Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Cartoons for teaching

I always wanted to design games or create attractive stories for teaching things. Why not replacing the boring physics and math formulas with an interesting story where events happens in a city that people move with speed of light and most of the quantum phenomena affects their life in a dramatic way.

I also thought it would be cool to play a game “LoanOpoly” for learning the mortgage banking cycle instead of reading a dry, boring, thick and expensive book on the subject. I love books and presentations that tickle your creative spots using visuals, cartoons and charts. Here is a wonderful presentation [the author is unknown], using cartoons for teaching the subprime story.

All too true!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Virtualization is green

Jon made an interesting comment while we were talking about virtualization of servers. Beside other benefits he added: “it is also green”. It is good for our environment since you don’t need many servers, less heat, less parts and it requires less space.

Buy Don't Build

Now that I am working at a Start up, the concept of build vs buy is the top topic of my daily life. Here is the principle that I am following:

  • Buy big things (operating systems, compilers, database engines) and build small things.

The main question is? Does a system “Upgrade your users” and not just the product? Does it enhance user’s life?

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Reverse Living

I've been too busy changing job and starting things from scratch in the new company. Things like using open source development tools, getting back into creativity mode and working closely with business. I should say that I miss seeing my friends and should have a better plan to meet with them. I also feel younger in a reverse living fashion. As

"Reverse Living":

… The life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, and get it out of the way. Then you live for twenty years in an old age home, and then get kicked out when you’re too young. You get a gold watch and then you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

What is your story?

You make a story. You verify your story (if you are a programmer – you write tests to shape up your stories). Then you do work that matches the story. Your decisions are toward accomplishing the story. The story will become true because you're living it.