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Justin and Jason discuss some of the issues surrounding the UFO topic, Justin’s experiment in outsourcing development work for Pluggio, Rob Walling’s upcoming bootstrapping conference – MicroConf, alpha-testing Appignite and the challenge of generating an API and AJAX functionality, how Justin and Jason both got themselves into debt and how they’re getting themselves out, the impressive quality of the low budget science fiction movie Monsters, an update on Jason’s experiment on applying extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to his six-year old son, a better methodology for teaching mathematics, an update on Pluggio’s revenue growth and why Jason is impressed with Elon Musk.
For the math bit, it reminds me of some physics texts
1) a=b
2) ….
3) A miracle occurs
4) Result
I had a great math professor freshman year in college (Analysis on Manifolds)–his definition of “obvious” was that you can write a 5 line proof :> I think it would be fun to look into JUMP. Do you remember if they’re selling their book yet?
Best,
William
(btw. I haven’t tried ODesk yet for development–based on Justin, I’m going to give it a shot for an “easy” task. I had good luck with them for market research…)
@William – It looks like you can get the workbooks on Amazon and they have them available for grades 1 – 8.
http://www.amazon.com/JUMP-Home-Grade-Worksheets-Program/dp/0887849709/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1304448768&sr=8-6
Incidentally, (and I think I’m going to bring this topic up in the next discussion show), it’s the strong foundation of the basics that make the difference in terms of academic success:
* Deconstructing “Genius” – There is no magic.
http://deconstructinggenius.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/there-is-no-magic/
@Jason
I found that they have a pretty good deal on their homepage, and I contacted them–they would consider it a violation of their IP to make an iPad app or webapp based on their materials–so I guess one could look at their approach and do something similar without relyin gon the actual material….
Generally, I agree that the basics are important (I was just having a conversation with one of my postdocs about this)–I used to do martial arts and even as a 3rd degree black belt, I would spend a lot of time on basics….
I remember something similar to Khan–except my motivation wasn’t as pure–there was an nth edition of a calculus book, where the instructor told us that if we found an error, then there was a cash reward–I worked every problem in that book and didn’t find any errors–but it was still a worthwhile exercise. There’s an excellent book called “Outliers” which deals with how you have to put in 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything…I think in the US, we tend to stress ability more than hard work….I’ve worked with middle school math teachers (outreach) where they really think that some people just get math and some don’t–whereas I really think that hard work and better instruction would see most through….
@Jason, Although your version of my name is awesome, you can call me Udi just like Justin does.. that’s totally fine 🙂
I can’t wait to start working with AppIgnite, I have this weekend planned for it.
I recommend creating a Google Group or something like that for bugs and feature requests. This why all the alpha testers won’t repeat themselves.
Jason, your experiments in with sightwords and Colby have inspired me to try them out on my own six year old boy and trying to motivate him is definitely an interesting exercise. I really want to kindle that intrinsic motivation, so I’m trying to work out an good way to get him thinking about how cool it will be that he can read by himself, but have to admit bribery certainly has swifter results!
My parents got me to learn how to read by telling me that the neighbor kid could…;>
@James – Colby suddenly became interested in reading when one time I left him in the kids section by himself (just one aisle over) for about 15 minutes and when I came to get him he had picked out a book that he really wanted. Until then it was kind of like pulling teeth to get him to read. Although, up until then whenever I would take him to the bookstore he would always just want a toy or maybe a book about building airplanes, but for some reason this time he actually picked out a book to read. The particular book series is called Big Nate, which is actually aimed at 8-12 year olds and was initially a bit over his head, but I think it was the integrated cartoons caught his attention in the first place and have really helped to keep his interest.
The site words are really working though and have accelerated his reading quite a bit, so I highly recommend a little bribing for something like that. Taking him to get ice cream on the weekend as a little reward, which I’d want to do anyway, has worked great. 😉
@William – Yeah, I’ve used that technique with Colby as well. There’s this one kid who was already a fluent reader when he started the year (first grade) and I was like, “Colby, don’t you think you could do that too.” At first I don’t think he gave a damn, but once he noticed the classroom getting stratified based on reading level, I think he decided it might be worth caring about. He’s pretty competitive like his old man, so I can always push that button as well. 😉
@William – That’s interesting that you actually contacted the people at JUMP. It sounds like concepts are simple enough that you could create software based on the general idea without violating IP. That said I have no specific training in IP law. 😉
By the way, are you a professor in Mathematics and if so in what field and at what university?
@Udi – I’ll contact you today in regards to getting you going on AppIgnite.
RE the Colby experiments (love the way you are unit testing your kid Jason) my parents and I used a similar technique to force my brother to read. He happened to be dyslexic and just couldn’t be bothered trying to overcome it.
Our solution was cruel but worked. As we sat down for dinner every night we would discuss books that we had all read. Since he couldnt join in the conversation he would butt in with details and we would just tell him he couldnt join in till he read the book.
6 months later he had forced himself to read. Worked pretty well. Intrinsic motivation really is powerful stuff.
BTW glad to hear yourselves being so candid over debt. Thankfully I have never been in that situation (only debt I have is home loan) since I tend to make sure I have enough cash lying around to buy things outright, or if I need it instantly pay it back at usually 5 times the minimum normal rate.
Example being I needed a new car I took a loan which had monthly repayments at I think about $200 a month. I paid the whole thing off in 4 months and now they are begging me to borrow money again.
I do know people are in the same situation as yourselves though who seem to live in denial over it. I guess in this case my extreme tightarseness pays off 🙂
Hey, really enjoyed this episode, all topics where very interesting,
regarding the outsourcing, in my experience when I post a job
I am really specific on what I need, very detailed, sometimes I even
write an idea on how to solve the problem, and that really filters the applicants.
anyways,I didn’t know Justin used to live in Glendale thats where I live.
thx
@Jason–I’m not a mathematician–just a physicist (I’m a researcher at a national lab):p
@William – “Just a physicist” – That’s pretty funny. 😉