The coolest idea I have seen in ages...

I just posted about my problem with coming up with original, relevant ideas. Here's one:

1.) Quit Job
2.) Buy decent computer and video recording equipment
3.) Convert closet to recording studio
4.) Make short videos to post on the internet for free giving tutorials on thousands of math, science, etc... topics.

Wait....

Crap, it's already been done. Check out Salman Khan's Khan Academy. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a professional philanthropist like that. Nerve wracking to get started, I'm sure, but think about all the people you could help chase their dreams of gaining new knowledge.

I keep thinking about the laptops for kids program where they sent tough laptops to third world countries to help schools there prepare kids better to enter a world of technology. How cool would it be to have them take lessons from the Khan academy to balance what I can only imagine has to be a difficulty finding qualified teaching staff. The videos are even short enough to keep within an attention span like mine.

Kudos, Salman. You're a hero in my book. Would that more people got involved in projects like that.

Venture into software development

As a part of a project I am working on for my job, I needed to develop a methodology for easily estimating injection molded cycle times for plastic parts. I wrote the code to do it in Visual FoxPro 9. Once I was done, I had several ideas for improving it and was in the mood to test drive Visual C# 2010. I did so and have decided to release the result as open source. I have uploaded the software to SourceForge, here. Feel free to browse, download and play. Let me know if you like it and what you find. For me, it was an interesting project that actually had a real-world use. That is one of my biggest problems. I don't have any issues with tackling big (or in this case small) problems as they come up. I have a hard time defining original, relevant problems to tackle. That's one of the skills that I would like to acquire.

Eric Raymond defined the thrust of the hacker mentality in his excellent paper on How to be a Hacker. I can identify with much of the paper (not all of it, but most). What I have a hard time with is the "usefulness" of the projects. I don't want to do another tic-tac-toe game or an RSS feed generator. I want to do something that actually has a need to be done because the problem needs a solution. I DO understand the need for a learning curve, but I've always been one to just jump into the deep end of the pool and learn by breaking. ESPECIALLY when it comes to computers (just ask my Mom what happened with her first computer that had a CD-ROM - I was fixing what I did for a solid week). I've learned more from breaking and then trying to fix things than I ever have out of books and classes. That being said, finding a challenge that grabs my fancy is more-than-occasionally difficult.

Need to find a better method of doing that...