Free Python Programming Classes - Enrol Now!: Udacity is a startup company founded by David Stavens, Mike Sokolsky, and Sebastian Thrun that takes initiatives like MIT's OpenCourseWare to the next level. Over the next seven weeks students anywhere in the world will have the chances to take part in the first two classes being offered by Udacity: CS101: Building a Search Engine and CS373: Programming a Robotic Car.
CS373 assumes that students have prior knowledge of programming while CS101 is designed for absolute beginners. Both courses will use the Python programming language. If you've never used Python then this is a great chance to try it out as the introductory class will start from the most basic level.
Looks like i'll be taking a leap into Python a lot sooner then I previously expected to.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Why Apple Doesn't Make the iPhone in America [Apple]
Why Apple Doesn't Make the iPhone in America [Apple]:
The answer is pretty obvious, right? It's cheaper labor! But is that the only reason why Apple (and other companies) outsource its workforce to China as opposed to keeping them in America? No. There's more. The NY Times has an excellent report on why Apple ignores America when it comes to making the iPhone and how that's better for Apple. More »
Is anyone really falling for this reasoning? At what point to you realize that the reason product from American companies are made in China and other placed across Asia isn't because they have better educated workers. Look at any major university (MIT, Georgia Tech, Stanford, etc) and the engineering departments are second to none on the B.S, MS, and PhD levels. The real problem is that these companies can't find educated workers here in the US who are willing to work for less then 25K.
The answer is pretty obvious, right? It's cheaper labor! But is that the only reason why Apple (and other companies) outsource its workforce to China as opposed to keeping them in America? No. There's more. The NY Times has an excellent report on why Apple ignores America when it comes to making the iPhone and how that's better for Apple. More »
Is anyone really falling for this reasoning? At what point to you realize that the reason product from American companies are made in China and other placed across Asia isn't because they have better educated workers. Look at any major university (MIT, Georgia Tech, Stanford, etc) and the engineering departments are second to none on the B.S, MS, and PhD levels. The real problem is that these companies can't find educated workers here in the US who are willing to work for less then 25K.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Get paid while you learn Ruby/Rail..
It’s a five-month, full-time, paid training program put together by JumpstartLab and LivingSocial. 24 attendees will be selected for the program and will divide time between classroom instruction, team project work, and open source / community contributions. Instruction will be led by Jeff Casimir and Matt Yoho from JumpstartLab.
http://workshops.railsbridge.org/2012/01/hungry-academy-get-paid-to-learn-rubyrails/
Sounds like an amazing program which needs to be expanded to other cities around the country. I'd love to see this make it's way into the inner city. It just might open up a few people to software development who wouldn't otherwise have shown and interest.
http://workshops.railsbridge.org/2012/01/hungry-academy-get-paid-to-learn-rubyrails/
Sounds like an amazing program which needs to be expanded to other cities around the country. I'd love to see this make it's way into the inner city. It just might open up a few people to software development who wouldn't otherwise have shown and interest.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Jamaica Plans To Cut Ties With British Monarchy
Jamaica Plans To Cut Ties With British Monarchy:
Let see how far this goes.
KINGSTON-Jamaican Prime Minister, Portia Simpson miller plans to cut ties with the British monarchy and declare Jamaica an independent republic.
Jamaica has been independent for almost 50 years as it left the British Empire in 1962, but the Jamaican constitution still lists Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state.
Aljazeera reports:
Speaking at her inaugural address on Friday, Portia Simpson Miller, said her government would “initiate the process of detachment from the monarchy”, establishing a republic with a president as head of state, and breaking off links with the former colonial power.
Jamaica is a constitutional parliamentary democracy and also a Commonwealth realm.
“I love the Queen. She’s a beautiful lady and apart from being a beautiful lady a wise lady and a wonderful lady. But I think time come,” Simpson Miller said.
Let see how far this goes.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
ClockworkMod gets touched for the very first time on a Galaxy Nexus (video)
ClockworkMod gets touched for the very first time on a Galaxy Nexus (video):
If you've ever fussed with a bootloader on Android before, you probably know of ClockworkMod: the custom recovery that lets users backup, restore and flash ROMs willy nilly. Well, it's no surprise Google's newest flagship -- the Galaxy Nexus -- has gotten the CWR treatment, as it's been made specifically for idle geek hands. No, the big news here is that instead of fiddling about with the camera key, power button and volume rocker all just to navigate the menu, you can now simply use the power of touch. That's right, this beta build utilizes four softkeys at the bottom of the screen, making the entire affair that much more efficient. You can hit up the source now to take it for a test run, but remember -- flash at your own risk.
Continue reading ClockworkMod gets touched for the very first time on a Galaxy Nexus (video)
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Portia Simpson And The PNP Win Jamaican Election In Landslide
Portia Simpson And The PNP Win Jamaican Election In Landslide:
KINGSTON, Jamaica — On Jamaica’s rutted streets, the complaints have been chronic — home ownership is out of reach for most wage earners, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed, water service regularly fizzles out and decent jobs are scarce.
Fed up with chronic hard times, voters in this debt-wracked Caribbean nation on Thursday threw out the ruling party and delivered a landslide triumph to the opposition People’s National Party, or PNP, whose campaign energetically tapped voter disillusionment especially among the numerous struggling poor.
The win marks a remarkable political comeback for former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was Jamaica’s first female leader during her year-and-a-half-long first stint in office that ended in 2007. The 66-year-old known affectionately as “Sista P” reached out to Jamaicans as a champion of the poor with a popular touch.
“She cares about the ghetto people,” said Trishette Bond, a twenty-something resident of gritty Trench Town who wore an orange shirt and a bright orange wig, the color of Simpson Miller’s slightly center-left party, which led the island for 18 years before narrowly losing 2007 elections.
As word of her election win emerged Thursday night, PNP supporters shimmied and shouted in the capital, Kingston, and motorists honked horns in celebration as they tore down the streets.
“I am humbled as I stand before you and I wish to thank the Jamaican people for their love, for their support and for giving the People’s National Party and the leader of the party her own mandate,” she said, after receiving hugs from numerous candidates, some crying.
Simpson Miller defeated Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who at 39 is Jamaica’s youngest leader and leads the center-right Jamaica Labor Party.
Holness said the defeat will prompt a time of introspection and reflection for party leaders to examine what went wrong.
“I wish the new government well. We hope for the benefit of the country that they will do a good job,” said Holness, who warned during the campaign that an opposition win would scare away foreign investment and dash hopes of economic progress.
While official results have not been released, elections director Orrette Fisher told The Associated Press that preliminary results showed Simpson Miller heading to victory.
“Based on the margins, it appears safe to say” that Simpson Miller’s party won, Fisher said shortly after Jamaican newspapers and broadcasters called the election for the PNP. He expected his office to release the official count and breakdown of parliamentary seats on Saturday.
News station TVJ said Simpson Miller’s People’s National Party won 41 seats in parliament and Holness’s Jamaica Labor Party 22.
Simpson Miller is beloved by her supporters for her folksy, plainspoken style. She became Jamaica’s first female prime minister in March 2006 after she was picked by party delegates when P.J. Patterson retired as leader. But she was tossed out of office a year later in a narrow election defeat.
This time around, she has pledged to lift debt-wracked Jamaica out of poverty, secure foreign investment, and create jobs. Specifics are few, however.
Her party will face deep economic problems in this island of 2.8 million people, with a punishing debt of roughly $18.6 billion, or 130 per cent of gross domestic product. That’s a rate about 10 percentage points higher than debt-troubled Italy’s.
Veteran opposition lawmaker Omar Davies said one of the first things the People’s National Party will do is get “a true assessment of the state of the economy,” a dig at Holness’ party which was accused of rarely providing citizens with a clear picture of the island’s dire fiscal straits.
Holness, who became prime minister two months ago after Bruce Golding, Jamaica’s leader since 2007, abruptly stepped down in October amid anemic public backing, won his parliamentary seat with 54 percent of the vote.
Simpson Miller has been a stalwart of the People’s National Party since the 1970s. She was first elected to Parliament in 1976 and became a Cabinet member in 1989. Partisans have long admired Simpson Miller as a Jamaican who was born in rural poverty and grew up in a Kingston ghetto, not far from the crumbling concrete jungle made famous by Bob Marley.
During her brief tenure as prime minister, her support waned amid complaints she responded poorly to Hurricane Dean and was evasive about a scandal regarding a Dutch oil trading firm’s $460,000 payment to her political party leading up to 2007 elections.
The two top candidates’ different styles were clear while they cast their votes.
Holness is largely seen as unexciting, but bright and pragmatic. He whisked into the voting center in the middle class area of Mona, barely interacting with voters. After being heckled by an opposition partisan, he said he was “very confident” of a Labor victory and departed after taking three questions from reporters.
By contrast, Simpson Miller hugged and chatted with supporters at a school in Whitfield Town and told election workers to help struggling elderly voters.
Her party, which experimented with democratic socialism in the 1970s, is still perceived as more focused on social programs than the slightly more conservative Labor. There are no longer stark ideological differences between the two clan-like factions that have dominated Jamaican politics since the onetime British colony began self-rule in 1944. Jamaica became independent within the British Commonwealth in 1962.
KINGSTON, Jamaica — On Jamaica’s rutted streets, the complaints have been chronic — home ownership is out of reach for most wage earners, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed, water service regularly fizzles out and decent jobs are scarce.
Fed up with chronic hard times, voters in this debt-wracked Caribbean nation on Thursday threw out the ruling party and delivered a landslide triumph to the opposition People’s National Party, or PNP, whose campaign energetically tapped voter disillusionment especially among the numerous struggling poor.
The win marks a remarkable political comeback for former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was Jamaica’s first female leader during her year-and-a-half-long first stint in office that ended in 2007. The 66-year-old known affectionately as “Sista P” reached out to Jamaicans as a champion of the poor with a popular touch.
“She cares about the ghetto people,” said Trishette Bond, a twenty-something resident of gritty Trench Town who wore an orange shirt and a bright orange wig, the color of Simpson Miller’s slightly center-left party, which led the island for 18 years before narrowly losing 2007 elections.
As word of her election win emerged Thursday night, PNP supporters shimmied and shouted in the capital, Kingston, and motorists honked horns in celebration as they tore down the streets.
“I am humbled as I stand before you and I wish to thank the Jamaican people for their love, for their support and for giving the People’s National Party and the leader of the party her own mandate,” she said, after receiving hugs from numerous candidates, some crying.
Simpson Miller defeated Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who at 39 is Jamaica’s youngest leader and leads the center-right Jamaica Labor Party.
Holness said the defeat will prompt a time of introspection and reflection for party leaders to examine what went wrong.
“I wish the new government well. We hope for the benefit of the country that they will do a good job,” said Holness, who warned during the campaign that an opposition win would scare away foreign investment and dash hopes of economic progress.
While official results have not been released, elections director Orrette Fisher told The Associated Press that preliminary results showed Simpson Miller heading to victory.
“Based on the margins, it appears safe to say” that Simpson Miller’s party won, Fisher said shortly after Jamaican newspapers and broadcasters called the election for the PNP. He expected his office to release the official count and breakdown of parliamentary seats on Saturday.
News station TVJ said Simpson Miller’s People’s National Party won 41 seats in parliament and Holness’s Jamaica Labor Party 22.
Simpson Miller is beloved by her supporters for her folksy, plainspoken style. She became Jamaica’s first female prime minister in March 2006 after she was picked by party delegates when P.J. Patterson retired as leader. But she was tossed out of office a year later in a narrow election defeat.
This time around, she has pledged to lift debt-wracked Jamaica out of poverty, secure foreign investment, and create jobs. Specifics are few, however.
Her party will face deep economic problems in this island of 2.8 million people, with a punishing debt of roughly $18.6 billion, or 130 per cent of gross domestic product. That’s a rate about 10 percentage points higher than debt-troubled Italy’s.
Veteran opposition lawmaker Omar Davies said one of the first things the People’s National Party will do is get “a true assessment of the state of the economy,” a dig at Holness’ party which was accused of rarely providing citizens with a clear picture of the island’s dire fiscal straits.
Holness, who became prime minister two months ago after Bruce Golding, Jamaica’s leader since 2007, abruptly stepped down in October amid anemic public backing, won his parliamentary seat with 54 percent of the vote.
Simpson Miller has been a stalwart of the People’s National Party since the 1970s. She was first elected to Parliament in 1976 and became a Cabinet member in 1989. Partisans have long admired Simpson Miller as a Jamaican who was born in rural poverty and grew up in a Kingston ghetto, not far from the crumbling concrete jungle made famous by Bob Marley.
During her brief tenure as prime minister, her support waned amid complaints she responded poorly to Hurricane Dean and was evasive about a scandal regarding a Dutch oil trading firm’s $460,000 payment to her political party leading up to 2007 elections.
The two top candidates’ different styles were clear while they cast their votes.
Holness is largely seen as unexciting, but bright and pragmatic. He whisked into the voting center in the middle class area of Mona, barely interacting with voters. After being heckled by an opposition partisan, he said he was “very confident” of a Labor victory and departed after taking three questions from reporters.
By contrast, Simpson Miller hugged and chatted with supporters at a school in Whitfield Town and told election workers to help struggling elderly voters.
Her party, which experimented with democratic socialism in the 1970s, is still perceived as more focused on social programs than the slightly more conservative Labor. There are no longer stark ideological differences between the two clan-like factions that have dominated Jamaican politics since the onetime British colony began self-rule in 1944. Jamaica became independent within the British Commonwealth in 1962.
Friday, December 16, 2011
CPU Wars and c-Jump: the nerdiest card and board games ever
CPU Wars and c-Jump: the nerdiest card and board games ever:
Board games and card games are kind of dorky to begin with. And there are plenty of titles out there that hold a special place in the heart of the nerd (just ask one about Settlers of Catan). But, there is a line, a line which even the nerdiest amongst us might not care to cross. For example, c-Jump -- a board game that teaches the basics of programming. Some of the spaces you'll land on in the course of your journey down the mountain include "goto jump;" and "switch (x) {". Then there's CPU Wars, for the three people out there that think Magic: The Gathering is too mainstream. In this card battle game you pit CPUs from throughout history against each other and attempt to collect all your adversary's processors. You can order c-Jump through ThinkGeek for $25 and pledge cash to CPU Wars over at Kickstarter. You'll find a video of the card game after the break.
Board games and card games are kind of dorky to begin with. And there are plenty of titles out there that hold a special place in the heart of the nerd (just ask one about Settlers of Catan). But, there is a line, a line which even the nerdiest amongst us might not care to cross. For example, c-Jump -- a board game that teaches the basics of programming. Some of the spaces you'll land on in the course of your journey down the mountain include "goto jump;" and "switch (x) {". Then there's CPU Wars, for the three people out there that think Magic: The Gathering is too mainstream. In this card battle game you pit CPUs from throughout history against each other and attempt to collect all your adversary's processors. You can order c-Jump through ThinkGeek for $25 and pledge cash to CPU Wars over at Kickstarter. You'll find a video of the card game after the break.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Mobile gaming app Playd iPhone and Android Apps now available
Mobile gaming app Playd iPhone and Android Apps now available: 
Are you into gaming or mobile or social gaming or earning rewards or all of the above? If so you’re in luck as playd iPhone and Android apps are now available for you to download on both the iPhone app store and Android Market place. Playd allows you to you rate, share, and discuss the games you love with your friends!
In an email sent last night Playd founders say:
I’m proud to announce that Playd is finally born! We spent the entire summer building and collecting feedback from you guys and now you can see it in action. As gamers our work is never done. We are forever working on new features and partnerships to offer you guys the best experience.
Playd app features include verified check-ins, real-time game channels with your friends and tokens. With tokens you can earn you free swag, discounts, DLC, and more! Here are a few Playd screnshots.
For more about Playd visit: http://playd.it or follow @getplayd on Twitter.
Disclaimer: Anthony Frasier, @AntyonyFraiser, cofounder Playd was one of the startups that participated in the NewME Accelerator. BlackWeb 2.0 and NewME Accelerator are owned and operated by Black Web Media.
Have you downloaded and “played” Playd? If so let us know what you think about the app in the comments below.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Going about your career as a maker of software.
A sort of long winded read, yet he does make some pretty decent points
as far as your contribution to a company and not under estimating
yourself.
Dont call yourself a programmer
90% of programming jobs are in creating Line of Business software: A ton of people making social media software would have a fit reading this.
Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things: Hard concept to grasp if your not ready
Don’t call yourself a programmer: At previous jobs i've watch many a programmer basically lay themselves off by not following these instructions
You are not defined by your chosen software stack: A few friends make fun of me for liking Java but it gets the job done even if it's not as glam as C#, If Python will get my task done faster then Ruby bring it on.
Dont call yourself a programmer
90% of programming jobs are in creating Line of Business software: A ton of people making social media software would have a fit reading this.
Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things: Hard concept to grasp if your not ready
Don’t call yourself a programmer: At previous jobs i've watch many a programmer basically lay themselves off by not following these instructions
You are not defined by your chosen software stack: A few friends make fun of me for liking Java but it gets the job done even if it's not as glam as C#, If Python will get my task done faster then Ruby bring it on.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Ice Cream Sandwich: A Deep-Dive Tour With Android’s Chief Engineer [Android]
Ice Cream Sandwich: A Deep-Dive Tour With Android’s Chief Engineer [Android]:
There are few things in this world I despise more than software updates. Downloading hundreds of files, waiting for the progress bar to fill, restarting the device - it's all a thankless chore. Usually. More »
There are few things in this world I despise more than software updates. Downloading hundreds of files, waiting for the progress bar to fill, restarting the device - it's all a thankless chore. Usually. More »
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
hackNY Summer Lecture Series: Union Square Ventures
hackNY Summer Lecture Series: Union Square Ventures:
In this post 2011 hackNY Fellow Akarshan Kumar describes the hackNY Summer Series lecture by the partners at Union Square Ventures.
On Monday, July 25, 2011, the hackNY fellows were hosted by Union Square Ventures in their swank new office on Broadway. We got a chance to speak to three of the firm’s partners, Brad Burnham, Fred Wilson and Albert Wenger, and also spoke to Gary and Christina about their experiences working with USV. With investments in companies like Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and Etsy, Union Square Ventures is one of the best VC firms in the country – we were excited to be there.
The partners spoke on a variety of topics – like what the firm looked for in prospective investments, the importance of a good team (as opposed to just a good idea), and what, according to them, were the characteristics of a good pitch (“A pitch is like a party” – Wilson).
Gary and Christina hung out with us later, and it was nice to hear their take too. Gary, having worked in a number of different environments, shared his perspective – “You should follow what you genuinely love doing… If someone doesn’t like what you are doing, it’s their problem, not yours.” Christina talked about her career-path post college and how (and more important, why) she left the Boston Consulting Group to come work for USV.
It was inspiring to see the entire team up close, and it was the perfect talk to begin our final week of hacking in New York.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
MySQl Cluster 7.2 at OOW Demo Pod
MySQl Cluster 7.2 at OOW Demo Pod:
greatest 7.2 DMR capabilities, and also demonstrate how MySQL Cluster
remains operational during node failures, upgrades and re-configuration
and how simple it is to create a live cluster using MySQL Cluster Manager. In the past, many cluster users avoid joins and simply used primary key or key/value pairs. But Adaptive Query Localization gets the data nodes to do more of the work in parallel.
And Cluster Administration has been greatly streamlined. So less typing gets you more performance.
So drop by the MySQL Demo Pod as you will want to see MySQL Cluster 7.2 in action. And there will be several session on cluster covering in detail things I have not mentioned here.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Red Hat continues to convert the masses to Linux.
Red Hat swells sales and profits in fiscal Q2
This is definitely one of the better investment choices I've made over the years. Think I'll continue to hold onto this stock.
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