Jean-Claude Wippler

Learn math

jcw — 2010-06-28T15:53:19+02:00

Just found out about the Khan Academy. One man sets out to teach maths from the most basic to the most advanced, in clear and pleasant bite-sized chunks, and gives 1500+ video lectures away by placing them on YouTube. Here’s a story about it.

There’s a brief comment on his FAQ page which jumped out at me: “[...] I also try to watch very little television”. Bingo. Life’s too short to watch television. This guy shows just how much people can accomplish when they put their mind to it.

Incredible.

When asked about his religion, Salman Khan replied with this...

If you believe in trying to make the best of the finite number of years we have on this planet (while not making it any worse for anyone else), think that pride and self-righteousness are the cause of most conflict and negativity, and are humbled by the vastness and mystery of the Universe, then I'm the same religion as you.

Wow again.

Quid, no pro

jcw — 2010-04-26T12:44:37+02:00

As always, Seth is in a league of his own - 349 words. Brilliant.

Another dominant player

jcw — 2010-04-21T23:28:37+02:00

The dominant player I’m referring to is Adobe. I never liked Flash - it has “lock-in” written all over it. Always had. John Gruber (again) points to the proper comment about this little storm.

I kind of liked TUAW’s graphic - enough to add a reduced copy right here:

The blogosphere can be pretty boring at times. This is such a time. All the same stories, endlessly reverberating.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to tinkering in Jee Labs - so much more fun!

Monopoly

jcw — 2010-04-17T00:46:02+02:00

Apple is in the news a lot these days. Daring Fireball points to a weblog post about Apple’s position - and John Gruber says it all in his opening sentence: Brilliant, must-read piece by Stanislav Datskovskiy. Exactly.

Cognitive surplus

jcw — 2010-03-15T13:50:01+01:00

Triggered by a weblog entry by the always-interesting Seth Godin, I stumbled on this fascinating 17-minute presentation by Clay Shirky, with his always-skillful way to present deep insights and analyses.

I no longer go watch TV. That trend started many years ago. Oh sure, I do watch movies, documentaries, and interviews (not news - all the Dutch news channels seem to be aimed at infants). But it’s been ages since I sat down to do nothing, waiting to be distracted or entertained. I’m grateful that Shirky finally explains how “the media” - as they are today - are essentially an aberration.

It also explains why open source communities have a virtually unlimited amount of time, energy, and talent at their disposal.