pedrogrande's comments

pedrogrande | 12 years ago | on: Life’s Work: Salman Khan

Being an entrepreneurial educator myself, it's so good to read about Khan's ideas and experiences. This article has inspired me to work harder and have a go at video delivery.

Hopefully I can make a positive difference in the world like Khan has.

pedrogrande | 12 years ago | on: Ask HN: As a front-end dev should I learn Angular or Rails?

I personally recommend learning Rails first, Angular will then make more sense.

Plus you will have the skills and knowledge of how to plug your front end design into the backend systems.

Both Rails and Angular are MVC frameworks but I suggest that Rails is easier for a beginner coder to learn, especially if you already have a high level of comfort with HTML, CSS and jQuery.

pedrogrande | 13 years ago | on: Code poetry exhibition space built by students

So proud of my students. So many more applications about to be launched over the next week too.

It's great to see that in just 7 weeks, these guys and girl have come from being beginner coders to deploying cool apps.

pedrogrande | 13 years ago | on: Colleges lose pricing power

I have trouble understanding the logic of making education so expensive. Isn't it obvious that making education free, or at least cheap, allows the country to grow, both economically and intellectually. Sure, have your private universities for the elite. But the government should be subsidising education for the rest of the population in the interest of improving the life of everyone. In Australia it only costs about $10,000 per year and that is even outlaid by the government and only paid back when the student is earning over about $50,000 per year (as a small percentage added to their tax). If you never earn over $50K, you never have to pay it back.

pedrogrande | 13 years ago | on: Annoyance-free web surfing

If you right-click the AdBlock Plus icon in your browser and choose options, the first option on the General tab reads "I like the text ads on Google search results; show me those." That's what I do.

pedrogrande | 13 years ago | on: Cheddar is For Sale

When selling most big ticket items you need to start with your dream selling price and hope someone will pay you that.

Most buyers will start by counter-offering half your advertised price.

pedrogrande | 13 years ago | on: I am depressed and I need someone to talk to

I don't know if it'll help but for me, when I enter a depression phase. I wallow in it for a while, enjoy feeling sorry for myself which may go on for days or weeks. But then I get sick of being depressed. I just can't flick a switch and be happy again. I have to go through a whole process.

I've learnt a good technique where I just work on being angry. Doesn't matter what about, even just at myself for being depressed. When I get to angry, I'm not feeling despair anymore. I allow myself to focus on being angry for a while but then that turns into frustration. Then I just become annoyed. And before I realise I'm not depressed anymore.

I know all that is a lot easier said than done but over the years I have got better at it.

Another tool I use is to make a list of 20 things I'm grateful for in my life. At first I can't think of anything, but I make myself work at it and start to remember some good things. Good things that I should be happy about.

I realise not everyone's depression is the same but these tools work for me so I thought I'd share.

pedrogrande | 14 years ago | on: GMail: designer arrogance and the cult of minimalism

Personally, I love the new GMail interface and have been using it for months. I like that is less cluttered and that I can more easily configure what is displayed. I've changed the buttons to be text in the settings as I did find the icons hard to pick at a glance. I also love the new themes.

It's interesting to me to see so many people grumble at interface changes whether it's Facebook or Gmail.

pedrogrande | 14 years ago | on: Right versus pragmatic

In my mind, 'being asked to behave in an adult manner', is condescending. I am not excusing the people who litter, they could still use paper to open the door and then dispose of it elsewhere.

In regard to the article, my take-away from it is that all the media industry needs to do to lessen piracy, is make their content easier to access legally - not make it more difficult.

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