Month: October 2014

Categories
Leadership

The Internet Century

Just started reading “How Google Works”, a book I received at the Google for Work event on October 1, 2014.  It made me realize that the technology trends of openly available information on the Internet, ubiquity of mobile devices and networks, and practically limitless computing power and storage of cloud computing have enabled frequent and inexpensive experimentation.  Internet first, mobile first and Internet of Things (including wearable technology) have profoundly changed the world.

One other trend that was casually mentioned in the book is the role of open source technologies.  The technologies like those powering ECP and this blog have matured, enabling people to not just use but create usable and low-cost solutions to solve everyday problems.

Interesting ideas include…

  • The smart creative is required to achieve success in the Internet Century vs. the knowledge worker of the twentieth century.
  • They are multi-dimensional, combining technical depth with business savvy, creative flair and hands-on approach to getting things done.
  • They don’t just design concepts, they build prototypes.
  • Attributes include taking risks, failing fast and learning from failures.
Categories
Technology

My Arduino Adventure

Just received an Arduino Uno R3 with Vilros Ethernet Shield kit in the mail.  Will be connecting it to the Pi soon.  Not sure what to do with it yet.  It will probably demonstrate Internet of Things (IoT).  Check back to find out what it will do.

UPDATE (03-OCT-2014):  Installed the Arduino Uno driver software for Windows 8.1.  Plugged the Arduino Uno to my Acer netbook via USB.  Inserted an LED into pin 13 (long leg) and ground pin (short leg) of the Uno.  Downloaded the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment) software.  Started the IDE and opened, compiled and uploaded my first sketch (program).  Got the LED to blink at 500 ms, 250 ms and 100 ms.

UPDATE (04-OCT-2014):  Tried the TMP36 temperature sensor.  Next is to get the temperature data to be accessible on the Web.

UPDATE (05-OCT-2014):  Got the Arduino to publish the temperature on a web page.

UPDATE (15-DEC-2015): Used ThingSpeak to scrape the temperature data from the abovementioned webpage and to create a channel for publishing the collected data on the chart below.

Arduino Uno R3 with Vilros Ethernet Shield
Arduino Uno R3 with Vilros Ethernet Shield
Categories
Leadership

Moonshot Thinking

I was introduced to moonshot thinking at the Google for Work event in Chicago today on October 1, 2014.  It challenges people to make something 10x better instead of 10% incremental Improvement by way of solving a huge problem with a radical solution that applies breakthrough technology. Watch this inspiring video. Read more about it at https://www.solveforx.com/.

The following is a partial transcript of the video:

[Google – Moonshot Thinking] Source: LYBIO.net
The actual moonshot is wonderful, inspirational, poetic, beautiful, involved great technical challenges, genuine heroism, it brought the world together. But think about the Polynesian islander on the dug out canoe, deciding one day they were going to go that way. No one had ever been that way before, no one even knew if there was anything that way before, it was amazing and it changed the world.

…

Everyone else in the world is working on that next ten percent. If you can be the one that delivers that ten times improvement, you have a chance to really change things.

…

You need a lot of courage in this work and you need a lot of persistence. One of the things that is really critical is not only having the courage to keep trying every day or thinking big. Even if you don’t really 100 percent believe it’s possible, like, you might think this might be possible, have the courage to try, that’s how the greatest things have happened.

…

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

…

I think our ambitions are a glass ceiling in what we can accomplish.

When you find your passion, you are unstoppable. You can make amazing things happen, it’s been true throughout all of history.

…

When Kennedy said that we will put a man on the moon, it’s about the fact that he said we don’t know how to do this yet, and we are gonna to do it anyway, and that sends chills up everybody’s spines, because if that happens, what couldn’t we do?

Categories
Images

My Photojournalism Adventure

At the Western Michigan University football game on August 31, 1995, I was in the Waldo Stadium field along with several professional photographers on assignment for our respective newspapers/organizations.  In the drizzle, I was trying to keep my equipment dry using a plastic bag that once contained a loaf of bread.  With a Nikon F3HP mounted on a MD4 motor drive and Nikkor AF 300mm f/4 lens, I was lucky to have captured in sharp focus one of the two streakers running across the field. The film used was Kodak Tri-X that was push processed from ISO 400 to ISO 1,600.

The Western Herald provided the film. I provided the camera equipment. I developed the film and printed the picture using the provided materials (i.e., developer, fixer, stopbath and photo paper), equipment (i.e., film developing tank, squeegee, photo chemical tubs and photo enlarger) and darkroom. My compensation was just $5 per picture published. It wasn’t for the money that my fellow college photojournalists and I were working for. It was because of our passion in photography that we did it.

Everything happened so fast that I’m amazed that the picture turned out OK even though it was manual focused. As a matter of fact, I could not remember if I had any pictures of the football game published. It is my understanding that I was the only photographer who got a usable picture of the streaker.  If it happened today, my guess is that hundreds of spectators would have snapped away using their mobile phones and posted their pictures and videos on various social media sites!

Western_Herald_Streaker
My picture that took almost a month to publish because the newspaper debated about how to print it.