the bilfo blog

Kathy Sierra on learning theory:

Learners are not “empty vessels” waiting to be filled with content pushed into it by an expert, blogger, author, etc. Learning is something that happens between the learner’s ears–it’s a form of co-creation between the learner and the learning experience. You can’t create new pathways in someone’s head… your job is to create an environment where the chances of the learner “getting it” in the way that you intend are as high as possible.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, writes in another great post:

I remember when Dilbert hit it big and it became clear that I would never again have to worry about money. It was a wonderful feeling, but it didn’t last. I went from happy to hollow with no warning. The first moment that I could afford any car I wanted, I lost interest in having a nice car. I simply couldn’t see the point, if there ever was one. Success is surprisingly disorienting.

For some reason I’m fascinated by the history of places (buildings and roads especially). This DVD looks like it would be really cool.

From the website:

Austin Past and Present is an interactive documentary that brings Austin’s history to life.

From its geologic formation to it current urban skyline, Austin Past and Present explores Austin’s past and present in more than 300 multimedia stories and over 2 hours of motion picture documentary.

via Austinist

Norris (who should have his own blog) writes about this really cool site in an email:

Came across this site today through WebZen. If it at all interests you, then be sure to play with the variations.

www.coverpop.com/whitney/index.php

WebZen is at www.chaoskitty.com/webzen if you want to check out more net-based art projects.

And he adds in a followup email:

You might also check out www.uncontrol.com. There are a whole series of
little programs to interact with in interesting ways. I found some of them
to be very cool.

My friend, Chris, makes beer in the jungle.

At first I thought maybe my meager Spanish wasn’t good enough to get the point across. It turned out that I did a sufficient job explaining, but it was such a ridiculous thing to do that she couldn’t comprehend it. For some reason it didn’t seem that strange to me that I was asking a woman in a village in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon if I could hire her sons to build a cooking fire for me so that I could brew beer.

Check it out Michael’s blog. I expect we’ll be reading great things.

I just attended the First International Rail Conference in Chicago where I had the pleasure of of hearing Paul Graham give a talk called the Power of the Marginal.

This is just to say hi to my friend Michael who is learning to program Ruby.

I’m signed up for the Rails Conference in June.

It’s long been my belief that people are the most important part of the software process. Many times we forget that and think that process can overcome any people problems. In my experience this never works. This article by Alistar Cockburn reinforces this.

People, as active devices, have success modes and failure modes. The following are the main ones that I have named and used to date:

1. People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time question and answer.
2. People have trouble acting consistently over time.
3. People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.
4. People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing “whatever is needed” to get the project to work.