Shopping online has fundamentally changed my expectations and comfort level, when I buy things in general. I noticed this clearly, when I recently ventured to a local shopping mall to attempt some not-yet-too-late holiday shopping – offline.
I do a significant portion of my shopping on the Internet and I have come to appreciate customer reviews, recommender systems and many other features that have become common at a lot of online stores. I often take information provided by those systems into account when making buying decisions. I have gotten used to those features and – as I realized on that day at the mall – I miss them in their absence.
Usually, I am content to satisfice, but when I am in the store without access to those familiar features, I feel a bit deprived, as if one of my senses were shut off. I like that imagery, too: The idea of an additional sense, based on Internet data is an intriguing one.
The following video shows how MIT’s Sixth Sense may have the potential to act as an additional sense to equip you with the features that you may have gotten used to on the Internet.
I wonder when we will routinely wear devices that integrate cameras, microphones, displays/projectors, etc. and that continuously scan our surroundings and have the ability to feed us data about it back in real time. It could be a version of Sixth Sense using discreet packaging.
Quick access to product reviews, as we look at a book or CD in a store sounds like a useful feature. Maybe sunglasses (and their integrated display) could provide directions as we are walking. It could also display quick stats regarding our surroundings, incl. a warning of nearby danger. The potential for applications seems endless.
In the meantime, I am of course still stuck with unfinished shopping.
Over on the Seattle 2.0 blog, Anthony Stevens‘ Are Great Programmers Born, or Made? posed an interesting question that also generated insightful thoughts in the comments. I am very intrigued by this topic and the direction of some of the research in this area. So, here is my take on it.
Intuitively, I think, we tend to read that question as Are great programmers born xor made? – understanding it such that it is either one or the other. I believe that is false: It is not one or the other; it is both, at least to some degree. However, the ratio is important.
Innate ability, such as a baseline degree of brain capacity is absolutely required, maybe measured as at least average IQ. That baseline or innate ability is the smaller part of the whole.
I would argue that it helps to be strong at abstract and critical thinking, logic, mathematics, pattern matching/prediction, memory and recall, and so forth. However, those are largely skills. They serve as very useful prerequisites or corequisites, but they are learnable. The same is true for other skills in software development, such as deep understanding of programming language usage, the ability to follow code style guidelines, writing good unit tests, coming up with “clean” designs, etc.
When I first taught myself programming (Turbo Pascal, if you are curious), it felt like it came easy to me. It was also great fun, which served (at least partly) as motivation for me to learn and experiment more, eventually turn it into a profession.
If you either “have it” or “don’t have it,” then there does not really seem to be a chance for greatness for the person who is missing that innate ability. On the other hand, if training/deliberate practice can play such a significant role, then there are options: The opportunity of a new challenge. I think, this should be very encouraging.
Except instead of passion, the authors deliberately use the German word leidenschaft. Leidenschaft combines the words leiden (to suffer, experience pain) and schaffen (to make, create, achieve).
People passionate about their pursuit are willing to suffer in the process.
I believe that the connotations of the word leidenschaft have changed a bit and modern day usage is much closer to the positive aspects of a passion: To pursue an activity or subject with great interest, dedication or enthusiasm. Still, I think it is instructive to keep that implied duality in mind, not just as an introspective exercise to more fully understand oneself, but also to find concrete opportunities for growth.
It is worth examining software/technology and evaluating how different products strengthen the positive aspects of a passion and how they help deal with potential negatives. Then, do something about it.
I invest some of my free time in helping out at the Seattle chapter of the IEEEComputer Society. We have been focusing on organizing high-quality talks mostly with an emphasis on software engineering or computer science. A number of other activities are in discussion for the coming months as well.
I am happy to report two things this morning:
Our website was recently revamped. It may seem like a small step, but the move to wordpress did get us away from a very static and increasingly hard to maintain design. This was a very useful (and overdue) update. A number of additional features are in the works to build this up as a more effective resource for organizational activities, as time allows.
Mark it in your calendar: Steve McConnell will be presenting Secrets of world-class software organizations at 6:30pm on Thursday, November 19. This will be at Bellevue College, Building N – Room 201. If you are involved with software development, you are probably familiar with Steve McConnell’s work and maybe even have some of his excellent books in the office somewhere. This should be a very interesting talk.
I’m looking forward to the presentation and hopefully many more such events in the future. Any feedback with respect to other speakers/topics of interest is always appreciated, too.