Monday, March 25, 2013
Let's Hear it for Weirdos!
I take some pride in being weird – a weirdo. I've long proclaimed that being normal is boring. This morning I read a great blog post by Michael Lazerow that ends with this:
Weirdos don’t see anything as impossible. Anything is possible. Just give us enough time.A high-Q resonance here...
Weirdos are contrarians. They think differently and act even more differently. Normals try to fit in. Weirdos stick out without really trying.
Weirdos aren’t driven by money. Money is a destination. Weirdos are all about the journey.
Weirdos don’t care what others think. They only care THAT they think and want to change HOW they think.
Weirdos come in all shapes and sizes, colors and countries. And they're not new to the tech industry, or industry in general.
Weirdos thought it made sense to get on the Mayflower from England to settle in a new land.
Weirdos thought we should get rid of slavery.
Weirdos insisted that women should also have a vote.
The world would suck if it weren’t for weirdos.
Instead of trying to get our kids to fit in, we should help them celebrate why they are different.
Let’s start to teach kids to embrace weird. Weird is good.
And let’s not stop until weird is normal.
Strange Programming Language Features...
Fascinating thread on StackExchange, if you're of a geekly bent...
Mandatory School Subject: Chess...
The little country of Armenia has made the study of chess a required subject in its public schools. There seem to be two objectives: grooming chess masters (to make Armenia a chess powerhouse), and training young minds to think.
Where and when I grew up (New Jersey, in the '50s and '60s), chess was popular. We had no actual chess classes, but we did have a chess club that offered instruction, and it was easy to get matches at any level. I was a semi-serious player in junior high school, active in the schools chess club; less so before and after that. I do believe that having an enjoyable pastime that required intellectual discipline and active thought was helpful in developing my mind. I can't say it was all chess, though, as I had several such pastimes. More important to me at the time was my interest in designing electronic systems. Later – specifically, while teaching myself how to program in the '70s – I remember noting that the process of designing and writing programs “felt” a lot like the process of seriously playing chess. There's the body of practical experience to learn from, elements of strategy and tactics in the design, and even the notion of sequential execution (that is, the way chess moves occur in a specific order is analogous to the way computers execute instructions one after the other). On occasion, I've even thought of programming as involving an active opponent :)
I can't help but wonder what the results of this experiment will be...
Where and when I grew up (New Jersey, in the '50s and '60s), chess was popular. We had no actual chess classes, but we did have a chess club that offered instruction, and it was easy to get matches at any level. I was a semi-serious player in junior high school, active in the schools chess club; less so before and after that. I do believe that having an enjoyable pastime that required intellectual discipline and active thought was helpful in developing my mind. I can't say it was all chess, though, as I had several such pastimes. More important to me at the time was my interest in designing electronic systems. Later – specifically, while teaching myself how to program in the '70s – I remember noting that the process of designing and writing programs “felt” a lot like the process of seriously playing chess. There's the body of practical experience to learn from, elements of strategy and tactics in the design, and even the notion of sequential execution (that is, the way chess moves occur in a specific order is analogous to the way computers execute instructions one after the other). On occasion, I've even thought of programming as involving an active opponent :)
I can't help but wonder what the results of this experiment will be...