So I just arrived on campus for the Multicultural Overnighter and Accepted Students Day. I've met some really cool people and checked out the photography building and the arts farm. I will be updating this post with my experiences over the weekend.

Writing the Urban Experience

Taught by W. Ryan at FPH 105

Now, I'm sitting in on this class. It's kind of a big class. 23 People. The people in the class are sitting around the tables made into a hollow square. On the outside are all the admitted students/visitors. There are almost as many of us as there are of them. The class is discussing a piece of writing by a student in the class entitled Jersey Kids and cars about the driving as a pastime. It brings back memories of blasting ballads like Journey's Don't Stop Believing and yelling driving with friends when I lived in Washington.

The next story, Laura's story, is about Laura, the aunt of a student who is quite a character, she is a mother of five, went to college while working at Smith and took 10 years to do her undergraduate degree, taking one or two classes at a time. It's quite an interesting piece. I really like it. Although, it does leave you with something missing. I'm just so excited to be in college and participating.

So, that kind of failed, didn't realize my day would be so jam packed. I had a really good time and met a lot of really amazing people. I'll finish up this blog post soon.

Ok. Being online is addictive and I can definitely say that it's an addiction of mine, but I'm finding that I've started a bunch of new "blogs" all of which have a purpose. I know you guys really like stalking me. I'm actually just kidding, but if you're interested here are all my online presences that I can think of at the moment. I might or might not update this post with new things, but the reason I have so many is that I like trying new things. I start them and give them a chance to grow. Some I keep some I let live on with few posts. I'll give you my spiel about each and why the are useful. I'm not going to list the ones that I am "working" for because I'm sure you've heard about them already or will hear about them later. Here are all my personal ones.

Formspring: http://formspring.me/justinleung - I try to be honest and genuine about all the questions here and have yet to get one that I didn't answer. If you want to ask me something publicly this is the place. Otherwise email Justin@justinleung.net or if you're really adventurous, call 415.997.9201.

Tumblr: http://jstin.me - This is basically where I write my more or less unadulterated raw feelings. I have to warn you that it's also full of snippets of cuteness and love.

750 words: http://750words.com/entries/stats/34887 - Here's the analysis of today's entry. I really like this because I can be totally uncensored and incoherent. I basically go on a word rant every morning (I try.) I just write whatever comes out and it's great because I know no one else is reading it and I can say whatever. It's basically a journal.

DailyBooth: http://dailybooth.com/justinleung - Ok this isn't a blog, but it's just daily pictures. I don't know if it's really that useful, but it's entertaining and cute. I haven't been doing a picture everyday, but I might. I'm pretty sure no one wants to see me that much actually.

For the last two weeks it's basically been madness, I walked into the lab today and my co-worker remarked that I hadn't been in since before our ski trip which was February 9th, crazy huh? That made me realize that I'm doing what I always do, take on more and more projects and making excuses to myself about stuff so in March my goal is to stop taking on new things, reassessing where I am on my current ones, putting some on hold and making a ton of progress on the rest. I'm going to learn how to straighten my priorities and learn to say no, or at least a long yes...

Here are some of the things I've been working on in February:

Technology Journalism - I've joined onto TeenCastic and Teens In Tech in a few different roles to make them both better products.

Stanford Entrepreneur Week - I was welcomed to Stanford by Kevin Xu and invited to attend several events including Reverse VC Pitch Party with Larry Chiang. I also did VC3 pitches hosted by ASES and went to a great BASES mentorship dinner. It's a great school and hopefully I'll be going there or another similar school in the fall. I really learned a lot from the students there and know that whatever most of them do with their lives they will make a big impact. It was great meeting everyone and best of luck!

Other projects: I'm working on a few other projects that aren't ready for primetime yet, but keep your eyes peeled for them.

My plan for March.

Be great at all the stuff I have on my plate, meet a ton of new people and help out as many as I can. Build relationships and hang out with old friends. Have fun and get things done. I have a few major things that I need to get done and I'm going to do them.

This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 70,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, are archived here on our website, heard on public radio, chronicled through our books and television programming, and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

I took his challenge and though about my beliefs and wrote about one. I still live by it. I don't think I've changed. It's raw and unadulterated. Enjoy.

When I was in fourth grade I moved to London, I started at a new school and knew no one, I made new friends and started a new chapter of my life. In sixth grade, I started at Hoover Middle School; I stepped into the large auditorium knowing almost none of the 400 runny nose kids, who I would spend the next three years with. I grew to know and love every single one of them, each in their own way, their quirks and their weaknesses. Then again in 9th grade I started at a new school, new kids. This time I was more prepared, or so I thought, but what I realized was that no matter how prepared you think you are, you aren’t, you need to be able to think on your feet at any given moment in time, introduce yourself to new ideas and adapt. Everyone always tells you that your childhood is to prepare you to be an adult. I don’t agree with that, I think that being a child teaches you to adapt, in fact it teaches you how to learn. In life there are so many things that can’t be prepared for like a parent dying, or seeing your home destroyed or any of the millions of things that life can toss at you. These are things that you must learn to adapt to. I believe in adaptation, in going into an unknown environment and forcing you to adjust, to fit in, or stand out, but be involved, not be walked past. I believe that you can prepare all you want, but it is only as good as what you can think of in a split second. This is what I believe; this is what I live by.

I hope that convinces you to write your own too! And link to it so I can read.

Caio.

First off, what is Square?

Square is a mobile payment system aimed towards individuals and single employee businesses. The company was founded by Twitter co-founder and Chairman, Jack Dorsey. The two parts of the system are the credit card reader dongle and program. Together they give anyone the ability to take payments through a swipe of a credit card.

The device itself:

The device is actually very cool to use it is about the size of a quarter and in the shape of a smashed cube with a audio jack. It is powered through each swipe which is really neat. They are planning on giving it away to everyone and making money off the transaction cost. I have heard some complaints about the device not being durable and flimsy when swiping, but I have not experienced this firsthand.

From the Square homepage

Transaction costs:

Update (2/18/10 10:34pm): I just heard that 3.5% is only if you manually input the card info, if you swipe it, is 2.9% but that is hearsay until I see some proof.

Update (2/18/10 8:42pm): Square is charging 3.5% and no flat fee. Here's some proof.

Square Charge Screen. Thanks Spencer!

Square is still in beta so they have not definitively decided on the transaction cost but this is what I've heard (take this with a grain of salt.) The transaction cost is 50 cents per transaction plus 3% of the total. I talked to a Square representative at Macworld and was told that they decided to drop the 50 cent transaction fee and now it's just 3%. It's still in beta so it's too early to say. But if there is a flat transaction fee of say 50 cents and a percentage fee I'd rather just pay with cash or Paypal. With just a 3% fee it would be a welcome alternative and is competitive with Paypal and Google Checkout. Also, they plan to donate one penny of each transaction to the charity of your choice.

Receipt:

Square is a paperless company so they give you the option of emailing or SMS-ing your receipt and also allow you to search for it on their site. Here's what it looks like.

Square Receipt

Final Thoughts:

So far I've had a really good experience with the device, but I have not gotten the chance to extensively test it. When using the system it reminds me of the iPod/iTunes system everything works together and it's all very intuitive. I can't wait to get my hands on the device for a real test taking donations and payments, so I'll reserve my full judgment till then, but it seems like a great system. The only thing I worry about is the 50 cent transaction fee. If that is what they decide to do it would really cut into the margin. Since a $3.50 cup of coffee minus transaction fees (0.50+3.50(0.03)=61.5 cents) is $2.88 (rounded down). That's 17.5%!! Not even taking into the account how much it costs to make that cup of joe.

Update (2/18/10 8:45pm) Heres a screen shot of the merchant online view. Courtesy of Spencer Schoeben

The other day I was on Skype chatting with a friend of mine, Dale, and we got to talking about what we wanted to do with our lives and I think the conversation went something like this:

Dale: What do you want to do before you die?

Me: Backpack around Europe for a month or Asia or both.

Dale: Start a National Library Foundation.

(we then went for another 2 hours resulting in a list 60 items long which can be seen here)

I decided that I wanted to write a bit more about my list of things and make it more my own, after all the list that we made was half Dale's.

So here's my list:

1. Backpack on each continent except Antarctica for a period of time
2. Learn to think in another language. Not only speak it, but think in it.
3. Write a love song. Pour my heart out into words and hopefully some music Like in that episode of This American Life in which Phil Collins helps Starlee Kine write a break-up song.
4. Fall in Love and be loved in return. What can I say? I'm basically a hopeless romantic. Even though more than half of Americans have been divorced I still believe in finding true love.
5. Learn to code - Build an app and deploy it.
6. Write and produce a play. I've been involved in a bunch of plays and helped write some, but have never really written and produced one of my own.
7. Reform education. Growing up in California public school system I've seen how messed up it can be. I believe that it can be fixed and part of that is giving each child an individualized education plan and really teaching them to learn from the world around them.
8. Being a mentor. Without all the amazing people in my life I would probably be homeless and begging for quarters. Everyone needs to have a mentor to guide them in life. I want to return that favor. I don't think I'm qualified to at this point and I'm not an expert in anything, but I'm someone who loves to just sit down for a cup of tea or chocolates (you should get this reference if you've see Good Will Hunting, and if you don't you should watch it.) and just talk about anything, if you ever need advice I'd love to help.
9. Learn to fly an airplane. I'm a sailor and I love the freedom of getting in a boat and having no boundaries. I'd love to experience that in the air.
10. Start a chocolate company that makes only dark chocolate. Yeah. I don't understand milk or white chocolate. White chocolate isn't even cocoa.
11. Free 4G for the world. Communication should be free.
12. Write a children's book. Change lives. The world needs idealists who never stop believing. If you don't dream, you'll never succeed.
13. Be a guest on Fresh Air and Talk of the Nation. I listen to these two programs almost religiously every day. Terry Gross is probably tied as best interviewer with Ira Glass and since I don't think I'd ever be on This American Life, I want to be on Fresh Air. I want to be on Talk of the Nation because everyone who gets on is an expert on a certain subject and I want to be the authority on something.
14. 2024 Leung Stephens. I should start fund raising now.
15. Skydive, Paraglide, Windsurf. I want to try everything once.
16. Go to culinary school. I've always loved cooking and I think it's something that I can be good at. It's an art and since I'm not a great writer or visual artist, I want to pour my soul into something that others can appreciate by eating. Plus I love eating and want to learn to made all those fabulous things no matter how unhealthy.
17. Start a news media outlet that ousts Fox News as the top news source in America. Why does this even need to happen? Fox news should not be considered news no matter what political lean and I don't consider Keith Olbermann news either.
18. Reform California budget. How can a state be a world leader when it also owes the most money?
19. Bail out the New York Times. The Times is part of America, it has played many a role in shaping our country and is something that if let die would be a great detriment to society. It continues to uphold journalistic excellence sending reporters all over the world to do real reporting, not sensationalism news.
20. Save a life. Not save someone from drowning, but finding someone in a dark place of depression or drug addiction and helping them get out of that hole. Sometimes people need a helping hand. I've definitely been overwhelmed at times in my life and felt that the world was collapsing on me, but I have always had amazing friends who have helped me. I want to do the same.
21. Win Nobel Prize. Most likely peace, but who knows. I'd like to be beyond recognition, but I think receiving a prize would be a great honor and help me continue changing the world.
22. Compete in the Olympics or America's Cup. I love sailing and I'd love to work hard enough at it that I was good enough to compete on the world stage.
23. See Aurora Borealis from Arctic Circle. That would just be amazing.
24. Sail around the world for a few years. Stop off at ports all over the world picking up friends and dropping them off along the way, just have an amazing time and expanding my world view. Visiting as many people as I can and changing the world. I want to sail along the coast of Chile, visit the Galapagos, New Zealand, Philippines, just everywhere that has a coast.
25. Live homeless for a month. Something to stay humble.
26. Build a school. This one goes hand in hand with number 7, it's the first step. I want to give kids an education of an expensive prep school regardless of their income, having independent learning plans for each student, shaping them into the leaders of tomorrow. Giving them all the resources that they need. You can't move an entire mountain, but you can move a stone and if you move enough stones you can really change the world.
27. Build a full-size tree house or network of rooms in trees. This is the child inside me talking, I want to live amongst the trees and live in the trees. I want to be able to see the stars at night without the light pollution of the city.
28. Photography published in National Geographic. Learn to take photos that change the world and share it with the world.
29. Visit the Himalayas. I don't need to climb Everest, but I'd love to visit. It's supposed to be really beautiful.
30. Eliminate age as a barrier. I don't believe that age is something that should hold you back. I believe youth have just as big a voice if not bigger than any other demographic. I'm working on a project to achieve this. I want people to stop looking down to youth. I don't believe age and maturity have anything to do with each other and there are plenty of 30 somethings or older people who don't act any more mature than a five year old.
31. Reform college admissions process. GPA really shouldn't be that big of a thing and people have no business applying to 18 schools like I am. Applying to college should be an enjoyable process for schools to really find people who would love going to their school not people who apply to them from a brochure.
32. Put College Board out of business. They claim to be a non-profit, but charge $70 for SATs, $110 per AP and all kinds of other fees to send scores, scholarship profiles, and everything else they can charge for. It has seriously got to end. They make more money than most for profit businesses.

Me and my teammate, Ellis Briery, sailing.

That's my list as of now. I'm sure it'll keep on adding to it till the day I die, but if you want to help or join me in any of these I'd love to work with you. Together we can change the world.

One of the coolest booths at Macworld was Ten One Design. Two of their products are Pogo Sketch and Autograph. Pogo Sketch is a stylus that works on capacitive touch screens. It can control the cursor and do what your finger would typically do. It can be used to documents with the Autograph application also sold by Ten One Design

The Pogo Sketch

It's probably no more than a stick with a piece of foam attached to it, but a pencil is just a piece of wood with a piece of lead in it. It's a super simple concept, but works brilliantly. It works on: Zune HD; Motorola Droid; iPod Touch; iPhone 3G(S); Macbook (Air and Pro included); and Blackberry Storm. It's available now for $14.95 for silver and $11.96 for hot pink.

Autograph

Autograph is a program that makes your touch pad a signing surface. It works great. You can change the writing thickness, output format - .png or .pdf and you can change the color. It doesn't do much but for the price of $6.95, it doesn't really need to.

All in all I ended up buying both of them and using them together. I paid $16.95 for both because of a show special, but I would buy them for $25. That being said, I have heard some critiques about the stylus namely the fact that it can wear out easily. I have not had that happen yet so I don't know, but if it does, I'll be sure to update this review. I think they are both great products and serve their purpose quite well. I got to use the pen on Daniel Brusilovsky's Square and it worked great. Using autograph has solved the problem of me signing electronic documents and is a cheap solution compared to the cost of a Bamboo writing pad. It doesn't have all the functionality, but who cares for less than a sixth of the price.

Disclaimer: I have not been influenced in any way shape or form by Ten One Design or any related companies. The opinions stated here are purely my own. Facts cited are found from the Ten One Design website and are true as far as I know at the publishing of this post.

1:00pm:Lights are going down. Word is that there will be no iPad here. We'll see soon enough.

1:03pm: Apparently whoever got a greeen beach ball gets a free iPad.

1:05pm: Jason Snell is on stage with Dan Morenstien, Ted Landow, Ryan Block, and Andy Ihnatko

1:08pm: Everyone has spent at least 20 minutes with the iPad. They are talking about the upside and downside of a 4:3 display.

1:09pm: Andy's first impression is the supurb build quality.

1:10pm: They are making fun of the cardboard cutouts. "they are not event eInk, just Ink."

1:11pm: Bezel should not be a problem according to Jason, Ryan says doesn't think that a bezel is important. Andy says that we should all get some 3M gripper tape to hold on to the pad.

1:13pm: Bezel is not noticeable after the first few uses.

1:15pm: They are discussing the closed nature of the iPad store. Ted is using the example of him using a hypothetical toaster oven and being required to use only buy things from Cuisinart store that work with the toaster, and everything that it's supposed to do works really well, but it doesn't allow the use of toasting anything else, but toast. That toast is the best toast ever and the toaster looks great, but it doesn't do poptarts or anything else. He keeps the toaster.

1:21pm: Andy just compared Steve Jobs to Dr. Doom. "Welcome to this week in Fantastic Four" - Jason

1:24pm: Dan is making the point of having a switch for unapproved apps to work on the i-devices. Allowing all apps, but not supporting anything that isn't from the App Store. Allowing people the option of using the open store, but when the go into the store and say it doesn't work, they flip the switch and all the non-app store apps break. Andy agrees.

1:27pm: Ted - "Even Steve [Jobs] couldn't think of everything the iPhone does today."

1;29pm: Dan - The iPad should be something that everyone uses different.

1:30pm: Andy brings up the fact that at Apple events the furniture is set to a specific hight, chairs are made at an angle so that you get a certain view of the device and Steve. Jason adds that at the iPad event the platforms that the iPad was on high enough  that you couldn't look down and type. Also that an Apple employee was watching each of the iPads and if that iPad disappeared so would the employee, permanently.

1:33pm: Dan brings up the fact that the books aspect still isn't ideal because you still can't lend or give books away. We still go to libraries a lot to get books.

1:35pm: Andy brings up EPub, the technology that is in the iPad for books, is being used now by publishers for libraries and that you can lend a book out and set them to expire in seven days when that license reverts back to the library.

1:38pm: The iPad having a centralized store for books is great because right off the bat you can get a book. Today, we need to download all different apps Kindle, other e reader programs. Of course there will still be companies like the New York Times that spend $100,000 to build an app, but most companies can just sell their books on the store. What will periodicals do - Apple can really change the way we read magazines on electronic devices.

1:42pm: The iBook isn't going to be the biggest delivery device for periodicals or comics, it will be built on WebKit - Andy.

1:44pm: Jason makes the point that people are not going to want to do a separate app for each periodical and publishers won't have the resources to do. Right now the Kindle takes an XML feed and displays it without a custom app.

1:47pm: Ryan "I really don't want to read a book on a iPad. All the things that make the iPad great, the vibrant, bright screen make it hard to read for a long time."

1:49pm: Ted "$500 is not a magical price point, there will be cheaper models"

1:50pm: Dan "There will still be people who buy the Kindle and everything else." - The iPad isn't going to destroy the other markets.

1:51pm: Jason "I say no when Amazon wants to open up the Kindle API. It really good as an eReader and it doesn't need to do anymore."

1;53pm: Last ten minutes - Talking about the future.

1:54pm: Dan - In ten years, kids will laugh at us who grew up with the keyboard and mouse. They will naturally just pick up a device and use the touch gestures.

1:55pm: Jason "Is there a class of laptop that people just buy because they can't do email on a touch device?"

1:57pm: Consensus - Yes, the iPad can serve as a focal remote control that you just pick up around the house to do simple tasks, control the thermostat, lights, media, email, just lying around the house. The iPad is launching with the App Store and is based around it. The iPhone didn't get the App Store until a year after being released.

1:58pm: Andy brings up the Microsoft tablet, that they are basically desktop computers with the finger replacing the mouse and that's why it's never been successful. Starwars wasn't the first science fiction movie, but it was the first to really put everything together and hit it out of the ball park. The iPad will bing the kind of credibility of tablets and everyone will buy one in 2011.

2:02pm: Jason - What is your biggest unanswered question?

Ted: 4.0 OS for iPad, Printing.

Dan: Can I used it as a phone. (laugh) about about a camera? iPhone OS 4.0 what will make it really look different from the iPhone OS wise.

Ryan: It feels empty UI wise, how will it look more complete. Multitasking. It's gotta happen eventually how will they do it?

Andy: How easy will it be to get stuff on the iBook Store? Will it be like the App Store or the iTunes Store? If they make it open and easy that unless you specifically break a rule, it will be great if not, well then it's going to be just a few well funded guys.

2:07pm: Thanks everyone for reading, No Q and A.

Macworld

Just got here at Macworld. Thought I'd throw up a quick post.

Update (11:04pm February 11, 2010): The vibe this year is very different from years past. All fallout from Apple dropping out and Microsoft having one of the biggest booths; what has happened to the world? This year there was just one expo hall versus two during the last few years. Many big manufacturers and companies were missing and even many vendors and booksellers were absent. My first impression was the conference was dead, but after walking around I realized that although it isn't 20% of what it used to be, there is still a place that it can carve out for itself as a place for consumers to interact with iphone and apple developers. That being said, I did find some interesting stuff that I'll write up later.

Update (3:46pm February 12, 2010): I've decided to write individual posts for each of the products that I really liked so check them out.

On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.

After an investigation we determined that the allegation was true. In fact, on at least one other occasion this intern was almost certainly given a computer in exchange for a post.

The intern in question has admitted to some of the allegations, and has denied others. We suspended this person while we were sorting through exactly what happened. When it became clear yesterday that there was no question that this person had requested, and in one case taken, compensation for a post, the intern was terminated.

First off, I am not posting the name of the person here because I do not think it's relevant to what I'm going to say. If you would like to find out, it should be pretty clear by the comments of the quoted article which can be found here. I do not know this person personally, but do know many people who are close to him/her. I'm going to break this post up into three parts: what I think about TechCrunch's actions, the behavior of the said person, and my personal opinion of the effect on teens involved in technology as a whole. I am not an ombudsman or claim to have any authority on this issue, but feel that what I have to say is relevant and would love to hear your input as well. Here I go; sorry for the long preface.

TechCrunch's actions - I believe that TechCrunch (TC) in this case has done what any credible news outlet would have done and was legally required of them. I do believe that TC has increasingly become an outlet of news that I question on it's journalistic objectivity. I have seen posts reviewing products that may or may not have been influenced by an outside source. This irks me: I have even gone as far as to poll my friends' thoughts. All in all, I do not believe in good conscience could they have kept this quiet nor could they have kept the employee.  It is important that they keep their journalistic integrity and I applaud them for that. They also omitted the person's name--which I believe was a legal issue, but was what I would have done regardless.

The actions in question - It was stupid. Really, really, stupid. And If I ever do that, please shoot me first. Yet, how many of you have honestly never done a really stupid thing in your youth? None, if you haven't you haven't lived, or more likely, are lying. I think the visual picture most of you are getting are of the said person demanding a bribe--that's what was--in return for a positive review. Magazines do it all the time with their advertisers, but journalists should be unencumbered and objective. Journalists should disclose all connections with companies they review and avoid reviewing them if they can not be completely unbiased. I know that is a pretty high standard and I expect bloggers to adhere to it too. Now is a good time to say that I own shares in Apple, Fannie Mae, and Cisco--I'll post that disclosure prominently on my blog later, and on every post regarding those three companies.

The truth of the matter is that he/she is 17 years old. As a friend said, "[said person] has so much power, yet so little power:" a writer at a respected blog with a wide audience yet being the lowest on the totem pole there. I'm not sure if he came up with the idea him/herself, but it was likely a situation of him/her testing their power. I might have even been half-jokingly and he/she will regret it for a long time. I don't think it was a huge financial incentive--I can say that on several good sources. This person does not need a Macbook Air and could afford to buy many of them if they wanted.

The effect on teens and credibility of teens as a whole - I believe that this is probably the most relevant part. As a teen, I can say that many adults don't take you seriously already and after incidents like this, why should they? I truly believe that people learn more from their mistakes and failures than their successes. The person in question has had much success in the past yet might not have reached any limits and kept going. I admire that, just not in this case. I am very much a believer in what many people have told me and which is quoted on one of my favorite t-shirts:

There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. — Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

The realist in me says that it's important to be prepared with the tools of success and those tools are gained through struggles and failures. I can only hope that this person has gained some "tools" from this experience. I hope that we can all learn from this experience and never repeat it. As my ex-theater teacher says:

"If you're going to make a mistake, be the first one to do it." - Phillip Rayher, Actor, Director, Teacher.

To all the adults out there, please don't let this one transgression affect your entire outlook on today's youth, and we won't let your continuing transgressions define you.

Thank you for reading this, and I will post an update as soon as there is a response to the article by the subject.

Justin

Update (1:40am February 5, 2010): I just read Daniel's response. I am glad that he came out with it. It shows his professionalism. It is still yet to be seen if we have learned as a whole from this experience, but I respect him for his achievements and hope that good things continue to come his way - in college and in life. As I am going through that process as well. It is very much a learning stage for him. As for the whole story, I'm not sure if we'll ever know - just like the CrunchPadJoojoo. I would love to hear everyone's opinion about this and how you think I covered the story.