It has been a nice few weeks since I posted my last post, involving sun, sea and time for me to remind myself about the impending year of school. This coming year, however, will be more busy than others, not only containing my GCSE exams, but also the many ventures I plan to undertake, some of which I will detail in this post.
To be clear, this post has no real meaning. My notes on posts to write have become meagre and I am having a hard time finding inspiration for a topic sitting in a cramped Ryanair seat.
Yes, Ryanair. I know. I'm so sorry. (post on that later...)
I could write about the recent obliteration of Samsung in the Apple Vs. Samsung trial, the recent book from 37Signals I got through in less than 2 days, or some abstract thoughts about the definition of the verb "To Share" in the new digitally social world. I could, in fact, be bothered to finish the "Hacking the Lego NXT" series, but as I have said, sun, sea and procrastination took over there.
As this post has no aim, as such, I am going to spew a whole bunch of words on the page and see what comes out. Alicia Cuddeford is known for doing this on her blog, and it seems an effective method of writing a half-coherent post which proves to be highly amusing to the reader. I, unfortunately, do not have the gift of the gab, so my attempt at this might fall flat on its face, but screw it.
So, yeah, Samsung. What a story, no? For those of you who follow more important world issues, like the immanent collapse of the Euro, or the crisis in Syria, I applaud you, but this trial attracted much media attention, in part because it would be the first step in dictating the future of our mobile phones. It revolved around Apple suing Samsung for being copycats, and Samsung counter suing Apple for being, excuse my language, dicks.
That was a crude way of pitting it, but in a sense, each company had a point. Samsung copied apple without a doubt, but Apple have patents on the most ridiculous things, which is a deeper problem than I am willing to discuss. The long and short of it is that the jury screwed Samsung over to "prove a point" with $1 Billion in damages, while Apple paid nothing and did not loose any of their patents. Of course, both Apple and Samsung are going to appeal, but this is just interesting to watch.
Is this bad or good for innovation? I have seen many arguments in favor of each side. Either this will force Samsung to innovate, or drive the entire market into the ground, as there are crucial technologies needed for these devices which have patents on them. Samsung's lawyers complained, saying something along the lines of "Apple claims to have patents on rounded rectangles". I honestly don't have an opinion as of yet, but when I do, you will be the first to know!
Now, about that book. It was called ReWork, written by the folks at 37Signals, who have a very unique way if running a business. This book was about their experiences and I would recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in this stuff. It is truly fascinating.
Ok, let's do a very rough transition to those ventures I was talking about. Over the summer, I have been watching Alex Forey build MarkPond, a bookmarking service running off two Raspberry Pis’. Considering that I am the owner of one and have not done anything with it yet, I have tasked myself to do something, anything with it. I am learning Python and I might dab into a bit of web dev and JavaScript next year. We shall see.
I am also entering 3 challenges with the same team I did the Toyota Tech. Challenge with. We are entering the Solar Challenge, the other part of the Toyota Tech. Challenge, where we have to build a solar-powered model car. Then there is the Micromouse, which is a more advanced version of the challenge we entered last year, and finally, there is "Hands off my Bike", where we have to design an "innovative" bike lock, which will be interesting. We might also enter camSAT, just to see if we can do it.
Then there is one more thing I want to do. I want to disrupt the magazine chaos in my school. I know it sounds like I am being a pretentious twat, but I have a few ideas, which shall not be revealed at this moment. I have asked various pupils and the overwhelming majority would support my idea. I have yet to ask the relevant people and teachers whether the school would support it, but that should not be a problem I think.
So, with a busy year ahead for me and many people around the world, I hope that you have had an enjoyable summer and are ready to take on the challenges that lie ahead.
I wish students and teachers alike, good luck.
