Steve Wozniak has always been an enigma of sorts. I'm not sure why but he is so synonymous to the word 'thinking engineer'. Well, there must be a hundred thousand 'Engineers' produced in India alone these days (I'm one of them), but then we haven't seen another Wozniak, have we?
A few months back I got hold of iWoz, and was startled at the way he has written the masterpiece. The simplicity with which he has described everything would probably be understandable by even a 12 yr old.
From dreaming to build a computer and realizing the dream, Apple's story is known to all. Steve Jobs is one side of the coin, the other side is this 'thinking engineer'. I came across his interview in Convergence and found it to be quite an intriguing read. Nopes, he doesn't talk about Jobs, he doesn't even mention Apple - rather he talks about 'Education' and talks about 'thinking'. A few quotes of his -
"We have to remember to think freely for ourselves. We need to make sure we’re asking a lot of questions and listening to everyone and not just automatically accepting the word of the day. Whenever anything sounds like you have no freedom of choice, you have to remind yourself to think for yourself.
You have to ask, “Does A cause B, or do I just think it does because everyone says it does?” If you don’t ask yourself that, you might one day read in a journal that someone proved it differently. The more you’re told you don’t have a choice in thinking, be very suspicious.""Now another argument is that games make a kid socially withdrawn. The idea is that a “techie person” is always on a computer alone with the door shut and no one else in the room. Well, these are the kids who used to be shy at school with no one to talk to. Now, because of technology, they can go into chat rooms or onto MySpace, and they have a whole life and don’t have to be popular in real people world."
"If we could reverse some of the paradigms of education to let kids of different ages all participate together in a larger room, then the few human teachers would browse and help students with certain problems that somehow the computer can’t. Each person would have a computer that would be very personal and go at different rates."
And finally,
"Farmers get to vote on farm bills, the elderly get to vote on elderly bills, but students don’t get to vote on school monies. I’d love to see that change."
I especially just loved the 'research part' where he literally persuades people to ask questions, to be clear in fundamentals and force themselves to think!
If interested, you can grab the pdf version of Convergence here. Check out the Summer 2007 copy for the same.
Sometimes hasty decisions do turn up well, and when they do, it deserves a post. The incredible youth of Team India finally delivered on the big stage and for any ardent fan it does provide a good feeling somewhere inside. T20 isn't a great format, but then it definitely provides pressure cooker situations where a little flip could draw curtains for you. I virtually had no hopes from the Indian outfit to do well in this f ormat, and with a new 'young' skipper, success looked all the more distant. However, its this very player of the team, who has looked the most buoyant of all and in to talk simply - has been 'inspirational'. Well, sometimes performances alone don't do justice. MS Dhoni though hasn't lit up the skies with fireworks in South Africa, but the way he has handled the situations has been exemplary. Responsible batting and razor sharp thinking have shown the great transition that he has undergone in the past few months of his international cricket. The subtle arrogance and air of defiance that surrounds him is something that was missing since the 'Glorious Ganguly' captaincy regime lost its magic. Well, I can see a little glimpse of it now, though I just hope that the 'glimpse' turns into a blockbuster motion picture.
