I’m a little concerned about that Da Vinci machine (see drawing above). It seems unworkable, to me. If the weight pulls on the string and makes the spindle turn clockwise, the large wheel on the left will turn anti-clockwise, and the large wheel on the right will turn clockwise.
But as they’re joined together by a square wooden axle, the whole machine would break asunder.
Or am I misreading something?
I’m impressed! I use the “exploded drawing” just as a metaphor for “a detailed analysis of the programming code”. The reference to Leonardo Da Vinci was just a side line, since I thought it was interesting how he analyzed things in detail, and I can use it to create clean programming code, but I’m not interested in his drawings or his inventions per se.
But you actually analyzed his drawing and tried to figure out how it works. Hats off for you! 
. BTW I like the word asunder. It sounds a little of yore and poetic. We have a Swedish word “sonder” which means brake apart. I don’t know if they are related in any way.
I wrote a post commenting on teh image, but unfortunately (well, from my perspective since I didn’t have to read it) it appears to be lost in the interweb.
In short: no exploding cogs - the detailed schematics show the large wheels rest on smaller inner wheels, hence are free to rotate in opposite directions. Also, I have some vague memory that Leonardo used to leave out key parts of his inventions in his schematics so only he could make them - but not sure if truth or urban myth…
Yes, they are related:
sunder
Dictionary.com
O.E. sundrian, from sundor “separately, apart,” from P.Gmc. *sunder (cf. O.N. sundr, O.Fris. sunder, O.H.G. suntar “aside, apart”), from PIE base *sen(e)- denoting “separation” (cf. Skt. sanutar “far away,” Avestan hanare “without,” Gk. ater “without,” L. sine “without,” O.C.S. svene “without,” O.Ir. sain “different”).
asunder
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Originally two words; from Old English on (“a (preposition)”) sundran (“separate position”). Cognate with Danish sønder, Swedish sönder, Dutch zonder and Icelandic sundur, from Old Norse í sundr, akin to Gothic (sundro).
asunder (comparative more asunder, superlative most asunder)
In order to organize my work, I stumbled on a text editor called VoodooPad. VP (VoodooPad) organizes information into documents which consist of pages (nodes). The nice thing about VP, and what sets it apart from other editors, is that it allows you create links between nodes in a very easy, almost automatic manner. Each node can have link to any other node. This means that n pages can have approximately n^2 links. If you have 100 pages you can have 10 000 links.
Of course you would not have so many links, but the ease of creating links, makes VoodooPad ideal to mimic the workings of a brain (a page roughly mimics a neuron). This allows you to organize information in the way your brain organizes things. For instance say you have a node called iPhone, with the following links:
People, Books, Concepts, Projects.
You could then divide each of these into sub-nodes. In this way you get a hierarchy. But from a concept node, for instance, you can have a link to a book. And from a book you can have several links to various concepts. You can also divide your books by subject, and by quality. In this way intricate information web (not hierarchy) can arise.
Vannevar Bush was one of the first who noted this. In his 1945 article “As We May Think”, he said that the usual way to find information is through classification; but, there is another way, through association:
The VP is a simple tool that gives you great freedom. That means that you can create brilliant things with it, as well as hyper-garbage. Just like we have neurons, connected to our senses and the external world, VP can have external links to webpages, files, apps and folders. The links are made by drag and drop. This allows you to use VP as a central hub for finding information and starting apps.
A neuron has three parts: soma, dendrites and axon. Soma is the body, dendrites are the receivers and axons are the senders. In last post I said that VP’s pages are like neurons. In that analogy, the text is the soma, the axons are the links, and the dendrites are the backlinks (To access Backlinks choose the Window ▸ Palettes ▸ Backlinks).
Of course, the text, the links and the backlinks in VP don’t do anything (yet 
). The doing (that is giving meaning) is done by our brain.
Our brain is made of approximately 100 billion neurons. Neurons come in many sizes, shapes and perform various functions (for instance sensory neuron from your fingertip has an axon that extends the length of your arm, while neurons within the brain may extend only a few millimeters). By studying these neuron-variants you can get ideas how to build and organize different page-varinats in VP. Here are some neuron variants inside the brain:
Even though I do not know my hedgehog concept yet, I think I know the general direction.
I don’t expect that this is the final formulation, but it is the first formulation, and I expect the subsequent formulations to be a variation of this, especially a narrowing down.
After looking at Core Animation, I decided not to use it. Many sites and people say it’s easy to use, but very few people actually use it. After taking a closer look I came to conclusion that it’s not as easy as some claim, and that’s the real reason why so few use it. I decided to go for Cocos2d instead.
When you’re preparing for an important journey it’s important to plan, pack and clean up. I’m just reading the book “Ten Commitments To Your Success”, by Steve Chandler. These ten principles is what I want to take with me on the journey to my hedgehog concept.
Steve Chandler is an author of self development books. His father was successful, made money and retired early. That life bored him, he started to drink and died young. This shows that a life of comfort is as dangerous as drugs. Steve Chandler also began to drink, a lot, but succeeded to abandon that life and start out afresh, in the area of self development. His books are full of insight.
How long time will you have to work at your hedgehog principle until something exceptional comes into being? Hard to tell, but ten years or so is a good guess. And what’s the way to achieve it? By, not being exceptional in your daily work! Trying to be exceptional, is a sure way to failure and misery. In his book Chandler quotes Lyndon Duke
In my case I started to learn and use Mac development tools. Each day I learn and create something new, but not more than I can master. I’m perfectly satisfied with little gains. One baby step enough for me. As Mohandas said:
The real challenge is to do these insignificant things for the next ten years. If you can do it, there’s nothing in the world that can stop you from creating something exceptional. A quote from Shinichi:
and one from Albert
So, you should work hard for ten years in order to enjoy the fruits of your effort?
No, not at all. Becoming successful is everything, being successful is nothing. It’s the day to day activity, during those ten years that are the real joy. Being successful in the meaning getting recognition, praise, money and so on is nothing. It’s the growing, with all its frustrations, that’s fun. Being big is boring (and dangerous to your physical and mental health). A quote from Albert:
I couldn’t quite put my fascination with programming into words, until I read the following quote from Buckminster Fuller:
To program, more than any other endeavor, is to make new experiments, all the time, which means learning all the time, which means …
One essential element to any successful endeavor is the ability to think right. There are many spiritual and religious systems and they differ on many things, but one thing they all stress, is the importance of thinking the right thoughts. The biggest problem we have in our life is to choose the right thoughts. But how do we do that? It is estimated that we have 40 000 thoughts during one day. That is one thought every second second! Thoughts arise naturally by themselves. How can we possibly control that process? There are some things that we can do.
Actions and thoughts go together. By doing the right actions, which is under our control, we influence what thoughts arise. Act as if you were enthusiastic might give you enthusiastic thoughts.
By reading good (self development, biographies, etc) books, we influence heavily our thoughts. The same goes for listening to inspirational people. But the process is not permanent, so we must keep on reading each day and listen ever so often to enthusiastic people.
By meditating, we get aware of our thoughts before they take control of us, thus we can influence them.
Sometimes the change of the environment can influence our thoughts.
There are also some things we should avoid.
Talking to negative people, who are complaining about everything and everybody.
Listening or reading the news. News are gossip or/and manipulation of your mind and your thoughts. They are almost always negative. Avoid them at any cost.
Giving in to depressing thoughts. As soon as you are aware of depressing thoughts make a list of 10 things you can do to go into real depression. Then do the opposite.
My favorite way to lift my thoughts, is to read (or listen to) inspirational self development books. I devote 30 to 60 minutes each day to this reading, and that time is well invested. A day when I read such a book, I accomplish much more, then the day when I do not. And my thoughts are much more hopeful and enthusiastic. Here are some books (in order of their importance) that I use 
Olson, The Slight Edge
Suzuki, Nurtured by Love
Brande, Wake up and Live
Rogers, Fighting to win
Bettger, How I raised myself from failure to success in selling
Bettger, How I multiplied my income and happiness in selling
Carnegie, How to stop worrying and start living
Chandler, The Story of You
Chandler,100 Ways To Motivate Yourself
Chandler,Reinventing Yourself
Chandler,17 Lies That Are Holding You Back
Chandler,Ten Commitments To Your Success
Tolle, The power of now
Gallwey, Inner game of tennis
Thoreau, Walden
Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
Ferris, The 4-Hour work Week
Bhagavad Gita
Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
Tao Te Ching
Buddha, Dhammapada
Allen, As a Man Thinketh
Ellis, The Magic Lamp
Pressfield, War of Art
Getting Real: The book by 37signals
We are all different. I do not suggest that my list of books will suit you, but it is a good idea to have a list of books that inspire you and get your juices going. And to keep looking out for books that you can add to your list.
The thought is a very important entity. In fact Buddha regarded thought as the most important cause on earth. He begins Dhammapada with the following two verses:
James Allen gave the following reflections on the power of thought.
Thoreau said
and Gandhi made it very clear
Dale Carnegie was convinced of it’s power
Many books tell you that you have to change your actions in order to change your circumstances. But your actions are formed from your attitudes. And you attitudes are formed by your thoughts. And your thoughts are formed (to high extent) by the people you communicate with, either by talking to them in person, or by reading what they have written. Today you can get access to the thoughts of very smart people. And that will alter your own thoughts. Which will alter your attitudes. Which will alter your actions. Which will alter your career. But it all starts with reading the thoughts of great minds.
My hedgehog concept is narrowing down. Since language is the first born child of our intellect, I decided to make a (foreign) language learning program as my first application. New gadget’s like iPhone can make a real difference for language learning. Take for instance flash cards. They are useful on the computer but become much more useful on the iPhone. You can rehearse while waiting for a bus, in a queue and so on. It takes less space than flash cards on paper, and you can even hear the right pronunciation. What a difference! What I’m really after is to make an engine for learning, and a foreign language learning application is a good start.
This probably deserves a different thread in the “latte” section, but I have a question: Is the above really true? Wouldn’t tool making or teaching/learning the use of tools or even the precursor to language, singing be more accurately “the first born child of our intellect”? If we look at child development we see that these all precede spoken language.
You are right. It all depends on what we mean with the “intellect”. According to Piaget, children go through three stages (which have to do with the development of different areas of the brain, which are activated and developed during different time in child’s evolution, as Bruner has showed).
When I wrote “intellect” I thought first and foremost of symbolics (although the other are also necessary). For symbolics, abstraction is necessary and I was thinking that language was the first really successful abstraction of the human mind. That abstraction led to the written letters, and later to mathematics, physics and the other sciences. But you are of course right, that the human species was successful and “intelligent” long before language evolved.
In my case I’m not so interested in senso-motoric activities like teaching people how to play tennis or ski. Nor in audio visual activities like singing or painting. I’m more interested in teaching symbolic activities like language, mathematics, programming and similar.
Good clarification. Thanks.
I was thinking of using game worlds as a method for learning. A character can go round an virtual world and accomplish different tasks. I was thinking of using the idea behind the tile-based games.
What is a tile-based game?
I think it was in 1993 that my son got his Super Nintendo as a christmas present. It was a 16-bit video game console with 64 kBytes for storing video data and a resolution of 512x224 pixels. He often played a game called “The Legend of Zelda”. The game is about a boy whose task is to rescue princess Zelda, who is locked in the dungeon of Hyrule Castle. The boy must navigate through the castle picking up things, killing enemies, and try to rescue Zelda from her cell. The two of them escape into a secret passage through the sewers that leads to a sanctuary.
SInce the game world is big, it needs a lot of screen size and lot of memory. Super Nintendo didn’t have either. So how did they solve the problem? They showed just a part of the big image, and scrolled in new parts of the image when the need arose. They also made up the big graphics by reusing a number of small rectangular areas (called tiles). For instance if you are rendering a forest, you can make the trees look the same, hence the smart approach is to re-use one small graphic entity, over and over. The same goes for ground, and other parts of the game world. This is the idea behind tile-based games.
Isaiah Berlin’s essay, “The Fox and the Hedgehog,” was written to explain some of the contradictions of Leo Tolstoy’s life and writings. Berlin said that Tolstoy was a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog. Tolstoy was by nature a fox, Berlin says, but believed in being a hedgehog. For that reason, it’s always seemed kind of sad to me. I envy the hedgehogs out there. “Follow your dream” is great advice, but what if you’ve got lots of dreams?
The phrase is a fragment of a Greek poem by Archilochus, and in the Greek it’s even more powerful, because it doesn’t need a lot of words. My own translation of it would be – “The fox knows many things, the hedgehog only one – but it’s a good one.”
Still, we foxes must stick together. We’re much nicer to pet.
Kate