johnwilker.com

My QR Code

One thing I think is pretty sweet about my N95, the barcode reader. I mean that’s pretty damn slick, I wish I saw these codes in more places. Also wish the iPhone had a better way to implement code readers. Every one I tried was piss poor compared to the reader that came with the N95.

NeoReader (iTunes Link), is ok, but no where near as cool.

The N95 app is a live view through the camera, like… mmm… a camera, and there’s bounding lines showing you how to line up the code, and it shows you that it’s trying to lock on to the code.

NeoReader has you take a pic, and then ok the app to use it, then it tries to process it. If you weren’t lined up right, or anything like that, well try again. The N95 app at least shows you as it’s working so you know if you’re off center a bit.

I’m not sure if it’s an iPhone OS limitation, or not, but QR Code readers for the iPhone have a long way to go.

Tags: QR code

Friday Funny, error message with attitude

Got this a few days ago. I wonder if HAL was back there somewhere?

Tags: User Experience

How would I change education?

What happens when you have a bunch of United Air miles that are about to expire, but aren’t enough to use for anything? They offer you magazine subscriptions, lots of them. One of mine was Time. The latest issue, had an article that really struck a nerve with me, it was on education, specifically the Chancellor of the Washington D.C. school district.

As a product of public education, I’m 100% opposed to private schools and vouchers. I’m more opposed to our current school system, which I think needs to be completely scrapped. Not just a little, but scrapped and started over, get rid of the teachers, the principles, the assistant principles, and even some of the guidence counselors (though that’s just cuz I think they’re lame).

One of my biggest beef’s with my pals the democrats, their allegiance to teacher’s unions. They’re as bad the auto makers unions, and unfortunately for us, they’re mess ups, are children, not just crappy cars.

Teaching is one of those jobs, where all you have to do is make it 10 years, or 15 years, and you’re set. You can suck as much as you like after you’re earned tenure. Man I wish I had that deal, so my job well enough to not get fired for a while, then coast until retirement. SURE not every teacher is that way, a great many are heroes in the truest sense, and have my undying respect, but easily as many, are terrible. I’m not being over dramatic, I’ve suffered through them, their not really caring about the students, or the curriculum, simply fullfilling the lesson plan requirements, whether we learned something or not.

What should we do? Make teachers live in the same world we do. If I start sucking at my job, EUI will fire me. If I’ve worked there for 10 years, they’ll still let me go if I start to do a poor job. Why should a teacher be any different? Why should we give them that break that gives them the freedom to stink it up?

My idea? It’s easy, make teaching pay what it’s worth in the market like any other job, and make it no more guaranteed than any other. Teachers should be paid what they’re worth, and fired when they stink, it’s really that simple. We shouldn’t promote poor teachers to principle, and poor principles to super-intendant. Sure every industry has it’s share of “promoted to highest level of incompetence” but teaching seems to have institutionalized the concept, and codified it into their very fiber.

This quote is awesome,

She says things most superintendents would not. “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students. “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,’” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”

Damn straight!

The data back up Rhee’s obsession with teaching. If two average 8-year-olds are assigned to different teachers, one who is strong and one who is weak, the children’s lives can diverge in just a few years, according to research pioneered by Eric Hanushek at Stanford. The child with the effective teacher, the kind who ranks among the top 15% of all teachers, will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests by the time she is 11. The other child will be a year and a half below grade level–and by then it will take a teacher who works with the child after school and on weekends to undo the compounded damage. In other words, the child will probably never catch up.

I can’t agree more. I came from what I consider a pretty bad district, my high school opened with not enough teachers, and an empty library. I sat on the floor for more than a month in my 70ish kid english class. Several of my classes the first year, we had to share text books. The Gym, never had showers, etc. etc. I had a history teacher, and while I thought he was nice and a cool guy, he never spoke to the class. He assigned chapters, and tests. I went to that class about once every two weeks and passed with an A, and don’t recall a damn thing! I was in an AP class that so horribly prepared me for the AP exam, that I failed miserably. What Senior AP Lit class spends the class reading a loud? Mine did.

Teachers are brave souls, and I think we treat them mostly like dirt, but I think too many of them are doing our (actually ‘your’ since Nicole and I aren’t breeders) a terrible disservice, and we as a society have empowered them to do so. We bitch and moan about the state of education, yet parents don’t get involved, we throw money at “no student left behind” which really means, “pass the dummies so they’re some one elses problem”, rather than holding students AND teachers accountable. Every job has metrics, every single one. Yet somehow teachers don’t? Test scores aren’t good metrics, blah blah blah. There MUST be a metric, and we owe it to students, and teachers a like to find it, and make it standard, and hold all parties to it. That’s it, it’s not rocket surgery, it’s not impossible.

Tags: politics, teaching

Thanksgiving in the mountains

Nicole and aren’t really Thanksgivng people. In CA we’d go for all you can eay Sushi (usually the only white folks in the place), but in CO that’s a bit tougher. We still try to get sushi, even if it’s not all you can eat.

This year we headed up into the mountains, for a little time away from the city. That sounds overly romantic, like we headed off to some small log cabin with no utilities. Actuall we went to Breckenridge to a condo at the base of Peak 9, with Wifi (it sucked, thank god for EVDO), and a kitchenette.

We didn’t get Sushi, since Mountain Flying Fish wasn’t opened, but we did enjoy an incredibly tasty meal at Blue River Bistro. Get the Creme Brulee!

Who woulda guessed that there’d be so little snow? Last year the resorts were screaming bloody murder about the lack of snow, so we all knew what was up. I guess this year they decided to keep their traps closed. There was 1 run open at Peak 9, a few on peak 8. The entire town of Breck was snow free on Wednesday and Thursday.

Finally Friday saw some awesome snow. We woke to it coming down, and it continued to fall all day, making the runs AWESOME, blessing and curse, that.

We got some good runs in, but man, PEOPLE SUCK. I know I’m not the only person on the mountain, but really folks, you aren’t either.

We did pick up some cool gifts for folks for Christmas, so that was cool and did enjoy yummy food. All in all the bar for Thanksgiving has been raised for us now!

That said, we’re not hitting the slopes in November anymore. Not worth it.

Tags: skiing, Thanksgiving

A lesson in 2008, Don’t F with Community

So last night I saw a very powerful example of not doing business like it’s 1980.

I remember as a kid, and even as a young adult, saying, “Wow, I had no idea a Wal-Mart/Starbucks/McDonalds/You name it, was going in there.”

Those days are no more. The internet has changed that, forever. Builders and land barons can no longer simply build something and slap a sign on it, and move on, not caring whether the community approved or not. It was easy, once built it’s hard for the community to stop something that’s already built.

Last night, hopefully taught Focus development that very lesson. They’ve signed a lease with 7-11 to put up a store at Broadway and Larimer, where the old auto repair shop building is. They did this without ever mentioning it to the Ballpark Neighborhood (where I live). Normally that’d be fine, I’m all for business, especially business coming to my neighborhood.

Unfortunately my neighborhood is a bit teetery. We’ve got 2 homeless shelters a block apart, and about 1.5 blocks from the proposed location of the 7-11. The concern isn’t just bringing the homeless further into our neighborhood; they’re already here, lots of them near my house. It’s the crime, the traffic, the impact on the residents of the lofts immediately next to the 7-11. It’s a lot of things, that Focus Development seems to have chosen to ignore.

The alleyway behind the lofts, apparently is frequented (nightly from the sounds of it) by homeless, drug dealers and takers, and apparently prostitutes. Currently a call to police allows the police to take the offenders, or at least drive them away. However with the 7-11 there, the offenders simply have to say they’re on their way inside or have just left, keeping the police from making that area safer.

So where did Focus go wrong? They never told the community, the community that is directly impacted by this 7-11. They seemed to have thought that they could simply set up this 7-11 regardless of the community’s opinions. Sure that’s how business would like it to be, but that’s simply not the case. Not these days. Business owners and residents alike all vowed to do whatever they could to stop the 7-11, and even more so, every future endeavor Focus Development undertakes in the Ballpark Neighborhood. That can’t be good. And How did this all go wrong for Focus? The Internet. Skabber twittered a blog link, that was an Email from someone else. I twittered the event, and blogged it. Word spread fast. In the ‘old days’ word didn’t spread, fast or if at all. Business should keep that in mind. I suspect there won’t be a 7-11 at Broadway and Larimer, just a hunch, but I’m guessing it’s not gonna happen.

Side note. the only two people “for” the 7-11, 1 that lives in Cherry Creek where the 7-11 there is completely nice and there’s no problems. DUH. And the President of our Association (will have to see how long that tenure is) who lives in Congress Park.

Tags: community, neighborhood

Just say no to 7-11

Skabber twittered this, and now I know where I’m gonna be tonight after work. The next block up from the office, at the Premiere Lofts. There will be the Ballpark Neighborhood Meeting and on the Agenda, a 7-11 where the Monkey Bean used to be.

Normally I’m not opposed to 7-11s, their quite nice, sell frozen Coke, and all that. BUT I’m opposed to 7-11s where they might; 1. detract from my neighborhood, and 2. make my neighborhood suck.

The ‘hood has enough hobo’s and drug dealers. Hell I’ve watched people do crack from my deck in the space where my pool is supposed to be. We don’t need someplace that’s likely attract even more nastiness, and crime. If I need ho-ho’s I can go to the quicky mart in the Ballpark Lofts or the slightly scarrier mart on Larimer. There’s options, we don’t need more.

So, mark your calendars, tonight, 5:30pm, Premiere Lofts.

Tags: neighborhood

The American CTO. Not the Technology Czar?

saw this on techcrunch. Business week is talking about soon to be President Obama’s plan to create a cabinet level post of CTO, and who the front runners are for the job.

The top names according to BW are:

Vint Cerf - Cheif Internet Evangelist for Google. I’m not sure I want some one from Google in that position. Google’s great and all “Do no evil” but I’m getting less and less convinced as time goes by that their motives are so altruistic.

Steve Balmer - uh no. Maybe CCO; Chief Crazy Officer, but CTO? Sorry Steve, you seem smart and all but I wouldn’t put in in front of a crowd of anyone. Microsoft fanboys seem to like you, but from the outside looking in, you seem a bit crazy, and not really in touch with technology that doesn’t come from Redmond.

Jeff Bezos - CEO of Amazon. I’d buy that for a dollar. I’ve never met Jeff, but from everything I’ve read about him, he’s down to earth, cool, and generally a fun guy, with a good head for business.

Ed Felton - Comp Sci professor from Princeton. I don’t know a single thing about him, but A Princeton Prof, can’t be too bad a choice.

Lawrence Lessig - I’d buy that for a buck too. I read his blog (when it’s not over my head) he seems to be spot on with technology, and politics, which seems to be sorely lacking in Washington, just look at most of our existing tech legislation, and oh god, the Patent and Copyright office.

Techrunch has a poll, so go take a look, and drop your opinion.

Tags: Obama, politics, Technology

Great Steve thinks we all want to look at ourselves while we code

Apples new gear is pretty neat, mostly.

I dig the track pad thing, even though gestures are pretty much limited to Apples’ own products. The 4 finger thing might be cool for espose, etc.. The instant on LED backlight will definitely be a nice touch!

The glossy screen, SUCKS. Damnit Apple! why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why do do you think we want laptop screens that are useless? I can’t use my macbook air in well lit rooms, like our main conference room, the reflection pretty much blocks out the screen. I mean look at the pic from Engagdet, you can see the guy taking the picture for crying out loud!

I do dig the keyboard, I’ve gotten very used to the contrast on the keys, though they stick out like a sore thumb amid all that shiny aluminium. But the gray keys, with the lights on underneath hard sometimes hard to see.

Over all this wasn’t a completely lame announcement but I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy a new latop just yet. My current MBP is doing just fine, and since I don’t game, at. all. the fancy new video chips don’t do a thing for me, sorry.

I’m glad Apple has standardized on yet another display plug type, so when I do get a new machine, if I have any of my old ones, I’ll need to carry yet another adapter, yippy skippy!

I certainly am not looking forward to having two tanning mirrors on my desk in a bright room :(

Tags: Apple, Macbook, Steve Jobs

V coming back! Watch out white mice and guinea pigs!

I read V: The Second Generation, when it came out in paperback, and it defintiely captured the story of the Visitors and the Resistance. It should it, it was written by the original creator of the series.

Turns out ABC is prepping a remake.. Sadly not a sequel, so we’ll never know how the original story continued, but we’ll see the story unfold in a more modern times view.

Hopefully it makes it to the small screen, I’d watch it!

Tags: Television, V

in other news, we don’t know where the number came from

Apparently 750,000 americans are out of work because of IP piracy. Leading the US Chamber of Commerce to push for a Copyright Czar.

My first point of contention is that according to wired, no one knows where the 750,000 number actually came from. Several groups cite other groups as the source, even circling back on themselves. Gotta love that.

My second point of contention is this; the drug czar doesn’t seem to have done much for us, unless we won the war on drugs and no one told me. Now we’d have an equally useless position pushing draconian laws to augment the already incredibly terrible copyright/patent process we have today.

We don’t need czars, they didn’t work in Russia, they don’t seem to work for us either. We need reform. We need the copyright office to not suck. We need the patent office to do it’s job, and not rubberstamp “Device for viewing internet materials” type patents with no actual device to back up the patent. Copyright needs to make sense.

I agree those who get copyrights, should be protected, but copyright as it stands now is whack. It’d be nice to see copyright replaced with Creative Commons, it sure seems to make more sense to me. If content creators were more interested in their work, than suing everyone who quotes it, we’d all be in better shape.

Tags: government, IP