iPad2worldwide.com

An online store I built this weekend. It took ~10 hours, and I'm pretty happy about it. I used open source online store software Prestashop.

Now you can tell your friends when they can get an iPad 2: http://www.ipad2worldwide.com

Rubberband Game Mechanics

One of the few reasons why Nintendo games are so immensely popular are because they understand how to make multiplayer games fun.

How? The rubber band mechanic.



So what is the rubber band mechanic? It is handicapping players based on how they are performing in relation to their peers. A simple example from racing games would be that the car behind is always faster than the ones in front it. An exaggerated example from Mario Kart would be that karts last in place always get the powerful items over those leading the race.

So why does this matter? Because it makes games close. Close means competitive. And close competition makes players feel like they have a chance to win. Basically, it makes games fun.

In my opinion, all social games, particularly the competitive ones, should use it in some form or manner. The key to using rubber band game mechanics without player's feeling like the game is cheating or not fair is to hide them behind a mechanic that is "supposed" to be random.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Letter from Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba.com

Fellow Aliren:

As we have announced today, the B2B board of directors has accepted the resignations of B2B CEO David Wei and COO Elvis Lee. Additionally, former senior VP of B2B HR Kangming Deng has resigned his post as Chief People Officer of Alibaba Group in acceptance of responsibility and will be demoted to a different post.

Several months ago, we discovered that some of our B2B China Gold Supplier (CGS) members were suspected of fraudulent activity. What made it shocking was evidence indicating that certain members of the CGS sales team knowingly allowed, or in some cases even helped, these fraudulent companies join the Alibaba.com marketplace.

We formed a special task force to investigate the situation. According to the preliminary results of a month-long inquiry, we found 1219 CGS (1.1% of all Gold Suppliers) who joined in 2009 and 1107 CGS (0.8% of Gold Suppliers) who joined in 2010 were engaged in fraudulent activity. These fraudsters had joined the Alibaba.com marketplace for the sole purpose of exploiting the platform that we’ve labored to build up over the past 12 years to defraud overseas buyers. At the same time, the investigation confirmed that nearly 100 CGS sales staff knowingly allowed fraudsters to become CGS members so that they could “make their numbers” and receive commission income.

Any tolerance of this type of affront to business ethics and company values is a crime against the rest of our customers and Aliren who remain honest. We must take measures to safeguard the values of Alibaba! All the colleagues who were directly or indirectly involved must be held responsible; more importantly, B2B’s management team must assume primary responsibility. We have already terminated the storefronts of all 2,326 CGS members suspected of fraud, and we have asked law enforcement authorities to assist us in our investigation.

Since the day that Alibaba was established, pursuit of profit has never been our main goal. We have no interest in turning the company into a mere money-making machine. Rather, we have long held firm to our mission of “making it easy to do business anywhere.” When we say “customer first,” we mean that we’d rather sacrifice growth than do anything that would jeopardize our customers’ interests, much less be a part of any blatant fraud.

Over this past month, I’ve experienced a lot of torment, a lot of frustration, a lot of anger…

This is the pain we suffer as we develop, a price that we pay as part of our growth, and it hurts! But we have no choice. It is not possible for us to be mistake-free; we may from time to time commit errors of judgment, but we will absolutely not err by compromising our principles. If we do not face up to reality and find the courage to take painful action, Alibaba will no longer be Alibaba and our pursuit of our 102-year dream and mission will become nothing but a joke!

This world does not need another Internet company, much less another company that can make money;

What this world needs is a company that is more open, more transparent, more sharing, more responsible, more global;

What this world needs is a company that is grounded in society, serves the interests of society, and accepts the responsibilities of society;

What this world needs is a culture, a soul, a belief and an acceptance of obligation. Because these are the only things that will allow us to go further, do better, act with confidence on the challenging path of entrepreneurship.

What comforted me is learning that the overwhelming majority of our CGS sales colleagues upheld their principles in the face of temptation. To these colleagues, I salute you! More importantly, we thank the colleagues who have the courage to stand firm and fight against what is wrong. From their actions we witnessed the courage and power of upholding integrity and principles. In them we see Alibaba’s future and hope! And we need more Aliren like them! Those who do the extraordinary must assume extraordinary responsibilities!

The resignations of David and Elvis are tremendous losses to the company. For me this is extremely sad and hurtful. But I think their willingness as Aliren to step up and accept responsibility is most admirable. On behalf of the company, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the both of them for their unrelenting dedication and contribution to the company.

Fellow Aliren, the B2B board of directors has appointed Jonathan Lu as B2B CEO; the Group has appointed Lucy Peng as Chief People Officer of Alibaba Group. I hope everyone will fully support the work that lies ahead and believe we can make a difference!

This is an era full of promises and an era that no one wants to miss out on. Only through holding onto our ideals and our principles will we be able to become the pride of this era!

If not now? When?

If not me? Who?

Jack Ma
2.21.2011

Pocket Grow

Thinking about starting a LabBox growing project of my own.

The Labbox is a hydroponic plant growing box that has an automated drip system and high powered LEDs to maintain plants all the way to harvest. According to the micro grow project website, you can use your iPhone or a website to control light, temperature and nutrient delivery. And even tweet plant health status!

Now I just need an incremental idea to make this even more interesting...


Hardware is art.

Gaming Based Marketing

More of a book for MBAs new to the idea of gamification than for designers.

I wonder whether if we'll one day become immune to gamification. When we've got points, awards, and progress bars for everything we do, we will probably become selective of the carrot and sticks we're presented with.

I think school, test scores, and grades are indicators that gamification is not an end all be all. It's not like kids don't know what the repercussions of failing out of school are (the end goals of getting good grades), the fact is they simply just don't care.

If every other company were to practice the same few contests & loyalty programs described in the book, I think customers will in the same way start filtering them out. I suppose the question is whether the engaged customers will become more engaged? Or the standard for customer engagement just went up?

Project 1.1 of 2011

Still tinkering with my board of LEDs (see project 1.0). It wasn't a smooth sailing process at all, bugs kept me up a few nights.



Anyhow, here is streaming live serial data from my Macbook Pro to my peggy2 :)





For those who are curious about the details of what is going on, serial data is being sent from my Macbook Pro (created through processing / quartz composer) to an Arduino Uno through USB, and then converted to I2C before displayed on the peggy.

Project 1.2 will be either turning it Bluetooth (wireless!) or making it sync to my iTunes equalizer.

Social Games are not social like they seem

I guess it's weird to say something like that when I'm literally betting my career on social games.

But I stand firm on my point. The "social games" we know of today are nothing more than multiplayer games on a social network. These "social games" are not about helping each other out and neither are they about re-engaging with friends. That is just a load of crap from the big *ah-hem* social game developer/publishers.

The truth is that the majority of social gamers only care about themselves. Their farm, their city, their graveyard, etc...the list goes on. The only reason why we call these games "social" is because player's are confronted with obstacles that keep them from progressing in the game unless they find "friends" to help them.

The fact that most of these games have comments like "add me" littered throughout their forums and newsfeeds makes my point clear. When was the last time you heard a social gamer talk about helping friends? They are always talking about what they achieved in the game (such as how big and awesome their city/character has become).

Portland Cello Project Covering Kanye West "All of the Lights"

Project 1 of 2011

Haven't worked on a side project in a while...

Learn Molecular gastronomy

Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic - Smooth Criminal

Records on the List

Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask And Answer

Great stuff.

I want to write a post about how growing up playing Mega Man recounts the tale of my generation's gamers. But not today...

Jambox

Drool.

Simplicity

in design.



Only until very recently I understood the power of simplicity in web usability. If you look at playing videos on Youtube, liking Facebook Likes, or searching via Google's search bar; the common theme strung throughout those popular services are their near-funnel-free usage mechanics.

It sounds obvious, but we can easily look at the variety of products and services we use everyday, and the truth is most of them are incapable and more inaccessible than the designer expected them to be.

The truth is that everyday user do not want to think. And designing products that don't require us to think is more difficult than it seems....how do we inform a user who doesn't think? Without thought, there are no rules. With no rules, it is difficult to provide a proposition of value to them. The key to designing mass-consumer products is to design for mental reflexes -'thought' is simply too big a barrier in conversion when designing for the masses.

For a while, I used to presume engaging products were about lots of connected features. But now, I think the key is simplicity.

Eric Lau

Eric Lau - For the D (feat. Guilty Simpson)


Eric Lau - Time will tell



Incredible Producer tip from Parker Fay. I love Eric's sound.

First it was CS5, now this!!

Gameday Tycoon

Been mum all summer working on Gameday Tycoon, and I think it's finally ready to be shown off.


Gameday Tycoon is simply a game where you stay in the loop with your sports friends.

Granted the game could still use work (a lot actually), its been a long dedicated summer for Mahmoud, Fies, and I. Proud to have gotten thus far, but not yet proud to publish would be the most accurate statement.

Our two main hypotheses for the product are that 1)casual sports fans also need a place to re-engage with their friends, and 2)hardcore fans want to re-engage with casual fans outside their fantasy leagues.

I don't think the service will ever be perfect because Gameday is supposed to be a marketing engine. The critical innovations of Gameday Tycoon will come down to three things: 1)engagement 2)virality, and 3)user acquisition. All marketing engines require periodic oil changes, and Gameday isn't any different.

Its interesting how most people don't understand how/where sausages are made.

Not rocking but addicted to 2k11

Absolutely incredible. If I were publishing/developing NBA2k11, I would consider splitting it into two games. The number of features and bells & whistles on this product is amazing. You can play online, join a league, create a legend, play regular season/exhibition games.

The My Player mode is my favorite so far. Made for and by basketball enthusiasts. How many other games evaluate your player performance based on boxing out, opening the lanes on fast break, attempting steals/blocks at the wrong moment? Just incredible how far basketball games have gone since the early days of NBA Live 95.

Proprietary sports game engines are milking cows.

Jimmy Eat World - Invented

Seeing them this weekend.

3 Years in 3 Minutes

It started on January 2007, when Parisian videographer Ramon captured the first image of the demolition work at Tour EDF. 45,000 photographs later, taken from exactly the same point with his Pentax K 110D DSLR, his work was done and a new building was in place. It was September 2010, three years later. That's an average of 42 images per day.

His patience paid off big time. The result is amazing.

What Are You Going to Do With That?

By William Deresiewicz

The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May.

The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree?

But that's not the question I'm asking. By "do" I don't mean a job, and by "that" I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school. By "What are you going to do," I mean, what kind of life are you going to lead? And by "that," I mean everything in your training, formal and informal, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.

We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math, or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.

Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. What's wrong is what the system leaves out: which is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math, say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.

The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford, only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a political-science major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney to being a corporate attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.

Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring. "Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers."

And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the system works, to simply go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy, but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves. You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed. From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally think about your life in terms of "getting into" whatever's next. "Getting into" is validation; "getting into" is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so forth. Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or Mc­Kinsey, or whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to be inevitable.

Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. You dreamed about it from the time you were 10 years old, even though you had no idea what it really meant, and you stayed on course for the entire time you were in school. You refused to be enticed from your path by that great experience you had in AP history, or that trip you took to Costa Rica the summer after your junior year in college, or that terrific feeling you got taking care of kids when you did your rotation in pediatrics during your fourth year in medical school.

But either way, either because you went with the flow or because you set your course very early, you wake up one day, maybe 20 years later, and you wonder what happened: how you got there, what it all means. Not what it means in the "big picture," whatever that is, but what it means to you. Why you're doing it, what it's all for. It sounds like a cliché, this "waking up one day," but it's called having a midlife crisis, and it happens to people all the time.

There is an alternative, however, and it may be one that hasn't occurred to you. Let me try to explain it by telling you a story about one of your peers, and the alternative that hadn't occurred to her. A couple of years ago, I participated in a panel discussion at Harvard that dealt with some of these same matters, and afterward I was contacted by one of the students who had come to the event, a young woman who was writing her senior thesis about Harvard itself, how it instills in its students what she called self-efficacy, the sense that you can do anything you want. Self-efficacy, or, in more familiar terms, self-esteem. There are some kids, she said, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because it was easy." And there are other kids, the kind with self-efficacy or self-esteem, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because I'm smart."

Again, there's nothing wrong with thinking that you got an A because you're smart. But what that Harvard student didn't realize—and it was really quite a shock to her when I suggested it—is that there is a third alternative. True self-esteem, I proposed, means not caring whether you get an A in the first place. True self-esteem means recognizing, despite everything that your upbringing has trained you to believe about yourself, that the grades you get—and the awards, and the test scores, and the trophies, and the acceptance letters—are not what defines who you are.

She also claimed, this young woman, that Harvard students take their sense of self-efficacy out into the world and become, as she put it, "innovative." But when I asked her what she meant by innovative, the only example she could come up with was "being CEO of a Fortune 500." That's not innovative, I told her, that's just successful, and successful according to a very narrow definition of success. True innovation means using your imagination, exercising the capacity to envision new possibilities.

But I'm not here to talk about technological innovation, I'm here to talk about a different kind. It's not about inventing a new machine or a new drug. It's about inventing your own life. Not following a path, but making your own path. The kind of imagination I'm talking about is moral imagination. "Moral" meaning not right or wrong, but having to do with making choices. Moral imagination means the capacity to envision new ways to live your life.

It means not just going with the flow. It means not just "getting into" whatever school or program comes next. It means figuring out what you want for yourself, not what your parents want, or your peers want, or your school wants, or your society wants. Originating your own values. Thinking your way toward your own definition of success. Not simply accepting the life that you've been handed. Not simply accepting the choices you've been handed. When you walk into Starbucks, you're offered a choice among a latte and a macchiato and an espresso and a few other things, but you can also make another choice. You can turn around and walk out. When you walk into college, you are offered a choice among law and medicine and investment banking and consulting and a few other things, but again, you can also do something else, something that no one has thought of before.

Let me give you another counterexample. I wrote an essay a couple of years ago that touched on some of these same points. I said, among other things, that kids at places like Yale or Stanford tend to play it safe and go for the conventional rewards. And one of the most common criticisms I got went like this: What about Teach for America? Lots of kids from elite colleges go and do TFA after they graduate, so therefore I was wrong. TFA, TFA—I heard that over and over again. And Teach for America is undoubtedly a very good thing. But to cite TFA in response to my argument is precisely to miss the point, and to miss it in a way that actually confirms what I'm saying. The problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that TFA has become incorporated into the system—is that it's just become another thing to get into.

In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from Goldman Sachs or McKinsey or Harvard Medical School or Berkeley Law, but in terms of its place within the structure of elite expectations, of elite choices, it is exactly the same. It's prestigious, it's hard to get into, it's something that you and your parents can brag about, it looks good on your résumé, and most important, it represents a clearly marked path. You don't have to make it up yourself, you don't have to do anything but apply and do the work­—just like college or law school or McKinsey or whatever. It's the Stanford or Harvard of social engagement. It's another hurdle, another badge. It requires aptitude and diligence, but it does not require a single ounce of moral imagination.

Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act on your values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."

Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I've heard again and again as I've talked with students about these things. That term is "self-indulgent." "Isn't it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my degree?" "Wouldn't it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead of getting a real job?"

These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different. Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to justify a creative or intellectual life. You're made to feel like you're crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.

Think of what we've come to. It is one of the great testaments to the intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it makes its most intelligent young people feel like they're being self-indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you're supposed to go to college, but you're also told that you're being "self-indulgent" if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn't self-indulgent? Going into finance isn't self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn't self-indulgent? It's not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It's selfish to pursue your passion, unless it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it's not selfish at all.

Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you, and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it's a never-ending proc­ess. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions they've made about their lives, "We already made our decisions, back in middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into Harvard." And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-year-old decide what they're going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a 19-year-old, for that matter?

All you can decide is what you think now, and you need to be prepared to keep making revisions. Because let me be clear. I'm not trying to persuade you all to become writers or musicians. Being a doctor or a lawyer, a scientist or an engineer or an economist—these are all valid and admirable choices. All I'm saying is that you need to think about it, and think about it hard. All I'm asking is that you make your choices for the right reasons. All I'm urging is that you recognize and embrace your moral freedom.

And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.

It's been said—and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an idea that's worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a "postemotional" generation. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I say, don't shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don't deny the desires and curiosities, the doubts and dissatisfactions, the joy and the darkness, that might knock you off the path that you have set for yourself. College is just beginning for you, adulthood is just beginning. Open yourself to the possibilities they represent. The world is much larger than you can imagine right now. Which means, you are much larger than you can imagine.

William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen Education, will be published next year by Penguin Press.