Monday, March 26, 2012

You can X...if you X

A friend posted the blog post You can draw...if you draw and I think it is so good I'm going to talk about it!

Replace X in the title with anything you want to do. The Missus and I are in the process of teaching this to our 5 year old using the violin. 3 minutes a day for the last 6 months and she can now play at talent shows at school. She didn't believe us at first. But now she is well on her way to being able to play the violin as good as her Grandpa; with lots of practice. Practice practice practice.

I learned how to ride a unicycle 2 years ago. Now I mountain unicycle all over the Santa Cruz mountains. I hear from people all the time "I could never do that". It turned out to be such a good workout the Missus picked it up, my sister became addicted and our 5 year old is learning as well.

I do think some people are inherently more skilled at certain things, but that doesn't mean with practice and perseverance one can't do anything they set their mind to. Honestly that's one of the reasons I get so annoyed at the current hiring practices for software engineers and alluded to in this post. I've interviewed countless people who I think could do the job. And the question usually isn't "are they smart", the quest that should be answered is "are they a team player". I'd rather have a whole bunch of average people that can learn and work as a team than a couple rock stars with a complex.

So what is it that you want to learn to do?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

New iPad

My take on this is the resolution is pretty awesome, but other than that I see no reason for original iPad or iPad 2 owners to upgrade. Especially since the weight has increased. As far as I'm concerned the size of the battery should have been reduced to decrease the weight. However, if I were buying an iPad today I'd have to go for the new iPad 32GB because 16 fills up rather fast, but that makes it a $200 price increase which is pricy.

By the way, I picked up the "YOOBAO Red Genuine Leather Slim Case Portfolio Case For Apple iPad 2" and it's really nice.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Monitor

It seems that dual monitors has finally hit the mainstream. Article after article comments on research that people are more productive with dual monitors than with one monitor. I really dislike dual monitors. Sure, it's more productive, but nobody ever mentions the whiplash one can get from using the off center monitor too often. No, I prefer one big monitor with a high resolution for most tasks. 24", 27" or 30". I think if they went back and did their research with everyone running a 30" monitor they'd find people are even more productive than with dual monitors. The advantage is price. Small monitors can be picked up for a few hundred bucks while a very large high resolution display is considerably more. But once you factor in the chiropractic bill I'm sure the savings would more than justify the large monitor.

Note: I am in no way benefiting from you buying a large display from the likes of Dell, Viewsonic, Samsug, LG, etc.