lessons from everyday life
There are two types of programmers; one who has learned programming in 21 days and then there are those who can program.
A very well written article by Peter Norvig on this phenomenon of “learn all” programming languages in fewer days than you can possibly finish reading the books.
Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, professors at Stanford University did an experiment by offering their Artificial Intelligence class CS221 online for free. They expected few thousands to sign up and that few thousands was close to 160,000.
Thrun prophesies that in about 50 years, the world will have about 10 global online universities offering higher education. They want their university, UDACITY – it’s a play on 2 words – audacious and university, to be one of them.
They recently held an online conference using Google Hangout where they invited Salman Khan of Khan Academy, about whom I have mentioned in one of my earlier blogs. It was an interesting conversation and listening to what I believe is shaping the future of the higher education.
I wonder if someone can bring the same enthusiasm and quality to school education – K12. The challenge is for lower grade levels; education for pre-k and for elementary school children . This opens a new argument all together, what should be taught at that level? How should it be taught? The impact of educating the children through an equally innovative method and style can have a bigger impact than the impact created by mass education through higher education.
Instagram‘s sale to facebook for $1 Billion – that’s $ 1000 000 000. Folks that’s a looooooot of money!
While countless people have given countless reasons for the astronomical price of a seemingly simple app – an app that applies filters to photos before sharing with others, I am not going to give mine. I may agree that Facebook may have felt threatened that their core element that engages and binds their users together, photos, may soon be hosted and owned by another company.
Ironically what made Instagram popular are facebook users. People sharing photos on facebook using their smart phone cameras and Instagram app. What if the smart phones had a built-in app to share photos with facebook? iPhone decided to integrate twitter and it killed many and any such apps for twitter but it did not integrate facebook and Instagram filled that void with amazing grace.
If smart phones had integrated facebook with their system, I don’t think facebook would have bought Instagram for $1 Billion or bought it at all!
Google has been trying to make an entry in the online survey/research market for sometime. They launched Google Survey as a package of Google docs. That was a sub-standard software that barely did anything beyond providing the ability to ask few simple questions and forget any insightful report.
But it seems Google is now serious. They recently launched Google Consumer Survey that gives the impressions of a serious intent to enter the booming market of online research. Tag that along with a strong panel (read you and me who are constantly updating and telling Google who we are and Google’s ability to put surveys in front of you without being in your face) gives them a great leverage over others who rely on panels or provide panels for research.
As the market heats up and as SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang try to dominate the online research market, there’s still no clear winner in site. I feel strongly that Google will buy D&B – Dun and Bradstreet Inc or one of these “People Inc” businesses to get close and direct access to corporations – the growth engine behind the research market.
However, there’s a player in this space that stands out like a diamond in the rough. SoGo Survey is miles ahead from first generation survey tool provided by SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, Survey Gizmo, Qualtrics which I have used all. It’s the company to watch as they capture more and more market space and roll out amazingly powerful features for serious online researchers like me and Fortune 1000 clients I have worked with.
I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs about why iphone 4 wasn’t much of a phone if it kept dropping calls. It looks like Apple finally settled on it and has accepted to refund $15 or a free cover to all iPhone4 buyers. I have an iPhone4S and this one is Sleek and Shows no Signs of Sloppiness.
The first page gets almost 85% of the traffic! What is even more amazing is the difference between #1 and #2 placement. If you are spending your money on SEO and someone gets your business on page 2 of Google, they have barely done much for your business!
Khan Academy, couldn’t have asked for a better ambassador than Bill Gates – someone who has touted it as the “future of education”. Salman “Sal” Khan, who started to post video tutorials trying to help his nephews and nieces with their Math and Science studies has found a global audience who love his fluid and easy to understand style of teaching.
He has now amassed an amazingly talented group of people who are taking his efforts to mainstream classrooms and around the world – establishing a truly global school. But it still came as a surprise that the #3 guy of Google – Craig Silverstein, left Google today to join Khan Academy.
The best of education brought to you by a group of extremely talented people at your leisure for free of cost. I am excited at the prospect of what Khan Academy can achieve.
Jagjit Singh passed away on October 10, 2011.
I am indebted to Jagjit Singh for connecting me with Urdu shairis, “poetry”, in ways that I know I would never have otherwise. He made Mirza Ghalib’s shairi a common parlance even for the Bollywood crowd.
Here’s one of his renditions of Majaz Luckhnawi’s
Taskeen-E-Dil-E-Mehzoo Na Hui
http://youtu.be/mElOF0eYIFY
taskiin-e-dil-e-mehzoo na hu’ii vo sa’ii-e-karam farmaa bhii gaye
is sa’ii-e-karam ko kyaa kahiye behlaa bhii gaye taRpaa bhii gaye
(taskiin-e-dil : calm of heart; sa’ii-e-karam : efforts of generosity)
hum arz-e-vafaa bhii kar na sake, kuch keh na sake, kuch sun na sake
yaaN humne zubaaN hii kholii thii vaaN aaNkh jhukii sharmaa bhii gaye
(arz-e-vafaa : tale of love)
is mehfil-e-kaif-o-mastii meN, is anjuman-e-irfaanii meN
sab jaam-bakaf baithe hii rahe hum pii bhii gaye chhalkaa bhii gaye
(kaif : intoxication; anjuman-e-irfaanii : gathering for gnosis; jaam-bakaf : waiting for wine)
Thanks to http://mohib.net for putting up this translation for this memorable ghazal.
I have problems with my iPhone 3Gs. It drops calls and signal is week is many spots. But the initial charm of the phone kept me holding to it. There were moments when I just wanted to switch to another phone. Droid came close but it failed to charm me.
iPhone 4 was huge. For me it meant the “phone” part of iPhone finally taking hold. But it flopped even before I received it. Apple tried to address the ‘rumor’ about drop in signal strength with a frivolous suggestion that “you are holding it wrong”. I have lost the enthusiasm I had when I pre-ordered iPhone 4 – now that it has arrived for me – I am giving it a pass.
At the DC mall – celebrating America’s 234th B’day!
