Category: technology

Posted on

Dead tree libraries and exploratory learning

Wifey and I were driving in the car yesterday morning when the thought hit me: will I ever get to take my kids to a real library with dead-tree books? Somewhere in the background, this question was made starker by the recent introduction of one Kindle DX device into the household.

But back to the question about kids and library trips, mom used to take my brother and I to the library when we were young.

My most distinct memory of the whole experience was how sick I’d feel right before we made a trip to the library because I’d misplaced the soon overdue books we’re needing to return. It was then in my early years, I learned that being stressed out is a luxury one cannot afford when the the car engine’s started and the whole family is waiting in the driveway. I also learned that if you’re planning on hoarding lots of stuff, they should ideally be digital and indexable.

But I digress. My second distinct memory is that of the state library we would frequent. Upon entrance, it had two clearly defined section: a section for children, and a section for grown-ups. You could tell which was which by the way spaces were furnished, and how high the bookshelves stood, but you could also tell because the kids’ section smelled like children. I’d always try to steal a whiff from the grown-up section: the smell of grown-up knowledge and wisdom.

The only times I got to enter the grown-up section were when we were about to leave. Mom would send me to get dad who was busy looking up some motorcycle manual, or something about stock markets, or something about computers. Oh, what joy for me – shelves taller than the eye could see, amber coloured monochromatic computer screens to look up books, and… THEY HAD AN UPSTAIRS: double delight!

I would take my time to browse through the shelves as though I were looking for something, while hoping for the day I could understand what lay behind the incredibly serious looking covers with photo realistic pictures and titles I couldn’t pronounce.

Those trips to the library gave me something to look forward to. The whiff “knowledgeable” adulthood ever so gently nudged me to grow up a little quicker, if for nothing other than to be able to reach for the higher shelves.

I fear my kids may not have this experience. Their earliest recollections of knowledge repositories may very well begin a 4-coloured logotype, a blinking text cursor, and a button that says “Search”. What’s a seven-year-old to type in the box? How’s a child going to search for something that he/she doesn’t even know exist? And how’s a child to defend him/herself from the every increasing ubiquity of attention grabbing advertisements that seek to colour his/her mind for their commercial purposes.

I sure hope we don’t screw it up too badly for them.

Posted on

Why I’m not running Ubuntu yet

I’ve been waiting for many years now to be able to run Ubuntu on my primary machine which is usually a laptop. My previous laptop was a Lifebook T5010. My current one, a Thinkpad X201.

As part of the waiting process, I’d set aside a small partition to install the latest release of Ubuntu, and try to use it for a few days. My most recent endeavour saw me booting up a copy of Ubuntu 11.10.
And here are the reasons why it’s still not ready for me, and why Windows 7 is still my best option.

‘Suspend’ is unpredictable It’s been the case a few times now, where I’d quickly close the lid and slide my laptop into my bag to get off the train or something. Only to find later on, the machine still running, and the fan going full blast to keep the temperature under control amidst the thick padding.

Monitor switching I’ve got a docking station with 2 external monitors set up at home. When I dock the machine, I expect the desktop to quickly detect that it has docked, the laptop lid is still closed, and there are two external monitors that it should use for display. Same thing for undocking. It should figure out that the monitors have disappeared, and it’s time to switch back to the laptop screen.

(nice to have, but not deal breaker) Evernote on Linux, please.

And that really is why I’m still stuck with bleepin’ Windows 7, because it works so well with the hardware. Not a day goes by where I dream of a real shell and proper virtual desktops.

No, and I’m not getting a mac.

Posted on

Consuming vs Producing

Two recent events have brought me to the apex of this thought.

First, those of you who have been curiously clicking through my “New blog post:…” tweets would have noticed that I’ve made a real big effort string together at very least a post a day (You’re reading my eleventh consecutive post, thank you for asking). Blogging daily has been my little way of intentionally producing something with latent time that I have, as opposed to mindlessly consuming.

Second, my dear wife (upon my request) bought me a Kindle DX for my impending birthday. If you’re not already aware, the Kindle is representational of a whole new class of, what I’d like to coin, hyper-consumption computing (HCC) devices. In my own opinionated, un-peer reviewed definition, these devices are design with only to serve a single purpose – making the consumption of information as frictionless and pleasurable as possible.

Why it is in every device makers’ interests to excel at such a goal is a topic for another day, but the bottom-line is, such devices, if not engaged with active intention, can very easily and quickly dull the producer in each of us.

Yes, it dulls the producer in you.

Allow me to expand on the concept of producing something. Going out on a photo shoot is producing, browsing through endless Flickr streams is consuming. Baking a cake is producing. Reading food blogs is consuming. Going out on a bike ride is producing, watching Le Tour on television is consuming. Learning a new chord progression is producing, watching YouTube videos of Super Mario covers is consuming. Pulling out a few tools and tightening up your creaky chair is producing, wandering around Ikea is consuming. Assembling Ikea furniture is gray, but you get the idea.

I think sharpening and polishing that producer edge is really important for the following reasons.

1. Producing completes a learning process. One reaps the full benefits of learning when one is forced to reproduce that body of knowledge. For example, when I had to write up a half-semester syllabus for the Interactive Media subject for the Bachelor of Multimedia program at RMIT, it was the hardest thing, but it was also the best educational experience I ever had on the subject.

2. Production is a sign of life (in the broadest, most generalised sense of the word). Live trees produce fruit; wooden shelves don’t. Polar bears produce young; not so, fur rugs. Players on the court tear muscles, grow stronger, nimbler, livelier; spectators, not so much, Et cetera.

3. The act of producing brings with itself the very therapeutic effect of a flow. Where stuffy corners of one’s life is pushed out, the vacuum inevitably draws freshness in – basic laws of thermodynamics. Or for the more poetic, Jordan River vs Dead Sea.

So the next time, right before you engage in an activity, make a mental note:

producing or consuming?

Hopefully, you’ll be all the richer for it, and the people around you should be so lucky to share in goodness of your produce.

Posted on

Nothing is like software

It’s not the first time this has happened: I get into a conversation about the work that I do, concepts in designing and building software, methodologies that the industry live and die by, then it comes like a whistling blow dart flying through the air:

“<insert skill or discipline or knowledge> is just like software”

Examples: “Cooking is just like software”, “Art History is just like software”, “Driving is just like software”, “Organizing a party is just like software”.

Let me catch you right there before you think I’m some arrogant bit-pusher who claims the subject of his line of work is incomparably superior to any other discipline, quite the opposite: notice the phrase was,

“<thing> is just like software”

not

“Software is just like <thing>”

To put in more concrete form, it is the difference between

“A human is just like a mannequin”

and

“A mannequin is just like a human”

See, the point I am trying to make is that software is a lump of plasticine. It bears no form of its own, it bears no identity, or agenda or bias. Software is what people use when they try to teach silicon wafers how to add numbers up, or coordinate a taxi fleet, or try understand human behavior – the great codifier of all things. It is puzzling to me when someone claims to derive anything original from a craft whose ultimate goal is mimicry.

So please, if you are looking for something original, and the glint of software catches your eye, don’t stop there. Instead, look through software, and find the thing that inspired it.

Posted on

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

I’ve started reading this book because some smart sounding people think it’s a good book to make you sound smart too.

Up to page 72 now, and I’ve been introduced to self-referencing, Gödel’s Strange Loops, formal systems, proofs, typographical manipulations, meaning and interpretation, axioms and theorems.

I’m sounding smart already.

Hopefully as I read and blog, it’ll help me consolidate my learnings.