Thank You Steve

I'm not going to apologize for offending people.  I just have to put this out there.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this.  I'm not sure what my connection is.  I've never owned an Apple product, but somehow, the loss of Steve Jobs is impacting me.  I could gloss over what a visionary he was, I could say I think how he's the greatest businessman of all time, but that's already been said.  I could say how I bet he's just a really awesome guy and a great dad, but that's already been said too.

What I'm pondering, is controversial, but I have to get it off my chest.  The reason I'm saddened, is that I'm a Christian, and that Steve wasn't.  He was a Buddhist.  I don't believe he is going to heaven, and that is crushing me.  An incredible person, a great businessman and a great dad, and a great neighbor, and gifted, and talented, and a genius who thought differently than anyone of his time, but still lost.

This is so hard for me to write.  There are millions of people in his same circumstance, and his death is bringing that once again before my eyes.  I want to believe that he is in heaven, but I can't.  Maybe he is, maybe his beliefs changed before his death.  Still, there are millions who haven't.

Steve, thanks for all you have done.  Thank you for changing things.  Thank you for thinking differently.  Thank you.

Evolution of Connection

This post written with inspiration from Nadia Crawford's post

There are always things that bring us together as a group. Whether it's the radio station you're listening to, the spectacular blaze of a shuttle launch, or a common conversation on Facebook, they each give us the feeling of connecting with others.

Increasingly, the internet has become about connection. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and the newest entry, Google+, aim to connect you with those you knew, those you know, and those you will know. However, at the same time, we strive for personalization, with sites like Pandora, Google, and Yelp aiming to give you exactly what you want, whether it's music or the perfect restaurant.

This has advantages and disadvantages. There isn't the same level of connection when we listen to Pandora as when we listen to the local radio station. There is a vacuum of connection beyond our typical conversations. This opens up a position for media, games, and much more that will be enhanced by the addition of our friends. (No, I'm not talking about people giving you cows on Farmville) Xbox live is perhaps one of the earliest modern entries to this era. It allows you to easily connect with your friends to play games.

One site that I've seen take this connection and personalization to the next level is Turntable.fm. Turntable allows you to select tracks to play (personalization) while voting on and listening to tracks that others play (selection). Anyone who isn't playing music can listen in on the music as a radio station curated by their friends. This is a powerful way of allowing people to interact and enjoy music with their friends.

Developers, take this as a challenge. Build something that has social at the core. Not a share button, or a hook to invite other users (Farmville gifts). Build something that brings a rich experience with the contribution of one's friends. This is the challenge, and those who do it best will succeed.

Cross Posted at Rogue Chromebook Gurus

Graduation Day

Wow, 18 years and I'm finally here! It's graduation day! Over the years I've had wonderful teachers. I'm especially thankful for my AP Calculus teacher! She has truly inspired me and pushed me to do things beyond what I thought possible.

The years have been filled with lessons. I've learned to write research reports, to integrate, and maybe even a little bit of physics. Reflecting on the years that I've had, I'm thankful for the friends who helped me to think critically, even if it took arguing with me to do it. It's unbelievable how quickly life has moved. It seems like just yesterday that I was meeting everyone in sixth grade. Fast forward to today, and we have shared memories, and opportunities to go on and do great things. We have a huge potential to make an impact on this world!

It is my prayer that God blesses all of you, my friends! I want to thank you all for making me who I am. Without the insightful discussion, heated debates, and a few pushes or nudges in the right direction, I would not have grown as much as I have. I love you all, and can't wait to see what we accomplish class of 2011!

God bless you all!

Love,

Nathan

AP Calculus Practice Test

What a weekend! I really had a lot going on, but I'm going to take the time to focus in on one thing in particular: The AP Calculus practice test at Wyomissing high school.  Now, I could say a lot of things.  I could make comments about kids walking past with ice cream, I could discuss the others comments about how it didn't look fun.  But I won't.  (See what I did there?)

It was great! A question about snow removal, that, while I didn't ace it, I felt comfortable.  Another one modeling a speaker by a couple of different equations.  A bit of integration with respect to the y-axis.  I felt on top of the world! That is, until I got to the multiple choice section of the test.  I'll admit it.  On a lot of the multiple choice, I felt pretty lost.  I found it hard to narrow things down, but overall, I think I did average on the multiple choice, and pretty awesome on the open ended.  This doesn't make a ton of sense, because I honestly expected the open ended to be far harder, and we haven't reviewed at all.

Now for the results: I got a 4 on the test!  It was the 2010 AP Calculus test, so that gives me a lot of hope that I will be alright on this year's.  Still, I can't afford to stand still.  I'll keep praying, study my butt off and get a lot of rest before the test just like I did yesterday.  Bring it on!

Senior Year

We're over halfway through the school year.  Tomorrow is the 108^th day of school, and senior skip day. (Note: I will not be skipping tomorrow)  I think now is as good a time as any to report on the state of my year.  The three classes I'm most interested in this year are: Computer Science II, AP Calculus, and AP Physics.

Let's start off with my most frustrating class: AP Physics.  We are never lectured and expected to learn by watching the teacher do problems.  My problem?  Actually understanding what I'm supposed to do half the time.

Now, my favorite class: Computer Science II.  This is an honors class that I thoroughly enjoy!  We're doing 3D wire frames and I'm just having a blast starting my day with some good coding.  We're still using Visual Basic 6, but I expect we'll be in C++ later this year. I can't wait to get a real taste of what real life coding is like, because the graphic editor in VB6 just seems way too easy.  Object Oriented Programming, here I come!

Finally, AP Calculus.  This is my hardest class.  Derivatives, integrals and a very rapid pace.  My teacher is awesome and I have had her for three years of my high school career, so I'm loving the class!  I just wish I could get better grades on my tests.  (Part two of a test tomorrow)  Anyway, I expect to pass the AP exam, and decide if I want to retake the class in college.  Now, speaking of college....

As I approach the end of my senior year, no doubt some people are wondering what's next for me.  I'm proud to publicly re-announce my decision to attend Grove City College, an hour north of Pittsburgh, PA!

Grove City is a Christian college where I plan to major in computer science and potentially math.  I am looking forward to the spiritual and academic opportunities over the course of my next few years, and hope to share more in the future!

Living in the Cloud

I already wrote about my Christmas gift from Google.  I've been using it for a few weeks now, almost exclusively, and I am very happy. It isn't perfect. It's a closed beta right now. (Version 0.9.128.12 at the time of writing) What I can say is that it's fast. Lightning fast.  I do notice some lag with Adobe Flash, but that should improve with finalized hardware.

The last post I did was completely written (photos and all) on the CR-48.  It's instant resume, starts in 14 seconds, and I may have shut it down three times since I've had it.  Occasionally, Chrome starts leaking memory and I have to log out and back in. Also, SD and USB storage access is largely nonexistent.  I had to work through Picnik to upload images.  This should be improved as one of the experimental options is "Advanced File System".

Mostly, it's dead simple. Unless it can't connect to a network, in which case, you must enter Incognito Mode to set up the wireless.  I have yet to activate the Verizon 3G, so I won't comment on that.  It syncs all my settings, extensions, apps, bookmarks, etc.

What I like the most about this laptop.

1. It consistently gets 8 hours of battery life
2. Instant resume lets me close it up to save battery without worrying about waiting to resume when I open it back up
3. I have reset it, without losing anything

8 hours of battery life means that I can be at sub ten percent battery life and have over a half hour of life remaining.  That's invaluable if you're on the go and need to finish something quick.

Bugs: 

The keyboard shortcuts menu (ctrl+alt+/) only shows qwerty layout (I am in the minority that uses Dvorak)

Can't change profile picture without resetting the device

No real show stoppers. This seems very close to launch.

So, I got a CR-48

On Thursday, I had a package at my door.  I had no idea what it was, but I knew that it was addressed to me, so I opened it.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a diagram on a box, and a guinea pig so dear.  At this point, I knew what it was. I had seen this post a week or so before.  Like any good blogger, I raced for a camera to photograph the unboxing, while simultaneously yelling that I had a Chrome OS notebook.  I'll save the review for later, but some initial impressions now.

Social Obligation

Facebook and Twitter are different.  And there's a reason that we like one over the other.  Facebook has a built in social obligation.  Relationships are immediately reciprocated.  There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach.  The advantages are that it becomes much more personal, and truly makes sense for those real world relationships.  Disadvantages are that it often becomes noisy and your news stream isn't always interesting to you.  Sure, you can individually hide people, but that is a nuisance and time consuming.

Twitter has an alternative method.  It has received criticism for being an anti-social network as opposed to a social one.  This allows you to pick the people that are interesting to you and not be bogged down by noise.  There is no pressure to follow everyone who follows you, but results in many people having relatively few follower counts.

It all depends what you want.  I'll sacrifice some social for some relevance.

Traveling Part 2 - Minnesota Missions

So, we've already talked about my college visits, now I want to share about a missions trip I took earlier this year to Minnesota.

Saturday July 3rd, I left with a group of fourteen other people from my church to go to Red Lake Minnesota.  As we were making the trek, by car, from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, it took us approximately 23 hours of driving both ways for the trip.  Fortunately, we were able to stop at a hotel in Chicago both ways as well.  But once we got up there, the trip was well worth it!  We were working on an Indian reservation, and it was quite a change from the comfortable Pennsylvania atmosphere I'm used to.

One of the kids from the reservation and me

As we worked with the kids through a VBS program, it broke my heart to see that many of the kids came from broken homes, or didn't even know whose house they were going home to on a given night.  It was important to show them God's love for them through us.  A lot of them grew close to my heart, and I was privileged to find that three of them dedicated their lives to Christ the next week!  Within a day, they were hanging all over us and really loved us.  We shared the story of salvation, a story some of them already knew.  Of course, not everything went smoothly.  Due to threatening weather, we weren't able to go to the lake on our third day of VBS, which disappointed many of the kids.

We also were able to help out by painting a house while we were there.  Just a simple coat of paint does an amazing job of lifting a person's spirits and is a great way to show that we care for them.  Best of all, we all enjoyed doing it!  We had a great time over the course of the week, just being able to help them and work with them.  It was a great opportunity to grow in my personal faith over the course of the week.

I also met some people that will hold a special place in my heart from now on.  Carmen and Caitlin are two girls that are really walking with Christ and on fire for him!  I will be continuing to pray for them and encourage them in their walk.  I am so thankful that I got to meet them, they really inspired me to be a better Christian myself.  I see the hardships they walk through and it is a motivator for me to go out and face my hardships with the strength of God at my side!

I learned a lot in Minnesota, and I'm glad to be able to share the experience!

Any questions, get my email address at: http://scr.im/aqy

Traveling Part 1 - Colleges

Hey everyone!


I've been having a great time the last few weeks, and am just now getting a chance to blog about it.
About two weeks ago, I was able to get out to Pittsburgh and visit Carnegie Mellon University and Grove City College!  Both college visits were fantastic, and I feel this now would be a good time for some "show and tell."

(Above) This photo was taken in the library at Carnegie Mellon.
It's a "pod" for power napping. Very comfortable!

My first trip was in the morning to Carnegie Mellon.  The campus, though in the City of Pittsburgh, feels really set off from the city.  Everything is close together, but it isn't crowded.  It's also nice to be in the city and be able to go somewhere off the college if I wish.  Still, the primary reason for choosing Carnegie Mellon is clearly it's reputation for computer science.  I interviewed with the college, and it was very relaxed and comfortable.  This is definitely a top choice for me right now!


Next, we traveled to Grove City.  This Christian campus was very friendly and welcoming.  I really like the feel of the campus, although it is more suburban to rural in feel.  As a Christian college, they have three standards that they want students to adhere to:

1. Live in single sex dorms. A separate guys building and a separate girls building.
2. No alcohol. (Pretty simple)
3. Attend sixteen sessions in the chapel per semester.

Overall, I think these are very reasonable expectations, and I know I will have no issue sticking to them.  I also got a chance to meet the head of the computer science department. He did his undergrad and graduate work to get his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon!  These two colleges are definitely neck-and-neck right now!