HackyHawaii For Life by AK

how about a teach kids tech series

2010-12-23T16:55:00.004-10:00

if you haven't seen it by now there are bunch educational videos for parents that google has put together. http://www.teachparentstech.org/watch

i just sent my mother a "tech care package" to hopefully educate her about using the computer. it was a joke of course.

this whole thing got me thinking about teaching people about tech. perhaps google should make a video series for kids. (if they already have one let me know... haha i make like people read my blog). maybe the videos showed kids how to use various google tools like google docs, email, web development, etc. schools could use this as classroom material. then all these kids would be techies already and we won't need this teach parents tech one generation from now. awesome!

shoyu flakes

2010-11-08T21:06:00.008-10:00

while i was eating some cold tofu, ginger, and shoyu i had an idea.... the idea is called shoyu flakes. its like shoyu that melts in your mouth. it would be an awesome garnish on top things like tofu, sushi, or even something like salad. it could be like bonito flakes but of course it would be shoyu favor instead of fish.

what do you guys think? maybe @chefmorimoto might like it and i'd be rich and famous.

UPDATE
http://www.nymtc.com/pl_mtcpremium/200709soysalt.html

a couple lame ideas

2010-11-04T20:41:00.002-10:00

(its been a while since i blogged. i've been meaning to get back into it. so here is my first attempt)

idea one: email/wiki page
email is great. haha. well, this idea kinda is about how email sucks for discussions. i don't know about you but it sucks when ideas from email threads. its hard to trace through how the idea evolved, hard to make sure you see everyones comments and concerns. things get lost.

a great example, is my family's football game potluck emails. an email goes out week for people to sign up for potluck, people don't respond to all, format the response funny, etc, etc. by the end its hard to know who is bringing what unless you read all the emails.

enter. wikipages and google docs. some people know that some things are better to collaborate on in wikipages or google docs. good job to those people. but its out of the way. its a separate place. usually when its separate its hard to get people to use it consistently. not to mention a very low percentage of people actually know what google docs is.

anyway... the idea is that we could better integrate google docs and gmail. actually, perhaps its like a distributed wikipage. where there is a document structure thats possible and threaded discussions. i like that... hm. let me think about this more.

idea two: twitter filter
i like following people on twitter. i hate following people that tweet any more than 5 things a day. i tend to ignore anyone with a few thousand lifetime tweets. i just don't want to see that much information. i know there are probably a lot of external services that can do this, but i really just want a way to filter tweets from specific users. perhaps the filter understands the users "tweet rate" and gives me a down sampled view. or maybe the filter just picks a "popular" tweet from that user.

anyway, thats a simple idea that would really be awesome.

(these ideas were kinda lame. but i just wanted to write something down for a change)

abercrombie tech discussion

2010-04-07T00:24:00.016-10:00

on tuesday april 6 i attended a discussion on the hawaii technology industry hosted by neil abercrombie (see http://twtvite.com/AFGTech). the discussion was moderated by burt lum of bytemarks and the panel included; jay fidel, dan leuck, dr. pat sullivan, and neil abercrombie. this discussion was said to be not part of abercrombie's campaign in anyway. it was purely a discussion for the betterment of the industry. there were about 20 people in the audience and it was broadcasted live on the internet. (see some pictures of the event here http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilabercrombie/4499296522/)

some of the discussion points were the following (note i'm not quoting anyone i'm just trying to paraphrase the discussions):

problems and issues with the current industry; capital formation and the brain drain

that we've made a lot progress in 25 years.

that its now or never for the tech industry

the need for a tech advisory panel to help aid the future governor and legislature

the need for a CIO to reform the state IT infrastructure

talked about the progress that act 221 made and some of the issues associated with that

talked about how the different industries are related; like hotel and tech.

talked about hawaii has a unique diversity and potential to make disruptive ideas

etc, etc...

there were a bunch of good discussions. and i really do appreciate the fact that it was held. i abercrombie a lot of credit for hosting it. and a big thank you to the moderator and panel. BUT i have some comments/suggestions/qestions

where were all the engineers?
i convinced two other engineers from my company to come because i think this is important. but i think we were the only full time engineers in the audience. the tech industry is made of business people AND ENGINEERS. engineers need to stop being lazy and come out to these events. or how about students!

what problem?
several times in the discussions people attempted to put a finger on what the problems were. i was really interested in what the panel responded with. but... that was from their perspective. it was problems that dan sees or problems that pat sees. valid for them. but maybe not applicable to the larger industry.

i left the discussion still wondering what the problem was. i first asked myself do we even have a problem? to know if we have a problem one must know what the expectations are. i don't know what that is, so i can't tell you if we have a problem. and for those of you following THAT IS A PROBLEM. what are the expectations? yes, i agree tech isn't as big as it should be. but, what have we done to expect more? have we committed more money to reach goal X? i'm not sure we have. we lack a baseline of to evaluate our status.

lets say that we use the number of tech jobs as a scorecard (i'm not saying this is a good measurement). well, then we have something to evaluate. we can frame our discussions around that. only when we have goals and expectations can we evaluate our progress.

jay and neil mentioned that this seems to be now or never (i'm paraphrasing) for the tech industry. hmm. i don't know what to make of that. now or never for what? i don't get what that means with respect to our lack of goals.

anyway... you get my point. actually, i just wanted to throw out there that i feel good about my little area of the tech industry. i'm really happy with my company, career, and role in the tech industry.

other cities and states?
i was hoping some one in the panel said something like, "new mexico and north carolina has similar problems as we do with regards to technology. their state government is doing these 5 things. we can learn from their progress and failures. and i think we can try this." to me it kinda felt like we were trying to figure this out by ourselves. there has to be other examples that we can learn from.

thoughts about the brain drain
one of the real problems that i see is the brain drain problem. everyone talks about it. everyone agrees that it occurs. but there doesn't ever seem to be a discussion about it. why is it happening? what can we do about it? so... here is my take on those two questions.

cost of living. plain and simple. its too expensive for a lot of new grads to start their life in honolulu. hawaii typically doesn't pay as well as the mainland and its more expensive than most cities. what can we do? hm... well how about we do more remote working? maybe these new grads can live somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper. and still contribute to a local company. we could provide tax incentives or something for that. thats probably a lame idea, so you think of something.

competing with mainland companies is definitely a problem. i know for a fact that local kids that move away to college have a hard time looking for jobs in hawaii cause its so hard for them to know what hawaii has to offer. hawaii companies need (maybe even with assistance from the government) make much bigger attempt to lure our top notch students back to hawaii. we need to market hawaii tech companies to our own kids.

we need to educate students on what type of job their education targets. the panel mentioned that we have a great Department of Electrical Engineering that attract many mainland company recruiters. i wonder if the career people in the department tell the students that most of the jobs they are studying for are on the mainland. if i was a student and i knew i wanted to live and work in hawaii, i would want to know the number of hawaii jobs available. teach students about our local industry. allow them to gear their studies to compete for local jobs. if the students don't realize what jobs we have, then their will always be a mismatch. there will always be a drain, because they have no choice.

summary
this was a great event. i don't think the discussions were ground breaking, but i think its awesome that this could be the start of a lot of great things. i really appreciate the leadership that is needed to want to hold such an event.

to summarize. i want real goals. i want someone to say, we need tech to grow by X amount this year and this much in 4 years. here is how we are going to evaluate it. and here is the plan to accomplish that. or maybe its not that simple....

referentia open house

2010-03-12T22:49:00.007-10:00

this afternoon my company hosted 28 students from the UH Department of Information and Computer Science, College of Engineering and IEEE student chapter.

i gathered a bunch of my engineers to help me with the presentation. its like we are pro presenters already. we know exactly what we want to talk about and how we want to deliver our message. each time we do this it gets better and better. this presentation went really well. i'm really proud of our engineers for stepping up and contributing to efforts like this.

so, what did we talk about? i'll give you a quick summary.

referentia has awesome projects.
we talked about three of our coolest projects. we talked technical and we even gave a demo. the key thing here was that the enthusiasm about the projects really showed in the engineers presentations. our projects are cool. we are doing innovative stuff. it does matter. it is awesome. and it showed.

referentia has awesome people.
one of the points that we really wanted to show was that our employees are really cool. coming to work is fun. our lunch conversations are awesome. we all get a long and really makes a difference. austen mentioned its like we are all in college together struggling through classes trying to make it. it actually does kind of feels like that. we definitely have a bond that isn't normal work stuff. better yet, we have really smart people at referetia. bonus points!

advice to students
we always jump at any opportunity to tell students what we think. and we definitely went into this presentation with a goal. our goal was to shock the students a little. here is a summary of what we said:

we hire top notch students. the students we hire do more than just school work. they work on real projects. projects that give them an edge over their peers.

you are competing for jobs. you better separate yourself from your peers.

you need to know what kind of jobs are out there. start using your opportunities in school to reach your goal.

i don't care if you don't know java. we can teach you that. but i require that you are driven, determined, and communicate well. if you can't work in a team setting, then i can't you won't do well in our environment.

for the record
none of the students use netbeans!

advice for students

2009-12-29T12:03:00.015-10:00

a friend on twitter shared an article about how students should focus on more than just their GPA. here is an excerpt.

Students seem overly obsessed with grades and organized activities, both relative to standardized tests and to what I’d most recommend: doing something original. You don’t have to step very far outside scheduled classes and clubs to start to see how very different the world is when you have to organize it yourself.

For example, if you try to study a subject in depth without following a textbook or review, you’ll have to decide for yourself which sources seem how relevant to your topic. If you try to add something to the subject you’ll have to decide what changes are how feasible and interesting. Doing these may feel awkward at first, but they will be very useful skills later in life. Similar skills come from writing your own game or starting your own business or composing your own album.

i think the article makes a great point, although i think organized activities does have room for originality. i shared this article with our intern and he wasn't too impressed. i was trying to come up with a reason why that this is probably good advice. but it didn't really click. i tried what i usually do and i sent him my blog post about doing a honors thesis. he seemed to like that a little more, but maybe because i wrote it. haha.

anyway, i left our chat hoping i proved a point. later in the day i came across these two articles; Advice for College Students and Success & Motivation:Scatterbrained and in College. i think all three of these provide good advice.

here is steve shapiro's talk at RIT. the cool thing is that his advice is inline with our student intern mantra; make students awesome and my thoughts about soft skills.

mark cuban's article:

You are still in school. You don’t need to have all the answers or focus on one thing. You should be trying a lot of things until you find the one thing you really love to do and are good at. When that happens, you will be able to focus.

Being focused at 21 is way over rated. Now is the time to screw up, try as many different things as you can and just maybe figure things out.

The thing you do need to do is learn. Learn accounting. Learn finance. Learn statistics. Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about business people. You dont have to focus on 1 thing, but you have to create a base of knowledge so you are ready when its time.

You will never know when that time will come. But you can be ready when it does.

i sent both those articles to our intern and had a short discussion.

intern: wow...
intern: I'm wasting my money
me: well he got that opportunity from school.
me: his point is that there are a lot of opportunities in school
me: from being in school
me: take advantage of that.
me: ie. like honors thesis
me: ie like other programs they have.
intern: i see
intern: i wasn't that ambitious of a college student in the past few years
intern: that is where i fail
me: yeah neither was i.

i hope that he got that "yeah neither was i." really meant i was like him until i made the decision to do my honors thesis. and after reflecting on all these articles. the advice they all share is carpe diem. seize the opportunities that are given to you. if you don't do anything you get nothing. don't be lame, do something.

ps. our intern is doing something. he's becoming awesome.

lacy veach day of discovery 2009

2009-11-21T15:14:00.003-10:00

for the third year in a row, referentia systems incorporated participated in the lacy veach day of discovery. once again, we taught the kids about scratch. and once again, the kids blew us away with their awesomeness. the cool thing was that we've seen a few of the kids before and they are getting smarter. it seems like more kids (at least the kids that comes to these kinds of events) are learning about programming either through things like scratch or through robot competitions. thats cool.

anyway, thanks to the engineers at referentia for always volunteering for events like this. it really makes a difference.

dear ICS student

2009-02-25T23:53:00.003-10:00

(i got an email from one of the students i met at the career fair today. i wanted to follow up with him, but i decided to post my response in my blog, because i think others could benefit from it. i'll leave out the specific personal comments.)

dear ICS student,

thanks for following up with our discussion at the career fair. i'm glad you stopped by to talk to the different companies. ICS students are probably under represented at the career fair, so you coming by to meet us is definitely a very good step on your part.

i was impressed by several things that you did:
you came to find us again after talking to you more informally last semester. you've shown good initiative, by being more prepared this semester. i really think coming to visit companies at every opportunity is a very good thing. whats even better is that i remember you from last year. it shows that you understand thats important.
it was immediately obvious is that you have done side projects that help grow your experience. having longer term project work whether in the classroom or out is definitely something students should strive for.
your resume looked well thought out and you had an appropriate amount of real world experience given that you are still a student.
you were dressed appropriately. usually, i don't necessarily dwell on this point. but, the competition (namely the other EE students) are definitely on their game in this respect.
you know what type of software development (web development, database, client, etc) you were interested in.

here is some follow up advice.
continue to learn about the companies out there. talk to us as much as possible at these events. learn what we do and how we do business. come with specific questions. in general, its even more impressive when students come to visit us and know what we do.
i'd spend some additional time networking and meeting other technology professionals. read blogs (like mine. hahaha) and sign up for things like TechHui. the more you can network the better. you'll learn a lot from those relationships. back to my blog again, here are some posts that i wrote about students: career fair, work on your soft skills, don't be afraid to speak up, student portfolios, making students awesome, COE Fall Career Day
continue to do larger project work. one of the best things to do in an interview (or at a career fair) is talk about your lessons learned on ongoing projects. for example, how your leadership influence the project or how you debated over design decisions. more importantly, its your chance to show off your domain knowledge and how you are able to learn about the problems you are trying to solve with your software. in my opinion this is really important.

you did a good job of approaching us at the career fair. definitely the best attempt from an ICS student we talked to today. keep it up!

thanks, aaron

(i'm going to get a little more general now and tad bit negative)
some of the ICS students that i talked to today weren't really sure what they wanted to do. this might be acceptable for intern positions (however, even intern positions are very competitive these days). but its probably definitely not okay for students looking for full time employment. career fairs are your chance to show the employer, wow we need to hire this guy; immediate benefit to the company usually wins over potential. immediate benefit and potential definitely wins over uncertainty. i remember when i interviewed with companies, one of things that i would say is "this is what i can provide the company... i bring experience in... and i believe that my skills can make this company better" that might be a little to forward for some places, but i wanted to be sure i found a company that would allow me to utilize my skills and where i could make a difference. the bottom line is that we have a whole stack of resumes and a lot of them know they want to work for us. students need to show that same excitement.

in general, ICS students (i'm being general and isn't directed at you) don't seem as prepared as other college of engineering students that we talk to. i met a student once that said, i'm interested in mobile development. i asked why? and he said cause i just finished a course. hmm... well um. i think you need a little more experience in mobile development than that.

i want to make another quick note. i'm seeing more and more students from the mainland coming back home. these are students from USC, UW, MIT, ITT, etc with a good amount of schooling and experiences. YOU ARE COMPETING WITH THESE STUDENTS. you're advantage is that you are in hawaii for your entire schooling and we are in hawaii, but thats about it. so you better maximize that advantage. to me that means, students cannot come to visit companies their last semester and expect that all the companies are going to be standing their with open arms. getting a job is competition. its a pretty serious and important competition. do something that separates yourself from the rest of your peers and even the rest of the mainland school students. you need to if you want to compete. here is one example how, why you need to do a honors thesis.

night time internet is awesome

2009-01-23T00:29:00.005-10:00

a few of us (austen and james) at work started something called "night time internet". i think it basically started because we were working on proposals and side projects after work at home. so, we would get home from work, eat dinner, etc and get right back on the computer and work on stuff; instant messaging each other to communicate. eventually, it just became part of our routine and habit to come onto night time internet. a lot of times we would be working on totally different things and different projects. i would be reading and writing blogs as austen hacked away on hackystat, while james pretended to be online. haha. (okay well we don't do this every night, just when we have stuff to do; i suppose we have lives...)

anyway, now its part of our culture. we have a few people that are part time night time interneters. and even people from different companies. but, i think the cool thing is we use a lot of this time to learn from each other.

i'll just focus what i get out of night time internet...
1) i use this time to do a lot of just talking story. a lot of times i'm pretty busy at work so i don't get a lot of time to talk to my engineers. i'm probably able to talk to a large majority of my engineers on night time internet. and the discussions tend to be really good. whether its me offering advice or trying to solve work problems, i view night time internet as a really time to do this. it really does seem to work for us.
2) night time internet is an opportunity to experiment and learn about things that i don't get to at work. i do a lot of digging into new ideas and technologies at night time internet. i read a lot of blogs and try to learn more about things that i'm interested. its awesome because i can share them with others and get feedback.
3) internet networking. um.. you all probably know i spend a lot of time networking. and night time internet allows me to learn about the different people and organizations out there.

those are some of my initial thoughts...

STEM at the apple store

2009-01-20T22:45:00.000-10:00

i've been visiting apple stores more frequently over the holidays and especially since i've got my new iPhone. one of things that i finally realized is that the apple store is changing the world. haha... okay stop laughing. let me explain.

this past weekend i walked into the kahala apple store and i noticed that almost every mac book was taken over by kids playing halo. at first i thought to myself that the kids were basically keeping real customers from checking out the products. after walking around for a while i noticed that the kids weren't only playing halo, some of them were playing with iMovie and some art software (i don't know what it was because i don't have a mac... boo). after checking out some of the iPhone accessories i came back to the mac books and saw this

this scene was so awesome that i had to snap a picture of it. something about these kids excitement was so captivating. they were having so much fun in the apple store. hm.. self taught STEM education at the apple store. now thats definitely unique. i don't have a mac book and i'm not sure if these kids have one either. but, mac book or not, its awesome to see that we share the same fondness of technology. i love technology, but i had a slow start - i didn't really learn about the internet till i was in college. when i grew up we didn't have apple stores, we didn't have opportunities to learn about technology in the shopping centers; technology wasn't part of everyday life. now it is... these kids have a lifetime of loving and learning technology and hopefully that inspires them to accomplish things that i've never dreamed of. and the apple store is playing its small part of making technology cool.

next time while you are at the apple store. look around at the people. notice the young and old loving technology. its pretty awesome when you think about it.

ideas for web videos

2009-01-18T08:53:00.010-10:00

i read a lot of blogs and i've noticed that i actually prefer when the blog/article has pictures instead of videos. actually, videos are great for digging deeper into the topic, but i've found that the videos in blogs slow down reading a lot, because you want to know whats in the video. so, you tend to load up the video and manually fast forward to see if there is anything good in it. this slows down my reading and i hate that. but i continue to do that because sometimes the video is actually way easier to understand than the write up.

to solve those problems i have two visualization ideas for web videos.

skimming for web videos
skimming is a iMovie thing and its pretty cool. basically its a way to explore and preview your video and is a great way quickly identify the best parts of your video. to skim all you have to do is move your mouse horizontally over the video and the video plays back chronologically in respect to the mouse direction. you can also hear the audio while skimming. watch the apple tutorial on skimming

skimming for web videos makes a lot of sense to me. it allows you to quickly find things of interest. perhaps there are technical issues with doing that, for example how to download the data to be able to do that. the whole buffering the video thing really sucks and i hate that i have to do that all the time. not to mention it sort of defeats the purpose of the skimming feature.

a collage of video thumbnails
usually, when you upload a video you can select a single thumbnail of the video to show users what the video is all about. but, i've always wondered why stop at just one thumbnail. what if there were multiple thumbnails that showed snapshots of the highlights of the video. then i can just look at the collage of thumbnails to know what the video was all about. i created an example of my thumbnail collage for this time lapse video:

(my mock up)

compare my mock up with the actual video. i wonder if my thumbnails actually helps. what do you think?

(actual vimeo video)

perhaps there would be away to toggle between skimming and the thumbnail collage. anyway, those were two ideas that i think would help save time while encountering videos on the web. do you think those two features would be useful?

stop saying there is a lack of technology talent

2009-01-10T00:22:00.006-10:00

I've been trying to stay away from this discussion on techhui about Are Hawaii's Tech Tax Credit Worth the Cost?, because I don't particularly think its that productive and has a far too negative tone. But, I decided to chime in because of this comment:

As a whole, in software/IT, I don't think the local talent compares with the level of global competition a startup has to face. (This is the same point Guy Kawasaki essentially made.) Because of the talent deficiency, funding such companies is almost inherently a high/bad risk. Money is a very inefficient way to compensate for talent. Using state funds to subsidize this is very likely to be wasteful.

Here are a few comments:
(1) did i miss the state wide talent evaluation survey that allowed you to make this claim. perhaps people should stick recounting their own experiences and refrain from making broad claims. besides i really don't think the talent thread you keep pointing to had very much careful and analytical examination of talent. i know a lot of these software and IT people that you are calling talent deficient and i think thats very wrong and inappropriate. perhaps all the talented people are avoiding you. or perhaps its the senior management, entrepreneurs, and executives that aren't getting the job done. i'm being sarcastic, but i think my statement is just as plausible.
(2) i actually think Guy Kawasaki is a little mistaken in his comments. we do have awesome professors and students in the College of Engineering (he actually is forgetting about the Department of Information and Computer Science where most of the software and technology graduates comes from). but, the problem is that the startup industry is too small of an industry for them to target to transition into. i recently had a conversation with a professor that said we want to grow the startup mentality in his students. perhaps Guy should visit the College of Engineering and Dept of Information and Computer Science and help build and transition the "supply".

anyway, say what you want about the actual tax credit program, the facts, the reports, the investors, or even the companies. but stop calling the people in hawaii's tech industry talentless.

reactions to some of the TechHui discussions

2009-01-05T22:44:00.005-10:00

there have been some discussions on TechHui my favorite hawaii social network about a couple of subjects centering around Act221 and the talent in hawaii.

here are some excerpts (i know a few of these authors, so i'm definitely not taking a shot at them):

In Dave Takaki's forum post Action Committee for Threatened Hi Tech Tax Credits John raised an excellent point, "But maybe the issue is: Hawaii has insufficient tech talent so we are simply throwing money at the wrong problem." This is definitely a serious issue for a number of reasons.

- the talent is fairly limited (which is the premise of Dan's opening post)
- we lack talent in building startups
Let me give 2 examples:
When I worked in SF, our 50 person startup had the equivalent of a Hawaii all-start team. The academic and work credentials, along with the level of expertise was extraordinarily high. Someone like Dan would easily excel there but a lot of local techs would have trouble because of a lack of experience/training at that level.

For example, I used to go to the Ruby meetup in Berkeley and every meeting had 30 guys who were really advanced programmers. That's just Berkeley and just for Ruby, there were others in Novato, SF, San Jose, etc. While Hawaii has a number of people with similar skills, it's nowhere near that quantity of people.

IMHO, Mainlanders (well, West Coast mainlanders from my limited experience) tend to invest more time establishing their careers before settling down.

I view Act 221/215 as a High-Tech Charity (or Welfare Program) that should not be renewed.

All of these comments seem to be be pretty negative. And I tend to disagree with them. Here are some of my comments:

Hawaii is Hawaii - Hawaii doesn't have to be a Silicon Valley, Berkeley, or where ever. It needs to be what it is. Hawaii is about its people and thats what makes it special. With that being said, I don't think we need to have a Silicon Valley culture to make it in the tech world. We need to maximize the strengths of Hawaii to create a tech industry that thrives off of our own unique culture. People that want Silicon Valley culture should probably go to Silicon Valley. Lets not lose our identity - diversity is key.

Perhaps its not the talent, its the leadership that sucks - there are many talented people in hawaii. many that i think would thrive in startups. i think a large part of the finding and retaining talent in hawaii is the lack of true leaders, visionaries, and mentors. i always like to think about this quote that kevin taketa said in hawaii business magazine:

In Hawaii, you have to listen, you have to be a good listener. You need to pay attention to relationships and how relationships are all connected here. And you need to have a certain kind of humility. And humility does not mean you don’t have courage or a certain kind of self-confidence. Hawaii is a people place and if people don’t feel you respect them or don’t care about them enough to think about them, it is really hard to lead here.

leading and talking the loudest is different. leading and having the most money is different. you have to listen before people will listen to you; and thats the way it should work. we have the talent, but can you lead us?

less talk and more doing - there are a lot of people that unhappy with the current state of the hawaii tech industry. myself included; especially when i was being recruited by google (i failed the interview, i suck). but, i've come to realize that i'm to blame, because i know that i could be doing more to help. i've devoted the last couple years to not only this blog, but also to numerous student and industry events. my goal was to talk to as many students and people (including people like mazie hirono and neil abercrombie) that i could find about what we (techies) do and why its awesome. there is a huge need for mentors and experts to talk to students. do something for the greater good, anything.

anyway... its great to see discussions on TechHui.

UH ICS: 0, UH Linguistics: 1, MIT CS: 4

2008-12-29T22:59:00.006-10:00

tonight was another successful Holiday Science and Tech Job Fair w/ Global Pau Hana Mixer at the japanese cultural center. as usual there was a good crowd and a lot of employers (i think the free food and beer has something to do with it). the idea for the event is to...

Meet Hawaii’s high tech companies and learn about the many diverse opportunities awaiting you. From full-time to internships and how you can be part of Hawaii’s growth in technology.

there was a nice crowd tonight and we talked to a lot of people for about 3 hours straight. i really enjoy talking to students and job seekers wanting to learn about our company and our industry. for the rest of this post, i'm going to concentrate on the students...

i talked to four MIT computer science students (i'm guessing someone told the MIT hawaii students about event in an email or something). they were all looking for internships and in my opinion they were pretty impressive. one came in a suit and we had a pretty good conversation about what his expertise was and what he was interested. he asked good questions and really wanted to know how to prepare himself for the future. he was a good student; i guess thats why he goes to MIT! anyway, i think its great that we had a bunch of students from MIT show up. last year, we talked to a bunch of USC and Pacific University students.

on the other hand, i talked to one student in the UH linguistics department that was really new to programming. she was just starting to take a few ics classes, because she was interested in applying computational techniques to her linguistics knowledge. she was super excited about programming and learning more. very enthusiastic. i think thats awesome and she is the type of person that we want working with us.

one of my friends asked me after the event if i talked (or seen) to any UH ICS students. unfortunately, i didn't talk to any. for some reason i've been seeing many more mainland university students with hawaii ties are looking for internships and work in hawaii. this increase probably doesn't help the uh ics students chances, especially when they are under represented at job fairs like this. this is the second "job fair" in a row that i've been a little disappointed with the UH ICS turnout (the other was the ICS industry day).

in all i had a lot of fun at this years event. it was great to talk to a lot of great students and job seekers. its an awesome event. i can't wait to shift through the resumes to contact a few them to chat more.

google workshop for women engineers

2008-12-06T22:38:00.000-10:00

Up to 75 female computer scientists will be selected to attend a 3 day all-expenses paid workshop at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California January 22-25, 2009. This special workshop will include technical talks and career workshops, and a unique occasion to build and strengthen networks of women in technology. Students will also enjoy tours of the Googleplex, have the opportunity to meet with Google engineers in their research fields, and have fun exploring the San Francisco bay area.

http://googleforstudents.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-workshop-for-women-engineers.html

aiea high school career fair and ics industry day

2008-11-23T22:55:00.005-10:00

i had a couple of STEM events last month. the aiea high school career fair and the ics industry day. one of the events was really successful the other wasn't.

i've given a lot of talks at a lot of different stem events; roosevelt career fair, ics industry day, coe fall career day, honors program, and coe career fair.

and one of the things that i've noticed is that organization of the event is really critical. for example, (now that i think about it more) the aiea high school event was really organized well. here's why...

BEFORE the presentation started i over heard one student said to the other, "ryan, you want to be a software engineer". ryan responded with, "yeah maybe". woah! they know what a software engineer is.

it seemed like the students really wanted to learn about what we did.

when i asked, if they liked math, they pretty much all raised their hands. i think we got the entire math team or something

when we were done with the presentations the students asked a lot of questions.

after the presentations were long over, a handful of students visited us again in the gym to ask more questions

aiea high school got it right. they seemed to put the right students in the right presentations. i was super happy with the students we met at aiea. (i was pretty surprised at this! i graduated from aiea high school...)

on the other hand, the ics industry day was sort of the opposite. it probably wasn't organized the best. (and i can be critical of the organization because i helped organize it!). this event usually attracts more than 30 students, but for some reason this time around i would guess that we didn't get more that 10. maybe one can claim quality over quantity at this statistic, but it still discouraging nevertheless. AND i feel bad that i let the other companies down, by not meeting their expectations.

we happened to be bring our intern to the event, who is from the college of engineering. and after the event, our intern explained how he didn't understand how come the ics students didn't come to the event. i think he also said, he didn't understand why they didn't come to the fall career fair either. something is different in the students... hm... i get way more resumes from engineering students compared to ics students. engineers seemed to be much more prepared when i talk to them. engineering students walk around the fair talking to and questioning the companies. ics students seem to stumble upon us. i can't tell you how many times i get the "oh i didn't know this was going on today" from ics students. i don't know why that is.

needless to say, i was little disappointed in the turn out. but, i was really happy with the few students that i talked to. for example, i talked to one student that i met on techhui. he seems like a pretty bright student. regardless of the low number of students, talking with students like that makes it all worth it.

next time things are going to be different in the ics industry day. i think i made a few errors in my planning that i will correct. for example, i will keep the presentations to much shorter; like 10 minutes max. or maybe no presentations at all an just go with table presentations. i want to talk to more students.

upcoming events: another roosevelt career fair, 2008 Holiday Science & Tech Fair with Pau Hana

DFTC and more core values

2008-11-17T08:01:00.000-10:00

atlassian just put out this cool video about their core values:

(purpose)
create useful products people lust after
(values)
open compnay, no bullshit
build with heart and balance
don't $#&@ the customer
play as a team
be the change you seek

i thought this was awesome, particularly because it really lets the software culture of our generation shine through. note to other software companies out there; we think atlassians core values are awesome.

i might as well continue the core values talk and share one of my favorite talks about core values. its from mitch kapor, the founder of lotus development and now on the board of directors of mozilla foundation, linden lab (makes second life), and is doing many other things...

here is what mitch kapor had to say about trusting your employees; download this podcast and fastforward to 31:30 (note the following is a paraphrase of his talk):

how do you trust the people you hire?
its earned and built. no found. its on going process, invest in it.
i think it helps shared framework of principles and values
a set of external set of standards
if you are willing to invest in a discussion of about what we believe in and what standards are we going to hold ourselves accountable to,
then you have a means by which to negotiate and navigate all of the stuff that happens, because stuff happens in a company. you never have enough resources
you can't watch everyone. it requires people to have a lot of initiative. but if you know everyone is operating against the framework of principles then you know they are guided
everyone will learn together
people will sort themselves out and trust will be built
it requires a commitment; everything worth while requires a commitment
there needs to be an equal commitment (from the company)
if you put on after the fact, its going to fail.

in closing, you must provide a clear vision of your company's values and goals. you need to trust your employees, but more importantly you need to allow your employees to trust the company. and DFTE!

make for stem

2008-11-15T23:47:00.003-10:00

i've recently been reading a lot of the MAKE blog and like Geekdad it has a lot posts that are STEM related. its a pretty cool blog that extends their magazine information,

The first magazine devoted entirely to DIY technology projects, MAKE Magazine unites, inspires and informs a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages.

by definition this is all cool STEM stuff that could be used to generate interest in students. i want to highlight a couple of their postings are related to software.

scrolling mario game in scratch

You can play his game by visiting the project's page on the Scratch site. If you would like to check out his code, make an account and download the file. Scratch is pretty easy to get started in, and has many possibilities. You can get a free download of Scratch as well.

and Processing Monsters by Lukas Vojir

I'm trying to get as much people as possible, to create simple b/w monster in Processing, I'm gonna later use in a short music reactive video.. while the bottom line is to encourage other people to learn Processing by showing the source code.. more about processing monsters

here are some other postings that i liked:

MAKE: Blog: Gear heart

MAKE: Blog: Umbrella stand will water your plants

MAKE: Blog: LED "Art Object" is the new LED throwie

MAKE: Blog: The Ocarina of iPhone?

MAKE: Blog: WattzOn - Personal energy audit

MAKE: Blog: momo - haptic navigational device

MAKE: Blog: Stribe kit released

MAKE: Blog: "Dumb" eco-questions you were afraid to ask

check out more of my shared STEM blogs.

an idea called EventMedia

2008-11-10T23:57:00.003-10:00

so, i yet another one of my ideas. here it is... well it has to do with iphones and its called EventMedia. and just by that description it sounds really boring.

my idea is pretty general, but i have a pretty good example. here is the general idea; i want to be able to introduce web technologies to live events to supplement its entertainment or even educational value. seems pretty obvious right?

lets say you are at the Players Championship (a golf tournament). you are a huge Sergio Garcia fan, but you can't give up the chance to see Tiger. so, of course you follow Tiger. as you are walking along the course, you wish you were two places at one time. actually, tiger and sergio rarely swing at exactly the same time. so, you are really wishing that you could follow all of sergio's shots and all of tiger's shots. so, you turn on the special Players Championship EventMedia application and you select "virtual follow sergio". this application will notify you (via vibrate) 10 seconds before sergio takes his shot. it will give you his current tournament score, his current shot (on the whole), distance to the cup, his club selection, his past scores on this hole, etc visually on the screen. you watch sergio hit his next shot on your iphone for the next 20 seconds as wait for Tiger to make his way to tee box. awesome! other features include, "eagle chances" notifications, "blow ups" notifications, real time leader board, press conference feeds, and of course TV commentary as you watch it live. add in the social aspect of spectators "twittering" cheers, picture gallery, and maybe event real time betting and you get more awesomeness.

the idea is pretty simple and obvious. EventMedia could be applied to all sorts of sporting events (woah think about the advertisement possibilities), business situations like conferences, large public gatherings like political rallies, etc. or this could be a huge hit during an olympics, where you want to be some many places at once.

imagine this... EventMedia initiates the wave via your iphone at your next football game... while recording it for your facebook profile! hahaha.

pro bono publico

2008-11-09T18:55:00.007-10:00

just by chance i started on a pro bono publico project for a good cause. a few weeks ago i got a call from the University of Hawaii Center of Disability Studies. i was confused at first... my contact was going on about how my name was recommended by Gerald Lau from the ICS Department (thanks Gerald) and that she couldn't get any students interested in doing a project for her even though they were going to pay. so, during that phone call i decided that i'd help in whatever way i could. but there was a catch... the catch was that they were desperate to get something working ASAP.

their needs were simple. the Center of Disability Studies were putting on the Pacific Rim Conference on Disabilities, a major international conference, but they didn't have an automated online system for their call for papers. instead, they had a PDF form that required them to manually extract information and manage the paper submissions. the conference can attract up to 350 paper submissions, so a manual approach is obviously not ideal. the task wasn't really that big or complicated.

i pitched the idea of working on the project to my company and i pitched it to some of my programmer buddies. but... i had a feeling that waiting to line up either option would take too long. whenever you have to pay someone something it becomes a much lengthier process to get started. so, i pretty much decided to do whatever i could for free; pro bono style.

so, what do you think is the first thing i started to do? i bet you are saying, "you started to hack". thats a safe guess, but that would be WRONG. the first thing i started to do was start the project management process. i started to note the problem, features, requirements and tasks. i don't have my original document, but here is my living project management document

last week friday was my customer demo. i showed off what i was able to accomplish over the weekend and at night. i even had someone QA my work. but... i found a bug during my demo, apparently my project management skills aren't that great. (just in case you are wondering, it was a minor bug that i fixed in 5 minutes. and we didn't release yet so no big deal). i release the system on saturday and monday is the big integration day at UH. hopefully things go well...

the people at the center of disability studies have been really nice; saying thank you way to much. they have been trying to get me on as a side contractor, i've been considering but i think thats best left to the "professional side contractors". i'm much more interested in pro bono work. its much more inline with my thoughts about socially conscious programming and paying it forward.

anyway, i've done programming for free before mostly for friends and family, but never for complete strangers. so, this was a new experience for me. what made it really possible was that i had a feeling that i could accomplish it or that i could ask my coworkers for help. that really lowered the risk and made it much easier to commit to. in all this was a lot of fun! it was great to work on something that meant so much to someone. i enjoyed this experience a lot and hopefully i'll get to do it again soon.

what does your bomomo art look like?

2008-11-02T00:18:00.013-10:00

i really enjoy reading posts like this from geekdad; 4 Flash Games to Help Educate Your Kids. in this post, i found bomomo to be particularly interesting

This art-based game is beautiful. It allows you to explore shape, and more beautiful in its open-ended style that allows you to play and create amazing images forever. A series of bubbles follow the mouse in very subtle ways, in the beginning it is a little slow, so may be difficult to hold children’s attention. But, there are ample buttons to click and options to try. And, you can save the final results as a jpg file.

i like these types of applications because i think they are relatively quick to understand, they aren't that complicated, and they are really interesting. i think they would work great to get kids interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). here are a couple of other applications that are equally cool; pivot, light bot, and of course scratch.

here is my bomomo art:

i think bomomo is cool because i never created effects like this before. each mouse stroke is a new experience. and you start to wonder what other cool things you can make by changing the angle or speed of the mouse pointer. then you realize there are a whole bunch of other things to try out. you never really get it to do exactly what you want and you can never really make something you intend. but, i think thats part of what makes it interesting. you have to resign to the fact that its art.

i decided to ask a few of my engineering friends to try out bomomo and see what they could come up with and hear what they thought about the application.

JaredS: It was a nice way to generate random pieces of artwork. The different "brushes" provided some very unique forms that would be difficult to replicate using another more standard paint-like program. The app responds nicely to mouse movements and the interface is very slick and simple.

RyanK: Sort of trial and error to figure out what it all does and why and how.....I liked and disliked the fact that it tells you nothing. It was fun getting it to do what I wanted.

RobertP: Bomomo is cool. It’s fun to see what all the different tools can do and what kind of pictures you can make. It is something different each time. It brings doodling to a new dimension.

JasonL: if he made the size adjustable with keypresses and the color adjustable with keypresses this would be a better application. cause using the mouse with one hand and the keyboard with the other is a real possibility. and an undo button. but someone could take this app and become an artist with it having control on the color and the size of the dots would allow a "real" artist to make beautiful artwork. and if the artist needed new designs...just create a new tool with a different algorithm. but seriously that is one of the coolest things

ChadK: Actually, I think the cool part of it is that it provides a medium for art that could only be produced through software. Also it doesn't allow you to have a lot of control so you have to allow yourself to think more flexibly.

AltheaL: the program reminds me of the first time finger painting – having fun and being curious!

it seems like my friends had fun with bomomo. their art work is pretty cool. in all i think this is a really cool application that could be used in a classroom. what do you think?

btw, here is a gallery of other peoples bomomo art work.

COE Fall Career Day

2008-10-30T23:59:00.005-10:00

this past wednesday was another College of Engineering Fall Career Day. here are some observations and comments:

(btw, if you are student check out these posts; after the career fair, make students awesome, and you need to do a honors thesis)

actually, i'm not sure if it was just an engineering event, i thought that the Information and Computer Science Department was involved as well, but there weren't that many students. the COE site has a has an events listing and of course it showed this event. but, i noticed that there wasn't an event listing nor a fall career day listing on the ics department site. but, i'm sure they have it post on their mailing list.

there were are few engineering professors walking around and talking to the companies. one professor, tep dobry walked by last semester and mentioned he got a few good students. and because of that we hired one as an intern. the point is that its great to see the professors going out there an promoting their students. we had a lengthy discussion about his student and his other students. we were discussing our needs, their classes and the future. i really appreciate that kind of involvement from the faculty. there were a bunch of engineering faculty walking around. it was good to talk to gerald lau from the ics department.

i didn't get many ics resumes. but, i talked to a handful of students that didn't have their resumes. it was good talking to them, they all seemed really intersted. and as usual i recommended ics 413, because i think none of them knew what junit was. i often give these students my personal email address, hoping that they will contact me...

i met a lot of EE students. its pretty cool because we hired a couple of interns that know a bunch of students. all their friends came to visit us. they all seem like good candidates. they seem to have a lot of good experiences with cubestat and micromouse and if they are anything like our interns then we think they will do great.

i heard a few students talking about the BS in computer engineering and wondering if its good. most of the discussion was from the EE students wondering if the ICS courses were good. and whether i thought it was a good move. i'm not sure what to think about that new degree...

i think a large majority of the students need to work on making a great first impression. sell your skills, stand up straight, eye contact, and stop trying to steal the pens! haha. seriously, i think a few of the younger students need to practice a little more professional communication. the Center for Career Development
and Student Employment actually has a lot of great resources for that. i did a few practice interviews. trust me it really helps!

i think this year was a little bit slower that most and we were in a strange location in the corner. but, i thought it was a pretty good career fair. i was pretty happy with the ee and ics students i talked with we had some good conversations. and for me its all about just talking with students; even though they don't work for me, i hope that i help them learn more about our industry.

programming from scratch

2008-10-28T08:43:00.001-10:00

as you probably know now, i've been promoting scratch at the lacy veach day of discovery events.

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

i really like scratch, because it has a lot of great resources for educators, parents, and kids. here are some resources:

learn how to use scratch

information for educators

referrals and quotes

research on scratch

they even have a conference on scratch

they even provide ways for the students to upload their scratch creations, comment on others, and even download scratch files. its a great way to create a community of kids and educators. check out the:

projects

galleries

forums

and scratches to help promote scratch

how we scratch
here is a short summary of how we utilized scratch for the lacy veach events.

first of all, our role in lacy veach day of discovery is to provide interactive displays that hopefully teach the students about cool technology related to space exploration. we decided to use scratch to accomplish that, since we felt that programming abilities is often over looked in the aerospace industry.

anyway, here are some things that we did to make scratch work in this type of event;

we developed quick lesson plans for students that would help teach the students scratch in about 5-10 minutes. the goal was to teach them some initial concepts that they can take with them as they try out the program in more detail at home. basically, we tried to have the students create two sprites and move them in different ways.

we created user accounts on the scratch site to upload their scratches to. here is the user account for the 2008 event; http://scratch.mit.edu/users/LacyVeachDay2008 and here is the account for the 2007 event; http://scratch.mit.edu/users/Referentia

we created fliers to give the parents and students making sure that we told the parents that the program was free and that it could be downloaded. we also made sure that we told the parents and students that their creations were going to be posted online.

we brought our computers and network. we gathered up 5 of our own laptops, complete with a entire network so we can exchange files between the computer. this was important because we wanted to display the students work on a projector.

we created a demo application that looped through the students creations so the students and parents could view their and others creations. this was useful as a way to attract students and parents to our display.

lessons learned:

we talked to as many parents as we did students. parents are amazed that this sort of resource is available and free for that matter. the parents seem to be really interested. so, make sure you have enough volunteers to work with the students and parents.

some kids are really into it and want to do more than the basic examples. the scratch cards come in handy in these situations.

scratch is awesome because kids think its awesome. its really cool to see the kids face light up with interest when they see what they can do. they really get into it. and to me thats what programming is all about. its the creativity, challenge, and accomplishments that make programming awesome. hopefully, more organizations, teachers, mentors, and parents use scratch as an education tool.

if you need help, let me know.

lacy veach day of discovery 2008

2008-10-27T06:45:00.017-10:00

this past weekend we participated in lacy veach day of discovery, which is a large scale science fair with exhibits and workshops. we had a great time with all the kids. i even learned a lot! science is cool. we presented programming from scratch and its becoming a yearly tradition for us a referentia systems inc.

at the event we taught kids how to program with scratch, an interactive programming language that creates animation, games, music, and art designed for kids to help develop 21 century skills. it was a huge success. the kids at the event were great. my friends did a great job of helping the kids. overall it was a huge success. we posted the kids' scratch creations on the scratch mit site. check it out!

here are some pics of my crew at the event:
my coworkers at referentia are awesome. without them our scratch display wouldn't be possible. they really step for this event. it must be something about teaching kids to program that gets them into it. so, thanks to those referentians that helped out, it really does make a huge difference. (i remember learning logo when i was a kid and its probably a huge reason why i ended up in computer science; read more about my strange academic journey)

here are some pics from the rest of the event:

this year seemed to be a lot bigger than last. there were many more exhibitors and it was pretty fun to walk around checking out the displays;

Astronaut Onizuka (check out the Onizuka Day on Hilo)

BAE Systems

Bishop Museum - they had a a cool globe projector.

FIRST robotics (Moanalua, ROC, Sacred Hearts, Waialua)

HaSTA

Hawaii Academy of Science - i talked to them about the Hawaii State Science Fair. this event seems really cool. i want to go check it out next year, i think around april.

Hawaiian Astronomical Society

HECO - heco was there in full force. they always do a great job of helping the kids

Institute of Astronomy - these dudes are really smart. i talked with them last year and the stuff they are doing is really cool.

NASA Pacific Regional Planetary Data Center

Pearl City Elementary - there were a bunch of kids from pearl city.

Referentia!!!!! - YAY!

Robofest

Starbase (couldn't find a link)

UH College of Engineering

there were also presentations;

keynote speaker Astronaut Stanley Love

assembly with special 3D program, student interns at NASA

science Magic--science demonstrations with a flair

and a bunch of workshops:

The Incredible Mars Pathfinder Mission

Dr. Gadget presents Gadgets that Float and Glide Through the Air

Water Powered Bottle Rockets

Meteorites: Rocks from Space

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Gases in Space Living

Polynesian Star Compass

(see the full listing here)

it was an awesome day of learning. now that i've learned more about the different workshops and presentations, i actually want to be a kid and sneak in and learn. there are some many great exhibits, workshops, and presentations. WOW! anyway, i had a lot of fun talking with the kids and parents. i can't wait till next year.

re: Path to AwesomeNess...

2008-10-22T00:16:00.002-10:00

here is a comment that i left one of our interns on his blog; path to awesomenes.... i wanted to share this with the rest of you, so i added it to my blog.

this path to awesomeness post started as our internship program that we presented at the uh ics industry day. our presentation was titled; make students awesome. so, we had the idea that our intern keep track of his progress in a blog.

so here are my comments.. and you can read austen's comments at his blog.

that is a pretty good start. here are some comments.

2) learn to research
the idea here is that you learn about researching about all sorts of things, including hacking. but, i intended it to be more general. like doing actual research. for example, an honors thesis is research. the important aspect of research is that you are able to form new ideas, communicate them, evaluate them, defend them, and utilize them. conducting research is an important part of what we do as a company, but it is also very important for your development.

perhaps the thing to do here is learn more about how we do research in our company. if you don't know what "research" we are doing, then ask.

5) learn how to increase your marketability
this one is really important. you have to learn and develop things that will separate yourself from your peers. figure out what the norm is and go way beyond it. when you think you went far enough, go further.

6) learn about the industry
this one is important too. you need to know about your options. what types of companies work in hawaii. i say this not so that you only groom yourself to work at company Foo. but, more so that you learn what possibilities out there in hawaii and on the mainland. learn about what other companies do. what technologies are they working with. what are they researching. what software development processes do they follow. are their projects meaningful, etc, etc?

you are on your way. if at the end you have learned a lot about these six areas, you will definitely be AWESOME!

good luck.

my ics courses

2008-10-20T23:37:00.022-10:00

today, a few of us visited the ics department to plan the uh ics robocode competition. while, i was walking around the post building i stumbled upon this document; information and advice for computer science majors and minors. it seemed pretty interesting and i wanted to see what type of information the department provided its students. so, i took a copy for myself.

the document seems pretty interesting at a high level. i'm not really sure it offers a whole bunch of advice, it does have a lot of information. anyway, if you have been following my blog for a while, you'll know that i've tried to lay out a lot of advice for students. so, i won't go into a lot of details about process, work habits, communication, soft skills, 6 steps to awesomeness, undergrad thesis, etc. instead, i'll give you a pretty concrete piece of advice.

Take ICS 413/414/613
Software Engineering
from Dr. Philip Johnson

is that clear enough for you? here is a current website of the fall 2008 ics 413 class. and look it even has a quote from me:

The skills you acquire in ICS 413 provide professional advantages. Aaron Kagawa, a software engineer and recruiter for Referentia Corporation, has this to say: It has been my experience that learning technologies like Ant, JUnit, Eclipse, and Subversion and practices like Code Reviews, Extreme Programming, and User Testing will separate you from the rest of crowd when applying for entry level Software Engineering positions. While recruiting and evaluating University of Hawaii ICS students one of the first questions I ask is "Did you take 413 Software Engineering?" Followed by, "Do you know what JUnit is?"

anyway... if you are still wondering what classes i took, here is a list of all of them. i also included my grades in those classes for one reason. i got pretty good grades. but, i guarantee it is not because i'm smart. i got good grades because i worked my ass off. if you read my academic journey you'll see what i'm talking about. here it is, all the ics classes i took (note i started UH in 1998. i didn't start taking ics classes till 2000)

semester	class	grade	comment
spring 2000	ics 101(lab)	A
spring 2000	ics 111(lab) [lew]	B	i had a fantastic ta that really helped us
fall 2000	ics 141 [gersh]	B
fall 2000	ics 211 [biagoni]	A
spring 2001	ics 212 [peterson]	A
spring 2001	ics 311 [suthers]	B
fall 2001	ics 312 [sugihara]	A
fall 2001	ics 313 [stelovsky]	A
fall 2001	ics 321 [deryke]	A
spring 2002	ics 331(lab) [ikehara]	A
spring 2002	ics 413 software engineering [johnson]	A	TAKE THIS CLASS!
spring 2002	ics 415 web programming [stelovsky]	A
summer 2002	ics 491 [gilbert]	A	.net programming
summer 2002	ics 499 [gilbert]	A	.net programming
fall 2002	ics 414 software engineering II [johnson]	A	TAKE THIS CLASS!
fall 2002	ics 499 [johnson]	A	working on my honors thesis
fall 2002	ics 691 [johnson]	A	a class about hackystat. i was the only undergrad in the class
spring 2003	ics 463 hci [hundhousand]	A
spring 2003	ics 499 [johnson]	A	working on my honors thesis
i finally got my undergraduate degree! grad school starting
semester	class	grade	comment
fall 2003	ics 613 software engineering [johnson]	A	grad level software engineering
fall 2003	ics 623 data security [peterson]	A	dr. peterson is a genius
spring 2004	ics 691 [quiroga]	A	information architecture
spring 2004	ics 699 [johnson]	A	masters thesis work
fall 2004	ics 624 data management [nordbotten]	A
fall 2004	ics 664 hci [strevler]	A
fall 2004	ics 690 [suthers]	A
fall 2004	ics 691 [binstead]	A	design for mobile
fall 2004	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
spring 2005	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
spring 2005	ics 700	A
summer 2005	ics 699 [johnson]	A	still working on the masters thesis
i finally got my masters degree!

hopefully, this is interesting or useful to some of the students. if you have any specific questions about the classes i took let me know.

current student activities

2008-10-18T10:45:00.007-10:00

things are a little crazy these days. there is a lot going on. here is a short list of things that i'm working on.

ics alumni association
i've been pushing hard to help create an alumni association for the department. its definitely an uphill battle. i've been talking about it for a while on my blog. but, it wasn't till the department realized that they need to drive the need that we really started.

we are working on a coding competition for the department. originally, it started as a Topcoder event, but it since has changed to a Robocode Event. we changed it because of a couple reasons, first the topcoder competition was going to be held at 6AM! for some reason thats the only time topcoder could give us. second, topcoder is pretty hard and doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

while working on the alumni association we created a techhui group called ICS Mentors. this got us a little attention, but it has died down. we also, just created an ics alumni website; http://uhicsalumni.org/. we plan to use this site as a place to get membership information, plan events, etc.

there are a few issues that we are facing. first, we have a small group of people, which i all we need for now until we flesh out the details of the association. but, my worry is that the other graduates that i talk to just don't seem that interested. where am i going to find the volunteers in the future. my worry is that it is just going to die after this event. oh well.... my second concern is actually creating a non-profit organization. i hear it is a little difficult to organize and finish the paper work. i'm falling behind in getting this done and it is a concern.

anyway, the robocode competition is just starting to get formalized. i'm starting to learn about robocode and even compiled my first robot. i'll be posting my notes and tips here. i really hope that the students are interested in joining the competition. and i really hope that we (the alumni association) can pull this off.

lacy veach day of discovery
lacy veach day of discovery is next week! referentia is going to support this event by conducting another scratch programming teaching event for the students. i'm pretty excited about doing this again. we had a great time last time and hopefully we can do it even better. we are trying to get more laptops so we can teach more kids. and we have even more volunteers this year. its going to be awesome.

planning this event was a lot easier this year, because we are doing scratch again. in fact, this decision has taught me a good lesson about how to run these events. plan well for one year and you can reuse your efforts the next year. this not only makes it easier to support these events. it also lets you improve how you approach the lessons and even plan it more efficiently. thats cool!

career fairs
i have three upcoming career fairs; the UH engineering career fair, aiea high school career fair, and the UH ICS industry day. each event is different. for the aiea high school event we are going to give a 30 minute presentation. i did this last year and it seemed pretty successful. this year, one of my engineers is going to give the speech. the engineering career fair is always fun. its actually pretty tiring talking to all those students. career fairs are a great way to help students. i always look forward to talking to the students and offer and advice i may have for their job seeking journey.

sheesh thats a lot happening in the next few weeks...

light bot for stem

2008-10-16T00:02:00.007-10:00

light bot is a software-development education game that helps teach software concepts to kids. its pretty cool, because i'm betting that the kids won't even notice the learning going on. a bunch of us at work played with it for a while and it kept us entertained. and some parts were actually challenging. we had engineers that came up with different solutions. the differences in choices were actually pretty interesting.

in all light bot seems like a good intro to some software techniques. its fun and challenging. i would recommend to try to have your students try it out. but, of course there are other options out there like scratch (we used scratch for lacy veach), alice, or even the old school logo. for the super advanced there is always something like processing.

pivot for stem

2008-10-06T23:50:00.008-10:00

our friends at geekdads are at it again, with the Pivot Stick Figure Editor is a Great Animation Tool for Kids post. ken introduced us to a cool tool called pivot. its basically a stick figure animation tool;

Pivot makes creating individual frames really easy, and moving animations is based on a simple click and drag process. Each figure has different points (red dots) that can be manipulated and a single point (yellow dot) to move the whole figure. A simple left-hand-side toolbar has about 5 or 6 options which are simple to grasp and not overwhelming for young users.

So I began to create a stick figure waving at us from the computer screen and within a couple of minutes I had about 5-10 seconds of animation. Within 5 minutes, my four year old and six year old were asking for a turn. They mastered the basic concept very quickly. Together we worked out you could insert any jpg background from the hard-drive and they were away.

Despite my own beliefs in the capacity of children and their ability to do things that we never acknowledge (so never see them do), I was amazed at the speed at which they picked up the basic concepts using Pivot. After a few days they had realized they could create their own stick figures to animate and had begun to use the simple drawing tool to save their own stick figure props like beds, cannons and barbells.

so, i thought this posting was pretty cool. it seems like something a teacher can bring into a computer class and make a lesson out of it. so, i decided to try pivot out.

here's what i thought;

its not the easiest thing in the world to get started with. i started up the program thinking that i would create an awesome demo animation. no such luck. i made one really lame animation.

as i worked through my own animation i'm not sure what i was learning. but, its definitely true that i was thinking. or maybe i was just confused on how to make my stick figure run.

i got the hang of it, but i quickly got a little impatient. it wasn't flashy enough.

well, those seemed negative. the fact that i made an animation is really cool. i had fun making it and running through the examples. i think its a pretty cool little application. here is my lame animation;

(click on the image to see my animation)

maybe its an entry point to bigger and better animation software. i don't know about that. but, i definitely think its shows kids that computers is cool and fun. to me thats the main point. it got me thinking. i think thats 90% of the battle. kick starting imagination is key!

ps. i'm thinking there must be hundreds of these little applications that teaches something different. i have a few others i want to share...

2008 hawaii's top high-tech leaders

2008-10-05T23:03:00.013-10:00

tonight a few of us from referentia systems inc attended the 2008 flavors of technology and technology industry awards. it was at the hawaii prince hotel and it was awesome.

the cool thing was that i won an award for high tech leaders. here was a little info about it;

DESCRIPTION
Technology News Bytes and the Pacific Technology Foundation honor individuals who are highly regarded for their leadership and service in Hawaii’s high technology industry.

PURPOSE
To recognize and reward outstanding individuals for their leadership and service in Hawaii’s high technology industry, both within their organizations and in the community at large.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All nominees must be:
• Active professionals serving their current organization for at least one (1) year
• Individuals who have improved or advanced their organization using technology
• Recognized by their co-workers and collogues for their commitment to excellence in their profession
• Known for their expertise in technology
• Highly involved with professional organizations
• Active contributors and volunteers in the community
• Nominations are accepted from the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Nominations are limited to a maximum of two (2) nominees per company, and can be either self-nominations or third-party nomination

i was surprised to find that i was even nominated. thanks to ian kitajima for the nomination. i had to rush a little on the questions, but here is a first draft (which i revised later).

anyway, the event was awesome. there was a coat and tie dress code, so we all got dressed up. here are some pictures from the event (i hear that there is a video of me accepting the award).

we actually had a csdl reunion of sorts; austen ito, james wang, robert brewer, and me. we also cheered on rosemary sumajitfor for winning her high tech leader award. yay rosemary! i hear that robert and philip have won awards in the past too. csdl represent!

also congratulations to my friends lynn fujioka and dan leuck for their awards!

anyway, i'm not sure that i really deserve this award just yet. there is so much more that i need to accomplish. i'll continue to push forward. but, a lot of the credit has to go to the awesome people at referentia. starting with the leadership from nelson to all the engineers that help me help the students. referentia has allowed me to grow in this capacity and i think thats awesome.

my academic journey

2008-10-03T18:41:00.006-10:00

this is my academic journey

little kid days
i was a sports and outdoors kid. i wasn't allowed to have a nintendo and i couldn't watch tv during the week. so, that meant i found myself outside almost every single day after school from when i was in elementary to high school. i didn't need to be told i couldn't watch tv; i didn't want to. i played ayso soccer and little league baseball, played basketball and football with my friends, went surfing, hiking, bike riding, camping, fishing, etc. you name it we did it. it was a lot of fun.

i did okay in school;

i was a very curious kid; asking why about everything

i liked math and science and did everything i could to get out of reading

in elementary i won two science fairs for my demonstrations of magnets and the ozone.

for some reason i still remember winning a lei making contest and winning second place in our chess tournament.

i also remember taking two computer programming classes. one was in my elementary school where we learned logo. i really liked hacking logo on the macintoshes. next in my intermediate school we had a graphics programming class where we made animations. i remember these classes pretty well. i must have really liked them.

i remember my parents going over my report card with me every term. i was always upset that my friends got money for good grades and i didn't. my parents used to say my grades were for me and only me; and that i should do it for myself. this is where i eventually learned to be responsible for my education.

high school
high school centered around two things; baseball and having fun. i played for aiea high school JV and Varsity teams. baseball consumed a lot of my life and homework did not. i still got really good grades, but didn't do nearly as much studying as i probably should have.

i didn't learn trigonometry. i wasn't interested and it showed.

when we had reading assignments; i would do all i could do to fake it. i don't think i read one fiction book in high school.

i didn't learn anything about using the computer, i didn't even know we had a computer lab.

i'm not sure that i learned a lot in class, but i made sure we had a lot of fun. high school was a blast... but with all that, i still got pretty good grades. i graduated with honors. i even got a scholarship to the university of hawaii.

baseball
i really learned a lot about life playing baseball. i played baseball all my life, but things changed when i started playing at the high school level. we played baseball year around and my game changed and my roles on the teams changed. i went from a bench warmer to the veteran starter. i went from a freshman follower to a senior leader. these experiences were real. i learned a lot about being a leader. and i learned a lot about being a mentor.

i think the valuable thing about baseball was that i was able to really focus on baseball. i wasn't going to back down and i wasn't going to give up. competition drove my constant improvement of myself and my team. every practice meant something. every game was a stepping stone.

i mention baseball in my academic journey, because there is nothing quite like high school sports. for me, it was one of the most important academic experiences that i've gone through.

university
my first semester in college was shocking... my techniques for getting by at aiea high school wasn't working. i was playing to much... i couldn't BS my way through the tests by just being there in class. ha! i was actually pretty surprised. but, i wasn't playing baseball any more. so, i kind of lost focus. but, luckily some how one flunked pop quiz and a few family problems kicked me in the ass and i regained focus. this time i was focused on school. i was self driven. i didn't have a team anymore, i had to do this by myself and i better kick some butt. this was an important lesson for me.

agriculture
but! i was an agriculture major in the college of tropical agriculture and human resources. besides a scholarship, what the heck was i doing in there? this is where i made my second realization that i HATE WORKING OUTSIDE (but i love playing outside), i really don't care how plants drink water, and i really don't care about bugs and soil.

so, i quickly left CTAHR and ventured out into taking ICS (Information and Computer Science) 101 and ICS 111. i took these classes just because i remembered that i used to like computers when i was a kid. i really had no clue what programming was.

the internet!
this was right about the time when i got my first computer and got the internet! woah.. i was 19 years old learning about all this crazy internet stuff. i would ask my friends what does "www" mean and what does this yahoo site do. they'd laugh at me, but i was soaking up like a sponge. it was really interesting particularly because in high school i didn't geek out like this.

i did well in ICS 111 and i enjoyed learning java. so, i figured to keep on going. so i took another class. eventually, i told my CTAHR adviser i was out of the college and moved to ICS. the only problem was that i wanted to work with people and help people and i didn't know how would do that in ICS.

ICS
i got a few computer jobs, learned a lot more and realized that i really liked working with computers. i got good grades in my ics class, but i wasn't learning that much. i was a senior in college taking 400-level ICS classes and i began to think what i was going to do with my life. the scary thing was that i was pretty much getting a 4.0 in my major and i had no idea what i was going to do or where i was going to work. my initial thought was that i needed to work for a web company. thank goodness that changed when i took ICS 413 ...

ICS 413 taught by Dr. Philip Johnson turned my university education around. for the first time, i learned what it was like to write real software. imagine that... i took ten ICS classes and didn't know what it was like to write software. this class changed my life. i felt like i just learned what computer science was all about, so i couldn't bear graduating right after that ICS 413 semester. it tuns out that Dr. Philip Johnson convinced me to do my Honors Thesis. committing to this meant that i delayed my graduation for at least a year. i was in no rush, so i did it. (now, i realize that everyone should do an honors thesis).

during my honors thesis work, i started to see that software was all about people. wring software is people management; its peopleware. AHA! i found out that i can help people with my geek knowledge. geek + people is awesome! i found my calling! i found myself using the same people techniques i learned in baseball.

i eventually finished my honors thesis; The design, implementation, and evaluation of CLEW: An improved Collegiate Department Website.

grad school
now, i was about to graduate with my bachelors of science in information and computer science with high honors and was faced with another "what now". i still had no clue where i would working in hawaii. so, i applied to various graduate programs around the country, but i got rejected from all of them. luckily i was offered a spot in CSDL as a graduate research assistant. i jumped at that opportunity.

i did my graduate research working on the hackystat system. while working on that project i got to be part of a few publications:

Comparing personal project metrics to support process and product improvement

Practical automated process and product metric collection and analysis in a classroom setting: Lessons learned from Hackystat-UH

The Hackystat-JPL Configuration: Round 2 Results

Hackystat MDS supporting MSL MMR

Hackystat MDS supporting MSL MMR: Round 2 Results

Hackystat-SQI: Modeling different development processes

Hackystat-SQI: First Progress Report

Improving Software Development Management through Software Project Telemetry

one of the awesome things that i got to do during my graduate studies was an internship at the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena california. it was a great experience and was really useful as a talking point for interviews, etc. not to mention a really really really really cool place. i got to see the mars rovers, went into the mission control rooms, saw them testing the mars rovers, saw them building the next satellites, watch cassini fly through saturn's rings, and talked to a lot of rocket scientists!

after my internship i finally finished my masters thesis; Priority Ranked Inspection: Supporting Effective Inspection in Resource-limited Organizations. yay! school is over. (actually i got into the PhD program, but i decided that i was done for a while. write a thesis is a lot of hard work).

work work work
i entered the job hunting with relatively little information. unfortunately, my time at the ICS department didn't teach me about our local high tech industry. so, i applied to places were my friends worked. and it turns out i accepted a job where i didn't know anyone; Referentia Systems Inc was my new home.

i've been working at Referentia for the past 3 years now. i was hired as a software engineer and now i'm a engineering supervisor. at the end of it all, i rely on much more of my soft skills, outward thinking, and the wonderful paradox than my technical skills.

moral of the story
i don't think there is a moral of the story... its just the way that i did it. its has been a long journey and i feel really fortunate and grateful to be where i am now.

i think its ironic that some of the most important lessons that i use today in the real world comes from times out on the baseball field.

there is so much yet to come. i've recently become really interested in helping others through their journey. i've learned this from leaders like ian kitajima. i've just started this next chapter but some things are already in motion;

making students awesome

Dept ICS TopCoder Software Engineering Competition

ics alumni association for real this time

wish me luck!

my public shared items update

2008-10-01T14:04:00.000-10:00

if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that i really like the idea of sharing information and knowledge with people. so, i started a few public shared items from my google reader. here is an updated to my list:

p-stem (new) - these are items related to the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) initiative, which aims to help bolster education in these subject areas in our school systems to create more future scientists and engineers. i try to share cool things that can be shown in school, that parents can show their kids, or for me to just learn more. STEM is really important and i think these little cool things need to make its way to the kids. here is another community that leading STEM in hawaii; SIP.

p-maps (new) - i'm becoming interested in GIS (geographic information systems) and mapping software. i wanted a place to organize things that i liked. google shares doesn't seem like the best place to put it, but its the only thing that i've go going. besides, the point of this share makes me consciously look out for GIS-mapping-posts.

my shared items - this is a generic list of things that i like. posts that make it to here are items that i really like. if you are going to only subscribe to one feed, subscribe to this one. (haha of course that is just my personal opinion, i have heard people say that my shares suck)

p-environ - this feed is for environmental things that i come across. these postings aren't necessarily good or bad; its just that they are somewhat interesting and have to do with the environment. i started this feed to discuss things with my cousin dana. interestingly, i find my self sharing a lot of google related environmental initiatives.

p-google - this feed is for google stuff. duh.. i set this feed up because i noticed that i like a lot of things from google and that people that read my shared stuff might not care a lot about google stuff. i like google stuff, so i wanted a place to put it; then figured why not make it public.

p-robotics - this feed is for robotics stuff. robotics is coming on strong these days. its a buzz word these days. anything with robotics gets some attention, especially in hawaii. anyway, i set up this blog for my friend tom (oleg the intern), to help feed him information that might be helpful to him as he figures out what interests him. i also am sending to this feed to lynn, maybe it might be useful for her. there are other robotics groups out there that i'm starting to look into; gorobot.org and the techhui robotics group.

so, there are a few reasons why i share with google reader:

it helps me keep a look out and focus on subjects that i care about

it helps me keep a record of interesting posts, which allows me to find it faster when talking to people about it.

it helps me share with people (although i'm not sure how many people are looking at my public shares)

somethings that i don't like about using google reader for this:

its hard to build "knowledge" from all these individual shares

it is impossible to discuss individual posts.

it is impossible to work collaboratively on a subject matter. something like twine can do a much better job, but i don't really have a community to collaborate with on these subjects.

anyway, those are my public shares. it is a work in progress. i continue to strive to share knowledge and making the process easier. here is what you can do to help me:

add these shares to your google reader and let me know what you think of the content

let me know if there are better ways that i should be considering; twine or other sharing sites

share back, send me your public rss feeds

ahead of the majority

2008-09-30T09:18:00.010-10:00

In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the U.S. Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the U.S. presidency and co-authored Title IX, the landmark legislation that opened up higher education and athletics to America's women. PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY is the story of this dynamic trailblazer who, battling racism and sexism, redefined American politics.

Ten reasons why you should know about patsy mink

She co-authored Title IX.

She was the first woman of color to serve in the U.S. Congress.

She was one of the first women to run for president, entering the Oregon presidential primary in 1972.

She ran in 22 elections, more than any other politician from Hawai'i then or since. She is the only Hawai'i politician to serve at the county, territorial, state and federal levels.

She introduced the nation's first comprehensive Early Childhood Education Act in 1971. Congress passed the legislation, but President Nixon vetoed it.

She authored Hawai'i's "equal pay for equal work" law in 1957. The national law was passed six years later.

She defended a strong civil rights plank at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

She was the first Asian American woman elected to public office in Hawai'i.

She was the first Japanese American female lawyer in Hawai'i. She originally wanted to be a doctor but was rejected by all the medical schools she applied to in 1948.

She led a crusade in college against the the University of Nebraska's segregated housing policy. The school rescinded the discriminatory policy because of her efforts.

Patsy Takemoto Mink is my grand aunt. aunty patsy has been a guiding force in my life to help others and standing up for whats right. my life goal is to help people and i hope continue my aunty's legacy.

i feel greatly honored and humbled by Kimberlee Bassford's work on her documentary PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY. the documentary is going to be debuted this month in the hawaii film festival. we are really looking forward to seeing the movie and participating in the events.

trying to keep my creativity alive

2008-09-28T00:09:00.005-10:00

i guess i have an active imagination, because i keep on thinking of new ideas. although, i have no idea how good they are. but, as someone pointed out, i should write them down. so, i try formalize my ideas and build upon them. if you are wondering why this is important watch this video; Talks Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
here are some of the highlights:

"we get educated out of creativity"

"if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original"

"you become frightened to become wrong"

"we are now running companies where mistakes are the worst things you can make"

"we don't grow into creativity we get educated out of it"

"professors look at their body as a transport for their heads"

"you have been steered away from things you like "

"suddenly degrees are worth nothing"

"academic inflation"

"creativity is having original ideas that are useful"

"rethink the fundamental principles that we are educating our children"

"remove all insects from earth in 50 years all life will perish. remove all humans from earth in 50 years all life will flourish"

anyway, here are some of the ideas that i had recently.

twitter twin
not sure how i thought about this one, but wouldn't it be cool to find your twitter twin? the basic idea is that since the character limit is set and there are only a set amount of things you could type in, i would think that some of your tweets have to be duplicates. so, lets say you twittered, "obama is cool" then maybe you could see that 20,000 other twitter users said the same thing. but if you said something like, "new rule: stop putting down the other candidates. its lame." i wonder how many other people think like that.

when i twitter something my "followers" can respond. but i often think about how my thoughts, tweets, are similar to totally random people. this might work better if the subject area is narrowed; for example the elections twitter view.

hawaii night life pics
everyone has mobile phones with cameras these days. you see these pictures all over peoples facebook or myspace profiles. its pretty cool to see your friends pictures from their nights out. you can kind of get a sense of the "quality" of the club by looking at the pictures. whether its crowded, how dark it is, etc.

i began to think that it would be cool to organize all of our pictures by time and location instead of user profile. what if we chunked up a friday night into hour blocks and then categorized it by location (ie, pearl, level4, bar35, etc). then as the night goes on the people take pictures and upload it to the site, which is automatically sorted and categorized.

its kinda like the hawaii nightlife diaries, but created by masses.

world perception
after the presidential debate, i got to thinking... i wonder which candidate other countries prefer. i'm not sure that will change my preference, but knowing that answer is definitely interesting. i think there are a bunch of things i would like to know what the world thinks. what does the world think about Tibet? what does the world think of global warming? what does the world think about America?

maybe we can find out the answers to these questions with a world wide polling system of some sort. i really like this idea, because I (we) are only fed what we hear in the news, what we read in the newspaper, etc. that information is very country specific and in some cases that is not a good thing.

it would be fantastic if there was a virtual world wide meeting place to express your thoughts on world problems.

tangible internet
it would be cool to some how make the internet tangible. something you can touch and gain information from. something not traditional (not like a printed paper or something). i guess i just realized that i hate having to sit in front of this computer screen to get information.

learning a lot from the geekdads

2008-09-21T23:41:00.004-10:00

geekdad is a blog from wired magazine; "Tech toys, science projects and other nerdy things to do with your kids." its a pretty good blog especially when they talk about cool things parents can do with with their kids. for example, this posting making fireflies, or 10 websites for geeky kids. this blog is fun.

but, there are other geekdads and geekmoms out there. and i'm finding that i'm learning a lot about being a good dad from their blog postings, web pictures, and twitter messages. i really appreciate the view into their family activities. i really do appreciate it. i gives me new ideas of what i can do with my family. their posts reminds me that i need to stop working and start playing. i've made it a real point to stop working during the weekends and instead take family field trips (well, i should have said try).

like this blog posting from geekdad ryan:

We got Blake a guitar for his birthday... the reason I thought a guitar might be good for him is this... I secretly believe that he has some sort of hidden musical talent.

i've been thinking about getting my kid a drum set. he totally loves listening and dancing (or what seems to be dancing) to music. he has one little drum that he plays all day and goes into a total fit if i take it away. he knows how to play different sounds on the drum too. i've been thinking about getting him a little kid drum set. but, i didn't know if people actually punished themselves with that sort of decision. maybe i'll buy it and take it to grandma's.

or like this twitter from geekdad russel:

swam in the pool with the kids. so fun! no one else around

i can't wait to play in the pool with my kid. sounds like good times!

these geekdads share their stories of awesome family times; whether its a trip to the zoo, a surprise weekend at a hotel, or taking the kids to the park. technology makes sharing these stories possible. cause lets face it, geekdads' don't typically sit around the lunch table and talk about family outings.

i look up to geekdads like pavel, ryan, and quinn. i'm learning a lot from their example! thanks guys.

i try to do my share of sharing with my family blog, posting of videos and my picasa web album.

UPDATE. i just recently saw this website http://hawaii.momslikeme.com/ from the honlulu advertiser. whats the deal with that. is there a dadslikeme site?

the excitement of a startup company

2008-09-20T22:18:00.003-10:00

no, i didn't quit my job to join a startup. but, i have been working with a startup company, knowledge reef systems, for the past few months. its been a lot of fun working with these guys.

Integrating patent-pending technology licensed from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Knowledge Reef System’s innovative kReef™ software platform is designed for hosting online, information-intensive communities that exist wherever knowledge workers are found—businesses, government, academia, professional societies and even consumer-oriented groups where learning and sharing information is paramount. Its unique information recommendation system uses the power of social behavior to automatically discover and intelligently route information to community members based on their interests and needs. The kReef platform simplifies the discovery and delivery of knowledge in online communities of shared interest. Knowledge communities hosted on the kReef platform offer well-targeted audiences that will accept relevant, data-rich advertising from the kReef’s integrated product data delivery system. Founded by Gary Ebersole, an experienced serial entrepreneur, Knowledge Reef Systems seeks Series A funding. http://www.techventures.org/NM-ECS/presenters.php

knowledge reef systems main product is kReef systems.

The kReef (pronounced kay-reef) resource networking service helps knowledge workers discover, organize and share information in the social context of trusted colleagues. Designed to mimic how information naturally flows between people in the physical world, the kReef software uses the relationships between members as "filters" and "routers" to ensure that only relevant information is recommended to members. It goes beyond basic social networking services and search engines to bring community to content in a uniquely integrated resource networking service that delivers an information-rich experience for its members. kReef's resource networking discovery algorithms can locate and recommend information resources stored in kReef that would not be easily found with user-created profiles and conventional keyword search technology.
http://www.k-reef.com/kReef/index.html

i worked with KRS on pumping robotics data into their service and returning the analyzed data to the user in a customized widget. (not sure how much more details i can give at this point). it was fun working on those components. and it was cool to see the usefulness of their service come to life. startups are exciting.

here is a PDF of their company information.

dinner 2.0 with neil abercrombie

2008-09-09T14:42:00.001-10:00

last week (september 2) i was invited to dinner 2.0 with neil abercrombie. this invitation was kind of out of the blue and i didn't know quite what to expect. it turns out that it was a casual dinner (on paper plates for that matter) with the congressman. he greeted us individually; there were only about 20 people. and we all sat down for dinner (from kakaako kitchen).

it turns out that it was basically a meet and greet. a chance for us to ask the congressman questions. and just talk story. the cool thing was that it was streamed live on ustream. i was told that there were upwards of 400 people tuning in. (did any one see me?)

there were many interesting talks. some of not were:

the congressman's energy independence bill. we spent a while on natural gas.

the congressman's thoughts on how the legislators are changing. he mentioned a couple times that it seems that more than ever people are out to demonize each other. it seems that respect and honor has been replaced by winning at all costs.

he talked about the shipyard the cola

scott from http://www.hosef.org/ was there

he explained why he was having these types of dinners. he wants to get back to what he called "direct government". meeting with the people face to face and even virtually. the congressman is a techie. he uses NING as his campaign site; http://neilabercrombie.ning.com/, he went to the geek meet at ala maona park a few months ago, and of course he has a twitter account. overall it was a really interesting night. he's definitely a cool dude.

oh.... wait. so i did have one comment about the dinner. so, i did find the discussions to be a little "old". i understand that all the issues were important. but, it obviously wasn't the most relevant discussions for for 20somethings in hawaii. actually, i don't really hear any of our politicians talking about things that i'm most concerned with. hmm... haha and i'm not sure how to ask those questions either.

an idea for relationship management

2008-09-08T23:29:00.005-10:00

every once in a while i have random ideas for cool sites or services. this one takes the cake for randomness. but here are some others

should have tried to do the android competition 2

an firefox extension idea for copying links

an idea called moody

wordle for my blogs and an idea

an idea for twitter

an idea for ESPN

resume visualization

google reader process improvement

geosearch

a crazy hackystat idea

google reader feature requests

things that i want from google

actually, those are most of the ideas that i blogged about. i made it a point to try to write "idea" posts to help me formalize my ideas better. anyway here comes a new idea...

an idea for relationship management

think online financial management for your relationship. i'm serious. really! okay, i'm not that interested in a software service telling me how my relationship with my wife is going, but i just see a huge market for this. online dating services is a million dollar industry (Yahoo! Personals, Match.com, and eHarmony). there are probably hundreds of ways to meet people online. the funny thing is that i would think that the sites want you to meet people and possible date, but ultimately fail and come running back to their site.

so from a pure business standpoint there seems to be a huge market for this. i kind think of this as the next generation of financial management sites, diet sites, or even things like WebMD. anyway, my imagination is kind of flying around these days. i kind of think that there are some very social and very dynamic things that haven't hit the mainstream technology yet. another totally random idea that fits this idea is social networking for religion. or better yet, a site that teaches you a specific religion. this seems to be uncharted waters.

UPDATE
someone instant messaged me with:
[12:30 AM] READER: what kinda of relationship manegment
[12:30 AM] READER: gimmie an example
[12:31 AM] Aaron: not sure...
[12:31 AM] Aaron: i think that question is interesting.. haha.
[12:31 AM] Aaron: can computers even help with that.
[12:32 AM] READER: i dont know
[12:33 AM] Aaron: i think that would be an awesome advancement in technology. or i guess social science.

anyway, the point is that i don't know how one would manage a relationship via technology. is that even possible. i don't know? but i do think that there are many of these types of social problems that current technology and/or science doesn't really help yet. maybe its the thing of the future.

inspiring kids to learn about technology

2008-08-30T00:00:00.008-10:00

Computer Science is awesome, but it needs our support. For some crazy reason enrollment is declining. I don't get why; its one of the best jobs ever. Building the newest and coolest technology is so much fun and so challenging. I don't get why kids are eating it up. Nevertheless, things aren't that great in the computer science field these days. here is a little quote from a recent google blog

At a time when more and more digital technologies are becoming indispensable to millions of people, the field of computer science (CS) is in trouble. Enrollment and retention of CS students, particularly those historically underrepresented in the field (women, African-Americans, Native-Americans, and Hispanics) has declined sharply. According to the Computing Research Association, CS enrollment in the U.S. was at its peak in 2000, with 15,958 undergrads. By 2006, enrollment declined by roughly half: 7,798 undergrads. And enrollment among already-underrepresented groups has dropped even more sharply.

i totally think we need to promote computer science to kids in grade school to get the more interested and inspired to want to join our field. i would like to really figure out how i can do that in hawaii. so far, i've been limited to events like lacy veach day of discovery and the college of engineering junior expo. those were awesome events, but i want to reach a broader audience. i often wonder how much career guidance is done in elementary and intermediate schools. do we do any at all? do we need to do more? can industry participate.

here is one idea to reach kids; Pathways in Computer Science. this video is put together by the university of washington Computer Science & Engineering school. its a pretty good video that explains why the students got interested in computer science (its probably appropriate for intermediate kids).

wouldn't it be cool if all students in hawaii watched this video? how would i go about doing that?

btw, UWCSE has a lot of other videos. check it out here.

or maybe we need to teach innovation!
standford's entrepreneurship week is another attempt to foster creativity and innovation. the cool thing is that this creativity and innovation eventually leads to technology.

(http://eweek.stanford.edu/2008/about.html)

there are so many great resources here:

imagine it! - What would happen if you gave thousands of students around the world a single pad of Post-it® Notes and challenged them to innovate... in one week! What would they do? How would they use their imaginations? What would they create? This is the story behind the first film in the documentary series imagine it! (you can download this version).

imagine it2! - Imagine It!² ("squared") weighs in on the most important conversation of our time. Imagination, creativity and innovation can unleash human potential to help solve the world's grand challenges. Imagine It!² proves that positive is greater than negative, and in the process takes you on a journey to a brighter, more prosperous future, where the next generation engages their curiosity in ways we can only imagine. Imagine It!² isn't just a movie…it's a movement.

winners of the 2008 innovation tournament - These videos were recognized at the Stanford Innovation Tournament Showcase. Teams were given one week to create value from rubber bands and then documented their work with video. Click on the links below to see the winning submissions and other videos that were recognized.

should have tried to do the android competition 2

2008-08-28T21:28:00.003-10:00

a few months ago i wrote about should have trying the android competition. a couple of cool things about this post was a guy named Jeffrey Sharkey had a similar idea than i had. jeff's idea was called android scan. another cool thing was my post had a comment from software by rob (well at least i think its him):

This is a good idea; I've discussed this exact concept with a few different people over the past year. I'm glad someone finally executed on it.

I actually explored it pretty intently about 6 months ago and started to put a team together to pursue it, but decided against it due to lack of resources and time - apropos given my quote. I knew I'd have to shut down my consulting business and go full force at this one for it to have a chance at working, and the timing wasn't right.

You're on the right track. Let me know when you have another idea like this one :-)

anyway, back to jeff and his android work. i just found out that jeff's android scan has made it all the way to the 275K prize. congrats goes out to him. he slightly changed the name and the description; but CompareEverywhere still has similar ideas that i had. oh well, i suck and jeff rocks.

guy kawasaki on bytemarks cafe

2008-08-22T08:21:00.005-10:00

guy kawasaki was on bytemarks cafe the other day. i got a little quote (from the hawaii blog) about what he said on hawaii education.

Calling himself a “supply-side guy,” he said the best thing Hawaii could do is “to properly fund and create the school of Engineering at the University of Hawaii.”

“If you have a great School of Engineering, you have great engineering professors and great students and those great students will come up with great ideas. And if you have students with ideas, the money will flow, the corporate financial attorneys will flow, the PR firms will flow… everything is because of two guys in a garage with a great idea. Yes, you can create funds to make that easier for two guys in a garage, but if you don’t have two guys in a garage, it doesn’t matter how many funds you have.”

first of all, i absolutely agree. its all about the students and generating awesome talent. but, i'd like to point out to mr kawasaki that there is a College of Engineering and a Department of Information and Computer Sciences.

I felt like i had to make this comment because I'm starting an ICS alumni group, and its hard to shine the spotlight on the smaller ICS department. in general there is a lot of support for the CoE, but not so much for the ICS department (for example the engineering banquet vs the ics alumni lunch). my goal is to change this. even if it takes one student at a time; i'm going help make them awesome.

and you can help me! check out the ICS topcoder competition.

Dept ICS TopCoder Software Engineering Competition

2008-08-14T22:34:00.001-10:00

YES!!!! this is going to be awesome.

Greetings,

Exciting news! The department is putting on a coding competition (see
the ics website). This is great news and should be a really fun experience for the students.

We are planning to support the department by providing mentors for the teams and prizes. I'm coordinating our support effort and have been in communication with Dr. Ikehara. The wheels are already in motion:

- Tomorrow I'm meeting with a few of the alumni that have already volunteered to help.
- I have already talked with a couple of the Dual Use companies about donations for prizes and general support
- I'm looking into forming a formal alumni association; non-profit organization. i'll hopefully setup a meeting with the College of Engineering alumni association soon.
- We are considering changing to use NING instead of Google Groups for our ICS alumni website.

There is so much to do. But, I'm so happy that the department has made a commitment to the students. And I think that they really need our support to keep these sorts of events and activities alive.

Please let me know if you can help in anyway. A few very small things that you can do now is
1) spread the word about the competition
2) find the ICS alumnis in your company and spread the word about the ics alumni association

thanks, Aaron Kagawa

ics alumni association for real this time

2008-08-12T00:56:00.003-10:00

okay, so i'm really going to start to push for an alumni association for the department of information computer sciences at the university of hawaii. the department has some needs that i need to organize to support. here are some of my tentative action items in no particular order:
1) form an official no profit organization
2) talk to our accountant to see how best to handle money
3) decide on whether to use NING to host our ICS alumni club
4) form a board; we need a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer
5) find donations for an upcoming event
6) find mentors for an upcoming event

thats a pretty big list. i better get started really soon. anyone want to help?

2008 high tech leaders questions

2008-08-01T00:52:00.003-10:00

i got an email that i was nominated for the 2008 high tech leaders awards. i think the deadline is tomorrow, so i have to rush to get the answers out. hopefully, i'm not too late.

here are some questions that i'm working on. this might be a work in progress through out tomorrow.

Memberships in apst and current professional organizations (board memberships, trade organizations, etc) dates of affiliations, and offices held:

um.. none. :) that was easy.

Affiliations with past and current volunteer organizations (church, school, charity, etc.) dates of affiliation, and offices held:

I'm working on starting the University of Hawaii Department of Information and Computer Sciences Alumni Association. This is a work in progress as there has never been an alumni association for the department.

1) In your primary responsibilities at work, how do you use technology to improve or advance your organization?

At Referentia Systems, Inc I am an engineering supervisor and technical lead. Part of my duties as such is to provide technical leadership to my projects and department as a whole. I help my company by providing software design, quality, and process expertise. As an example, I am a part of a leadership team that is developing business processes to help manage and improve our entire company.

How do you contributions to professional organizations demonstrate your commitment to excellence in your profession?

I am a volunteer member of the Collaborative Software Development Laboratory. In this organization we work on open source software that was created by the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This year, we won a grant from Google, Inc to mentor students on a summer project. My contributions to CSDL is one way for me to give back by helping mentor students and project members and to just help put Hawaii on the technology map.

Where do you see Hawaii's technology industry in five years? How have you helped to realize this vision?

My goal is that in 5-10 years that Hawaii has jobs that rival jobs in companies like Google. I believe we can get there. We must nurture our students and industry and continue to grow our expertise. I try to play my part, by working with students of all ages. I have helped to setup and participate in high school career fairs, technology showcases for high school and intermediate students, mentoring of university students, and events like the Lacy Veach day of discovery or the College of Engineering Junior Expo. I work with students, interns, and even write blogs to do everything I can to try to help Hawaii's students.

How do you "give back" to the community (need not be technology related)?

When I was younger, I was able to spend a lot of my time volunteering and coaching for Little League Baseball. Since entering into my career, my involvement slowly halted to a stop. I've realized that I needed to give back in other ways. Through my company, I started several community initiatives; student activities and mentoring events, a Lokahi Family Adoption drive, a yearly Hawaii foodbank drive, and other community service events. I had a lot of support from my company and coworkers. The evens were such a success that I won the first annual Referentia Community Service award.

hm.. i wrote this fairly quickly. what do you think? i guess i need to work on it a lot more tomorrow....

hackystat-sensorbase-postgres size

2008-07-31T23:16:00.000-10:00

we've been using the hackystat-sensorbase-postgres module for a couple of weeks now. and everything looks pretty good. no failed sensors, no need to restart the sensorbase (knock on wood). everything looks great.

so, i wanted to check out the statistics of the postgres tables, so i ran the analyze and vaccum maintenance executable. and viewed the report. here is what i found.

hackystat-sensorbase-postgres stores about 750,000 sensor data entries in 100 MB.
hackystat-sensorbase-uh stores about 350,000 sensor data entries in 1 GB (according to philip in this email thread, i need to validate that number)

woah! well, haha. i guess that should be expected. the awesome thing is that i think our database will perform well no matter how much data is in our database. and we should see fast query times all day, every day. :)

by the way, i'd imagine that we'd hit 2 million sensor data entries a month. thats just a guess, i'll let you know when we reach a month of up time.

non-routine savants

2008-07-30T00:09:00.002-10:00

here is very useful post for all you students out there:

How do we find these non-routine savants? There are many factors, of course, but we primarily look for ...

... analytical reasoning. Google is a data-driven, analytic company. When an issue arises or a decision needs to be made, we start with data. That means we can talk about what we know, instead of what we think we know.

... communication skills. Marshalling and understanding the available evidence isn't useful unless you can effectively communicate your conclusions.

... a willingness to experiment. Non-routine problems call for non-routine solutions and there is no formula for success. A well-designed experiment calls for a range of treatments, explicit control groups, and careful post-treatment analysis. Sometimes an experiment kills off a pet theory, so you need a willingness to accept the evidence even if you don't like it.

... team players. Virtually every project at Google is run by a small team. People need to work well together and perform up to the team's expectations.

... passion and leadership. This could be professional or in other life experiences: learning languages or saving forests, for example. The main thing, to paraphrase Mr. Drucker, is to be motivated by a sense of importance about what you do.

These characteristics are not just important in our business, but in every business, as well as in government, philanthropy, and academia. The challenge for the up-and-coming generation is how to acquire them. It's easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel.

i have a priority to those factors.
1. Passion and Leadership
2. Team Players
3. Communication
4. Everything else.

be passionate and communicate! be a tigger!

hackystat dev

2008-07-27T20:04:00.003-10:00

i've been pretty busy working on hackystat during off time. its pretty fun getting back into hackystat hacking. we've been doing pretty good. actually, its not exactly hackystat hacking. we've been doing a mix of custom and open source hacking. for example, we've been accessing jira directly to get jira issue data. and we've been thinking of creating a mini-feed/stream of consciousness. that doesn't really map too well with hackystat.

anyway, i'm enjoying our latest hackystat development. we have a pretty good plan and we are making progress. one of the things that i enjoy is the collaboration. we do "night time internet". we are all online at night hacking a way. we all know the problems and goals so collaboration over chat is pretty easy. some times we also do lunch time dev, where we spend an hour hacking during "lunch". the other cool thing we do is we have a requirement to do one blog post related to hackystat per week (this is in an internal blog). it keeps us on track. oh, oh, oh.... the other thing i do is keep on my guys to update their jira issues. i don't care if they spent 30 minutes working on something, i want to know about it. this helps keep the project active and helps keep each other aware of whats going on.

we got one more interesting thing in the works... hopefully it will be successful. i'll blog about it later once we get things more developed.

anyway, i've been busy. haha. thats why i haven't posted too much. but, i will start it up again. i promise!

UW CS enrollment up and invest in students

2008-07-18T00:57:00.000-10:00

i just read an interesting post; Computer Science Enrollments: The Real News by Ed Lazowska. he talks about a few things but i particularly liked the sections about enrollment and students.

enrollment

One place where we can easily measure changes in student interest is in the enrollment in our first introductory course, which serves the entire university. Between 2003-04 and 2007-08 (a 4-year period), enrollment in this course is up by 27%. Enrollment by women is up by 45%. (Annual enrollment of women into the major is up by 64% over that same interval.)

thats good news. i'm especially impressed by the women enrollment increase.

Here is a spreadsheet with charts showing Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for employment between 2006 and 2016 for all fields in the sciences and engineering (including the social sciences). What it shows is that of all of these fields, between now and 2016:

70% of all newly-created jobs will be in computer science.
62% of all job openings (both newly-created jobs and jobs available due to retirements) will be in computer science.

wow thats good news again!

students
here is some great comments about attracting students to computer science:

What do we do at UW to attract students? Many many things. As one example, starting tomorrow at UW we’re running an annual 3-day workshop for high school teachers of math and science, sponsored by Google. The goal is to show these teachers that computer science is important to their fields, and is a great field to send their smartest students into. Information is available at http://cs4hs.cs.washington.edu/. (We do this jointly with Carnegie Mellon and UCLA.)

We have a set of terrific videos that illustrate several important points:

1. People enter the field of computer science for all sorts of aspirational reasons.
2. People do all sorts of things with their computer science degrees in addition to working in the software industry.
3. Working in the software industry is highly exciting and creative and interactive.

You can take a look at these videos at http://www.cs.washington.edu/WhyCSE/.

Most importantly, we really invest in our students. Word gets out. At the University of Washington, we have the strongest undergraduates, because students know they can get a great education here.

How do we “calibrate” our program — make sure our students are ready for careers? Here is a Word document I prepared recently for another purpose. Every year we are a top-5 supplier to Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.com — our students are fantastic.

two things jump out at me; "we invest in our students" and "we make sure our students are ready for careers". thats awesome!

when i was in school i often felt the complete opposite. i was really clueless. i wasn't connected to the department; i certainly never felt an investment from the department into my education and i certainly didn't feel like getting me ready for my career was a department goal. luckily, i found a few professors and students that got me out of the motions, paid attention to me, motivated me, and put me in the right direction. i was really lucky.

i always bring up students and their educational experience... i think its really important:

interview with ka yee

engineering banquet

interview with randy cox

ics alumni association

making students awesome

hackystat-sensorbase-postgres ftw!

2008-07-17T22:34:00.005-10:00

so, i've been hacking on hackystat the last week or so. for the most part, i've been concentrating on sensorbase, more specifically the hackystat-sensorbase-postgres module. when i first started working on this, we saw numbers like this with shellperf (for a 100 entries):

Postgres trial 1: 78.6 Milliseconds/sensordata instance

Postgres trial 2: 111.25 Milliseconds/sensordata instance

Postgres trial 3: 78.75 Milliseconds/sensordata instance

Postgres trial 4: 62.34 Milliseconds/sensordata instance

after a few days of hacking and an OS change to linux we got numbers like this

Postgres trial 5: 16.36 Milliseconds/sensordata instance

and this number is with 400k sensordata and 1.3 million sensordata_properties entries in our database.

queries
one of the great things about using a database is the ability to run queries. here are a couple that i just wrote:

this one gets all the data sensor data from today.


select * from sensordata, hackyuser 
where hackyuser.email='emailaddress@hackystat.org' 
and sensordata.owner_id = hackyuser.id 
and resource like '%fooProject%'
and tstamp > current_date

this one gets the exact snapshots per day


select date_trunc('day', runtime), tool, max(runtime) from (
select distinct runtime, tool from sensordata, hackyuser 
where hackyuser.email='emailaddress@hackystat.org' 
and sensordata.owner_id = hackyuser.id 
and resource like '%fooProject%'
) runtime_tool
group by date_trunc('day', runtime), tool
order by date_trunc('day', runtime)

(formatted output)
"2008-06-27" "2008-06-27 00:39:33.458" "Checkstyle"
"2008-06-27" "2008-06-27 00:40:02.802" "JavaNCSS"  
"2008-06-27" "2008-06-27 00:39:41.145" "JUnit"   
"2008-06-27" "2008-06-27 00:39:58.63"  "PMD"   
"2008-06-27" "2008-06-27 00:40:09.834" "SCLC"   
"2008-06-29" "2008-06-29 14:15:26.607" "Checkstyle"
"2008-06-29" "2008-06-29 12:27:54.546" "JavaNCSS"  
"2008-06-29" "2008-06-29 12:27:44.89"  "JUnit"   
"2008-06-29" "2008-06-29 12:27:53.062" "PMD"   
"2008-06-29" "2008-06-29 12:27:57.156" "SCLC"

the totally awesome thing is that even though there is hundreds of thousands of entries we can execute these queries in less than a second. its totally fast.

issues
there are always issues; here are a couple

deletes take forever - postgres isn't really optimized for deletes. so they take much longer than updates or even inserts. i've seen that even deleting 10 records can cause a http timout on another request. so i'm thinking the approach we should take is; disable deletes. deletes aren't really that important and seem like an administrator type function or at the very least asynchronous. anyway, the problem seems to be that delete is used in the test cases. so.. i left it in for now.

count (*) takes forever - postgres has some issues with counting a huge table. so, instead of count (*), i'm using

select relname, n_live_tup, last_analyze 
from pg_stat_user_tables
where relname like '%'

this is really fast, but is an estimate because the stats could be out of date.

thats it for now. things seem to be all good with the sensorbase. at least for now.

pixar is getting a lot of great press lately

2008-07-09T21:48:00.005-10:00

and they apparently deserve it. check out this article: Pixar's tightknit culture is its edge.

According to “Pixar Rules — Secrets of a Blockbuster Company,” the company has created an incredible work environment that keeps employees happy and fulfilled. The result: “A tightknit company of long-term collaborators who stick together, learn from one another, and strive to improve with every production.”

Thanks to Pixar University, employees learn to see the company’s work (and their colleagues) in a new light. “The skills we develop are skills we need everywhere in the organization,” Nelson said. “Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There’s no company on earth that wouldn’t benefit from having people become more observant.”

You can try to outspend the competition. Or you can try to outculture them. Create a place that makes employees feel special. A place that makes them feel like they’re part of a bigger whole. A place where they continually get to learn and evolve. A place where everyone actually likes each other.

wow.. that is cool. here is another one: The human side of Pixar's robot - (37signals)

Pixar proves it’s one of those great companies that is run by unabashedly human people, and it’s no wonder why their work is so personal and touching. When you engage yourself with your customers and your audience on a level that reminds them you are the same, the experience is far greater than just using a product or just seeing a movie. Humanity is desperately missing in our age of megacorporations and big box stores.

People love robots, but they’ll love you if you’re human, too.

thats great press! but more importantly, its really awesome! going back to the pixar university. i think thats really smart, because it fosters creativity. providing a diverse group a people with the same language and framework equals a creative situation. the pixar university keeps the goal of the company at the forefront of their every day activities; make awesome movies and push the limits of what animation can do.

haha. i can say some funny things about work now... but, i'll refrain. :)

hackystat data in json

2008-06-27T00:09:00.003-10:00

so, i got to thinking that it would be cool to switch to json for our REST data-interchange format. it will definitely speed up the network transfer. for example, 10 of my xml offline files from my last post about hackystat performance is 1.64 MB. but the same data stored in inline (compact) json is 876 KB. half the size! i'm not sure but i think the parsers for json are really fast too.

here is an example of the xml and json formats (i found a cool little converter at
http://www.thomasfrank.se/xml_to_json.html:

<sensordata>
   <timestamp>2008-06-26T21:11:54.314-10:00</timestamp>
   <runtime>2008-06-26T21:11:54.314-10:00</runtime>
   <tool>Checkstyle</tool>
   <sensordatatype>Code&rdatatype>
   <resource>E:\java\svn\hidden\hidden\hidden\package.html</resource>
   <owner>kagawaa@hahah.hahaha</owner>
   <properties/>
</sensordata>

{
   sensordata:{
     timestamp:'2008-06-26T21:11:54.314-10:00',
     runtime:'2008-06-26T21:11:54.314-10:00',
     tool:'Checkstyle',
     sensordatatype:'CodeIssue',
     resource:'E:\java\svn\hidden\hidden\hidden\package.html',
     owner:'kagawaa@hahah.hahaha',
     properties:{}
   }
}

trust, me if you put json in inline form you'll get a big savings (i guess thats the same for a lot of formats).

one of the cool things about Ruby On Rails is that (and this is just an example) RoR handles all the different data-interchange formats is. it lets the client decide. here is a snippet from a rails controller:

respond_to do |format|
   format.html
   format.xml { render :xml => @sensordata.to_xml }
   format.yaml { render :inline => @sensordata.to_yaml }
   format.js { render :text => @sensordata.to_json }
   format.json { render :json => @sensordata.to_json }
end

anyway, just a thought.

hackystat performance

2008-06-26T23:10:00.009-10:00

i started recent discussion on hackystat-dev about some weirdness i was noticing when sending offline data to the hackystat sensorbase.

here is what i said,

I had a lot of offline data
I executed an ant sensor
the sensor started to send the offline data
i decided that i didn't want to wait for the offline data and did a Ctrl+C to kill the ant task.
the client seemed to recover fine.i didn't check the task manager or anything.
but, i had a remote desktop connection to the sensorbase and noticed that the server continued to received data for quite a while. i eventually stopped the server too and restarted it.

the discussion continued i got a somewhat strange response from philip that caught me a little off guard.

> Is it the asynchronous nature of a REST post?
No, it's the nature of TCP and socket-based communication:

<http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~vwelch/net_perf/tcp_windows.html>

Google on "socket buffer size" for more related links.
Again, this is only my _hypothesis_ as to why you were receiving data after you
killed the sending process.

austen and i started to talk about this at work. austen initially agreed with philip. but, i still scratched my head... hm.. doing a search on the "socket buffer size" showed me that

Typical network latency from Sunnyvale to Reston is about 40ms, and Windows XP has a default TCP buffer size of 17,520 bytes. Therefore, Bob's maximum possible throughput is:

17520 Bytes / .04 seconds = .44 MBytes/sec = 3.5 Mbits/second

The default TCP buffer size for Mac OS X is 64K, so with Mac OS X he would have done a bit better, but still nowhere near the 100Mbps that should be possible.

65936 Bytes / .04 seconds = 1.6 MBytes/sec = 13 Mbits/second

from http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/11/17/tcp_tuning.html

so... the delay i was seeing couldn't possibly be from 64K buffers could it? i'm not sure. so i designed a little experiment. here is what i did.

i created a builds worth of offline data by giving my sensorshell.properties file a bogus password. NOTE a builds worth of data is 11.3 MB.

i shutdown the sensorbase (we are using austens postgres version)

deleted all the logs from the sensorbase and my client

brought up a build for a project and executed ant checkstyle (which calls the sensor

i watch the consoles and logs

here is some interesting results.

here is my Checkstyle.log file (edited to save horizontal space):
22:44:57 Hackystat SensorShell Version: 8.1.530
22:44:57 SensorShell started at: Thu Jun 26 22:44:56 HST 2008
22:44:57 SensorProperties
sensorshell.autosend.maxbuffer : 250
sensorshell.autosend.timeinterval : 1.0
sensorshell.logging.level : INFO
sensorshell.multishell.autosend.timeinterval : 0.05
sensorshell.multishell.batchsize : 499
sensorshell.multishell.enabled : false
sensorshell.multishell.maxbuffer : 500
sensorshell.multishell.numshells : 10
sensorshell.offline.cache.enabled : true
sensorshell.offline.recovery.enabled : true
sensorshell.sensorbase.host : http://blah:9876/sensorbase
sensorshell.sensorbase.user : kagawaa@hahaha.hahaha
sensorshell.statechange.interval : 30
sensorshell.timeout : 10
sensorshell.timeout.ping : 2
sensorshell.properties file location: C:\..\sensorshell.properties
22:44:57 Type 'help' for a list of commands.
22:44:59 Host: http://naraku:9876/sensorbase/ is available.
22:44:59 User akagawa@referentia.com is authorized to login at this host.
22:44:59 Maximum Java heap size (bytes): 66650112
22:44:59 AutoSend time interval set to 60 seconds
22:45:00 Pinged http://blah:9876/sensorbase/ in 188 ms. Result is: true
22:45:00 Checking for offline data to recover.
22:45:00 Invoking offline recovery on 48 files.
22:45:59 Timer-based invocation of send().
22:46:59 Timer-based invocation of send().
22:47:59 Timer-based invocation of send().
22:48:59 Timer-based invocation of send().
22:49:55 #> quit
22:49:55 #> send
22:49:55 Pinged http://blah:9876/sensorbase/ in 0 ms. Result is: false
22:49:55 Server not available. Storing commands offline.
22:49:55 Stored 4 sensor data instances in:
C:\...\sensorshell\offline\2008.06.26.22.49.55.426.xml
22:49:55 Quitting SensorShell started at: Thu Jun 26 22:44:56 HST 2008
22:49:55 Total sensor data instances sent: 0

at the end of the sensor execution it says it can't send 4 sensor data instances! what happened to the server!? hm.. what is going on. for some reason that indicates to me that sending the offline data made the sensorbase unavailable. so, i looked in the Checkstyle-offline-recovery.log file

22:45:00 Maximum Java heap size (bytes): 66650112
22:45:00 AutoSend disabled.
22:45:00 Invoking offline recovery on 48 files.
22:45:00 Recovering offline data from: 2008.06.26.21.12.01.081.xml
22:45:00 Found 251 instances.
22:45:00 Invoking send(); buffer size > 250
22:45:00 #> send
22:45:01 Pinged http://blah:9876/sensorbase/ in 204 ms. Result is: true
22:45:01 Attempting to send 251 sensor data instances.
Available memory (bytes): 63071744
22:45:12 Error sending data: org.hackystat....SensorBaseClientException:
1001: Unable to complete the HTTP call due to a communication error
with the remote server. Read timed out
22:45:12 org.hackystat.sensorbase.client.SensorBaseClientException: 1001:
Unable to complete the HTTP call due to a communication error with the
remote server. Read timed out at org.hackystat.sensorbase.client.
SensorBaseClient.putSensorDataBatch(SensorBaseClient.java:827)
at org.hackystat.sensorshell.command.SensorDataCommand.
send(SensorDataCommand.java:82)
22:45:12 Exception during send(): org.hackystat.sensorshell.
SensorShellException: Could not send data: error in SensorBaseClient
22:45:12 About to send data
22:45:12 Successfully sent: 0 instances.
22:45:12 Did not send all instances.
C:\...\sensorshell\offline\2008.06.26.21.12.01.081.xml not deleted.

in the Checkstyle-offline-recovery.log file, i can't find one successful send. but, i know i sent data over. i have no idea but maybe the "Timer-based invocation of send()." was able to send data, but there is no log of that timber-base send. anyway, so there was a problem with the server. but, the logs on the server show nothing. i just get a whole bunch of these

22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:56 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue
22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue

so i have no idea why the server wasn't responding. in the end off all of that i only see 1,742 entries in the database (there might be a problem with the sensordatatype for coverage). so that's 10 minutes of work for a very small amount of data entries. i would guess there were tens of thousands of possible entries in the offline data.

here is another thing. note that in my Checkstyle.log it says that my sensor process ended at

last entry in from Checkstyle.log
06/26 22:49:55 Total sensor data instances sent: 0

last entry on sensorbase
06/26 22:55 Put: 2008-06-26T21:11:55 k@gm.com Checkstyle CodeIssue

thats 6 minutes after the sensor ended. so, getting back to those 64K buffer caches... that seems a little strange to me. if thats really what is happening there must be a lot of caches.

anyway, there are two things happening.

1) i can send data to the hackystat sensorbase server way way faster than hackystat can consume
2) because of that backlog on the server its not letting me send more data

that worries me. after all 11.3 MB of data is really tiny; after all its just one full build of our system with sensors turned on. here are some questions:

1) how fast can hackystat consume data?
2) what is happening such that data is being processed on the server 6 minutes after the client is finished sending?
3) whats the current bottleneck?
4) how many users can send data (and how much data) simultaneously without killing the server?

hm.. there are a lot of moving parts to this so this is just the start of looking into this. but, all i know is that 11.3 MBs is really small. in my other project we move that amount of data in an handful of seconds not even close to minutes.

ps. i had to delete my offline data. :(

pono: do whats right

2008-06-22T13:11:00.003-10:00

an excerpt from maui news, an invitation to do what's right: PONO.

On June 22, 2004, their 3-year-old son, Pono Viela, died from injuries sustained when the all-terrain vehicle he was riding with his father flipped over.

In death, the pono campaign was born. Since then, the couple and their daughter, Jrae, and son, Jai, have adopted the “Pono Do What’s Right” motto and performed good deeds throughout the community, such as adopting a portion of the highway near their home for cleanup, staging a golf tournament that has raised tens of thousands of dollars for local nonprofit organizations, running sports programs, accepting invitations to tell their story in the hopes of helping and inspiring others to do good.

why am i writing about this? well, it is a tragic story but a lot of good has come of the Pono movement. and i'm so proud to say that my cousin dana and friend jen has been heavily involved with pono.

In printing the T-shirts, Paracuelles went to the same company, Spread Pono Co., that designs and prints T-shirts for the Vielas. In addition, owners Jennifer Tengan and Dana Kagawa print shirts using environmentally friendly water-based ink.

The reef T-shirts, which are $18 for adults and $16 for children, will be sold at the event and are available at Working Mommies.

During Reef Night, the Vielas will hold a “Pono Fashion Show” at 7:50 p.m. to unveil their new T-shirt designs. In handing over the Pono T-shirt lines to Tengan and Kagawa recently, Maile Viela said she was hoping to use the talents of the young graphic artists to design shirts attractive to the younger set.

The Pono T-shirts are $18 for adults and $16 for children. They can be obtained at the Reef Night, at Working Mommies in Wailuku and from the Web site www.spreadpono.com.

i'm sporting my pono t-shirt today, but i try to live pono every day. i wish i made the trip out to maui today, because for some reason i feel like i need to learn more about Pono Viela, his family, and more about the pono movement.

embrace your imagination

2008-06-19T21:27:00.002-10:00

Somebody much smarter than me once said that pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong, but all the great breakthroughs in history were done by optimists. - Thomas Friedman.

i just read an awesome blog about The most important competition is the one between you and your own imagination. here are some excerpts:

In the latest edition, I added a whole section on why liberal arts are more important than ever. It’s not that I don’t think math and science are important. They still are. But more than ever our secret sauce comes from our ability to integrate art, science, music and literature with the hard sciences. That’s what produces an iPod revolution or a Google.

One thing we know about creativity,” he says, “is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other. --Marc Tucker

the messages that i take away from this blog post is to not give up on my imagination. i just so happened to be thinking about this recently and have been posting random ideas that i have:

an firefox extension idea for copying links

an idea called moody

wordle for my blogs and an idea

an idea for twitter

an idea for ESPN

i've always practiced communicating my thoughts. now, i've found my self trying to practice to communicate my imagination. its somewhat different to formalize imagination.

i'll make sure that i give my imagination a fighting chance.

an firefox extension idea for copying links

2008-06-18T23:41:00.008-10:00

so, i did some searching around the internet for some cmmi references tonight and found some interesting ones that i wanted to share with my team. so, i started to write a wiki page with the links (hopefully i'll add some summary too). anyway, it occurs to me that i need to visit the page twice to copy. one time to get the title of the page (i hate links that are just the url) and another time to get the url. so i copy the title and url separately.

there needs to be a "copy title and url" function. that just basically writes this on a paste:
<a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/adoption/books.html">CMMI Books</a>

here is a random side comment: i've just realized that one of the cool things in confluence is that the it dynamically builds links with a macro. for example, if the link was within confluence you'd just have to do [CMMI Books] and confluence will create the correct link for you. so, for linking to confluence pages you only need to know the name of the page. thats cool! (i told you that was random)

an idea called moody

2008-06-16T23:23:00.005-10:00

i was chatting with ryank about a few things and had an idea for an application called moody.

aaron: its kinda like twitter but its a score posting.
aaron: you can contribute to the mood of the group.
aaron: your friends are "grumpy" on a scale from 1 - 10
aaron: random times during the day you can set your mood.
ryan: i like the name
ryan: sounds interesting
aaron: i think things like myspace has it.
aaron: but never really aggregates it by groups.
aaron: haha. i just want it for the engineering group.
aaron: and have "focused" as an option.
ryan: that would be cool
ryan: you know...the more i think about it...the more i like it

i think the idea is just to be able to get the average mood of a group of people. just to be aware of how a group is feeling.

woah... a lot of people post twitter posts that implies their mood. what if the system could figure out your implied mood. or or... here is another random idea. what if twitter could predict what you are going to post. that would be kind of scary.

wordle for my blogs and an idea

2008-06-12T23:33:00.010-10:00

greg wilson's blog post about wordle got me interested enough to try it on the last three months of my blog. so, i copied and pasted all the text from my blog and got this:

it looks like for some reason i write about students a lot. i hardly see any software terms in there. i guess this isn't much of a technical blog. haha. wait a minute, i don't even see hackystat in there. i better write more about hackystat, hackystat, hackystat. :)

what does your wordle look like?

here is an idea
wordle should make wordle's for your twitter feed. here is a wordle from ian's tweets for the past couple weeks:

(twittering ian's wordle - this was my first version using screen scrape from the twitter website)

(twittering ian's wordle - this is my second version using rss feeds)

cmmi ftw

2008-06-11T00:29:00.002-10:00

it is official, i am officially trained in cmmi v1.2 via the official training course, Introduction to CMMI Version 1.2. according to sei, i am one out of about 54k people that have taken the intro to cmmi course. haha. an elite group to say the least! here is a very high level overview of cmmi.

in God we trust, all others bring data --Deming

when i picture googled cmmi i got some entertaining graphics:

woah.. that looks really simple. not!. and thats level 3. sheesh.

haha.. its a money maker for sure.

some dude post this as a cmmi pic.

according to sei, 63.8% of the organizations using cmmi is outside of the US. haha. so i guess they are doing it by choice.

i want one of these!

process art!

i don't have all day to teach you all about cmmi. plus i want to keep all that knowledge for myself anyway. haha. go read the wikipedia cmmi page first. then ask me a question.

and! i am also officially trained in "standard cmmi appraisal method for process improvement (scampi): class b team training".

i'm making a lot of fun about cmmi, but its serious stuff. its very important for us. and its not that easy. its time to get really serious and knock this cmmi stuff out of the park.

lucky we live hawaii

2008-06-10T00:21:00.014-10:00

(right outside my hotel room in kona)

our buddy Ian always keeps on reminding us that we are lucky to live in hawaii by posting his sunset pics. he's right! we are really lucky.

there are so many reason why i love living in hawaii. as i was looking through some pictures, i was reminded of one reason. i really like to play tourist and stay at hawaii's nice hotels. its kinda like going on vacation without having to leave the island. for some reason its really refreshing to watch the sunset from my fancy hotel room.

here are some of our favorite island hotels:

halekulani - really nice hotel rooms, great service and lots of very good food.

kahala resort (formally the mandarin) - swim with dolphins, free scuba lessons, and a secluded beach

ihilani - huge rooms, huge bathrooms, jacuzzi rooms, friday hula show

hilton hawaiian village (alii tower) - free sunset pupus, great service, good views

turtle bay - nothing to do except relax

(some of my hotel pics)

there are some tips and tricks to doing this. for example, try the turtle bay escape club, its a lower than kamaaina price. or try the spa room at at ihilani, it is awesome (and is not very well known). playing tourist is a lot of fun!

yup, i agree... Lucky we live Hawaii

an idea for twitter

2008-06-08T15:37:00.007-10:00

here is an idea for twitter. an led sign like the one i found at plasmaled can show your updates at your desk at work. obviously, the sign would be situated so that people walking by can see the messages. the basic idea is that maybe you can twitter about work. for example,

i'm working on the proposal for the acme project.

i'm having a bad day. don't bother me.

its kind of a random novelty item that could be branded as a twitter hardware product. it could make millions.

UPDATE: here is a similar concept for viewing facebook pictures with a Wi-Fi photo frame.

it adds new feeds to its 8-inch Wi-Fi frame. Already able to get streams from online photo services such as Flickr or Photobucket, the wireless frame has now added Facebook to its networked family.

Once hooked up to your Facebook account, it will automatically display photos uploaded to the social network, GeekAlerts says. Which means that you probably want to be careful where you place the frame when mom and dad come over.

an idea for ESPN

2008-06-06T23:16:00.004-10:00

i just had an idea for ESPN. i was talking to with ryank about his kid's baseball tournament. and an idea about creating a video highlight popped into my head. we all have seen those little league trading cards or fake sports magazines with kids pictures on it. this highlight video would be exactly like those fake magazines and trading cards, but it would be a Sportscenter highlight.

so, the idea is that ESPN create a online widget that allows the user to upload video segment; for example something that fits into the Top Plays of the Day. The user can adjust the time frames and line up with the Top Plays of the Day count down; maybe making their segment the number one play of the day. Then I guess the user can do a voice over to explain the play. maybe you can have stuart scott say "boo ya!".

this would be an awesome thing for ESPN to provide. if it was user friendly and very flashy, i bet it would get kids even more excited about their sports. i can see baseball, football, basketball kids all over the country making their own highlight videos.

changing to something other than windows

2008-06-02T20:49:00.005-10:00

i've been thinking about changing operating systems lately. i've been putting off using a better operating system cause i just don't want to hassle with all the minor "broken" things. i've been really happy with XP for a while. it is a pretty stable operating system and it works with nearly everything. that is the nice thing about windows. buy a new digital camera and it works with XP; i'm not sure you can say the same thing with linux. here is a funny video about the different os choices.

there are pluses and minuses for all choices. austen would say its lame that i still use XP for hacking and i definitely agree. but, the simple fact that my work computer is a xp machine and that xp is the operating system installed on all my computers pretty much makes me an xp user.

so i've been thinking of getting a mac or maybe getting a separate linux machine. i don't know. i'm almost ready to make a change, i wonder what i need to push me over the edge. i guess the bottom line is that i don't care that much; or i would have switched a long time ago.

interview with ka yee

2008-05-22T22:29:00.001-10:00

ka yee is an university of hawaii student. i met her a little more than a year ago at the pacific modeling and simulation showcase. at that event, i gave a presentation to university of hawaii information and computer sciences students. during the presentation, i talked about what types of skills the students needed to be competitive in the job market. i'm totally syched that it seems like she took a little of my advice. she is one of the top students in the software engineer courses (413 and 414) and she is a selected student in the google summer of code. not bad for a year of work.

Hawaii's high technology industry starts with students. Without great students and a great workforce our industry will really struggle. That's why I focus a lot of my time on the students and bridging connections between students and industry. That's how I contribute.

However, I'm not sure the industry understands what the students want or needs. A question for you is what are the needs of students? What types of activities, events, competitions, groups, classes, presentations, etc do you think students could benefit from? Basically, what do students want to be apart of that supplements their classes? Or what should students want?

As a student, what I want to get most is information about the high-tech industry. We learned a wide range of technical knowledge from classes but very often I wonder about how they are actually applied in the real world. Knowing what is actually happening in the industry and what the current development trends are allows us to get a more accurate picture of how our skills can be applied outside of class.

Internship is obviously a good way for students to get to know more about the industry and obtain hands-on working experience. It would also be cool to have local high-tech companies work together with the professors. They can set up projects where students can take as ICS 499 projects. That way, even if the companies cannot provide a lot of internship opportunities, students can also get a chance to work on real projects under supervision of professor.

Other than these, it would be awesome if local high-tech companies can organize large scale programming competitions. It is hacking purely for the fun of solving the puzzle while giving us an opportunity to put the skill we learned from class into action. The companies can also get to know the students better through these events.

Company open-house is cool. I remember going to Referentia's Pacific Modeling and Simulation Open House last year which was an eye-opening experience. I was introduced to technologies that I never heard of before and that gave me an idea of what area I want to focus on for my ICS curriculum. It was actually your presentation where you recommended a list of technical skills and classes that make me decided to take ICS 413 from Professor Johnson.

Other than these, I also highly recommend my fellow peers to get involve in the ICS club. I am currently involved in a number of societies such as the Mortar Board. These are all very valuable experiences and I gained a lot from them. I think being great with programming is essential but not enough, networking is also very important. Knowing your fellow peers and connecting with people from the industry is very helpful as you can learn something from everyone of them. Also, it would be helpful in the long-run for your career. I think taking an active part in the ICS club would be a good place to start building up the network. The industry can help by organizing events such as talks, tours, project day, etc with the ICS club to let students know about the local high tech companies and vice versa.

These are what I think students would love to see from local company and what they would benefit from outside of classes.

ka yee brings up some very good ideas. "having high-tech companies work together with the professors" is a fantastic idea. having "real projects" and real problems are definitely a very good learning tool. large scale programming competitions is another great idea. in fact, we have been thinking about organizing one.

lastly, she brings up the ics club. and i totally agree, it should be really beneficial to be active in the club. but, i'm not sure the club actually meets and does things? i've been trying to find out more information about the club with very little success. if you know more about the ics club please let me know:

what is the ics club's mission?

who mentors the ics club?

how many students are involved?

what types of activities do they do?

anyway, thanks goes out to ka yee for a great interview

roosevelt high school career fair

2008-05-21T22:17:00.003-10:00

On Monday, May 19, 2008 I represented my company at the Roosevelt High School Career Fair. It was put on by the Oahu Workforce Investment Board and Roosevelt High School. The purpose of the career fair was simple, expose students to real world opportunities. There were 20 different presenters (here are few examples of the presenters):

Mark Matsunaga (former Honolulu Advertiser reporter/editor and KHON managing editor)

Jeff Coelho (Customer Services Director, C&C of Honolulu)

Gordon Bruce (Director of IT, C&C of Honolulu)

Dr. Clementina Ceria-Ulep (Department of Nursing, UH)

Dr. Gary Okamoto (Medical Director, Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific)

Clifford Lum (Director, Board of Water Supply)

Scott Seu (Manager, Hawaiian Electric Company)

Roy Yamaguchi (Roy’s Restaurants)

The theme of the presentation is similar to my other presentations to high school students:

Software Engineering is the best job in America (according to CNNMoney.com)

Software Engineering allows you to be creative and innovative

Software Engineers create anything from video games to iPhone software

Software Engineers work on cool stuff

There are high tech companies in Hawaii

College education is really important

The presentations went well. Although, its hard to get high school students excited, I was able to get some “wow thats cool” comments when I demoed the Wiimote Experiments. A couple of students even raised their hands when I asked if any of them wanted to be a software engineer.

thoughts

it seems that students don’t really use that much technology. i don’t think that many of them constantly chat online. and when i asked about things like myspace not much of them raised their hands or seemed really interested. in fact maybe 3 students said they did things with html. so, i’m not too sure how tech-savy the average student is. my guess is that they don’t use the computer nearly as much as college or even college-grads.

but, nearly all the students could relate to video games. main stream video games is probably our best way of connecting with students. but, it is a difficult thing to pitch because a “video game programmer” isn’t necessarily the best job in our industry.

my company's hawaii food bank drive

2008-05-16T11:41:00.003-10:00

for the past three years, i've been helping to organize a food bank drive at my company. from my estimations, i think we raised about 2,300 pounds of food!

from the start, we had an idea of buying our can goods cause a lot of the engineers didn't really have a lot of spare can goods lying around in their homes. so we raised some money and went to costco. we did some calculations and bought a lot of vienna sausage, because it had the most weight per cost and it was a meat product. the food bank has a top five wish list canned meats first, then canned meals, then soups, vegetables, then fruits.

anyway, so the first year (2006) we bought 50 something cases of vienna sausage. here is what that looks like. being engineers we had a lot of fun making different formations of the vienna sausage blocks. and no it didn't fall down.

this year we tried to kick it up a notch. and we did! we raised a record amount of money and i think we'll actually donate much more food than previous years. but, food is a little more expensive this year. for example, vienna sausage went from $6.44 to $6.99. anyway, like i said we raised a lot more money this year. so we bought vienna sausage, pork and beans, tuna, soup, stewed tomatoes, and corn. we piled all that up into two trucks and brought it back to our office. here is some pics from this years food drive

its always a lot of fun the organize these sorts of things. the great thing is that i'm always really blown away by my co-workers generosity and willingness to help. i have some of the best co-workers ever (and i'm not just saying that)! our employee culture of giving and helping is really quite inspiring!

here are some hunger facts from hawaii food bank

The Hawaii Foodbank network serves 131,862 different people annually

The needy face tough choices: 32% have had to choose between food and rent or mortgage bills, 27% between food and medicine or medical needs .

48% of all clients served by the Hawaii Foodbank are classified by the U.S. Government's official food security scales as experiencing hunger.

Among households with children, 67% are food insecure, including 31% who are experiencing hunger.

25% of all households served had one or more children under age 18 (32,965 children); 6% of all households served had one or more children age 5 or under (6,581 children).

visit http://www.hawaiifoodbank.org/ for more information on how you can help. its really not that hard to do and i hope other companies big and small will start their own food drive. not to mention its a lot of fun.

next year, i'm going to shoot for 2,000 pounds of food. not sure how i'm going to pull that off, but its a great goal! wanna help?

should have tried to do the android competition

2008-05-15T01:05:00.004-10:00

one of my co-workers sent me this blog today; Google Hands Out $1.25 Million To 50 Android App Winners (GOOG). the winers were apparently just announced. and although i haven't been following this competition i did spend a little while thinking about an idea last year.

my idea went something like this (a chat log from december 2007):

aaron: i had an idea.
aaron: its called browse
aaron: browse is a software and hardware system that has a barcode scanner that will help you browse while shopping.
aaron: like a book in borders. scan it in and see if your friends read it.
aaron: or see if it had good reviews.
aaron: or see if other people that liked that book liked another one.
austen: so a in-store amazon
aaron: browse is a system that can revolutionize shopping at the mall.
aaron: yes
austen: who shops at the mall anymore
austen: haha
aaron: haha. i always like going to borders.
aaron: real books are cooler to browse.
...
aaron: anyway browse is for more than just borders.
austen: yah that would be cool if it was for everything
aaron: browse opens up mall shopping to technology.
austen: i usually shop for clothes at stores. if there was something that told me that whoever bought this shirt from prototype also bought this other shirt from information i would drive there and buy it
austen: just cause its hard to find shirts that have cool designs that i like
aaron: haha.. or a brand name was also sold at stores x,y,z
aaron: and it costs
austen: ooo what if it was on your phone
austen: everyone has phones
aaron: android!

after sending me the winners announcement. my friend was quick to point out the first winner; Android Scan.

Scan is an Android application that finds pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode. Here are some key features that make Scan stand out:

* Automatic barcode recognition using onboard phone camera using ZXing
* Shows CD, DVD, or book cover along with detailed reviews from Amazon.com* Searches over a dozen stores, both online and brick+mortar
** Highlights brick+mortar stores that are nearby, with option to call the store or get directions
** Links to online storefronts to buy online from the phone
* Tracklisting for CDs, along with option to play sample tracks right on phone
* For books, searches local libraries to see if they have a copy

he even has a video of what his system does. go check it out.

anyway, i was a little bummed knowing that my idea was really similar and knowing that i could have won 25k and potentially 100k or 250k. but, after 10 seconds of that i quickly remembered a post on software by rob; A Fool’s Bargain: Building Software for Free (or, An Idea Ain’t Worth Squat). here is the paragraph i immediately thought of:

Every one of the good developers I know have tens if not hundreds of ideas for software products…it’s not a lack of ideas, but a lack of time that keeps us from building and marketing them ourselves.

anyway... i guess its kinda of cool that similar idea won a google android prize. i don't know. it is interesting though.

wonderful paradox

2008-05-08T23:22:00.006-10:00

i read the one minute sales person by spencer johnson a long time ago in college. and i just recently found it in the back of my shelf while doing a little cleaning. it's a very short book so i decided to read it again. the book is full of little motivational sayings like:

I remember Thomas Watson, IBM's founder and chairman of the board, saying that in order to survive and succeed, organizations and individuals must have a sound set of beliefs on which to base all policies and actions. To meet the challenges of a changing world, we must be prepared to change everything except these beliefs.

i really like this book, not because of the sale person advice, but because of one section in the book that talks about the 'wonderful paradox'. here is a couple paragraphs leading up to the part i like:

"Making money is important. It is one of my goals. But it is not my purpose in life - nor even in selling. [said the teacher]"

"Making money is not your purpose in selling [asked the student]? That's hard to follow. Why else would I be out there?"

"I suggest that when you can answer that question, your whole career will turn around. It is the lesson of The Wonderful Paradox."

here is that lesson:

The Wonderful Paradox

I have more fun and enjoy
more financial success

when I stop trying to
get what I want

and start helping other people
get what they want

this section of the book really inspired me to think of my purpose. and it really puts things in perspective for me and makes whatever i do more meaningful and fun. whether its writing software or helping at a STEM event, i strive to put people first. and sometimes you have to think of the box or look in places where people don't necessarily pay attention to. this concept is somewhat similar to my outward thinking post a little while ago.

the strange thing is that i'm not sure if recommend this book to other people, because i'm not sure it would be that meaningful to other people. i'm not sure why i feel this way; maybe i think most people will think its corny and lame. but, it really makes a lot of sense to me. help people and you will succeed.

engineering banquet

2008-05-07T10:23:00.000-10:00

wednesday april 16, 2008 was the engineering banquet (i know thats a while ago, but i didn't get around to writing this post. better late than never). even though i'm an ICS alumni, i'm lucky enough to be able to attend this great event for the past three years because my company sponsors a table. this years banquet was quite special, because it is the college's centennial year! a 100 years of educating hawaii's students.

this year's banquet was quite impressive. there were over a 100 tables of 10 people; for you mathematicians out there, yes that is over a thousand people. one thousand people supporting and celebrating the college. it was awesome to see that many people that cared about the college. even the guest speakers were quite informative and entertaining. they were all associated with the college either alumni or worked closely with the department. one thing that was striking was that it was really obvious the guest speakers had a lot of aloha for their college, professors, and students. they had a lot of pride and appreciation for the college. i thought that was really great.

The College put together a great book celebrating the last 100 years of engineering education. i want to highlight this paragraph:

A strength of the College has traditionally been the wide range of activities offered to the student body. There are numerous open houses, career days when companies come to recruit, and competitions. Many students have lasting memories of competing in the concrete canoe, micro-mouse, human powered vehicle, mini-Baja, Formula SAE, and nano-satellite projects. Open houses and school visits acquaint high school students with College of Engineering opportunities. Some 1,000 alumni maintain ties with the College by attending the annual banquet.

engineering students sure do have a lot of opportunities. and i think it actually pays off. i've talked to a lot of engineering students in interviews and career days, and its obvious that the students gain a lot of very valuable experience. and these projects are real and competitive within the college and more importantly competitive against other students from the mainland. those skills are really noticeable in conversation and in interviews. the college's hard work is definitely paying off.

as i was sitting in the banquet my engineering friends turned to me and said, what about your department (referring to the ICS department). i explained well ICS is a lot newer and smaller. i told them that we had our first alumni lunch this year and i don't think we have an alumni association. ICS had its 40th anniversary and COE had its 100th. ICS is a department and COE is a college. i silenced the table for a little bit, but then an engineer rebutted, "the college of engineering didn't have these cool opportunities when i was in school. all of this, these competitions, student groups, etc are all relatively new. so what is the difference between the two?" hm... i didn't know how to respond to that. i don't know what the difference is. maybe instead of supporting five competitions, maybe the ics department can just support one; or one every two years. i don't know... anyway, enough about that...

back to the engineering banquet. this year's banquet was pretty awesome. actually, its pretty inspiring. i think thats why i like to go every year. the only thing that the college of engineering needs to work on is the singing of hawaii aloha. ever year they close the event with that and every year it seems like on a small percentage actually knows the song. i just find that to be funny...

STEM education

2008-05-06T06:24:00.001-10:00

i had a conversation with a co-worker yesterday about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. i've been learning more about STEM in hawaii and how i can help. i wanted to share some postings with my co-worker that are related to STEM and even supporting UH, so i'll just put them all here:

interview with lynn fujioka

showing hawaii high school students cool tricks with the wiimote

lacy veach day of discovery

ics alumni association

making students awesome

ics alumni lunch

my talk at the honors program

why you need to do a honors thesis

we had an interesting conversation about STEM. the bottom line is that Hawaii needs to put more kids into STEM programs. the problem, is that no one really knows how to get the kids interested. well, after i thought about it for a little while, maybe getting kids interested isn't really the problem.

i just read this Computing Group Strives to Get Teenagers Into Computer Careers. there isn't anything of note in the article except this funny paragraph:

The two-year project will use thousands of computer scientists, as well as parents, teachers, and counselors to spread the word that computer scientists work in a variety of settings, not just technology companies. The campaign also seeks to dispel the stereotype that computer scientists are loners and that the acumen required to tackle the field is too daunting.

haha. thats funny. we are geeks (maybe not loners) and computer science is a daunting field. hm... maybe that paragraph isn't that funny after all. i'm not sure, the problem is solved by just getting more kids interested. i'm not sure the problem is solve by just getting more high school students to sign up from computer science courses. in my opinion, we'll have what we have now - a large percentage of the students flunking out of the intro level classes, when they realize that creating a video game is really really really really hard. maybe getting kids interested isn't the problem, maybe its keeping them interested, moving them forward, and preparing them for STEM at the college level. its easy to "spread the word", but its hard to sit there and teach, mentor, and provide real STEM education.

UPDATE we had a big discussion about STEM at lunch today. one thing that came up was, hawaii doesn't seem to have enough demand for STEM jobs. where are all the engineering jobs in Hawaii? i have no idea. in fact, engineers these days probably make less money than engineers on the mainland and then there are the cost of living. hm... i don't know.. i guess the discussion basically led to us agreeing that we don't know what the goal for STEM is. is it to have more students go into STEM degree programs in college or is it to convert students that are college bound to STEM degrees, or is it something else? we have no idea. maybe i need to research that a little...

to estimate features you have to measure features

2008-05-05T22:03:00.006-10:00

i just read an article from 6th sense analytics. i've been talking a little bit about putting metrics at the task level in another email thread. i thought i share this posting with the entire group (so you can also start reading 6th sense's blogs). anyway, here is what the article said:

We all know that developers can't estimate time, don't we? But why not? Developers are very smart. We deal with abstract concepts every day. You'd think we'd be able to learn this skill over time. But somehow we never get better at work estimation. Some people attribute it to a developer's innate optimism, and that's part of it. But there's a more important factor here.

There's an old saying... "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it". And as Einstein put it "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result".

Here are you steps to improving your estimation attempts.
1) Estimate smaller (more granular) features
2) Always look back at estimates vs. actuals
3) Get your feedback as fast as possible

and i would agree. the article is focusing on time estimates, but i think one could utilize this technique for other metrics. one of the useful skills that i have been learning as i gain more experience is being able to think about and analyze the impacts of a new task, feature, improvement, or bug. i am learning to be able to evaluate the situation first before just diving into code. i do this by learning the necessary APIs, grounding the problem, and tackling small pieces at time. one thing that i feel is lacking in my quest to improve in this area is software metrics. i can use historical (previous task) data to help guide my planning; even if the planning is a few minutes.

to be honest, i'm not sure it would be super useful. but it sure sounds useful. it seems that it just increases the fidelity that you have to make decisions and learn. i really think that putting metrics next to tasking will be useful to my development process. tasking is very important in the commercial world; it drives the development process. we don't have the luxury of saying, "oh, coverage is low lets do some testing". testing needs to be in-process during our task work.

there are all sorts of things that we can do with tasking. for example, "hm.... i wonder if someone in the company (on another project) has seen this sort of bug before." anyway, thats a different issue; and something we haven't talked about in a while.

anyway, we have to start measuring features before we can estimate features.

UPDATE: this posting is what i kinda meant in driving your project with hackystat.

my public shared items

2008-04-29T22:46:00.002-10:00

if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that i really like the idea of sharing information and knowledge with people. here are some past posts about sharing with technology:

more people are sharing

outward thinking

hackystat and my outboard brain

i got 2 people to use google reader today

re: Encouraging people to contribute knowledge

twitter, sharing, hackystat ideas

no one is sharing

(wow that is a lot of things about sharing....) anyway, i wanted to revisit what i wrote in google reader process improvement. i started to adopt my proposal into my google reading process and have actually expanded to areas other than "p-google". here are my complete list of my public shared items:

my shared stuff - this feed comes from google's share stuff mechanism. it is basically a collection of the "loose pages", postings that i read outside of google reader, that i like.

anyway, those public shares are the articles, blogs, and web sites that i like. for some reason i like to try to stay on top of this reading and sharing thing. i guess it is addicting and becomes like a habit.

re: JSR-666 Extension: Significant whitespace

2008-04-28T22:45:00.004-10:00

i just read JSR-666 Extension: Significant whitespace, and while i get the JSR-666 (The Java Specification Request from Hell), i'm not sure if i understand if the posting was a joke or not.

In many software development teams that I've worked on, code reviews are done by printing out the code to be reviewed. This is in turn read and scribbled on with red ink by developers suffering from a delusion that their coding standard is better than mine. An example of some such code:
public boolean equals(Object o)
{
   try
   {
      if (Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.MONTH) == 1
            && Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.DATE) == 29)
      {
         return true;
      }
      else
      {
         Thread.sleep(10000);
         return new Random().nextBoolean();
      }
   }
   catch (Throwable t)
   {
      // Something must have gone wrong, try again
      return new Random().nextBoolean();
   }
}
When reading the above code, the obvious problem that jumps out is that it contains no less than ten curly braces. When printed for a code review, this is a waste of valuable ink. The squids of the world have been working overtime to provide the ink needed to print out all the code that needs to be reviewed, it is about time we gave them a break. I'd therefore like to propose to the JSR-666 expert group an extension that curly braces be replaced with significant whitespace.

The previous code example would become:
public boolean equals(Object o)
   try
      if (Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.MONTH) == 1
            && Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.DATE) == 29)
         return true;
      else
         Thread.sleep(10000);
         return new Random().nextBoolean();
   catch (Throwable t)
      // Something must have gone wrong, try again
      return new Random().nextBoolean();
A fine piece of code that would pass any code review.

This feature will also solve a number of other problems, for example, it will eliminate the age old argument over whether braces belong on a newline or not. It will also force developers to write neatly structured code.

This feature will not require any JVM changes, but will require compiler changes. Existing code may need to be changed, however, if the existing code was well formatted to begin with, it should suffice to simply run the following command in vim: :%s/\{|\}//g

i guess its april fools again. its actually funny cause this dude works at atlassian. so, my guess is that this crazy blog posting was actually some sort of marketing ploy to market crucible. (so, i guess i might have to explain why its funny.... so, its funny cause i hope that atlassian people; people that develop software development tools, use their own products and not paper code review). thats the only conclusion that i can come up with. i guess it the marketing ploy worked cause i'm on my blog talking about crucible. anyway, crucible looks like a pretty good tool and we plan on giving it a serious try.

anyway, sorry for this boring post. i just thought his posting was funny.

ICS classes sound interesting

2008-04-28T18:21:00.003-10:00

FYI - the ICS department is going to have a couple of interesting courses next semester. here are a couple of the interesting ones:

1) ICS 481: Intro to Computer Graphics - I hear that someone from pixar is going to teach this course (i don't have any evidence though)
2) ICS 491: Special Topics with Dr. Ikehara - I think this course is going to be about robtics
3) ICS 491: Social Informatics, technology for collaboration and online communities with Dr. Suthers (see the write up below) - I'm not sure but I think Dr. Suthers taught this for his graduate level students this semester.
4) ICS 432: Concurrent Programming - sounds like cool stuff
5) ICS 632: High Performance Computing

I heard a few students talking about delaying their graduation because of excitement surrounding the robotics and graphics classes. i think its great that the students are really excited about the classes they are taking. when i went to school the exciting class was ICS 415 intro to web programming; we didn't have high performance computing, robotics, etc. so, i'm really glad that the students get to learn about these interesting topics. it makes learning a lot more fun!

and of course, the class that i always recommend ICS 413 is being offered (interview with randy, make students awesome).
here are the other courses that UH ICS is offering next semester (Fall 2008 Class Availability); go check it out.

re: High-tech jobs growing in Hawaii

2008-04-22T00:36:00.002-10:00

here is an article on hawaii's tech jobs. basically, there is a bunch of good news:

A trade group report being released today ranks Hawaii among the top five states in the nation in growth of technology jobs.

With 6.3 percent growth in tech-industry jobs between 2005 and 2006, Hawaii ranked fourth nationwide

Hawaii also ranked in the top five states with the fastest growth rate in tech wages since 2001.

Between 2001 and 2006, Hawaii added 1,100 jobs, with most of the growth in the latter three years. In 2006, there were a total of 14,902 high-tech jobs and 1,387 high-tech establishments with a total payroll of $1 billion.

but there were not so good stuff:

Hawaii ranked No. 46 in high-tech employment and No. 26 in high-tech average wages. A total of 30 out of every 1,000 employees in the private sector in Hawaii are employed by high-tech firms.

Hawaii, however, ranks near the bottom when it comes to research & development per capita (at No. 38) and venture capital investments (No.45).

what does that all mean?
it means the industry is growing a lot. but, we are 46th in the nation (well, the study didn't say if that was a per capita number). our wages are increasing, but we are still in the middle ranking 26 in the nation.

and.... we aren't doing that much research and development and VC work.

so i guess that means there is a lot of IT work here in Hawaii (nothing against IT work).

my 100th post

2008-04-17T00:02:00.007-10:00

this is my 100th posting to this blog. i started this blog way back in august 2007 while i was on two week vacation from work. my blog started out as a engineering log about my hackystat development but quickly morphed into something else. i'm actually really surprised that i made it this far.

the turning point was when i was recruited by google (i'll write a separate blog about that). it was a time of uncertainty for me. the fear of wanting to leave hawaii for "bigger" opportunities re-focused me. i was a bit confused at this point. honestly, i was a little upset that i was even considering moving away from hawaii. after the google opportunity faded, i focused my attention on the students and the high tech industry.

with this new goal, i set out to make a difference. not knowing how to go about doing this i started writing things like, why you NEED to do a Honors Thesis and we need a Fog Creek in Hawaii. i think at this point dr. johnson sent my blog around to his students. another turning point is when i visited the local office of 21csi for their "grand opening". during that event i really tried to do some networking to learn more about hawaii's high tech industry. the result of that effort was meeting ian kitajima. a week later i wrote a post about knowing your industry. i learned a lot about the dual use group. but, i didn't really know what to do with that information.

for the next few months i worked on hackstat stuff and tried to help write posts that students would like. here are some examples:

twitter, sharing, hackystat ideas

work on your soft skills

why i work on hackystat

re: blogging, open-source software, and rockstars!

think about things other than code

don't be afraid to speak up

outward thinking

student portfolios

finding what you are passionate about

those are just some examples. but, i found that i really like blogging about things that i actually helped in. for example, lacy veach and helping kids with scratch. or going to career fairs; i love going to career fairs cause you can talk to the students and help them. and my wiimote demonstration was a lot of fun! talking with the honors students was also very enlightening. and most of all i like helping to make students awesome!

i had the idea of helping students learn more about the people in our industry. hawaii has a lot of great people! i wanted to show the world how awesome our people were. so, i started my blog interview posts. to date, i've done 7 interviews.

interview with lynn fujioka - this interview was really successful and got a lot of attention from the techhui group. hopefully a lot more people know about lynn's efforts.

interview with randy cox

interview with ian kitajima - this interview was pretty inspiring and it was cool to see it posted on oceanit's website

interview with dan leuck

interview with russ tokuhama

interview with ryan k

interview with austen

i learned a lot from doing these interviews. hopefully, people read them and got to know these awesome people.

those of you that actually follow my blog, have probably noticed that i tend to think a lot about a lot of different things; hackystat, the environment, being socially conscious, hawaii's tech industry, sharing information, and other random things.

a hundred posts is a lot. and i really learned a lot about what i value from actually forcing myself to write. hopefully, other people thought it was valuable too. i have no idea. its really hard to what i do helps, so i don't really concern myself with trying to please other people. but.... i have been keeping track of my analytics with google. here are some my very low numbers (but i don't really care about popularity);

moving forward i will continue on my quest to help people. i know that is a general statement. don't worry about me. i'll figure it out... i'm at a good point in my life and i really feel lucky to be able to do what i do. i'm appreciative of so many things and have the overwhelming urge to help people. i suppose my blog is supposed to be a small representation of that.

let me know what you think by adding a comment!

interview with randy cox

2008-04-14T21:22:00.006-10:00

randy is the engineering manager at pukoa scientific. and he was one of my first managers at another company. he actually was the one that convinced me to come work for that company. he is a great guy. he was very supportive of my ideas and i could tell that he really cared. thats very important to me. to be honest, randy's sincerity is really one of the reasons why i chose to come work for him. did i mention he is a great guy; no really he is a great guy.

What inspired me to get back into programming?

My drive to get back into programming was my attempt to improve myself. It could be a mid-life crisis thing :). I am bored of management, and wanted to excel in something new. Personally, I am happiest when I am coding. I think good programming skills make you a better manager, and managerial experience make you a better programmer. So I was very excited to take this class.

What are some of the lessons I learned about myself from taking the class?

First, I learned what I have forgotten, that I really enjoy coding and really enjoyed learning. I also received training in patience. It was difficult working in teams when procrastination is so prevalent. In addition, although my background is in Electrical Engineering and I was intending to study Signal Processing, I have learned that Computer Science is what really makes me excited.

What insights additional insights did you gain from the class, because you were a manager?

I believe, ICS 613 Software Engineering's core teachings is managerial . During my 18 year managerial career, I have been in constant battle with software depreciation (and losing). I actually resigned to the fact the software depreciation was inevitable in large companies. Everyone had there own way of coding, people who did not understand the overall architecture created their own designs within subsystems, or people just coding things arbitrarily more complex then needed. The task of controlling and enforcing was too difficult or unfeasible to keep the code base "clean". Once the legacy code base reaches the point of no return = "spaghetti", your staff end up living in purgatory, you fight fire after fire, you build band-aids, the quality of your work diminishes and your brightness engineers start walking. You never get the chance to "rewrite" the application because it can never compete with nifty new marketing features. Look at any of the big companies out there and you will see large legacy applications maintained by legacy experts in archaic languages (COBOL, BASIC, etc.).

Enter Aaron and other alumni from ICS. I got a taste of the set of QA tools now available. I learned the principles of continuous re-factoring. I found that today's software engineering methods may actually eliminate this age old nemesis of mine. I think today's students don't really understand the value of this. I can see how students who understand the principles of this class may become disillusioned working for bigger companies that do things old-school.

What lessons have you adopted from class into your work?

I pretty much would like to adopt the entire software process from this class at work. We are slowly implementing these processes, but there are a few challenges to overcome. Finding the balance between improving the process from my point of view versus micromanaging the software manager takes some finesse. Also, things need to be staged (instructions, tools, etc.) in a systematic way to avoid chaos.

You mentioned, "I think today's students don't really understand the value of this." I'm not sure today's students learn that much about that. Let's dig deeper into this area.

I've said for years that the classes that Dr. Johnson teaches should be mandatory in the ICS curriculum. Learning the tools and processes he teaches in his class are mandatory in any software development. Do you think the core teachings of Software Engineering should be required in the ICS curriculum?

Definitely, I really think that this separates the “professional programmer” from the “amateur programmer”. It’s so easy to pick up a language and have fun programming something. It takes hard work and discipline to make that code “industrial strength”. Unit tests, constant refactoring, javadoc, etc. can be tedious for the lazy programmer, but critical in achieving quality.

[end interview and some of aaron's thoughts]
randy is a hacker. that is so obvious. i'm totally stoked that he has found his way back to hacking! i totally see what he's saying with

Finding the balance between improving the process from my point of view versus micromanaging the software manager takes some finesse. Also, things need to be staged (instructions, tools, etc.) in a systematic way to avoid chaos.

thats really good insight. i just wonder what that finesse is.

i want to revisit my last question about requiring software engineering in the ics curriculum. Here are some of my (aaron's) thoughts about that. A professor could give a presentation about the state of the art software development tools. And even give the students an assignment to download, install, and play with them. But, I think that would almost be useless. Learning doesn't work that way. You need constant interaction with the subject matter to gain experience and insights. Thus, its rare that classroom assignments does the trick. Class projects are a lot better, because it allows the student to work on something, refactor it, be evaluated, and try again. Yet, class projects has its limitations too. So, it seems that students really need to to theses, work in research labs, dissertations, etc to get the experience they need to really learn. That's reality i guess, but seems like a shame. In regards to software engineering principles, I'm tired of the software being ignored in "other classes". (i'm not picking on any professor here) For example, lets say we have a programming class project in a database class. Would the professor require the class to use a configuration management tool? Or have a continuous build? I doubt it. The problem that I see is that the core principles of Software Engineering are only important some times. that works vice versa too. when in a software engineering class we should be aware of the "right" thing to do for, lets say, data structures and algorithms.

I remember when I was taking a multimedia for the web programming class, the professor asked us a Big-O Notation question. We all looked around confused, saying to our selves "um excuse me but we are supposed to be learning about web programming". No one answered the question. In fact, I'm not even sure any one knew the answer. I had no clue. The professor was astonished, because he obviously thought that was an easy question. Looking back at that event and knowing that I still suck at Big-O questions, I realize that I'm not good at that because we were forced to only care during one or two classes. And we are indirectly forced by all the other classes to not to care about Big-O.

anyway, i guess i'm making a plea for more synergy across disciplines in the classroom.

update
i just remembered that randy gave a great talk at the ics dual-use-industry internship presentation. actually, a few students came up to me and asked if 413/613 was a required class to work at our companies. i said no, but it certainly helps A LOT. :)

ics alumni association

2008-04-08T23:50:00.001-10:00

i've been pushing for more student activities in the ICS department for a long time. and its only in the last year or so that i've figured out that its basically up to the alumni association to provide students with opportunities. too bad we don't have one...

i've been learning about how the college of engineering works a little. and i've seen the great fund raising that the college and alumni association support. these fund raising dollars seem to go to a few places; (1) student activities and (2) outreach to younger kids, and (3) to student scholarships, etc. of course, i'm not exactly sure. but, i do know that a lot of what makes that possible is volunteer time that the students and faculty put in to make a lot of the events possible. for example, i was really impressed with the college of engineering junior engineering expo and asked on COE coordinator what they do to make those events possible. she said:

Donations help assist with the costs associated with these events, but the dedication of our staff, faculty and especially our engineering students to volunteering for this event really makes the event happen.

The engineering student clubs each coordinate one of the games so they create the rules, and set up, run, and judge the competition on event day.

We take care everything else - coordinating with the teachers, logistics involving equipment needs and organizing volunteers, awards, and anything else that needs to be done.

wow! so it is pretty cool how the colleges and departments unite like that. their student projects are also really impressive is the student projects like micro mouse, cube satellite, bridge making, and the baja racer. whats great is that the college provides the students with an opportunity to compete against other schools doing the same projects. that's pretty neat. you can learn a lot more about all their activities at the engineering banquet. it usually is a really fantastic night. its quite amazing to see so many people supporting the college and more importantly the students.

the ics department has those capabilities. we have a lot of great professors, students and faculty. i know we can reach that goal one day. i just takes some initiative to get the ball rolling. so, i'm trying to start an ics alumni association of some sort. here is the startings of our ics alumni association. and here is my first plea for help:

Greetings,

Welcome to the first ever UH ICS Alumni mailing list email. We have a small group, only because I actually know you and your email addresses. But, the plan is for that all to change.

There are a lot we can do, but it seems that we must do it on our own. But, I do have an informal plan. Here it is.

1) Learn from other alumni groups. I have a contact that is a part of the administration of the College of Engineering Alumni group. I hope to learn a lot about how they organize things. Or maybe even borrow a few things.
2) Learn about how to integrate with the ICS department.

thats the entire plan so far. The goal of this all is to help the department but more importantly help the ICS students. We can do that by:

1) mentoring
2) providing industry knowledge to the department and students
3) funding student research
4) funding student programming competitions and other student activities
5) not sure what else goes here, but it will definitely center around the students some how.

help is definitely welcome! if you'd like to help me, just let me know.

thanks, Aaron

join our group!

interview with lynn fujioka

2008-03-30T23:20:00.001-10:00

To all who support STEM education in Hawaii: Take a look in your Honolulu Advertiser today for the third annual STEM Hawaii, a special supplemental edition, published by The Honolulu Advertiser's Newspaper in Education Program, in partnership with isisHawaii.

Led by main sponsor, The Women in Technology Project/MEDB, this annual compendium brings community partners together to showcase successful science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs currently offered throughout the State of Hawaii.

This year's edition was also "unveiled" at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in Boston this week by Jeff Piontek, HIDOE State Science Specialist.

If you are interested in learning more about STEM Hawaii, please contact Lynn Fujioka at info@isishawaii.org. Mahalo!

i met Lynn last year and i can barely keep up with the millions of things that she does. the amazing thing is that nearly all of those things are for the betterment of the children of hawaii. and that is really awesome.

lynn is the executive director of isisHawaii. in this interview we learn much more about lynn, isisHawaii, her other organizations, and what really drives her.

here are some pictures from the various events that lynn and her organizations support:

Can you give our readers a short background information about yourself and the isisHawaii organization? Also, what motivates you to work so hard for this cause?

First of all, Happy Easter! Thanks for inviting me to participate in your blog.

isisHawaii is a non-profit organization that offers mentoring programs and connects industry to education. Our vision is to help provide the knowledge and skills necessary for our children to live and work successfully in Hawaii.

Since 2003, isisHawaii's primary focus has been on developing programs and collaborating with a network of stakeholders to excite students about science- and math-based fields.

What motivates me to work so hard for this cause? The realization that this nation -- once a world powerhouse and leader of industry and innovation -- has been losing its edge to emerging countries, particularly in the critical areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This loss is not just a national pride issue. America is not producing enough qualified graduates to replace the huge numbers of medical professionals, scientists, technologists and engineers leaving the field in the next 5-10 years (primarily due to retirement). It is already negatively impacting our healthcare system, innovation industries, education and national security. It affects us all.

The inspiration and preparation of students to consider entering these fields begins at a very early age and requires a sustained effort
throughout the child's education all the way through to workforce. It is not just the educational system's problem. Parents, administrators, legislators, industry, academia, media and the community at large should be focused on this crisis and how to work together towards solutions.

It's a long road and a very broad one. My hope is that isisHawaii can play a small role in helping to strengthen this pipeline

.

That is a very noble cause. I really identify with the vision; "Our vision is to help provide the knowledge and skills necessary for our children to live and work successfully in Hawaii."

Let's focus on some of the specifics a little.

What are some of the unique challenges that Hawaii faces?

From a STEM education perspective: Our multi-ethnic population provides us with the best of everything. It also creates challenges in education where these differences, from a national point of view, are not necessarily taken into consideration. In some cases, it is divisive. We are also geographically "isolated" (both from the Mainland and as an island state) and do not have direct access to many of the resources that Mainland school systems have (internships, funding, mentors, etc.). Travel expenses can be prohibitive, even from island to island, and often times prevent schools from participating in some very effective programs.

What is Hawaii doing right with respect to your vision? And, what can we do better?

I am seeing a lot of positive collaboration going on right now in STEM education. We live in a very small community and it really does "take a whole village to raise a child." The more we can work together, the better off everyone will be. Isn't that what we try to teach our children? Then, we must first set the example.

In your opinion, what is Hawaii's technology goal? Meaning, do you think that Hawaii wants to compete with places like Silicon Valley?

The business climate needs to be attractive to investors and innovators in order to grow the industry and diversify our economy. I do believe there is potential. Geographically, we are in a prime spot for global participation. I don't think it's a matter of choice anymore. It is a national imperative.

Thats great!

What are some specific examples of the "positive collaboration"?

A few that I am honored to be involved in include the recent surge in participation in scholastic robotics programs. Government, higher ed, industry, and like-minded organizations are banding together to support these programs from kindergarten through college with program coordination, mentoring, curriculum integration and funding.

The Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii has developed many successful outreach initiatives and continues to expand its scope. One highly successful program from the Maui Economic Development Board, Inc.'s Women in Technology Project is Project EAST (Environmental and Spatial Technologies). This program offers an in-curriculum project-based elective for middle and high school students. EAST provides the students with advanced technologies, like GPS/GIS and 3D animation software, to help solve real challenges in their own communities. Students work alongside community partners and industry mentors to fulfill program objectives. Already in 9 Neighbor Island schools since 2000, EAST is currently in the process of expanding to 4 more schools on Oahu.

Another opportunity that brings many key stakeholders to the table is our partnership with the Honolulu Advertiser's Newspaper in Education Program and the STEM Hawaii project. This compendium showcases many of the successful STEM programs currently offered throughout the State. It has been a great tool to spark discussion and further collaboration, in addition to serving as a public awareness campaign. Plugging our third annual edition look for its release on Wednesday, March 26th.

What kind of help do you need from industry?

Students always benefit from meeting local role models and working with mentors in fields of their interests. Being on the "front line" and working very closely with school administrators, teachers and students, isisHawaii can help connect industry and education in mutually beneficial partnerships. Particularly in advanced technologies, students need to know what is available in Hawaii and what they have to look forward to.

If I gave 10 million dollars to isisHawaii what would you do with the money?

A $10M endowment would help build an international STEM hub here in Hawaii. Our students need to start thinking globally and connecting them to other states and nations would be wonderful. International exchanges, teacher education, student enrichment, hands-on experiences and real-world application. Think tank for kids. What a concept! They could teach us a thing or two.

Thanks for the great responses. I think that wraps up another great interview. One last thing, can you quickly talk about Women in Technology?

Of course. In addition to running isisHawaii, I am also the Oahu Project Manager for The Women in Technology (WIT) Project. WIT is a demonstration project administered by the Maui Economic Development Board, Inc. and is funded by the U.S. Departments of Labor, Education and Agriculture. It is a statewide workforce development initiative to encourage women, girls and other under represented minorities in to science- and math-based fields. Since 2003, Leslie Wilkins (WIT Program Director) has been my inspiration and mentor, as well as providing isisHawaii with its first seed-grant to launch the One+One E-mentoring Program.

Actually, as I was reviewing our discussions I wanted to learn more about the "statewide workforce development initiative to encourage women, girls and other under represented minorities in to science- and math-based fields. "

I don't know much about this area. Can you give us a short intro to the problem and your solutions?

The demand for qualified scientists and engineers is huge, however, the numbers of women and under represented minorities entering the workforce in STEM areas...except for medicine...is still very low. For example, the percentages of women graduating in engineering has remained relatively unchanged for many years and is somewhere in the low 20's. (Hawaii numbers reflect the national average.) There is even a lower percentage that actually end up entering the workforce as engineers.

Women, ethnic minorities (e.g., Native Hawaiian/Alaskan, Pacific Islander) and people with disabilities represent the majority of the U.S. workforce and and remain the largest untapped market for science and engineering.

The drop off in interest, for girls at least, seems to be at a very early age -- somewhere around upper elementary and lower middle school. With positive intervention, like mentoring and hands-on project-based programs, girls engage and excel in math- and science-related activities. In fact, at that point, attraction isn't a matter of gender or ethnicity. Mentors and project-based hands-on activities engage students from every socio-economic background...regardless of academic standing. When students are shown the relevance of what they're learning in the classroom (i.e., rigor) to application, retention and interest increase dramatically. This effort, of course, must be sustained throughout the student's education until workforce entry. Even upon entering the workforce, mentoring programs continue to play an important role in the ultimate success of the individual.

Excited educators also make a huge difference. Students tend to take their lead from teachers who embrace technology and science. That's where private/public partnerships are critical -- where we, community supporters, can help enable our educators with current information and opportunities for relevant application. Programs, like isisHawaii and Women in Technology, are dedicated to connecting local industry and other like-minded organizations and institutions in support of STEM education in our schools. We offer teacher workshops, after-school activities, in-curriculum and mentoring programs designed to foster and sustain student interest in STEM, from elementary school to college, all the way into the workforce.

[end interview]

if you'd like to learn more about what lynn does please see the following resources:

isisHawaii

The mentoring gap for women in science

Society of Women Engineers Hawaii

there is so much more i want to learn about what lynn does. most of all i want to get involved and help. i hope that you are inspired to do the same too.

google reader process improvement

2008-03-28T22:48:00.007-10:00

today my coworker came up to me and said, "aaron, you share too much stuff".

i replied, "well, a lot of it isn't for you. and by the way, i don't necessarily share for an audience. sometimes i have a specific person in mind that i want to share it with. sometimes my shares are defining who i am and what i like."

he replied, "okay, i understand that, but it is still too much for me. maybe the system is broken."

i said, "you are absolutely right, the system (google reader) is flawed. i work around it by quickly reading the titles and excerpts of things and ignoring a lot of stuff. but, it would be better if google reader allowed you to organize entries in some way. sorry, but i don't know how to do that in google reader. you'll just have to shift through the many entries that we are sharing."

so i thought for a while about that and figured there is got to be a better way. and i think i found a partial solution. here is my proposal to improve our process of google reading sharing. (note that i'm not inventing any thing new here, i'm just bringing to light some of the google reader features that we are not taking advantage of).

step 1
use the tagging mechanism to tag things into different groups. for example, maybe i have something like:

google - articles from and about google that i like.

environment - i'm interesting in environment and learning more about global warming. maybe this category also contains things like space exploration. i'm interested in that too.

programming - my programming and technology shares; from stuff about friendfeed to stuff about static vs dynamic typing.

other

all kinds of other stuff that doesn't fit into categories.

so, in the following example i tag something as "p-google". i'll explain why i put the "p-" in front a little later.

step 2
once you tag an item, you can switch over to the tag settings. in the tag settings i security settings on the "p-google" from private to public.

step 3
by changing the tag "p-google" to public, google provides a separate public feed and public page. here is the page that will just contain the "p-google" stuff.

step 4
just keep in mind that the "p-google" feed is separate from the public one. you could share and label it. but that kind of defeats the purpose. anyway, i bring this up. because no one will know your special public tag feed exists unless you tell them.

this might address my coworkers concerns about making it easier to shift through the content in google reader. its not the best solution, because it removes things from the public shared feed and moves it to a separate one. well, we shall see how it goes. we are trying to figure out how to make this all work effectively and efficiently for our group.

what do you guys think? let me know if you have some better ideas.

more people are sharing

2008-03-20T01:18:00.005-10:00

there has been a slight change in culture in my circle; more people are actually google reading, twittering, and sharing. it is actually an interesting time right now as we all are trying to figure out how best to make this all work. there is no formula.

with that being said, let me revisit my triumphant post: i got 2 people to use google reader today. a lot of what i wrote still makes a lot of sense (i guess i didn't write it that long ago).

but, i do want to keep on reminding myself about the 10 second vignette of knowledge concept.

anyway, i'm totally psyched about the recent culture and tech change. yay! gotta get more people involved.

driving a project with hackystat

2008-03-19T23:32:00.003-10:00

in CSDL (the collaborative software development laboratory) we explored a permanent display of metrics in our telemetry wall. basically it was a control center for trends on a 9 monitor display. we played around with that for a little while but lost interest in it - it sat there for months without using it. i came up the idea of the telemetry wall 2.0, which made the telemetry wall a little more collaborative; not just metrics.

the UH ICS software engineering students are working on this idea in the informative workspace project. they are making good progress.

but, i had a realization the other day about what else i want to have on the informative workspace. i don't want the informative workspace to be just a useful tool in passing. i want it to be able to also drive the project. i want it to be the place where we go to give our scrum meetings. i don't think we are quite there yet. there are a lot of things to figure out. but, basically, i think the telemetry wall (or informational workspace as it is called now) can help focus on day to day management of the project. help project managers and the team manage their project by providing a more robust and higher fidelity set of information. i don't think we focused a lot on this in the past; telemetry and even trajectory focuses at a different set of problems.

you can't even ask them to push a button

2008-03-19T22:09:00.005-10:00

fogcreek put out a blog advertising their integration with timepost:

Timepost is a desktop time tracking solution that integrates with web-based project collaboration software. Timepost offers reliable offline time tracking for Basecamp, Cashboard, FogBugz, FreshBooks, Harvest, and Tick.

wow.. so that sounds like LEAP's time recorder to me. well, i'm not surprised by this little recorder thing. fogbugs has pushed their evidence-based scheduling (EBS) for a while now. within EBS is a timesheet function:

To get good results from EBS, always let FogBugz know what you’re working on, so it can fill out timesheets for you. All you have to do is click on the Working On menu when you start on a different task, and FogBugz takes care of the rest. It even stops the clock automatically at the end of the workday, and restarts it the next morning. You can preprogram your lunch breaks and vacations, too. That way you only need to tell FogBugz when you switch from one case to another.

haha. preprogram lunch breaks. omg. thats pretty funny. i wonder if the guys at fogcreek seen this paper:

You can't even ask them to push a button: Toward ubiquitous, developer-centric, empirical software engineering, Philip M. Johnson, The NSF Workshop for New Visions for Software Design and Productivity: Research and Applications, Nashville, TN, December, 2001.

Abstract: Collection and analysis of empirical software project data is central to modern techniques for improving software quality, programmer productivity, and the economics of software project development. Unfortunately, barriers surrounding the cost, quality, and utility of empirical project data hamper effective collection and application in many software development organizations.

This paper describes Hackystat, an approach to enabling ubiquitous collection and analysis of empirical software project data. The approach rests on three design criteria: data collection and analysis must be developer-centric rather than management-centric; it must be in-process rather than between-process, and it must be non-disruptive---it must not require developers to interrupt their activities to collect and/or analyze data. Hackystat is being implemented via an open source, sensor and web service based architecture. After a developer instruments their commercial development environment tools (such as their compiler, editor, version control system, and so forth) with Hackystat sensors, data is silently and unobtrusively collected and sent to a centralized web service. The web service runs analysis mechanisms over the data and sends email notifications back to a developer when ``interesting'' changes in their process or product occur.

Our research so far has yielded an initial operational release in daily use with a small set of sensors and analysis mechanisms, and a research agenda for expansion in the tools, the sensor data types, and the analyses. Our research has also identified several critical technical and social barriers, including: the fidelity of the sensors; the coverage of the sensors; the APIs exposed by commercial tools for instrumentation; and the security and privacy considerations required to avoid adoption problems due to the spectre of ``Big Brother''.

haha. i'm poking fun at fogcreek, but today i realized that it would actually be great to know what i worked on and how long i worked on it. i just don't think that a timer and/or a timesheet is the way to do it. the context switching would be too much of a hassle. so i guess the bottom line is that i think it would be cool to read a log of my tasks. but, i'm not willing to click on a timer.

hackystat takes a different approach than fogbugs. similarly 6th sense analytics wrote about status reports in their blog. they write:

I like having status reports, but I hate writing them. So I generate them. One of the original aspects of the vision for 6th Sense was that we could generate status reports.

first of all, the automatically generated status reports are almost as silly as a pushing a button and writing everything down. fogbugs gives you a lot of good context. and hackystat gives you a lot of good objective data. but, i think they are even better when it is joined together.

context + objective info + automation + reporting = awareness, collaboration, and improvement.

attack of the twittering ian

2008-03-18T22:23:00.001-10:00

i just happened to stumble upon twitter's explore blocks visual application. the idea is pretty simple and cool:

Explore your Twitter Block: Discover new people on your Twitter block by navigating through this animated three dimensional visualization of who follows whom.

here is what my twitter block looks like:

(the title is a joke... zoom into the picture. i'm just pointing out that ian twitters a lot, which i think is awesome).

anyway, so i thought that the twitter blocks was a pretty cool idea on how to explore and find new people. it doesn't work that great. we have a long way to go to make visualizing data useful and intuitive.

this is an interesting area, but i definitely need to learn more about it. here is one book that is pretty cool: Visualizing Data. here is a recent blog post from palantir tech.

we are definitely going to focus on this area a lot more in the coming months. stay tuned.

google's summer of code

2008-03-17T23:50:00.004-10:00

Here is an email from Philip

Greetings,

I am happy to inform you that Google has selected Project Hackystat as a participant in this year's Summer of Code

In brief, this means that students from around the world can apply to work on a Hackystat-related project this summer and Google will pay them US$4500 for their efforts. This is an excellent opportunity and I hope many students will take advantage of it. The timeline is:

* March 31: Student application deadline
* April 14: Accepted student proposals announced
* May 26: Students begin working; Google issues initial payments.
* Aug 18: "Pencils down" date. Projects should be submitted.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you (or students you supervise) would be interested in participating and would like further details. Please also forward this email on to any students you know who might be interested. Note that as long as the student is enrolled in a college or university program as of April 14, 2008, they are eligible to participate.

We have published an "Ideas" page with potential summer projects

However, if you have another interesting idea involving the Hackystat framework, don't hesitate to discuss it with me. We are very open to new ideas.

Cheers, Philip

this is great news! congratulations philip and all hackystat hackers out there. i really can't wait to see how this will all work out. it should be a lot of fun. i'm really looking forward to working with the students. even though i don't hack as much as should be on hackystat i hopefully can help with domain expertise. well, i guess this is a lot of motivation to get back to hacking. but, it is really all about the students. it is an excellent opportunity for students. so all you students out there take this opportunity seriously. do that and we'll have a lot of fun!

i'm ready to help. austen is too.

google's summer of code is making students awesome!

making students awesome

2008-03-14T00:15:00.006-10:00

making students awesome is the mantra for our internship program. the bottom line is that its all about the students. in my opinion, companies need to commit to improvement; instead of just throwing a job out there.

on thursday, march 13 the dual use group put on presentations about our companies to attract interns to our companies. here are some pictures from the event:

referentia's presentation was different from the rest in that we specifically stated what the intern would working on. no, we didn't pick out a project. instead we listed 6 areas that we are committed on helping the intern learn:
1) learn about real projects
2) learn about research
3) learn about software development processes
4) learn how to learn
5) learn how to increase their marketability
6) learn about the industry

and believe me we have already thought of and the details for each of the 6 areas. in fact, we use these areas of improvement on our selves every day. its part of our culture. if we work on these 6 things we all will be awesome.

we hope that we set the bar a very high level. we take this very seriously. a good internship can change a student's life. a mentor can change a student's life. we want interns to work with us so we can have that opportunity to share all that we know. its all about the students.

interesting insights
here are some random things about the event:

a couple of students mentioned that it seemed like ICS 413 with dr. johnson was required for a lot of the companies. 413 is not required. but the expertise you gain from 413 (with dr. johnson) is required. students need that practical software development expertise (that means tools, process, and actual development expertise). i don't understand why the department doesn't require learning certain dev tools; everyone in the department should learn about CM (subversion, cvs, or git), unit testing (phpUnit, csunit, cppunit, junit, etc), IDE (eclipse, jbuilder, netbeans, etc). thats a good start; its pretty basic stuff.

a few of the companies talked about their projects. it was interesting for me to see what business areas these companies were targeting. but, i think the presentations about the software within the projects were too general. i think the students are interested in the specifics. what algorithms are you using? what programming languages? what type of math? etc, etc. this helps them prepare and understand about what we really do.

there are probably many more opportunities to help students other than internships. i think we (as a industry) just need to figure it out. how about mentors? how about presentations about specific technologies that the students can learn from? how about working with high school students? how about mentoring student projects? how about sponsoring student projects? how about helping provide scholarships? there are so many things that the industry can do to help the students.

this semesters industry internship presentations were better than last time. my hope that it will continue to get better and better.

UPDATE
by the way.... great presentation austen! you were great... err. awesome!

rubiks cube conquered

2008-03-11T00:06:00.003-10:00

i've conquered the rubiks cube. i can solve any cube in less than 3 minutes; the first two levels in less than a minute and the last level in 2 minutes. but thats with the slow/beginner algorithm. i'll work on the advanced algorithm and be even more awesome.

solving the rubiks cube was really fun. i suggest that you give it a try. we have had many discussion about visualization, math, and algorithms because of the cube. haha. i told you it was fun!

i guess it seems like one of those geeky things to do. right up there with juggling and playing hackysack. any self respecting hacker gotta to be able to do one of the three. (by the way, i don't count ultimate frisbee)

ics alumni lunch!

2008-03-08T23:38:00.006-10:00

on saturday, march 8th 2008 we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the University of Hawaii Information and Computer Sciences department. it was a great day for the department because it was the first time we had an alumni/department lunch in 40 years. hopefully, this will be the start to a lot more things from the department. more activities, events, fund raising, high school/intermediate expos, etc. i plan on helping and even leading the department in these new areas. it will be great.

back to the event... the day started with a poster session (an LIS tradition) from all ICS and LIS research. faculty and students were there explaining their research. it was great to see all the different things that were going on. after the poster sessions, we had a lunch. the food was pretty good. after lunch, Dept. Chair Martha Crosby made some introductions. the ICS department is lucky enough to have its founding faculty still around; and actually teaching. some of the first students of the ics department even attended; one traveling from minisota. martha even introduced the industry alumni. referentia was very well repersented. after martha's introductions, president David McClain gave a speech. his speech reminded us about how far we have come. how our work (computer science) has changed the world. from punch cards to high performance computing in 40 years; not bad at all. i can't wait to see what is going to happen in the next 40 years. after the lunch and the speeches, the faculty gave tours and demos of their research in the post building. it was fun to talk about academic research again.

here are some pictures from the event!

there is so much we can do. here is what i'm working on:

march 13 - the dual use group will present the students about our internship programs

march 14 - coe/ics career fair day

i'm starting an ics alumni association. we have a facebook group and i'm starting a google groups for our email distribution.

i want to help the department figure out fundraising options. fundraising is important to help student groups like the ics club and student projects. student projects are student led projects that help give them experience.

back to the event... so, the alumni lunch was totally awesome. it would have been great if more alumni attended. hopefully next year more people will know about it. (i guess thats going to be my job). it was also great to see some of the professors that i haven't seen in a while. its great to be able to thank professors for what they taught you. i can't wait till the next ics event!

if you haven't visited the ics department website in a while; now is the time. take a look at the faculty profiles and pictures. read about the research and keep up with the news and events. go. go. go.

hawaii high technology industry landscape

2008-03-06T00:07:00.006-10:00

i've blogged about our tech industry before; see know your industry, we need fog creek in hawaii, etc. well, here is another one.

the idea for the landscape came about because of a couple conversations i had with a few of my friends. basically, these friends are engineers in hawaii that haven't heard of the organizations that i've been involved with recently; for example the dual use group. so in my discussions with my friends, i talked about the awesome honolulu coder meetings, our awesome demos at the COE engineering junior expo, etc, etc. it takes too long to explain everything. there are a lot of organizations and people that my friends can meet. anyway, to help out my friends and others out there; i started on a central listing of everything i know about the high tech industry.

Hawaii High Technology Industry Landscape

The idea is that I work on this document till i represent the local high tech scene. my hope is that anyone that needs to know something about hawaii high tech can find useful information here. then go be awesome.

anyway, i actually don't know how useful this would be. but, i guess i'm trying. my guess is someone will email me and say. are you crazy, we already did that, here is the link.

UPDATE:
i assume you've all seen this by now Hawaii Science & Technology Industry Directory, check out the pacific business article about it

my talk at the honors program

2008-03-01T00:23:00.004-10:00

last week i went to UH to talk to some honors students (UHM Honors Program). these students were just starting out in their honors theses and were forming their ideas and preparing themselves for the real research phases. the purpose of the talk was to share some advice to the students as they start their projects. it was really interesting to hear what the students were researching. here are few things that i observed

some students were able to provide a complete sentence of what they are researching some students just gave a very general area. no problem, they have a semester to figure that out, but at some point they should. one thing that i didn't have a chance to tell the students is that your thesis paper can be summarized at different levels. think of your introduction as the 10 page version of your thesis. think of your abstract as the 100 word version of your thesis. think of your presentation as the 30 minute talk of your thesis. and think of that 5 sentence description as mini version of your thesis. in all cases, you need to understand what your thesis is all about and communicate at the right level; only the communication changes not the idea.

a student asked about how to start writing their thesis and commented on the fact that it felt daunting to write a 20 page paper. well, it is very important to break up your paper into sections (classic outline stuff is really really important). the most important thing about writing is to just write. don't worry about grammar or even spelling. just type something, then print it out and make it better. type, read, correct; type, read, correct.. continue that process and you can write anything. some sections are going to be stronger than others and you'll know it. keep moving in a forward direction. to do that you need to keep on writing, keep on reading, and keep on correcting.

i noticed that there were a lot of english majors. and its very nice to see that the english department fully supports the honors program. the english major students talked about how the professors really help them. other majors like political science, biology, art, and psychology were well represented. they often have a couple of students per major. thats really great, because they can share experiences and help each other out.

unfortunately, there were no engineers at all. no EE, CE, ME, nor ICS, LIS, CIS, MIS students. the computer world and electrical world. from what i can tell (via the alumni listing on the honors website) there have been 3 students in the past 5 years that have come from either EE or ICS. that is sad. there might be more that aren't listed on the alumni website. but still; i only know of Seth, Melissa, and I. so why are the social sciences so involved in honors and the hard sciences not? do the professors not know of it. do they not endorse it. do they care? (i know at least one ICS professor that cares). it definitely seems that the other disciplines spend much more time with the undergraduate students. :(

i'm my portion of the talk i tried to stress how doing the honors thesis really changed my education and possibly even my life. doing the honors thesis allows me to grow "vertical expertise", something that classes really can't provide. (i talk more about that here: why you need to do a honors thesis). i didn't get to stress this as much, but i think learning how to think and communicate is really important; and the honors program helps you do that.

in all the University of Hawaii Honors Program is awesome. You can see the difference between these students and the rest of the crowd. i'm sure the students that i talked to will do just fine. its the journey that is important. its the journey that will separate them from the rest.

interview with ian kitajima

2008-02-27T23:34:00.000-10:00

ian is the leader of the dual use group: A grassroots industry group for Hawaii's defense and dual-use companies. he is also a marketing manager at oceanit.

ian is a really cool dude. i met at local business function after work. its kind of a classic networking example (which by the way is really really important in hawaii). from that meeting we worked on a few events together.

i've learned a lot from ian in the short time that i've known him. we have had twitter discussions, chats, and even complained profusely about our jobs over lunch (just joking). i hope to learn a lot more from him. we both have similar goals.

the moral of the story is you should go to all business events, no matter how boring. cause you might meet people. people that you can learn a lot from. haha. :)

i've mentioned before in my blog that hawaii needs stronger tech leaders. let me put it another way, we need more ian's.

here is how this interview works. the questions that i ask are highlighted in bold. ian's responses are in italics.

I've been an admirer of Oceanit for a long time, yet I know relatively little about your company. Can you give a brief explanation of what your company does? Also, (and almost more importantly) can you explain how Oceanit accomplishes your goals? In other words, what is your company's culture?

Oceanit. It's definitely a culture of innovation. Easy to say, hard to do. From an employee perspective, I think culture is something you pickup daily. For example, it's something I pickup from the people at Oceanit - which is why the people you work with are so important, but that's for another story. From a corporate perspective on how to create a culture of innovation, it's something we (as leaders...i'm talking about a way of being that's not a result of a title) have to live on a daily basis. It starts with Dr. Patrick Sullivan, the founder of Oceanit, and flows to all parts of the company. For example, one way the cultural context gets set is during the Monday business review sessions. For example, I throw out a radical idea, then realize people are going to think I'm crazy and that was stupid of me to stick my neck out, but it's safe to do because 2 minutes later Pat will throw out an even crazier idea, and with that simple act he sets the context or culture. You start to feel like you're not so crazy and that feels great. Pat sets the context (in various ways) that it's safe to think innovatively. Very very important. You once asked me what is our mantra? I said one word, "innovation". But creating a safe environment to innovate is just the beginning. We have to live innovation not just in the research stuff but in all areas of the business. I head up the marketing group and i tell my guys if i get hit by a bus tomorrow just remember the message or theme is "innovation". So if you're wondering what should the the theme for the corporate christmas gift, or the theme of our nano lab open house, or the mesage for a story on the KGMB9 evening news, you already know it.

As to what our company does, we focus in four areas: life science, aerospace, IT, and consulting engineering. The Star Trek sick bay bed, the Star Trek tricorder, Superman vision that can track where a bullet is coming from, Spiderman-like abilities to climb walls, etc.. Put another way, we're like an idea factory that creates all kinds of innovations, and the best ones are spun off into new companies so they can focus and get to market. Put in another way, we're trying to change the world by building a technology industry in Hawaii, even if it means building it one startup at a time.

Now how do we accomplish this? I would say that what we do and who we become in 5 years or in 50 years is determined by the pains/problems in 5 years, in 50 years. What we do as a business also depends on the people we're able to attract and grow here at Oceanit. And the third thing that determines what we do in the future (which is key but is so subtle), is we don't let our past or who we are today, determine what we will become in the future. Ten years ago we knew nothing about space situational awareness (SSA). Today, SSA is the number one problem for Space Command, and we're right in the middle of it, as we deploy our worldwide network of small autonomous stations. That's liberating but with it comes the challenge of managing diversity...I could go on and on but hopefully that gives your readers a sense of our culture and philosophy. Here is a link to a Pacific Business News article about our internal innovation fund which is just another example of how we live a culture of innovation at Oceanit.

Tech firm pays workers to dream
(BTW, the PBN story was inspired by you and your blog in a way. I had previously pitched the story of our innovation fund at the end of last year, and your blog got me inspired to pitch it again.)

Wow, thats cool.

Your explanation of how crazy is accepted is really funny. At times I think I'm going crazy... But, I don't think people quite understand my craziness. Haha. So, its really amazing to hear your explanation of a "safe environment to innovate" and "idea factory that creates all kinds of innovation". That all sounds really fantastic. I also think its awesome that Oceanit shares its philosophy and culture with the rest of the industry.

But...(here come the hard questions)... but, what does this all mean for computer science students? Here come a series of questions: If I was a computer science student reading about Oceanit, I'd think Oceanit is awesome, but with 30 PhDs, why would Oceanit care about little old me? How do CS students prepare for a career in Oceanit? Oceanit seems like a great engineering company, but how does the software developers fit into the innovation?

CS is the glue. Look at any of the big prime defense contractors. Out of 50K employees, maybe half are CS, because CS is the way you glue/integrate systems together. CS is critical, and that's why CS would make someone valuable at Oceanit, even if you don't have a Ph.D. Oceanit started off as an engineering company, doing ocean, environmental, and coastal engineering, evolving into R&D for the federal government, evolving to become an incubator of spin off companies. Noah's Ark had two of everything, we're trying for at least one of everything!

Finally, do you have a list of books, articles, websites, activities, and groups that students can begin to utilize to grow?

As for books, articles, websites, etc...Here are some of my thoughts for maximum growth

1. Internships. Get hands on experience now. Always take on the toughest assignment.

2. Find a mentor. Pick someone who's 20 years older who you want to be like. If you can't find a mentor, it's probably because you're not ready. There is a saying, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Get a mentor, and be coachable.

3. Books: Deep Survival (very good book about why we fail and ultimately succeed), Tipping Point/Blink, Corporate Lifecycles, The Starfish and the Spider (about decentralized networks), Positioning (anything by Ries and Trout), Information Rules, Art of the Start (anything by Guy Kawasaki), Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, etc..you've got to get specific because i read a lot.

4. Personal development. Learn about yourself so you can get out of your own way. This has been my secret. I'm not the smartest but I work hard, and I try to stay out of my own way. Does that make sense. So do some serious personal development workshops, like the one Burt Lum and I are bringing to Hawaii in early March. Visit www.mindwind.com

5. Peers: Choose them carefully. You become like the people you hangout with.

6. Company. Choose this one carefully as well. If you want to get a lot of experience, work for a small company. Learn what it takes to make payroll!

7. Pain. Take the pain when you're young. Work the toughest assignments, and work a lot of them. Get as much experience as you can.

8. Values. What are our personal values? Humbleness or arrogance? Giving or taking? Integrity or deception? Building or destroying?

9. Alignment. Align your personal and career goals. If you want a career to take you around the world, e.g., work 2 years in Tokyo, 2 years in Paris, 2 years in NY, etc...that's all very possible but don't set a personal goal of wanting a house with the white picket fence and your spouse and child waiting at the door welcoming you home for dinner at 6pm. You will be stress knowing they are waiting for you, and they will be unhappy...what's real is showing up 2 hours late will be just as devastating.

10. Life partner: Though this is #10, this should be #1 on your list. Who you make your life with, will determine your future happiness and success, or misery! This is so important, because this is about alignment again. Are you and your spouse going in the same direction? Do you want the same things? Would you be good friends even if you weren't married? So i need to repeat it again - the #1 thing you can do to be successful and happy is to marry the right person! Listen to your mother and friends if you're proven to be a poor partner picker! Say that 3 times really fast.

[end interview]
i'm not sure i asked the right CS questions to ian. my basic point to him was that i saw a lot of hardware related innovation from oceanit. not too much software stuff. so, the question was basically... how does your software people get involved in innovation when most of the work is on the hard sciences side? anyway, i'll ask him that later.

here is a blog that i wrote in the dual use NING space:

someone sent this article to me the other day, "Hire Learning", http://reddevnews.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2373

i have been discussing with anyone that will listen about the problems that i have been noticing in technical education. its very interesting that the problem is bigger than any one solution. problems like this needs to be attacked in a coordinated fashion. it takes the involvement from government, industry, and most importantly people. mentor someone, give them hope, show them what is possible, and help them do it.

i often feel overwhelmed by how i can make a difference. but, i so desperately want to. i know i'll figure it out.

and this is why ian is a really cool guy... here is his response:

Right on Aaron! And yes, you will. Remember, making a difference is about the daily small things that add up over time. Yes, swing for the fences when it makes sense, but this is also a marathon more than it is a sprint.

I just read a very nice quote, "grow a leader, grow an organization." I think the same would apply here. Let me know how i can support you.