Richard Ogle, Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas (Harvard Business School P, 2007)

See Smart World at Amazon.com and Ogle’s blog (with some excerpts).

Creativity is an emergent process in networks, not a property or product of individual actors or their actions.

The mind is embodied (Andy Clark, Francisco Varela et alii): we cannot understand it if we confine it to what happens inside a skull but have to understand it as inextricably woven into the environments in which it exists. In fact, the mind is extended—it stretches out to network with other minds. (Clark calls this “outing the mind” [9].)

We don’t create with our brains (the mind-inside-the-head or MITH model of conscious human agency—what Clark calls “pure thought” [xii]).

We create an environment, i.e., a world of technological artefacts and systems (tools)—or, indeed, “myths, cultural or social practices, scientific paradigms, business models, and . . . art forms” (Ogle 12)—that thinks for us (the embedded intelligence or EI model—what Clark calls “embodied thought” with the “mind as controller” (Clark xii, 7).

“Idea spaces” are the hubs or “hotspots” in the network. These are like the “attractors” of complex systems, for example, websites that all of a sudden attract huge numbers of visitors and links. These hotspots can generate tipping points, like the “bifurcators” of complex systems, where the systems undergo a “phase transition” into a new state (see Bob Leckridge’s blog).

Creative people let the environment or system think for them.

Thus,

[W]e constantly have recourse to a vast array of culturally and socially embodied idea-spaces that populate the extended mind. These spaces . . . are rich with embedded intelligence that we have progressively offloaded into our physical, social, and cultural environment for the sake of simplifying the burden on our minds of rendering the world intelligible. Sometimes the space of ideas thinks for us. We live in a smart world. (Ogle 2, unfortunately plagiarising Daniel Dennett’s Kinds of Minds [NY, NY: Basic Books, 1996] 134)

Ogle discusses the “revolution” of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907):

[H]e surrendered his genius to a strangely exotic world, that, with the shock of the new, radically reorganized and reshaped his art. Picasso invented neither the nonrepresentational, fractured plains nor the exorcist function that would leave such a searing mark on twentieth-century art. African art possessed its own aesthetic and logic, and this became a space to think with. Almost immediately, its energy, forms, and purposes began to drive his own. Encountering a powerful new idea-space, he entered it fully and let its strange but compelling logic think for him. (9)

My wish for you for the coming year is the same one I wish myself.

I wish us many focused hours, days, weeks, and months.

Why focused?

For me, at work, there is nothing that feels better than leaving the office after having a focused day or week. I enjoy having this sense of accomplishment seeing the tasks lists dwindling down or after solving a tough problem that was risking the current project schedule or customer success. The opposite, having an unfocused day, takes away so much energy thinking about what that is still left hanging.

Why now?

As soon as we login to the laptop or any other smart device we are at beginning of a constant struggle. An endless cross roads expends from that point on. Even while waiting, watching the task bar expends from left to right while the OS loads application after application to memory, already new communication channels opens up and start streaming bytes charged with high potential energy for driving your next few minutes, or hours away from the original purpose that motivated you to turn the device on in the first place. Outlook, IM, Twitter desktop client, Firefox with open Gmail, Google Wave, Facebook and WordPress tabs to name a few. There is a race for your attention and every program pushes itself in front of the other.

It is so easy to notice, and so hard to resist to react to, the recent Facebook notification, new Google wave, email from SlideShare or YouTube channel with a bunch of links, follow the current Trending Topic, @reply or IM @friend, reply immediately to that email you were just CCed on with a question that you so know the answer to, but others can handled that as well (and maybe this is there job).

Multi-tasking, enabled by the operating system, along with social media, enabled by the digital multi-media, can create this constant notion of not being on the right thread at any time. And that’s not even includes doing your work. Some times participating in the real-time search race feels more like “what am I’m missing now?” instead of “what is happening right now?”. The truth is that “now” happens all the time.

We some times have this tendency to follow the Shortest job next scheduling algorithm at work. Although this algorithm is great at “minimizing the average amount of time each task has to wait until its execution is complete” it could also lead to tasks starvation (i.e. never getting to address it). It could also lead to developing the habit of replacing short with easy or fun.

Focused does not mean a single goal

When I say that I’m wishing all of you to have a focused year I don’t mean to focus necessarily on one goal only . It could be ideal to be laser focused on a single goal but it could almost be too ambitious of an objective or even an out of balance way of living, it could kill your health and relationships. You may choose to focus on multiple goals this year, and it is a big miss not to participate in the social media party, the key is to be focused at the current task at hand. So, when you work on that paper, problem, long email, and etc, it is OK to be fully present with your eyes, ears, mind and mouse cursor on the current thread. It is OK to tune out for a bit.

Some ideas for keeping your focus on a single task at the time

• Go to Services in Windows and set any application’s with disruption potential “Start-up Type” option to auto.
• Define priority policy attribute and categorize emails by it – immediate response, can wait, to do, follow-up. Keep it simple so it will not take a lot of your time implementing it. There are lots of email handling tips out there just Google “email management tips” and you’ll find a tone of info – just don’t spend too much time reading about it:)
• Break large tasks to manageable goals – this helps with both motivation and focus.
• Treat yourself to some social media action after the task is completed.
• More suggestions here via Delicious

Before leaving this blog post

If you made it all the way here (unless you were skipping few paragraph on the way)  than, for what it worth, you earned my appreciation for your focus.

And before leaving, I would like to share with you this very insightful phrase that I heard somewhere and it stuck deeply in my mind:

“What you focus on expands”

Happy Holidays and have a great focused year.

Picture credit emmaphotos

Harold Mitchell’s Trumpet Method, Book 2 (Sheet Music) Review

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Alright, no demo quite yet, but I’ve gotten it almost working to a point where it takes basically no time to solve a 3 x 3.

Unfortunately, the key word is “almost”. Because of that, I’ll use this post to delve into the inner workings (planned and implemented) of the puzzle-solving-engine.

The solver represents each edge ‘type’ as a number – either 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, 4, or -4.

Edge types that sum to zero are ‘matching edges’ – that is, if one edge displayed the TOP half of a basketball, its counterpart would show the BOTTOM half of the basketball and they could ‘connect’ on that edge.

There are two main classes powering the engine that use this system -

PuzzleNode:
A PuzzleNode is a space in the game board to place a puzzle piece.

Much like a linked list, PuzzleNodes contain references to their bordering PuzzleNodes – north, east, south, and west.

They also contain a list of constraints, imposed on them by their neighbors (in the sense that every puzzle piece you place into a puzzle will limit in some way what additional pieces you can add).

Finally, the solver-driving function contained in the PuzzleNode class is the method fitsConstraints(), which takes a PuzzePiece object as input and checks to see if it (or any of its orientations) could fit into the slot/constraints in the PuzzleNode (specific details of how this works in a later post).

PuzzlePiece:

The PuzzlePiece class is, well, Exactly What It Says On The Tin. It stores a piece for the puzzle, with a list of values for each edge (+/- 1 to 4).

It also has another solver-imperative function – rotate(), which takes an edge value and a direction. It then rotates the piece so that the specified edge points in the specified direction. This is very useful, as a PuzzlePiece may not fit a PuzzleNode’s constraints as-is, but a rotation of it might. rotate() allows for a piece to be quickly oriented in the proper direction by pointing an edge toward its correct counterpart.

Of course, this breaks down pretty quickly if there are duplicate edge values (say, both the north and south edges of a piece are -1) – but hopefully I can change that soon.

Whew. Apologies if any of this is less than clear. I’m not used to explaining my thinking in great detail.
Hopefully my next post will contain a demo as well as a fuller description of how the system works.

Cheerio.

Finding the right cleaning product and method is key to keeping the luster and lifetime of your stone, granite or quartz countertops.

Stone is one of the easiest surfaces to clean and maintain. In new construction, many contractors will provide the homeowner with a preferred cleaning product to purchase or proper care instructions when the new granite, stone or quartz countertops are installed. For many homeowners, they have already purchased a home with existing stone countertops and learn of the best products and cleaning tips by word-of-mouth or trial and error methods.

Stone countertops are extremely durable and can withstand daily cleaning. The standard solution of mild dishwashing liquid and warm water works just fine, but sometimes your countertops need something more to enhance their beauty and shine that you cannot get  from soap and water.

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1. Use a Soft Dust Cloth for wiping up spills and applying cleaning solution.

2. For stuck-on goo or crusty chunks left on your stone, granite or quartz counter tops, use an expired credit card to scrape off the unwanted substance.

TIP: Keep the plastic card handy – Put it in the top draw where it is easily accessible OR store it in your cleaning caddy. If you don’t have an expired or unwanted credit card, look for one of the many offers that arrive in your mailbox that is imprinted on a plastic card.

3. Call a professional stone supplier, installer, or restoration specialist for problems that appear too difficult to treat.

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For the sake of organization and time, I have completed the animations as promised and I added all the other buttons to the grid. However, I only fully implemented the “+/-” operation because I thought it best to visit each operation in the next part.

• Rendering the buttons
  • XAML:

    <Button Name="BPM" Click="OperBtn_Click" Background="Darkgray" Style="{StaticResource DigitBtn}"  Grid.Column="6" Grid.Row="5" >+/-</Button>
    

  • C#:

    Button BPM = new Button();
    BPM.Name = "BPM";
    BPM.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(OperBtn_Click);
    BPM.Background = Brushes.DarkGray;
    BPM.Style = DigitBtn; //try without resources
    Grid.SetColumn(BPM, 6);
    Grid.SetRow(BPM, 5);
    BPM.Content = "+/-";
    MyGrid.Children.Add(BPM);
    

  • Notes:
    This is exactly as the buttons I looked at previously except with a different event handler: BPM.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(OperBtn_Click);. Also, when doing some of the other operations there is a tooltip property set (eg. BMemPlus.ToolTip = "Add To Memory"; for the “M+” button).

I wanted the “+/-” button to work as expected so I followed the Click event:

• OperBtn_Click
  • C#:

    private void OperBtn_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        ProcessOperation(((Button)sender).Name.ToString());
    }
    

  • Notes:
    All the buttons have their name properties set. In the case of the “+/-” button we have BPM.Name = "BPM";. When the above handler is invoked it will then pass the name of the button as an argument to the ProcessOperation method.
• ProcessOperation
  • C#:

    private void ProcessOperation(string s)
    {
        Double d = 0.0;
        switch (s)
        {
            case "BPM":
                LastOper = Operation.Negate;
                LastValue = Display;
                CalcResults();
                LastValue = Display;
                EraseDisplay = true;
                LastOper = Operation.None;
                break;
            ...
        }
    }
    

  • Notes:
    Here we see what happens when calling ProcessOperation("BPM");. The variable “d” is not applicable to this case. First, the most recently clicked operation is saved into “LastOper” and the most recent value displayed is saved into “LastValue”. By doing this before the calculation, the program is overriding whatever operation was clicked beforehand (that means, if you try to do “2*-2″ by clicking “2,*,2,+/-” the multiplication will be forgotten). “LastValue” and “LastOper” deserve a closer look later. Next, the calculation is performed by calling “CalcResults”. When the calculation is completed, the current display is again saved however the operation is set to null which is force other operations to not negate again. It is very important to do it this way because this calculator works with infix notation. When I first saw EraseDisplay = true; I thought it meant to actually erase the display but that doesn’t make sense. What it is actually doing is taking a note so that the next operation will know whether it should erase the display (in the case of “ProcessKey”) or whether to simply treat the display as empty (as in several cases of “ProcessOperation”).
• Operation LastOper
  • C#:

            private enum Operation
            {
                None,
                Devide,
                Multiply,
                Subtract,
                Add,
                Percent,
                Sqrt,
                OneX,
                Negate
            }
            private Operation LastOper;
    

  • Notes:
    I’ve used enums before for setting many properties in but the Alarm Clock Sample and this Calculator Demo but this is the first time I’ve really seen how they are useful. Here, they set us up so it will be very clear which operation is being used and we don’t need to deal with strings. The compiler gives them numbers which is good for computers and we get a descriptive name which is good for us.
• LastValue
  • C#:

    private string LastValue
    {
        get
        {
            if (_last_val == string.Empty)
                return "0";
            return _last_val;
        }
        set
        {
            _last_val = value;
        }
    }
    

  • Notes:
    This is a very simple property declaration but it shows us exactly why getters and setters are useful. This is a calculator application and it’s not very mathematical to show an empty display area so it checks if the last value is an empty string (from “Clear All”) and returns the string “0″.
• CalcResults
  • C#:

    private void CalcResults()
    {
        double d;
        if (LastOper == Operation.None)
            return;
    
        d = Calc(LastOper);
        Display = d.ToString();
    
        UpdateDisplay();
    }
    

  • Notes:
    First, a variable, “d”, is declared to save the numerical result of the upcoming calculation. If there is no operation to be performed (as is the case after “+/-” is completed), this method just returns and nothing happens. However, if there is an operation to be performed it calls the “Calc” method to do the dirty work. The result of the operation is sent to the display and the display is updated. Again, I am very aware of object oriented programming at work (I guess it’s actually more of an example of procedural programming since all these functions/methods are in the same class).
• Calc
  • C#:

    private double Calc(Operation LastOper)
    {
        double d = 0.0;
    
        try {
        switch (LastOper)
        {
            ...
            case Operation.Negate:
                d = Convert.ToDouble(LastValue) * (-1.0F);
                break;
            }
        }
        catch {
            d = 0;
            Window parent = (Window)MyPanel.Parent;
            //Paper.AddResult("Error");
            MessageBox.Show(parent, "Operation cannot be perfomed", parent.Title);
        }
    
        return d;
    }
    

  • Notes:
    Again, I am only highlighting “+/-”. The variable “d” is used store the result of the calculation and then we come to a Try/Catch block for exception handling. Many of the operations check the calculation to make sure there’s nothing strange like infinities and then throw an exception which will be caught by the “catch” block. I will look at those next time. Notice the Operation.Negate case won’t forcefully throw an exception since it’s only multiplying the last value displayed by negative one and the last value should have already been checked for sanity. However, if something were to go wrong we can see that the error will be noted by adding it to “Paper” (not relevant now) and a standard message box will be rendered.

When you click on a button, a lot of things happen. I think it’s really good that I chose to continue the Calculator Demo. In this part, I got to understand enums, try/except, and a bit more about properties and modular code. I will go through the other operations in the next part though I won’t have to be nearly as detailed as here.

A client recently described an interesting situation – she had purchasing the new ISO31000 risk management standard, she had done the training with her team, conducted a risk identification and assessment workshop, and done the analysis and prioritization.  Yet no one seemed to be managing risks – they were something off to the side that people occasionally looked at.

What else could she do?

Risk management is one of the more overused, misunderstood and abused terms in project management these day.  There is a large body of work on risk management and a plethora of material available on the web to be used.

Yet many projects do not manage risk well.  They record their risks, identify the mitigations/treatments and review them during the project.  But for all of their planning, obvious risks seem to slip through the cracks.

Here are a few ideas that we can use:

Make sure everyone has a common understanding of what constitutes a risk, what constitutes an issue, and the difference between risks/issues and consequences/impacts.  This may seem trivial but different organisations have difference definitions of risk e.g.  “Only risks that we can influence”, “don’t include dependencies or constraints”, “the person who raises a risk deals with it”, ad infinitum

Keep it simple – have 3 ratings – negligible, moderate, project-killer – and review against schedule, scope, cost, technical and people.  Don’t have 5 ratings as it doesn’t really add value. And don’t have percentages as they are disguising a subjective guess with a number that makes it look quantitatively managed.

When introducing risks, don’t argue over the wording or structure – just make it understandable to stakeholders

Focus on mitigation/treatment actions.  These are the most critical component so you must make sure that every action has someone assigned and they understand the action and the deadline and that these actions are done just like any other project task.  Very often risk mitigations are seen as distinct and are reported separately.  No wonder they’re not afforded the appropriate focus.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Out of mind, out of time…

Set the bar lower to start, then as project management practices mature, you can be stricter when it comes to wording, ratings, severity etc.

As 2010 approaches, real-world economists should be thinking about what they can do in the New Year to advance the cause of real world economics. Here, I offer 10 suggestions to add to the exhortations of Fred Lee in his outgoing editorial of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter. Since I’m from a similar generation to Fred and 2009 marked the start of my fourth decade as an academic economist, this has been a year of somewhat frustrated reflection. However, I’ve tried to ensure that these do not look like the suggestions of a Grumpy Old Real-World Economist.

First, stop teaching anything that you do not believe to be a good representation of the real world, even if an unrealistic model is part of the standard curriculum. If I am ever asked to teach a core course I will teach it without wasting time ‘going through’ mainstream ideas, such as the theory of perfect competition and indifference analysis, that are logically flawed and/or based on wildly unrealistic assumptions. As regards the absolute core of mainstream thinking, namely, constrained optimization, all I shall do is say that it would be nice if we could work out the best way of meeting our objectives but that it is logically impossible to do so in most cases; I shall explain why and then move on to explain what is known about how choices are actually made in the real world.

Second, use every opportunity available to point out that what is currently attracting widespread interest under the banner of ‘behavioural economics’ is merely a lip-service pretence of being seriously concerned with real-world economics. This new behavioural economics is largely a means for clinging to constrained optimization mode of thinking. If you weren’t aware of this, see Esther-Mirjam Sent’s HOPE2004 paper via the link here. All they are offering, really, is standard constrained optimization with distorted preferences or perceptions. I’ve nothing against making use of what is known about ‘heuristics and biases’ of real-world decision makers, but I believe that economists need to stare in the face the implications of cognitive problems for how they do their work. If they did so, they would not, for example, build models of time inconsistent choices that on the one hand portray people as not very smart and on the other presume they do constrained optimization (with the twist of hyperbolic discounting). This lack of consistency is a sure sign of a degenerating scientific research programme.

Thirdly, suggest to your heterodox colleagues who devote their careers to writing about methodology that they should spend their time instead actually doing some real-world economics. This may upset them a bit, but it is important that they reflect on how they are spending their time. We have some great minds in the method area and, of course, things remain to be said about method. However, more of them need to use someone like Sheila Dow as a role model and contribute to theoretical and/or applied economics as well as writing about economic philosophy. The mainstream folk might benefit from reading more about method and learning the errors of their ways, but they probably don’t bother. Those who know what the typical methodological errors are should just get on with doing economics. With heterodox economists in a tiny minority of the profession, their talents should be aimed at dealing with the real world and showing the difference it makes in practice to use different methods. For example, rather than writing about the theoretical case for pluralism, try doing some pluralistic applied economics and show the value it adds.

Fourth, seek out and use opportunities to make contributions to parliamentary inquiries and other public forums. Not only is this a means to contributing to your employer’s goals regarding ‘engagement’; it is also a way of raising the profile of real-world economics and making a difference. It is easier than you might think: once you’ve make a submission to one high-profile inquiry you will find that secretaries of subsequent ones in related areas will approach you for submissions. These will get noticed by the press, who may then phone you for an interview (and may even pay you to write opinion pieces), and reports there can lead to requests to do radio interviews. We can’t all expect to have media profiles like Jeffrey Sachs, but we can at least make a start.

Fifth, form research teams and chase external funding. If you are successful, you can offer more to real-world economics and less funding may get into the hands of non-real-world economists. Sure, it is a serious investment of time to do a grant application that will have a decent chance of success but if you work with a new team in an area that requires you to engage with unfamiliar literature, it is a great way of opening up new research possibilities. Even if the grant application isn’t successful, it is likely to lead you to projects you otherwise wouldn’t have done and papers you otherwise wouldn’t have written and it may also give you the chance to educate colleagues towards heterodox ways of thinking.

Sixth, if you care about making an impact, write what you think is worth saying, rather choosing what to write based on the ranking of the journal likely to take it. It might not help your career in the short-term, but you’ll have more fun and feel better in yourself for writing it, and it will probably get you more citation hits if it is something that is actually useful.

Seventh, when you are refereeing be civil at all times but take the time to try to educate the authors of papers who seem oblivious of real-world perspectives offered by heterodox approaches to economics. If you set out a critique in some detail, including the necessary references, you make it easier for the author to do the changes and you make it harder for the editor not to request them; so your report helps stop the rot.

Eighth, don’t just carry on using standard texts that perpetuate fallacies an fail to show students contending perspectives; instead, take the time to look for and consider non-toxic texts, even if it means you’ll need to do a bit of re-tooling of your teaching. (To judge from the dismal sales of my latest pluralistic text – Earl and Wakeley, 2005, Business Economics: A Contemporary Approach, published by McGraw-Hill UK – not much of this goes on, despite what heterodox economists say to publishers about being sick of the standard fare.)

Ninth, if the department in which you work has an intranet and uses its discussion board facilities, make the most of the technology as a means to have your say about curriculum design, degree structures, PhD coursework requirements, and so on. Your non-real-world colleagues may not heed what you say, but at least they may read it and start to see the world a bit more like you do: it may be about the only chance you’ll have of such colleagues reading anything you write about economic method!

Tenth, if there’s something you think needs to be said about real-world economics that isn’t suited to the format of a regular article or needs to be said urgently, contribute to the Real-World Economics Blog.

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The model we work with consists of three levels
Jing,Qi, and Shen  , corresponding to our physical body (jing), the vital force/energy of the living body (qi), and shen – the higher level of our selves and spiritual being.  The focus is often on Qi because it links all layers of our being.
The methodology of our practice can be summarized  song, chen, shen – relaxing completely, letting the weight settle , and shen exemplified in carefullness
All of us over time have a tendency for the bodies center of gravity to gradually move upward over time against where the body bodies true center of gravity which is down in the lower abdomen. Thus our method stresses the sensation and visualization of a heavy tailbone, a sandbag pulling the tailbone down to allow body and mind,  to experience and feel.  There is a stress on “feeling”, or “sensing” the effect, with emphasis on effect, of the heavy tailbone.  Song,chen, shen are incorporated into the method of relaxing, weight down, sensing with care and conciousness of this physical practice.
We recognize that ultimately everything is energy. We choose what to practice and where our consciousness is directed…  Jing, Qi, Shen,  Song, Chen, Shen.
Another thing Limin touched upon going back to the fact that everything is energy on one hand and the healing aspect of our practice on the other.  Our practice of Taiji and Qigong are health/healing oriented and motivated by the intention we share of trying to make a change inside, internally.  To do this the higher the level of energies and spirit we marshall, the greater is the healing effect  - from Shen, to Qi, to Jing  through practice of song,chen,shen.  The higher levels have greater healing because “there is more room for things to move around”.  Then she used the analogy of steam, water, and ice as corresponding to the energies comparable to shen,Qi,jing…
(This also brings back the images  of the chinese character for Qi  - steam over rice …  water, raw rice, and heat bring about transformation of the raw into spiritual and life giving substance through the energy permeating the universe.  We’ve returned to this profound realization of Qi a number of times.)

Immersion Methods

Since the last two methods really encompass a lot of other popular methods out there with similar concepts, I decided not to really restate them in detail. Rather, talk about programs that use immersion.

Defense Language Institute (DLI)

If you are one of the lucky ones joining the Military who pass the required DLAB test, you may qualify for a position that allows you to come to this nifty school. As Wiki provided it basically:

The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution, which provides linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other Federal Agencies and numerous and varied other customers. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute’s activities involve educating DoD members in assigned languages. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.

As of 2009^[update], over 40 languages are taught at the DLIFLC including Afrikaans in Washington, DC and the following in Monterey: Arabic (Modern Standard), Dari, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurmanji, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Sorani Kurdish, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Uzbek.

As of 2009^[update], DLIFLC began teaching the Iraqi dialect.

Having been stationed there I can verify that it’s a pretty cool place. The school really focuses on the whole immersion environment. You not only spend 8+ hours in classes, but afterwards you have lots of studying to do before the next day. Because of this, a lot of the languages can be learned really fast. Imagine spending more than 8 hours a day studying a language with intense immersion. It’s hard not to learn a language doing this!

Is it for you? Maybe, maybe, but not for the average person (though you could sorta mimic this environment if you wanted)

PROS:

*immersion environment extreme!

*lots of handholding, as it is in class formation

*free (so to speak)

*lots of people learning with you, interaction with native teachers, ect.

*tests to show your progression, ect.

*Fast fast pace

CONS:

*you have to join military/gov in order to get into it (normally)

*no life, really

*military specific vocabulary over general vocab

*focus more on listening/reading comprehension versus speaking/writing (input >output)

Classes/Tutors

There are some schools out there who claim they can give you that immersion environment through their classes. This isn’t all schools that claim this, but a good handful of them (especially ones done by independent groups). Because they vary and depend on where you go, whose teaching you, and what system they use, I wont go into any particular details.

PROS:

*Teacher/tutor guidance (hand holding comfort)

*invested time that someone can call you out on (you’re accountable vs. self-study)

*often other students that you can practice with that share the same desire to learn the language (hopefully)

*course work laid out for you

CONS:

*most never reach true immersion environment (because you’re only there x hours a week)

*sometimes very costly

*often teaches from  course books with very proper outdated unused language

*often not customized to you, but rather generalities

*tend to focus on literal translations (never monolingual usually)

Classes may be for you if you have a very very hard time self studying. This might just be what you need to supplement your own studies, to give you motivation with accountability. Often people find learning a language is like doing a diet, getting together with others (weight watchers for example) makes things very easy. That support group sometimes gives you the confidence to pursue your language. I do not normally knock classes in general because you cannot deny the comfort factor, but I feel that they could be vastly improved in terms of what and how they teach languages.

Some tutors out there however do not use those kinds of books and class like structure. They’d be a sort of exception. The real thing is you just gotta do your research with the classes. Ask what books they use, what methods they believe in, if there will be a turn to monolingual at some point, ect. Great thing about classes is most have a syllabus that you can look at before you jump into the boat.

Rosetta Stone
In case you live under a rock and have never heard of the much overpriced Rosetta Stone, here is an in-depth summary of it straight from their site about their program:

Learn naturally:

A completely immersive environment.

As a child, you learned to speak instinctively by experiencing the world around you. Our solution recreates this experience through a fully immersive environment right on your computer.

No translation or memorization.

We’ve eliminated the traditional approach of using translation and grammar rules, empowering you to think in your new language. There are no flash cards, dictionaries or memorization drills.

A carefully designed sequence of activities.

By surrounding you with words, images and the voices of native speakers, our method lets you progress naturally from words and phrases to sentences and conversations.

Engage Interactively:

Start fast and stay motivated.

Unlike tapes, videos or books that passively feed you language, you’ll constantly interact with our program. Instead of repeating the same action over and over, you’ll:

* Hear, write and pronounce words and match them to images
* Speak aloud to finish sentences or phrases
* Refine your pronunciation by emulating native speakers

Retain what you’ve learned.

Our exclusive Adaptive Recall™ feature brings back review exercises to help you transfer what you’ve learned into your long-term memory.

Speak Confidently:

Build your conversational skills.

Step-by-step, you will gain the confidence to speak on your own. You’ll develop your intuitive ability to create sentences from scratch in a conversational setting. Before long, you’ll be in the middle of conversations and you’ll be doing the talking!

Pronounce words correctly.

Our proprietary speech-recognition technology helps you pronounce syllables, words and sentences in your new language, and provides immediate, ongoing feedback.

Have Fun:

“Ah-ha” moments

Our approach taps into your innate puzzle-solving instinct. As you learn with us—and solve one language-learning puzzle after another—you’ll experience a series of “ah-ha” moments that keep you motivated.

Serious fun

Our program is so addictive, you’ll want to keep learning more. With every step, you’ll move forward and feel a sense of accomplishment.

So yeah, there is a lot they have to say about themselves and their approach right on their site before you dish out the astounding minimum of $299 for each lvl apiece or $539 for all 3 lvls. Don’t forget they now have the special Totale for almost $1k. Seems like a bit much to me. Their marketing team does really well selling their product, as you can see from their super nice website and quality commercials/advertisements.

PROS:

*immersion environment

*course laid out for you, no extra work

*pictures, audio, games, the works

*touches all needs for your language

CONS:

*expensive as hell

*romaji is in it, which people tend to use over kana/kanji

*some sentences are ambiguous to their pictures and hard to figure out exactly what their meaning sometimes

*some claim the system is outdated and doesn’t work for a lot of languages where it excels for others

Of all the reviews I read, sometimes I do wonder how many of the reviews are real. A lot of them sound really fabricated and unrealistically happy. Though I have met a few people who’ve done Rosetta, I have not met many who are fluent that used the program primarily. Most have used this system as a springboard or for fun on the side. Though I personally wouldn’t dish $600-1k out for learning languages, some of you richies out there might.

Live Mocha

If you’re looking in the market for a much less (how about free?) Rosetta ripoff, try Live Mocha instead! Live Mocha toots the following themselves.

Livemocha is the world’s largest online community for language learners, with free lessons and a global community to help you learn a new language.

Boost your grammar and vocabulary with fun, engaging lessons. These lessons develop reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills. Members of the Livemocha community keep the lessons fresh by collaborating on translations and leaving tips to help others.

The best way to learn a language is through total immersion. Livemocha emulates this experience by allowing members to interact in our global online community. We believe…to become truly proficient and conversational you need to work with actual native speakers.

…you can build your skills and confidence by submitting writing or speaking exercises to the community for review…

Connect with native speakers from all over the world and help them to learn your native language….

Livemocha wants to support you along every step to learning a new language, and we give you the tools to help you quickly and confidently achieve your goals.

Phrase Translator: Get a kick-start with the Phrase Translator to help you understand forgotten or unknown phrases.

Conversation Scenarios: Not ready for a conversation with a native speaker? Practice a scripted conversation using common scenarios you encounter when meeting people or travelling.

Virtual Keyboard: We’ve made it easy to insert special characters and accents when typing.

PROS:

*Free

*community to speak to natives

*easy to navigate and participate

*immersion likeness

*focus on all key points to language learning

*earn mocha points for various things by completing exercises and helping others

CONS:

*because its free, there are problems (spelling ect.)

*short comings are similar to Rosetta

*have to have internet to do it, no offline working

If you find that you’re interested in something like Rosetta Stone, I’d say try Live Mocha first, since it’s a free version and similar. Though it has a great community base that to me makes it more valuable, it does have errors in it from time to time. (I noticed a few in the English programs myself)

Instant Immersion Language Lab, and other immersion software programs:

There are many many more language immersion software programs out there, and a simple google search will bring out countless of them. I personally don’t like them. They come out looking pretty snazzy on their boxes, talking about how easy it will all be, and how great their program is for you, and all that goodness, but I haven’t tried a single one of those types and liked it. The IILL for instance to me was unbearably outdated and hooky. It taught horribly, and even wrong things in it from time to time. I honestly think all this type of thing is a gimmick that you should run far away from. Don’t buy into this junk. At least with Rosetta/Live Mocha, there are people who claim success. The rest have very few tooting their horn about its goodness.

Be wary and do a lot of research on it before you spend money on it. I at least had the luxury of finding friends with some of this stuff in the beginning for me to realize how horrible they were before I wasted any money on it.

]]> http://understandingcsharp.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/calculator-demo-part-5/ Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:46:20 +0000 jmancine http://understandingcsharp.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/calculator-demo-part-5/

It took so much effort to style the buttons that I’m not going to do the animations until next time. Instead of playing around with the animations like I said I would, I just made sure pressing the buttons would put the respective value into the display area.

I had to do a lot of research to translate the XAML for this part into C# so I will follow the same structure that I tried in Alarm Clock Sample — Part 6 (this time using the sourcecode shortcode).

• Defining the button style
  • XAML:

    <Style x:Key="DigitBtn"  TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
    

  • C#:

                Style DigitBtn = new Style();
                DigitBtn.TargetType = typeof(Button);
    

  • Notes:
    I simply looked up the x:Type Markup Extension and followed my nose after reading “x:Type is essentially a markup extension equivalent for a typeof() operator in C#”. Basically, this is telling the complier that the program will only be applying this style to Button objects.
• Setting the “Focusable” property
  • XAML:

    <Setter Property="Focusable" Value="False"/>
    

  • C#:

    Setter setter1 = new Setter(Button.FocusableProperty, false);
    DigitBtn.Setters.Add(setter1);
    

  • Notes:
    Since this is the first “Setter” I’ve seen, I needed to look up the constructor. However, I still didn’t understand what all this was for until I read WPF Data Binding – DataTriggers though I only cared about the Data Binding part. It seems that because we are targeting buttons, we can set any properties that buttons have. This really makes me think of CSS classes because this program is going to have a bunch of buttons all with the same style so it makes sense to set up the style first and then, when you create the button element, you specify which style to use (similar to <input type="button" value="Submit" class="DigitBtn"> for HTML+CSS).
• Setting the “FontSize” property
  • XAML:

    <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="14pt"/>
    

  • C#:

    LengthConverter lc = new LengthConverter();
    string qualifiedDouble = "14pt";
    Setter setter2 = new Setter(Button.FontSizeProperty, lc.ConvertFrom(qualifiedDouble));
    DigitBtn.Setters.Add(setter2);
    

  • Notes:
    Wow, so much work for something so simple. I would have never guessed this on my own…I know, I tried for quite a while. Thankfully, someone from the internets had the answer (and a pretty good explanation).
• Setting the “Margin” property
  • XAML:

    <Setter Property="Margin" Value="0"/>
    

  • C#:

    Setter setter3 = new Setter(Button.MarginProperty, new Thickness(0));
    DigitBtn.Setters.Add(setter3);
    

  • Notes:
    Who would have guessed margins take values of Thickness Structures? It makes sense now that I look closer. Instead of specifying that something has a left, top, bottom, and right margin you just say it has a margin and you define a margin to be something that has left, top, bottom, and right properties.

The final property “Template” is much more involved so I will describe what I did from the inside-out. Of course, I didn’t deal with any animations or other triggers. I just wanted the buttons to show up and work.

• Presenting the button’s content
  • XAML:

    <ContentPresenter Content="{TemplateBinding Content}" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
    

  • C#:

    FrameworkElementFactory CP = new FrameworkElementFactory(typeof(ContentPresenter));
    Binding TBinding = new Binding("Content"){RelativeSource = RelativeSource.TemplatedParent, Mode = BindingMode.OneWay};
    CP.SetValue(ContentPresenter.ContentProperty, TBinding);
    CP.SetValue(HorizontalAlignmentProperty, HorizontalAlignment.Center);
    CP.SetValue(VerticalAlignmentProperty, VerticalAlignment.Center);
    

  • Notes:
    All of this gets nested inside a ControlTemplate which was giving me a lot of problems because it doesn’t work the same way as other containers (in C#–they all look the same in XAML). Fortunately, a quick Google search came up with Changing the drawing style of a button from code which introduced me to FrameworkElementFactory. I had to read two more sources of information to figure out Content="{TemplateBinding Content}": one, TemplateBinding Markup Extension, told me that “A TemplateBinding is an optimized form of a Binding for template scenarios, analogous to a Binding constructed with {Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent} Mode=OneWay}.”; two, How to: Create a Binding in Code, had an extremely useful comment by LukeSkywalker (of all people). I tried running the code without the ContentPresenter and, lo and behold, the button’s content, which holds the text, didn’t show.
• Styling the Button
  • XAML:

    <Ellipse Width="57" Height="49" x:Name="TB"  StrokeThickness="1" Stroke="{TemplateBinding Foreground}" Fill="{TemplateBinding Background}" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
    

  • C#:

    FrameworkElementFactory TB = new FrameworkElementFactory(typeof(Ellipse), "TB");
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.WidthProperty, 57.0);
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.HeightProperty, 49.0);
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.StrokeThicknessProperty, 1.0);
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.StrokeProperty, new Binding("Foreground") { RelativeSource = RelativeSource.TemplatedParent, Mode = BindingMode.OneWay });
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.FillProperty, new Binding("Background") { RelativeSource = RelativeSource.TemplatedParent, Mode = BindingMode.OneWay });
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.HorizontalAlignmentProperty, HorizontalAlignment.Center);
    TB.SetValue(Ellipse.VerticalAlignmentProperty, VerticalAlignment.Center);
    

  • Notes:
    I quickly discovered, thanks to the compiler, that Height, Width and StrokeThickness need to have values of type Double so I simply added the decimal point to squash those errors. As for the bindings, this time I went for in-line declarations. I think that looks more organized.
• Completing the Template setter
  • XAML:

    <Setter Property="Template">
        <Setter.Value>
            <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
                <Grid Width="60" Height="50">
                    ...
                </Grid>
            </ControlTemplate>
        </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
    

  • C#:

    Setter setter4 = new Setter();
    setter4.Property = Button.TemplateProperty;
    
    ControlTemplate ct = new ControlTemplate(typeof(Button));
    
    FrameworkElementFactory grid = new FrameworkElementFactory(typeof(Grid));
    grid.SetValue(Grid.WidthProperty, 60.0);
    grid.SetValue(Grid.HeightProperty, 50.0);
    
    ...
    
    grid.AppendChild(TB);
    grid.AppendChild(CP);
    
    ct.VisualTree = grid;
    
    setter4.Value = ct;
    DigitBtn.Setters.Add(setter4);
    

  • Notes:
    Because I was going to have to separate this setter’s Value property, I used the empty constructor and then acted on the instance. Setting the setter’s property property (that was fun to write) was as straight forward as the others. To set the setter’s value property, I first created a ControlTemplate targeting a Button. Then I created a grid to hold the Ellipse and ContentPresenter. After instantiating the object to go into the grid, I discovered that I couldn’t treat this grid object like I have before because it’s actually a FrameworkElementFactory object. It was easy to find out how to add children to it though. Finally, thanks to Douglass Stockwell, I knew how to use VisualTree to complete the setter.
• Adding the style to the main grid
  • XAML:

    <Grid.Resources >
        ...
        </Style>
    </Grid.Resources>
    

  • C#:

    MyGrid.Resources.Add("DigitBtn", DigitBtn);
    

  • Notes:
    The style is defined inside the “Grid.Resources” tag so I added the style to MyGrid.Resources collection in the same way as adding the storyboard to the Window.Resources collection of the Alarm Clock Sample.

Now that I got the style set up, I moved on to rendering the buttons. This part is just copy/paste once you get the first button to show. (In fact, I think it’s so copy/paste that I might rewrite it using a loop.)

It was a little tricky for me because I haven’t dealt with this level of customized UI before (at least with C#. I have done a complex GUI in Python with TkInter but TkInter’s grid and pack managers are much less sophisticated).

• Initializing the grid
  • XAML:

          <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition/>
            ...
            <ColumnDefinition/>
          </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
          <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition/>
            ...
            <RowDefinition/>
          </Grid.RowDefinitions>
    

  • C#:

    MyGrid.ColumnDefinitions.Add(new ColumnDefinition());
    ...
    MyGrid.RowDefinitions.Add(new RowDefinition());
    

  • Notes:
    I tried rendering a button without this and it just overlapped with the DisplayBox. The grid geometry manager in TkInter automatically creates the cells and I assumed WPF grids worked the same. I saw all this XAML which did nothing but create default objects and thought, the code doesn’t need this, but I was wrong. You explicitly have to create the rows and columns first, otherwise every visual object will overlap even if you’ve told the grid to put it somewhere else.
• Creating the buttons
  • XAML:

    <Button Name="B7" Click="DigitBtn_Click" Style="{StaticResource DigitBtn}" Grid.Column="4" Grid.Row="2">7</Button>
    ...
    

  • C#:

    Button B7 = new Button();
    B7.Name = "B7";
    B7.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(DigitBtn_Click);
    B7.Style = MyGrid.Resources["DigitBtn"] as Style;
    Grid.SetColumn(B7, 4);
    Grid.SetRow(B7, 2);
    B7.Content = "7";
    MyGrid.Children.Add(B7);
    

  • Notes:
    It all made sense until the little “7″ stuck between the tags. I looked up how to get the text for a button to show up and that led me to the wrong Button Class. It was telling me to set the Button.Text property but the compiler told me it doesn’t exist. Someone else said, “WPF C# .text not working” and later said they were being an idiot because one should set the Button.Content property. I went back to the .NET Framework Class Library and discovered that I, too, was being an idiot because the correct place to look is the System.Windows.Controls.Button Class which does, indeed, have a Button.Content property. Oh, and also note “as Style” when grabbing the Style resource. In the Alarm Clock Sample, the storyboard resource is grabbed with a cast (Storyboard)clockWindow.Resources["clockHandStoryboard"]. The big difference between using a cast and using “as” is a cast will raise an exception but “as” will just yield null.

I then copied the DigitBtn_Click method into my Window1 class and now my unfinished calculator is at least looking much more finished. (I still don’t know why they are converting the string into a character array instead of indexing the string itself…)

I planned on animating the buttons in this installment but just getting the buttons to render correctly was enough work for this time. I promise to do the animations next. I may even add in the operations.

All Japanese All The Time: AJATT method by Khatzumoto

One faithful day a fellow smart.fm user told me that I’d want to check out a “cool happening website” about learning Japanese. Since I never turn down any new outlooks on life and learning I decided to give it a read. As Ka-san put out on his about page it is:

“This site is about how you can learn Japanese without taking classes, by having fun and doing things you enjoy—watching movies, playing video games, reading comic books—you know: fun stuff! Stuff that you feel guilty about doing because you should be doing “serious things”.

I am your host, Khatzumoto. ..I learned Japanese in 18 months by having fun. In June 2004, at the ripe old age of 21… I started learning Japanese. By September 2005, I had learned enough to read technical material, conduct business correspondence and job interviews in Japanese. By the next month, I landed a job as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo (yay!).I didn’t take classes…I didn’t read textbooks and I had never lived in Japan.

So how did I do it? Well, by spending 18-24 hours a day doing something, anything in Japanese (”all Japanese, all the time”)…

…I’m [not] better than you or smarter than you. I am not. I am not special—in fact, I have an embarrassing history of making incredibly dumb mistakes that other people just never make. But I achieved some good results and there were reasons for that, namely:

1. The belief that I could become fluent in Japanese
2. Constantly doing fun stuff in Japanese

… So this site exists for 2 reasons:

1. To tell you how I learned Japanese by having fun, so that you can do it, too.
2. To give you some new cool tools that I did not have, and that would have made things much faster and easier for me.

… I am telling you that if you start giving your life to Japanese every-single-day-24/7/365, then you will not just learn Japanese, you will become Japanese. And I am telling you that the way to do that is to do fun things and only fun things: boring classes, boring textbooks and whiny classmates are out! Despite what you may have been raised to believe, boredom is not the same as learning; it’s the opposite; it is by enjoying ourselves that we truly learn.”

What a selling pitch eh? So what is his method? Here is a super fast rundown in picture form!

Basically Ka-san says, go get the RTK (Remembering the Kanji) by Mr. James W. Heisig book and begin learning kanji. While you begin inputing these into an SRS (like anki, http://kanji.koohii.com/learnmore, ect.) you should be destroying all things English in your life. Complete Immersion! He tries to impart the idea that you should become Japanese, pretend, act, and totally be Japanese. You should also only do fun things during this time. He has lots of little advice for motivation and switching out your stuff, but that’s all on the site.

Once you’re through with the RTK book 1, go through RTKana really quick before starting up the wonderful world of Sentence Mining. Basically you learn grammar, usage, and pronunciation through srs’ing sentences you encounter in your Japanese environment. He also recommends a whole 10k of them, tells you to focus on input over output, on monolingual, no subtitled things, ect. Once you accrue 10k sentences, 1mil words and over 10k listening hours, he deems that your Japanese will be awesome sauce, and from there its just gravy.

Of course, this review is pretty short and leaves out a lot of super fine details and great motivational speeches Ka-san likes to give, I figured since the website is still up and very much well maintained, it wont kill you to go read his site yourself! Ka-san has also released three wonderful products along side his FREE website. (If you read everything, you don’t need these things, he even says this himself) It is the QRG book, movie, and First Sentence Pack. The QRG means Quick Reference Guide and its exactly that: a straight to the point reference guide that sums up all of his site in a concise manner with a few more tips. The movie goes into a lot more detail as well. The sentence pack is an “electronic book in PDF format, clocking in at just over 200 pages, containing more than 560 Japanese sentences, with English translations and brief explanations where necessary”.

PROS:

*Flexibility to be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be

*immersion environment

*learns usage/sounds of kanji and grammar through natural use versus grammar points

*never fall into the romaji trap, thank god

*Addresses all language learning needs

*variety

*detailed instructions that fit Japanese, as well as generalities to encompass any language

*fun witty humor alongside lots of motivational speeches

*great site recommendations, resources, and large following to talk to

*Sounding native is more natural due to the immersion of “real” Japanese versus outdated books or proper stale language usage.

CONS:

*You get accused of being in an occult!

*This method is sooo immersion that some feel you abandon your “real life” or that it conflicts with spouses/kids/job/ect.

*requires a lot of reading through a very giant site to get the full picture (time consuming unless you skip to the QRG)

*Beginning sometimes feels slow, drawn out, without progression (Going through RTK stops  a lot of people due to its length)

*Some accuse its lack of learning through grammar points bad!

*if you hate SRS then this is just not for you, mostly

All in all, AJATT has captured many language learner’s attention. I’d dare say that Ka-san is a bit of an internet fame when it comes to Japanese language learning. Does it work? Yea, lots of people go on and on about how successful they’ve been with the method, and tweaking it to fit their needs is really easy! Not many tend to banish AJATT altogether, though some will say that the method just wasn’t for them (completely reasonable).

Are AJATT followers truly occultists? Nah! Though those of us who are currently following the method (or at least most of it) will never hesitate to talk about its goodness, we are all very sane people with normal lives. None of us (at least I hope so) go around tattooing Ka-san’s face on our shoulders while saying the language learner’s prayer! I think its just great smarts to share something that works.

I must say that I do disagree with only one major stepping stone in the whole process. I believe that one should learn the kana before learning the kanji. My reason for this is: I just happened to have done Kana before Kanji and I found when watching dramas, tv, ect, I was able to hear the sounds of the language far easier because I knew what the basic building blocks of their sounds were. My ability then to innately understand more improved vastly compared to some I have met that didn’t. Just my feeling anyways, plus the kana is short and simple to get through and it feels like I learned something fast before I went through a period where I felt I learned slower.

While AJATT does provide a lot of sources for you to go through, it does not do the footwork (WTH! refund!) for you. You will still have to go through and find all the 10k sentences and you’ll have to enter them all in yourself! You’ll have to find all your own dramas, music, ect. But hey, Ka-san isn’t God, now is he?

]]> http://rachelemiliejackson.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/a-welcoming-wreath/ Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:14:10 +0000 rachelemiliejackson http://rachelemiliejackson.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/a-welcoming-wreath/

It’s time for another piece that I’ve made as part of the Stamp Attic ‘design team’, using the lovely Delicate Branches set of stamps. I used the very small sprig to build a wreath shape, and added a few small leafy branches. I then trimmed it simply with buttons.

a wreath for every door

I added berries with a fine pen. I also used that same leafy branch to make a repeat pattern in the band below the wreath.

Here’s a closer look at the detail…

December, but cosy.

When winter is a far-away memory, these branches could be used likewise to create a bird’s nest design, simply by leaving a smaller space in the middle. That’s versatile!

{ Rachel . Emilie . Jackson }

It’s simple like this:

var guid = new Guid(guidID);

        // Create an instance of StreamWriter to write text to a file.
        // The using statement also closes the StreamWriter.
        using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter("TestFile.txt"))
        {
            // Add some text to the file.
            sw.Write("Hello, how are you? DY");
        }

Sample code for Method overirding.

File:meoride.java

Output:
hi
Nice

Share your queries and comments.