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Justin and Jason discuss working while traveling, their dissatisfaction with Asana and the low tech solution they’ve adopted, the pros and cons of “banking your enthusiasm”, the Cern Neutrino experiment, how a vacuum isn’t empty but contains “class definitions” of real particle known as virtual particles, the TV show John Doe, Arrested Development’s deal with Netflix, ideas on how to create AnyFu’s legal documents, PicoMoney and the virtual money concept, why SOPA is a nightmare, the best time to submit an article to HN, Jason’s experiment in using economic incentives to spike his son’s academic and athletic progress, how Roger Craig broke the all-time Jeopardy record using a knowledge tracking web app, three memory hacks that work, the dawn of the robot age, how the inventor of the Super Soaker is creating a new electric car battery and how spacing your kids two years apart makes them smarter.
Guys, I think we need a TechZing Wives show with Georgie and Sandy where they do a commentary over the original show…
Funny how an increasing number of kids are diagnosed with ADHD but people rarely stop to ask if maybe it’s school that’s just too boring!
There’s an RSA Animate of a speech by Sir Ken Robinson at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U. One of his points is that, with all the input and stimuli kids get today, how are they supposed to sit still in a teaching environment that was designed in the 19th century? And the “ADHD map” (3:35 in) is pretty interesting, how the number of prescriptions for ADHD varies across the US.
@Mohammed Firdaus – That’s a great suggestion and it’s actually something we’ve talked about doing for a while now. I know Sandy would love to come on the show and cut me down a peg or two.
I’ll see if I can set it up.
@Mikael Green – Sir Ken Robinson’s original TED Talk on education is still my all-time favorite.
Kids are complicated and challenging and so we’re constantly experimenting to see what works. It’s frustrating at times, but I think we’re making progress and figuring some things out.
If interested in Physics, theres a Berkeley course called “Physics for Future Presidents”. It provides a a conceptual understanding without all the tricky math. All the lectures are freely available online.
Heres the first one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ysbZ_j2xi0
If your (bug tracking) ghetto fabulous solution shows its limit after a while, you might like those two hosted apps: https://sifterapp.com/ and http://lighthouseapp.com/. You can use both of them for free for 30 days in order to evaluate them.
Great show as ever.
@jason a couple things.
* Cody might be all about the money, but it might also be a form of appreciation or recognition from you and sandy.
* Or you need to sit him down and have him watch Jerry Mcguire. He needs to learn to have heart. It’s not just about money.
* And the ability to obsessively focus is actually another symptom of ADHD. Still doesn’t mean he has it, but something to be aware of.
@Corey – Sandy and I give a ton of verbal reinforcement to the kids and we try to be very positive generally, but not so much as to entirely inflate (and thereby debase) the “positive feedback” currency.
We’re also quite affectionate with the kids, both verbally as well as physically, so I don’t think there’s any doubt in their minds that they’re loved and valued. But for Colby at least verbal reinforcement just doesn’t have the same kind of material impact as a small, near-term monetary incentive, which is proving to be extremely effective. That said we’re extremely careful not to over do it and are very selective as to what we’ll assign a monetary incentive. But every kid is different and what works does change over time, so what is required to motivate and incentivize Colby at the age of 7, may or may not be what’s required later in his development, not to mention what might be necessary to get his sisters moving in the right direction at their various stages of development.
That’s funny about Jerry McGuire.
I always loved that movie and especially the scene in the locker room where Jerry makes the point about football being about heart and not just about “getting paid”.
I did a bunch of reading on ADHD and I did in fact make a mental note that obsessive focus can be a symptom. Now that we’ve educated ourselves a little on the subject we’re going to keep a close eye on his behavior to see if we think it warrants submitting to a clinical evaluation. For the time being he seems to be doing much better in class, so that’s been a huge relief.
@jason I love that you think about this stuff so much. I’m sure you guys are awesome parents. Please keep telling us about your “experiments” and progress.
BTW, I realize now the tone in my comment was very serious. I certainly didn’t mean to imply you and Sandy weren’t giving Colby enough attention. Just suggestion there might be a different motivation behind the money. Or maybe it’s just money
A couple of completely episode-unrelated questions for JV or Jason that I’ve been meaning to ask for AAAAGGES:
1. @Jason: I assume it’s one of your kids who speaks at the beginning of most podcasts now? What does he say? Because all I can hear is: “This episode is the stupidest – of Soundcloud – REDRUM!”
2. @Justin: you do realise that if you offer your time on Anyfu it will be “Justin time, just-in-time”.
@Alex – LOL — This episode is distributed by soundcloud dot com