique about this type of education; when you put academia back to the forefront of school, you will see a major change in student performance.
Just logically think about it: public schools have major gang, drug and alcohol problems (which is obviously different depending on where you live). When you come to a charter school with 360 kids and a waiting list of 200 students, there is a huge culture change. Suddenly gangs can be carefully watched; teachers begin to know their students personally; counselors care about getting their students into college. I love Charter schools.
One thing I do miss is the sports and school pride/history that goes along with going to a large public school. But who cares? I’ve gotten a much better education at Buckingham than I would have at any other school in my district, I am convinced of this. With that being said, I *still* think the education system has failed to fully prepare me for a University (Stanford/Santa Clara/Pt Loma) like I think it should have. The only way to get around that is: Private schooling.
Uniforms may not be so bad after all?
DHH is a great leader
If you don't know who David Heinemeier Hansson is then stop reading this post right now. He's the mastermind behind Rails, the most popular Web 2.0 framework in the world. I came across this picture whiel reading some blogs tonight: http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetargon/127984254/
This slide was for all of the people that wanted to add certain features to Rails that he didn't want. This also was a message to all the people that didn't agree with Rapid Development, Web 2.0, and, in a broader sense, the future. This is what makes David a great leader. I have a cousin that likes to say "better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you're not", and DHH understands this.
A great leader is a person that can stand alone and say "f*** you" to all the people that don't agree with him. I don't think you have to use an explicitive, but it definitely helps convey a powerful message to everyone. Here is a quote from, you guessed it, Ayn Rand
Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
DHH embodies this "creator" persona, and I love him for that. I hope one day to follow suit...
Ayn Rand is too important to ignore
I don't agree with a lot of the teachings of Objectivism since I believe in God, but I think Ayn Rand's works should be read by every student in high school. I am going to quote Nathaneal Branden (one of her early followers) from this video.
In 1991, the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Book of the Month club did a national survey of readers, of which the purpose was to determine which books had had the biggest life changing impact on American lives. And the NYT printed the results, which were these:
#1 - The Bible
#2 - Atlas Shrugged
#5 - The FountainheadSo here are two books of the top 10 that most had an impact on changing American lives were written by Ayn Rand.
Two of her books in the TOP 10 most life changing books, and yet you will never once hear of any Ayn Rand books in school (unless you have friends that read her stuff). She's too extreme though, I don't agree with all her stuff. I may write a post about it one day, but I am going to re-read Atlas Shrugged before I do.
