The thoughts and ramblings of an Undergraduate student with crazy aspirations and pizza cravings.
Show MoreWhat? Only 5 miserable posts last year? Thankfully 2011 was nowhere near as lousy as my commitment to this blog: indeed, high school is over, I’m now living in a different city and working for an awesome startup. This was never possible without some awesome new (and old) friends - you know who you are.
But I know you’re not here to hear me ramble. So here’s a cookie:
Unless you’ve been wearing earplugs for the last 12 hours, you’re likely aware one man that didn’t only redefine the computing and digital media industry but also inspired many people, including myself, to understand the true meaning of life.
I won’t waste my time speculating about the future of Apple or look back at Jobs’ greatest accomplishments. No: the best way to honor Jobs is to understand his lessons and unalienable belief that we can all be great. Surely, a new Steve Jobs will come along, in technology or otherwise, and once again push the world into the next decade.
“Keep looking, don’t settle.”
If you’ve been following me for the last few weeks, you probably know that I made it safe and sound to London nearly two weeks ago, in order to begin my Computer Science with Management degree at King’s College London (and my desk is a lot messier than this, if you’re wondering). After one week of sightseeing and eating nachos off the floor (true story), I was quickly blown away by the amount of opportunity in this wonderful city, which I don’t intend on missing out on - and that’s what I want to talk about today.
For my short two-week stay in London, I think I have already accomplished a fair amount. I feel that I’m performing well at University, yet as I have said many times before, King’s will only represent a fraction of what I want to do now and in the future. That’s why, as you might have already heard, I have secured an internship at the student recruitment website The Student Job, which is run by fellow King’s student Jack Tang. While I’m just getting started, the team at TSJ seems like an incredibly intelligent, insightful and creative bunch. This internship will not only be a great experience at all levels, it will also help me acquire certain skills, especially on the programming and management sides, that will be very useful to me now and in the future.
But that is where the other shoe drops. Given the unexpected amount of opportunity and achievement in such a short period of time, holding on to my current writing job at RedmondPie just won’t be possible. Don’t get me wrong, the website and the team are great, but so are the opportunities I’d miss out on if I were to hold on to this time-consuming job, which although very well-paid, doesn’t meet my long-term objectives, plus the time spent on it per day would stop me from taking action in other fronts. Given this, I contacted the powers that be on Monday to discuss my options, and we have reached the agreement that I would step aside from the daily news posting and instead take a contributor role: under this new role, I’ll write opinion pieces and other original content several times a month, all about the hottest subjects in the world of technology. The transition to this new role has begun and will be completed on October 15th. In short, I’m not leaving RedmondPie, I’m just taking steps to make sure that the amount of work I do on the website is sustainable and doesn’t drown out my other commitments.
This change alone will leave me with a fair amount of free time, which I’ll use wisely: some on necessary University work and most of it on other non-academic projects that will ultimately benefit me going forward. I have a few announcements queued up, including one which I shall make in the next few days. Until then, stay classy (wait, are you still reading this?)
You might have seen the tweet or maybe I talked to you personally (yet, in that case, you’ve probably known about this for months). Yes, it’s true, I’m starting a Computer Science with Management course at King’s College London, a top-rated UK university, in September, just over 1 month from now! If you know me personally, you’re likely not surprised at my course choice: I’m a fan of technology startups and entrepreneurship in the tech world.
My main task during the next month will be to adjust my online life to this new reality of having a part-time job and uni work to keep up with, while at the same time unleash the potential of living in a vibrant city such as London. While a few details haven’t been worked out yet, I know the following:
If you took the time to read all the stuff above, my sincere congratulations, you’re a genius.
To this, I must add that I’l continue phasing out my online handle for my real name. I’ve been slowly breaking down the barriers over the last few months and I believe that it’s time.
I’m incredibly pleased about this development and I believe that it will enable me to do much more than I am doing today, not only in 2 months, but a few years down the road. In the 17 short years of my life, this was the first life test, and I believe I passed it with an A+.
Today is my birthday, so I felt this was a nice time to update this mini-blog, especially since I haven’t written anything on here in nearly 4 months.
As of today, I’m officially 17 year old… yes, I know, 17 years of my life are destroyed, gone forever, but not my ability to almost certainly waste my next 17. So:
1- In case you haven’t heard, GeekSmack and I made a mutual agreement to part ways due to a change in direction on their part. Thankfully, Taimur Asad (@TaimurAsad) from RedmondPie (@redmondpie) quickly hooked me up and I’m now working on a one-month trial for the site. All indicators so far show that we’ll reach a longer-term deal once the trial is up, but it’s too early to tell since I only started my job a little over a week ago.
2- My job at RedmondPie is the first I’m doing under my real name. Although my “amon91” handle will always remain in some capacity, my plan is to phase in my real name over the next few months. Doing so will allow me to have a more professional presence online, and attract more professional work opportunities down the line.
3- Over the last few months, I’ve moved towards a partially for-profit model. While not all my jobs will be paid, this will allow me to maintain a fairly strong online footprint far into the future, even when money becomes more of a factor.
4- If everything goes according to plan, my real life will undergo a 180-degree change beginning in September this year. While I won’t go into details on this post, some of you already know what I’m talking about. Yes, it’s that expensive thing. Once planning on that matter is finalized, I’ll make a lengthier post about it here.
5- I’m still a huge fan of cheese cake and All Stars. Yeah, I’m still the same douche.
What I’ve done in the last 4 months is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come in the next 4.
So that’s my birthday post. Thanks for reading.
Wow, it’s 2011 already! 12 days in, I already began scratching stuff off my 2011 list of resolutions and I see no end in sight. Today I’m also announcing a partnership with a site: GeekSmack.
As some of you probably know, my relationship with GS has been pretty on and off. I joined the site in July 2008, left for a first time in April of the following year, just to come back a few months later (as a member) and more recently leaving this past November as part of a refocusing effort in part due to time constraints. So you might be rightly wondering: ‘What now?’.
A few months ago, I learned that Neowin and GS member Jason (@jeayese) was working on an app review site (Unsucky Apps). I quickly got in touch with him and we began talks about me joining the site, first as a guest writer, and later as an actual member of the staff. Meanwhile, the staff at GS got interested in the site as well, and a content deal was made. We’re now in the process of integrating both sites together (which I’ll help with as much as I can), which at the end of the day means I’ll have the pleasure of returning to GeekSmack once again, as a staff member for the first time in nearly 2 years.
So what will I be doing? For starters, I’ll be reviewing software of all sorts, several times a week. Your feedback is important so be sure to post on our forums (an individual thread will likely be started soon) and let us know what apps you’d like us to review. I’ll consider community input over my own findings so you better get in there and tell us which awesome apps you’ve come across. Aside from app reviews I’ll also be blogging several times a day about the craziest technology, similar to the now suspended Crazy Tech Countdown column but not in the form of column and on a daily basis. Of course I expect feedback from you on that as well.
This is just the beginning of what’s shaping up to be a great 2011 both online and real life-wise. You’ll hear about the latter in the next several months, but for now, enjoy the new content and check out GeekSmack, MyBB Runway and all the sites I’m currently involved with. Oh, and one more thing: enjoy the blog redesign. Sadly I can’t take any credit for it.
Since the year is finally coming to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to do list out the best of the best of 2010. From the craziest gadgets to the weirdest robots, we’ve got you covered.
5. Next time you go grocery shopping, keep this in mind – On a quest to end all problems known to man, freaky gadget makers keep bringing awesome products to the market. It’s the case with this awesome wall-mounted grocery list maker. You push a button and just speak to it. Just say the name of the product you want and it’ll memorize it. Then when the time comes for you to go shopping, you tell it to print a neat little categorized list you can then take to the store and, well, get deeper into debt. But this is killer.
4. 3D images you can touch? – Japanese scientists are developing a 3D TV that actually allows viewers to touch the images. By attaching clips to your fingers for tactile feedback (yup, now you’ll have to wear glasses AND clips, for now anyway) and tracking your movements thanks to 16 cameras, this TV lets user pinch, stretch and move 3D images. Right now we have a similar technology known as “real life”. Seriously though, if you don’t think this is awesome…
3. Buy your friends a drink, even if they’re miles away – Now with social networks and games, it’s really not that hard to give your friends stuff, even if it’s virtual stuff you can’t take advantage of in real life. But interestingly enough, a company named Webtab changed all that by launching Bartab, a mobile and web app that lets you buy your remote friends an actual drink. You pay $1 to give your friend a virtual coupon they can then use to buy a drink themselves. Sadly not many bars accept these coupons right now, this service is only available in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles and your friend needs to pay $1 as well due to state regulations, but it’s a great concept I hope gets developed further.
2. GPS glasses, WHAA? – Shifting over to Japan, Japanese engineers might have figured out a way to actually let you check your directions and look at where you’re going at the same time. It’s not rocket science really: just use your glasses. After entering your desired destination on the computer (and yes, that is a must), lights on the frame will just tell you which direction to go. It’s pretty basic but it can do wonders! I only hope they come up with a sunglass version, as the current glasses are a little ugly in my opinion.
1. Augmented reality translator - Augmented reality has been around for quite a while already, but this takes it to a whole new level. Imagine yourself travelling with this:
That’s it for this week… and this year. Let us know what you think or submit a story on our South Pole of the Moon thread. See you soon!
You too! :)
Welcome once again to Crazy Tech Countdown, the weekly column where we count down the craziest and freakiest stories of the week. This week we’ll look at the week’s freakiest and most interesting videos. So without further ado, let’s count ‘em down!
5. An iPad game for cats - iPad games are everywhere but I bet Steve Jobs predicted cats would be playing it. Get the mouse!
4. Spider Santa - How does Santa get to your chimney? He crawls his way up.
3. Augmented reality translator - Augmented reality has been around for quite a while already, but this takes it to a whole new level. Imagine yourself travelling with this:
2. Physical IM status lights - This Microsoft nerd (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) has come up with the best way to manage a contact list
LED Christmas Lights as IM presence indicators from Andrej Kyselica on Vimeo.
1. Vuvuzelas = best car alarm in the world?
That’s it for this week guys. Be sure to check back next week for more crazy stories and check out our thread on SPOTM. Geek out!
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