Learn to code

My first attempts at coding were with a tiny Radio Shack computer that hooked up to a cassette player and the TV. I think it took me hours to write the Basic program to get “Hello world!” to display on the screen. Years later I’d work in the world of web marketing and design and work with HTML, JavaScript and CGI every day. Well that’s nothing compared to what’s coming! Top leaders in the tech world are encouraging kids to start learning how to code now, for the future.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey all recently threw their considerable tech weigh and credibility into Code.org’s video “What Most Schools Don’t Teach.” The clip stresses a growing worldwide shortage of coders, and that only 10% of American schools teach any kind of programming. SinceComputer Science is the best paying college degree in the U.S., learning a little coding makes financial sense. But what’s it gonna cost YOU up front? In many cases, only time and effort!

Image courtesy of Code.org

Code.org is a “non-profit whose goal is to expose all students to computer programming. We believe that computer programming is a liberal art; it's something EVERY student in the world should be exposed to at some point in their childhood.”

Code.org offers options straight from its homepage for students to start learning code, or for teachers to start bringing code to their schools. The amount of resources available for FREE to learn code are vast and overwhelming. Who needs college? Bill Gates didn’t!

Code.org’s online learning options include Scratch where you work on some lines of code in a left pane, and see the results on the right. Also offered are links to sites where you can learn coding online. At Code Academy, you can learn to code for free. Khan Academy’s “resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.”

Code.org offers links to apps to teach kids coding set within games for Android with apps likeLightBot, RoboLogic for IOS, or Kodu for Windows, and even xBox. Other online tutorials affiliated with Code.org include Lynda.com and Udemy. Lynda.com offers thousands of online courses and tutorials and offers programming tutorials on core languages like Java, C#, and HTML5. Universities are affiliated with Code.org as well. Coursera offers “free full university courses online taught by real professors.” You’ll also find resources to learn web programming, mobile app programming, and even resources to write code for robots!

So that you know where to go, what should you learn? Well, you’ll need to hone your math and basic computer science skills. When you work up to it, what programming languages should you be learning? Well, jobstractor.com did an overview of the most sought after programming languages.

Here they are in order:

PHP
Java
Objective C
SQL
Android (Java)
Ruby
JavaScript
C#
C++
ActionScript
Python
C
ASP.NET

Well…what are you waitin’ for? We gave you the links. Most of the course are FREE. We even gave you a list of what to learn. So, get out there and start learnin’ some code. Make Mr. Gates and Mr. Zuckerberg happy and maybe you’ll enter the world of all night hackathons, high paychecks, no sleep and free lunches! Good luck!

- See more at: http://www.geeks.com/techtips/community/hey-kids-learn-to-write-code-it-s-the-future.html#sthash.88tjsMQ2.dpuf

cool website

http://edge.org/

farnam street

Looking for something to read?

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• What is Deliberate Practice?
• The Work Required To Have An Opinion
• Summer Reading List — Curated Recommendations For a Curious Mind
• The Single Most Important Change You Can Make In Your Working Habits

Eric baker links

http://theweek.com/article/index/256672/the-single-most-proven-way-to-get-smarter-and-happier#

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/12/happy/

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/11/science-of-karma/

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/08/what-are-the-5-steps-for-changing-bad-habits/

how to sell

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/08/how-louis-ck-and-the-hare-krishnas-can-make-you-a-better-entrepreneur-with-this-one-trick/

 1) The law of reciprocity. If someone does something for you, the brain feels obligated to return the favor. Evolution weeded out the people who would not do anything for you. People learned to cooperate like this so they would survive in the jungle.

Robert Cialdini covers this rule in his book “Influence.” That said, I do not believe this rule is applicable here but a slightly different and more critical rule.

The law of reciprocity is really just a subset of the rule that governs almost every transaction and conversation in our lives.

2) Commitment bias. If you say “yes” to something small, your brain has already decided, “this is someone I can trust and say ‘yes’ to.”

For instance, in a study, if someone asks you “Would you be interested in hearing about causes that can help the environment?” (almost everyone says “yes” because that’s an easy “yes”) then you are about 50 percent more likely to donate when a donation is asked for than if you hadn’t been asked that simple first question.

Commitment bias works because you had to know who was reliable in the jungle 100,000 years ago. You had to know if someone was on your side or not. If they demonstrated it once, then chances are they are on your side and were trustworthy.

Do you want to know what the most popular article ever on my blog is? It’s the one where I say nobody should ever own a home again. People hate this article. They hate it because there’s probably nothing else in life with higher commitment bias.

If you just put $100,000 (or $10,000) down on a home and more on maintenance, taxes, etc., you don’t want anyone telling you you made a mistake. You have huge commitment bias as opposed to the second before you put any money down.

Louis CK made use of the second law (the first law is implicit – he is putting on a show for them so he is giving them something) in this joke.

He got them to laugh to a milder version of the joke (peanut allergies, where even he says, “of course not. I have a nephew with peanut allergies and I would be devastated if something were to happen to him, so he shows his compassion. He’s one of us.)

But now they are in. They took the flower. Now they have to hear the more extreme version of the joke (“slavery”) and they even have to laugh (like people would have to donate billions to the Hare Krishnas).

He knew this (“You’re all in this with me now” even though they weren’t really) and their brains were sucked in and, when you listen to the video, they are actually laughing even harder now.

When dealing with people in business or even in relationships, get them to “yes” on something simple. Then they are in.

This is why learning the “Power of No” is so important. It fights our evolutionary tendencies that were important for 500,000 years but are no longer as important.

I love this joke. I laughed. Because he also makes subtle reference to history.

Each major language in the world — English, Spanish, Han Chinese, and Arabic — are the languages of genocidal empires that at one point or another conquered the entire world.

So as much as you like to speak English, and as much as you like our culture and art and everything, it’s the result of centuries of conquest and killing and slavery. And we live in it and order take-out and watch “American Idol” and participate in the culture.

So you’re all in on this now. You can’t cherry pick your history.

Which is what Louis CK’s joke is really about without him explicitly saying it. It turns history upside down. It uses clever psychological tactics that are used (and often abused) in marketing, and he gets people to laugh all at the same time.

That’s why Louis CK is the master. That’s why I love him.

Workout pictures

Meditation

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/more-mindfulness-less-meditation/?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article