More following on failure

It is interesting that these people were criticized exactly were they are outstanding.

http://www.creativitypost.com/psychology/famous_failures

TED: David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

Further follow up
- Check Blog: "Information is beatiful"
- Check about the Google interactive tool he has published.
- Book: "Information is Beautiful/The Visual Miscellaneum"
- Guardian Data Blog
-> Designing Visualization tool for Telephone bill

Thought:
He has been an programmer.
"Data is the new soil"
Information design is all about knowledge compression. (Can the process be replaced by computer?)

Question: Whether it is possible to scale the process of data visualization; like a template? Such as visual.ly http://create.visual.ly/

Read and Reflection: random.org

http://www.random.org/history/

They use environment stimulus to generate random number. It is so fun! 

I had similar idea using a bad optical camera to capture some light. 

But idea doesn't count, execution does. It is great to see that someone has already think that, makes you feel that you are not alone. 

What about building a random generator using the result of the stock market?

Programming Working Journal

2012.5.13

Reflection: Reading new code is actually complex, get to distracted about every detail. Spend a lot of time learning what "class" is (still not sure how to use private class). Need to have higher ratio of omission.

Current step for learning new part:
Get Broad picture first(Neglect everything unless you are stuck. )-> Look at line of code from the most important part-> List down what you don't understand-> Break and Conquer 

List of outstanding:
- Understand $this
- Understand private and public class
- Practice the above mentioned.

Check-in:
7:40 am wake up
08:00-09:20 Writing about KK and thoughts about programming. Actual.
09:20-12:30 Deliberate Practice on:

1. log-in system;  Actual.(But is still there.)
2. think about how to reproduce Market Intelligence Platform
   a. log-in system
   b. what you see is what you can change (Google Site superficial)
   c. Newsletter Form
   d. automatically generate new page
   e. tag; crossed-tag analytic
   f. RSS feed auto-capture

Afternoon: Read, Get some sport and write. Actual(walk 90 min, write, watch TED).

18:00-22:00 Deliberate Practice  Actual(21:00-23:00) 

Resource:
Using 'this' and '$this'
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7234282/what-is-the-reason-for-var-this-this

Random String
Random String-> Usually created with a string+timestamp
Use random string to md5 hash with password


http://www.random.org/strings/?num=1&len=15&digits=on&upperalpha=on&loweralpha=on&unique=on&format=html&rnd=new


Watch later:
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/2011-review-15-web-conference-talks-you-need-watch

Reading and Reflection- KK and computer eco-system

Reading Kevin Kelly out of control, and thinking about computer programming. The concept is that the system we designed will become so complicated that we will have to turn to biology to maintain the system.

If we separate software into internet and desktop based, I think that internet base software will do better in the long run. Because it has a more powerful feedback loop.

This morning, when I started my computer, some warning pop up, it seems that some of the item on my desktop has remained unused for a while, and some program suggest me to take it off of my desktop. This must be a code invent by MS programmers, that count the number of time that you have open each item. The underlining assumption is that, I will need to clean it.

The ultimate problem is, how do we know whether we need this line of code? How do we test the assumption of whether we want to have this function?

Maybe there is another master program that is counting the number of the program being used: if the clear the desktop program is not being used enough time, it will be wiped out. But this rule itself can't be guarantee to be a good one, as it is assessing the usefulness based on the frequency of the usage. Think of an extinguisher that is useful in case of incident, but is not been used as often.

And MS window does have a feedback system: it is the error message that it will send out to MS, when the computer crashed. But given the time that these message appears, it doesn't seem to be very efficient. Or it might be just the fact, that computer system is too complicated, and the whole network turn out to send out all kind of errors that is just impossible to deal with.

Or it might be the fact that the whole program is just too big. And it is not possible to just change one part of the program.

It might be possible to design the ultimate algorithm to emulate the feedback function on nature. When you think at the internet system, it is much closer: it let some line of program dies, they are replaced by more efficient-friendly one. The piece are smaller, and if they are not interdependent, you can easily change part of the program with something else. The system has the ultimate feedback loop, and that's why it can succeed.

Another point worth mentioning, I doubt that all software will be more open in the future: people are different, and when more people understand how programming works, they won't be satisfied with the level of control they have now. I am thinking about customization that are fundamentally different, not just the ones that allows you to change the size of the font.

When we talked about evolution, we often implies that all evolution are advancement, and that human  are, by far, the latest process of the evolution. Which might sound good, but think of this: can we said we are better than cockroach in surviving disaster?

The process of evolution just let new creature that can better take advantage of the current environment to prosper. Environment varies, and that is the reason why there are many different dominant species in different places.

If you think of this, you won't have version control that goes from v. 1.3-> v. 2.0. Instead, you will have multiple spin-off of version, that are all up-to-date.

And that may just the reason why Google has a android system that runs on smartphone is different than its desktop OS system. And that MS who try to just transfer its desktop based OS to mobile phone won't work: at the end, they have to create a totally new system instead.

Blackberry has similar problem when smartphone are changed from business to entertainment usage: they just can't make the change.



One last note on cockroach and human's comparison, if you only compare one cockroach to one human. Given the incredible things that one human can do vs. one cockroach can do, you probably won't feel intimated. But what about comparing all cockroach on earth to all human on earth?

And if you think of it, it is interesting, if human were to be defined as some biological program, we might be a very LARGE program. While if cockroach is to be a program, it might just have two line of code:  eat-> reproduce.

And in programming, the shorter the better, no?

Programming Reading and Reflection

Outstanding Idea:

Find a fixed day in the week in a fix place to program with fix people?

Focus. Reserve your morning time. Sleep early.

Study the basic.

Read Pinterst and visual.ly everyday, it is important to keep absorbing beautiful graph, understand what machine can do and human cannot.

Always produce.

Need to be more focus, deliberate practice is what it count. Hard work, not hard to do work.
- Facebook COO leaves work at 17:00
http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/sheryl-sandberg-leaves-work-at-530/
- 4 to 6 hours hard focus
http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/22/on-the-value-of-hard-focus/
- Considering Start-up, think again.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/considering_a_start-up_think_a.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-cs-_-considering_a_start-up_think_a
I am glad that I didn't get disprove by this start-up. 

- How genius think
http://www.creativitypost.com/create/how_geniuses_think
Look at things at many different way. Blank of the mind, don't think immediately. Let your flow guide you first. Remember to breath.



If ruby on wheels is as powerful than php, but it takes much less time to learn as php. It won't be what you already know, but the speed where you are learning. Learning plan, the working journal that I am keeping now is very important.

Winner takes all at programming, people who only new some basic will be quickly replace by cheap platform( think as platform tool that kills a lot of people: Google site, iBook authoring).


Discussion Yenling's advice:
Needs to have the basic at one language before moving on. Build at least the MI platform.
Programming Language:  Learn about different type of programming language. Lisp, C/C++, and others.

Programming Working Journal

2012.5.6

Target:
- Need log in to see content.
- Practice AJAX

Read "我是亞桑傑" (Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography)
Information helps to form multi-narrative, and this is important.
Needs to be a great hacker to build a secure mechanism. He has been hacking since he was 16, reaching  10 years/10,000 hours of practice very early.

Interested to know that he doesn't seem to have any interaction with the Chinese internet, given that he seems to have hacked many major network, this seems very strange.

Wikileaks had a lot of information, and he seems to have a way to proceed through 70,000 entries. The way of how he organized the data might be very interesting.

List of absorbing:
Complete package about login on github.
https://github.com/simfatic/RegistrationForm#readme

Read Getting Real
https://gettingreal.37signals.com/

Read out of control
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/


Trim: a php function that removes white space.
Usually used for password so that white space can be removed.
http://www.w3schools.com/php/func_string_trim.asp

Form and check box best practice
http://www.html-form-guide.com/php-form/php-form-checkbox.html
- Dynamics form
- Hide password
- Multiple Check box
- Check whether a sample is checked

Login form using PHP
http://www.html-form-guide.com/php-form/php-login-form.html
Complete package about it on github:
https://github.com/simfatic/RegistrationForm


Passing php variable
http://www.html-form-guide.com/php-form/php-form-variables.html

Session Best Practice
http://www.html-form-guide.com/php-form/php-order-form.html