Wow... it is amazing what time pressure can do

All positions aside from the designer have been filled. We are actually going to build an entire team of designers, so if you are out there, let me know!

I have the most amazing team and I am excited.

Job Openings at Synaptic Mash

If you are passionate about Education and live in Seattle, apply for a position at SynapticMash. We want talent!!! Email jobs@synapticmash.com.

Lead Graphic, Web, and UI Designer

• Leader who is a fan of Edward Tufte, understands the human mind, is amazing at unfolding stories
• Is passionate about social networking
• Must have worked on complex Web-sites, knows intuitive Web page layout and site navigation
• 5+yrs Illustrator and Flash
  
• 2+yrs of XHTML with CSS
• 1+yr JavaScript 1.5+
• UI experience
• Ruby on Rails exposure a plus

Junior Web Dev

• Presentation, applications, network services and protocols
• 2+yrs Ruby family, Python, Perl or Lisp family

Junior Server Devs

• Distr systems (shared storage object space, data versioning/partitioning)
• 2yr+ LISP family
• 2yr+ meta-programming lang (Scheme, OCaml, Python)
• 2yr+ C/C++
• 2yr+ *nix scripting
• Network protocols and distr systems
• Familiar with LispWorks or SBCL deployment
• Play nice w/ MacOSX and Linux desktops

Sys Admin / Production Server Farm Programming

• Server farm automation and design
• Agent authoring for monitoring server farms
• Server upgrades
• 2yr+ *nix scripting
• 2yr+ sys-admin experience with Linux
• 2yr+ Debian Linux
• 1yr+ C

Student Information System (SIS) Programmer/Analyst

• Statistical models for assessment and attendance data
• BI
• Fuzzy sets or Bayesian style weighting
• Experience with LISP family
• Will consider candidates who work primarily with statistics packages such as Mathematica, SAS, Stata, etc.

Downsides/upsides of a startup

I paid $70 in tickets and $30+ in parking this week.
I also received the smallest check I have seen since I was in highschool (or so it feels). But you know what...

I am all smiles.

I believe that this is the coolest company that has crossed my path in my career!!!

And, Allison brought us breakfast. It is my goal to turn Allison into a nerd.

We are hiring

We need User Interaction Designers, Web Graphic Designers (Javascript, XHTML, CSS), Information Architects, Server Developers (LISP, C, C++, Python), Production Server Farm Programmers/Automation Engineers, Systems Integrators for Educational Systems.

If you are interested in a kick a@# Seattle Startup... send me your resume.

Surfing the Green

So my new water love is Kayaking....

A couple of short videos of one of the best Falls of my life 2007

This one is of Allen, John, and Me Surfing the Green at around 680 cfs... The surf wave was awesome and every time the camera got on me, I could not catch it... camera is bad mojo man. But check out Allen, he doesn't even look like he is trying...




This is another day on the Skykomish river. We put in below Boulder Drop at around 2000 cfs I believe.

Rene was my fearless leader down Lunch Hole, Raja, Me in the Green Kayak, and Joyce the rock star who taught me a lot of what I know

Lunch 2.0

This is awesome. You know Lunch 2.0 could become an organic alternative to conferences.

ADD and ADHD - evolution?

CDC Report Looks at Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1.6 million elementary school-aged children have been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In a national survey, the parents of 7 percent of children 6-11 years of age reported ever being told by a doctor or health professional that their child had ADHD.

At some point, don't you just ask the question, is this a natural phase of evolution?

What if ADD and ADHD were just natural by-products of our over-achieving, capitalistic society? Children just acclimatizing.

Once you get to a point where 7% of a population is diagnosed with anything.... don't you think you need to change your prognosis?

Ruby on Rails - Your Thoughts?

Sam Ruby... you are the first person I think of when I think of Rails and if you are contributing, I know it must be good.... But how good is it? What do you love/hate about it?

How do you setup your dev processes? That is some of the research I will be doing this week.

A new career in Education..

When I was in High school I tutored my sister's boyfriend, now husband. When I was in college, I home schooled my niece and nephew for a spell. I was actually teaching Tony Calculus at 12... but did it every amount to anything? And, while at Santa Clara University, I recall tutoring a lot of Stanford students ;)- poor sods. Today, I am trying to inspire a kid to discover his strengths in math.

I have always been into education, but I wasn't like my brother Andy or my brother Paul. I was too afraid of being poor to be a teacher. GREED. How wrong is that? Why are teachers so underpaid? I used to have dreams about being a politician so I could lobby for teacher's salaries and then become a teacher later in life.

Anyhow, there is irony in my love of education, it seems even still, with all my training, nearly every important email I write has one ADD moment where I have some grammar error. And you know, I have come to realize, I am going to have to just be ok with it cause that is how my brain works. I can play the dictionary game for the rest of my life and still, I am going to type something too fast and be frowned on by the wordly at heart.

BTW: If the following words ever show up in the dictionary, I am claiming credit for them now

• performant - showing sufficient performance characteristics for modern day applications
• wordly - someone who shows disdain for those who make spelling or grammatical errors

Well, back to the topic at hand, my new career.

Distributed computing has been my life. I sometimes say that since I have 8 brothers, I love Big Brother... my last product was centralized control of IT Systems. But not all things are bad because they are centralized and connected... think... satellite networks, ATMs, blogging, and Federated Identity. Now I am growing up, and instead of Big Brother, I am going to help out Big Mom and Pop and the Educator to have more visibility in their children's and their education.

Social Networking in the context of Education will transform how we think about learning.

Tell me, how would you like to see your child's education evolve?

My new career is VP of Software Development for SynapticMash

How do you define Web 2.0?

Web 1.0
* published content that people pull
* shopping cart is local to the site
Web 2.0
* everything is connected and content is pushed and pulled between everyone
* peer networks subsegment the Web into an infinite number of more private and interpersonal networks
* shopping cart is federated

your thoughts?