Two months past 2010 and it still feels like the year had just started. I am getting used to writing “2010″ on notepads and deposit slips, but somehow it’s taking a while for the “new year” feeling to kick-in. Perhaps Im still feeling the hangover from 2009. Last year, a lot of events and new things happened:

• I quit my Web Development job which I had for three years. It was a tough choice to make, but it turned out to be a turning point.
• I had my first “real” research experience with Dr. YiLu and SSIM Lab at Wayne State. This is where the “bulb” turned on. Doing both research endeavors at the same time was challenging, but was a definitely a blast.
• Learned so much from having too many sleepless nights working on Senior Design. Winning the Design contest was an awesome bonus
• IGVC Competition. It was great to pull-off a 15-minute impromptu presentation in front of experienced engineers. Among other things, driving a 10-ft truck full of expensive equipments, running on  rainy days wearing trash bags while carrying wireless joysticks, and making robots automatically avoid an obstacle course made that event very memorable.
• Finally graduated with my two Engineering Degrees… definitely one of the  highlights for the year.
• Going back to Cebu to visit my girlfriend whom I havent seen for 3 years. To see and touch her (again) was a moment I will treasure forever. The entire seven weeks was unforgettable. Although the plane tickets and travel money was a hard-stretch for a college student, the experience was priceless.
• Getting my first “real” job at Ford. Definitely a big change. I never imagined I would have so much fun working on an  IT rotation (given my engineering background)
• Going back to Cebu (again) to visit my girlfriend for the Holidays.. built memories and experience that were scrap-book / musuem worthy..

There were definitely low points throughout the year, as well. But they became learning experiences — opportunities for growth and of becoming a better person. I would not trade them for anything as well.

I have a lot of things I want to accomplish for 2010. And as I tread through the year, I look forward  to learning many, many more things and encounter more life-changing experiences.

As I get accustomed to writing “2010″ on my notepads and deposit slips, I hope it it turns out to be a year that is,  yet again, worth remembering.

Here we go!

From PhD Comics: Here’s a motivation to do your best, even when the odds are stacked against you..

This is a repost from Daniel Isenberg.  He is a Professor of Management Practice from Bobson College.

The original article is here.

——————–

Some of your friends are doing it. People who do it are in the front pages and web almost every day. Even President Obama is talking about it. So should you do it? Should you join the millions of people every year who take the plunge and start their first ventures? I’ve learned in my own years as an entrepreneur — and now an entrepreneurship professor — that there is a gut level “fit” for people who are potential entrepreneurs. There are strong internal drivers that compel people to create their own business. I’ve developed a 2–minute Isenberg Entrepreneur Test, below, to help you find out. Just answer yes or no. Be honest with yourself — remember from my last post: the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

1. I don’t like being told what to do by people who are less capable than I am.
2. I like challenging myself.
3. I like to win.
4. I like being my own boss.
5. I always look for new and better ways to do things.
6. I like to question conventional wisdom.
7. I like to get people together in order to get things done.
8. People get excited by my ideas.
9. I am rarely satisfied or complacent.
10. I can’t sit still.
11. I can usually work my way out of a difficult situation.
12. I would rather fail at my own thing than succeed at someone else’s.
13. Whenever there is a problem, I am ready to jump right in.
14. I think old dogs can learn — even invent — new tricks.
15. Members of my family run their own businesses.
16. I have friends who run their own businesses.
17. I worked after school and during vacations when I was growing up.
18. I get an adrenaline rush from selling things.
19. I am exhilarated by achieving results.
20. I could have written a better test than Isenberg (and here is what I would change ….)

If you answered “yes” on 17 or more of these questions, look at your paycheck (if you are lucky enough to still get one). If the company that issued the check isn’t owned by you, it is time for some soul searching: Do you have debts to pay? Kids in college? Alimony? Want to take it easy? Maybe better to wait. Do you have a little extra cash in the bank and several credit cards? Do you have a spouse, partner, friends, or kids who will cheer you on? If so, start thinking about what kind of business you want to set up. It doesn’t matter what age you are: research by the Kauffman Foundation shows that more and more over–50s are setting up their own businesses. Talk to people who have made the plunge, learn how to plan and deliver a product or service, think about that small business you might buy, talk to people with whom you would like to work, and talk to customers.

“I like to take risks” is not on the list. People don’t choose to be entrepreneurs by opting for a riskier lifestyle. What they do, instead, is reframe the salary vs. entrepreneur choice as between two different sets of risk: the things they don’t like about having a steady job — such as the risk of boredom, working for a bad boss, lack of autonomy, lack of control over your fate, and getting laid off — and the things they fear about being an entrepreneur — possible failure, financial uncertainty, shame or embarrassment, and lost investment. In the end, people who are meant to be entrepreneurs believe that their own abilities (e.g. leadership, resourcefulness, pluck, hard work) or assets (e.g. money, intellectual property, information, access to customers) significantly mitigate the risks of entrepreneurship. Risk is ultimately a personal assessment: what is risky for me is not risky for you.

“I want to get rich” is not on the list either. All else being equal (and all else is rarely equal in the real world), on the average, people who set up their own businesses don’t make more money, although a few do succeed in grabbing the brass ring. But the “psychic benefits” — the challenge, autonomy, recognition, excitement, and creativity — make it all worthwhile.

This quote struck me so much that I’ve been using it as a source of inspiration. It’s the theme for Doodle for Google 2009.  Its a motivation for thinking big, reaching for you dreams, and changing the world.

“If I could do anything, I would…”

• Create technology that would change people’s lives
• Build a beautiful house for every family in the world
• Eliminate poverty, eliminate diseases, and get rid of pornography
• Provide everybody in the world the chance to fulfill their dreams
• Create a bridge from Michigan to Cebu, or perhaps a tunnel or a teleport machine…
• Have YFC/SFC household on the moon
• Learn the ability to walk on water so I can run around the world..
• Travel the solar system within 3 days, starting from the Sun, with a pit-stop at the rings of Saturn, and finally surfing around the outskirts of the milky way. Then I would fly back to Earth, rest for a few days, and Start making plans to travel to a different universe..
• Allow snow to fall in the Philippines (for a few days the most) so people there can finally experience their first snow
• Swim with a blue whale as he takes me around to the wonders of the ocean
• Travel the world with my wife
• If I could do anything, I would still read books, go to Grad school, and be able to learn and explore the fascinating world around us..
• If I could do anything, I would… Do more…

If you could do anything, what would you do?

I have been receiving enormous amounts of Spam from my blog lately. Comments have been temporarily turned off until an anti-spamming solution is found.

Update: Comments are now enabled.

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas! There is no place I’d rather be on Christmas than Cebu. I’m delighted to be here with my pLong pLong

I was listening to the Numbers episode of Radiolab and came across a very interesting topic: Benford’s Law.

In its simplest form, Benford’s Law says that there is a distinctive pattern on the “population” of numbers. If you gather all the numbers in the world (from numbers found in stock prices, to newspapers, height of buildings, temperatures, cash registers, etc.), approximately 30% of them start with # 1. Let me repeat that, about 30% of numbers in the world start with #1.

But wait there’s more!

About 18% of all numbers in the world begin with #2. About 13% begin with #3. See the pattern?

And here’s the entire gamut:

• #4:  9.7%
• #5:  7.9%
• #6:  6.7%
• #7:  5.8%
• #8:  5.1%
• #9:  4.6%

Visualizing this pattern, we get:

So what’s so significant about Benford’s Law? Surprisingly, the natural distribution of numbers is so universal that it can be applied to any numerical context (i.e. finance reports, random numbers). Any deviation from this pattern denotes that the numbers have been manually modified. In fact, Benford’s Law has been used to detect accounting fraud and other related crimes (see example below).

Lesson: don’t mess with numbers (unless you follow Benford’s Law).

UPDATE: Results are in. MIT Red Balloon Team has won the competition. Great effort! I’m curious to know how teams approached this problem.

If you have seen one, please let me (or our team) know!

This Saturday (December 5), DARPA, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will release 10 red balloons at fixed locations. The challenge is to FIND THEM. The first individual or group to locate all 10 balloons will receive a $40,000 cash prize. This task may be harder than it seems so we need a lot of help!

Join our team. Click here to join our Facebook group.

Pass it along! Tell your friends, your girlfriends, your girlfriends’ girlfriends, and your girlfriends’ girlfriends’ grandparents!

More information on the DARPA Network Challenge

Loading Contents of .plist file to an Array

The most straightforward method for dealing with .plist files is +[NSArray initWithContentsOfFile:path]. However, you need to specify the correct path of the plist file via [NSBundle pathForResource:plist ofType:].

Code block

- (NSArray *)arrayFromPlist: (NSString *)plist {
     NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:plist ofType:@"plist"];
     NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
     return array;
 }

Loading to a Dictionary

To load the contents of a .plist file to a dictionary,  instantiate a NSDictionary or NSMutableDictionary and initialize it with [NSDictionary initWithContentsOfFile:]

Code block

- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryFromPlist: (NSString *)plist {
 NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:plist ofType:@"plist"];
 NSDictionary *dict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
 return dict;
}

Writing to a .plist

The easiest way to write values to a .plist file is to use a NSDictionary and modify its contents using -[NSDictionary setObject: forKey:]. To save the contents to a .plist file, use -[NSDictionary writeToFile: atomically:].

Atomically writing to a file guarantees that the file, if it exists at all, does not become corrupted even when the system should crash while writing.

Code block

NSString *path = @"Path to Plist.plist";
 NSDictionary *dict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
[dict setObject:@"Gierad" forKey:@"name"];
[dict writeToFile:path atomically:YES];

Lastly, if you want to read/write small configurations for your app, NSUserDefaults is recommended. It contains methods to easily handle key-value pairs including floats and other objects.

I am proud to announce that gierad.com has been successfully registered! I am planning to move all my old stuff from digitalvent.com to gierad.com.

I am still planning to keep digitalvent.com, but I hope to slowly transition to using my new domain name.

I am also setting up email accounts for gierad.com to use Gmail. At the moment of writing, Gmail is waiting for the MX records to fully propagate across the Internet (which could take up to 48 hours).

I will post updates when they come.