====== Jacob Christ ====== {{:user:jacob_tux.jpg?direct&|}} {{:user:jacob_tux_small.jpg?direct&|}} ===== e-mail ===== (replace_with_my_first_name@pontech.com) ===== Bio ===== ==== Introduction ==== Jacob Christ is a product designer and proprietor of pontech.com. PONTECH is an exciting venture that is contributing to the open source hardware movement by creating unique products for industrial applications. Jacob has personal concern about creating sustainable and renewable manufacturing techniques and believes that by creating open platforms. Open platforms help reduce the obsolescence of a product by extending their useful life beyond the traditional life of a similarly proprietary device. The extended life comes by enabling individuals to re-purpose the device after its initial purpose has been exhausted or by allowing the product to be serviced after the original creators of the device have long since moved on. Besides being the chief product advocate at PONTECH Jacob also adjunct faculty at Mt. San Antonio College where he teaches electronics and programming in the technology division. ==== Education and Credentials ==== Self (and sometimes externally) taught programmer that started dabbling in the art at the tender early age of ten years old. After a rough time in public education and being ejected from high school after his third freshman year Jacob went on to great success at Mt.San Antonio College studying electronics. Later transferring to Cal Poly Pomona where he studied Electrical Engineering then later switching to Computer Science. ==== My Major Life Events and Technology ==== * 1971: March 21: DOB * 1977: Star Wars Major Theatrical Release, saw seven times (+ Stopped counting after 30+ viewings over life) * 197x: Discovered the pleasure of playing music * 1982: Discovered TRS-80, later that summer began programing in Microsoft Basic on an Atari 800 * 1985: Failed attempt to understand assembly language of the 6502 * 1987: Started learning C then later Pascal * 1988: Ejected from public education system mid way through 3rd freshman year of High School, enrolled at MtSAC Jr College later that year (fall semester) * 1989: Assembly language mastered on the 6502 processor * 1990: Assembly language mastered on the 6800 and Z80 processors * 1990: Regional, State (CA) and National Gold Medal Winner in Electronics Technology (Tulsa, Oklahoma) * 1991: Transfer to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Second week of first semester joined CaPSET (Cal Poly Solar Energy Team) * 1992: Travel to Japan to participate in Grand Solar Challenge in Noto (Major life altering experience, humbling) * 1992: First introduction to object based languages (C++ then ADA) * 1993: Electrical Student Leader on the Cal Poly Pomona Solar Car Team which set the world record for the worlds fasted two person vehicle to cross the Australian Desert. The Cal Poly Pomona student run team beat out such notable competitors as Nissan Motor Corporation and University of Michigan. * 1993: Pon Nonliboon (founder of PONTECH) joins CaPSET, later that year Jacob becomes employee #2 of PONTECH * 1993-1994: Worked briefly with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_MacCready|Paul McCready]] and students of Marshall Middle School in Pomona, California on Hamster Powered Flight * 1994: First introduction to JAVA, lisp and prolog * 1996: pontech.com launched * 1998: PONTECH has growing pains, Pon and others leave company to pursue other interests, Jacob retains PONTECH name, products and two consulting customers * 1999-2002: Spend some time learning about telecommunications at Ortel, er, Lucent, or was that Agere * 2000: (Date may be off) [[http://www.wired.com]] and [[http://www.slashdot.org]] feature article on Palm Pilot Robot created by ???? at Carnegie Mellon University * 2001: (Date may be off) Jacob Christ, Danial Mata and Fausto Rivera converge in Jacob's dorm room and [[http://www.SweetNannyGoat.com]] is born * 2004-2007: Spend some time learning more about telecommunications and a lot about wafer fabrication at Xponent Photonics, Inc. * 2007-2008: Development of [[http://www.ascentvario.com|Ascent Wrist Mounted Vario]] / growth of PONTECH. * 2008-: Development of automation equipment for solid phase drug testing for [[http://speware.com|SPE Ware]], one of the products I was princeply involved in is described here [[http://www.speware.com/pdf/ALD2_Manual.pdf|ALD-2 Users Manual]]. * 2011-: Development of chipKIT embedded solutions. Including the [[http://pontech.com/details/138|PONTECH UAV100]] and the [[http://pontech.com/details/139|PONTECH QuicK-240]] ===== Companies I've help found ===== * [[http://pontech.com|PONTECH]] * [[http://ascentvario.com|ascent^]] ===== Current Projects ===== * Growing PONTECH * chipKIT products (UAV100, Quick-240) ===== A brief history of PONTECH ===== PONTECH was founded around 1992 by Pon Nonliboon. In 1993, Pon joins the Cal Poly Pomona Solar Energy Team (CaPSET). Jacob Christ also a member of CaPSET and Pon meet and later that year Jacob becomes employee #2 of PONTECH. Pon and Jacob design a few PONTECH products together including the SV200, SV203, STP100 and Glyph (with Dennis Walker also from CaPSET). During this time they also and engage in consulting working on projects some interesting project including the following: RDMS (Remote Disconnect Management System) - off shore oil Slack controller laying cable on the ocean bottom - off shore oil Dispensing control system (similar to a gas pump) - off shore oil In 1998 PONTECH has growing pains, Pon and others leave company to pursue other interests, Jacob retains PONTECH name, products and two consulting customers. ===== Places To Visit (or have visited) ===== * Tokyo, Japan (been there done that) * Noto, Japan (been there done that) * Adelaide, Australia (been there done that) * Darwin, Australia (been there done that) * Sydney, Australia (been there done that) * Mexico City D.F, Mexico (been there done that) * Bangkok, Thailand (been there done that) * Ayuthia, Thailand (Old capital of Siam, been there done that) * Kanchanaburi, Thailand (Bridge over river Kwai, Death Railroad, Erawan Waterfalls - been there done that) * Colmar, France * 37150 Luzillé, France * Rome, Italy * Barcelona, Spain ===== Recommended Reading ===== * Rich Dad, Pour Dad (Richard Kiyosaki) * Rich Dad, Pour Dad's Business Quadrants (Richard Kiyosaki) * The E-Myth (Michael Gerber) * Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (Jim Collins) * The World is Flat (Thomas Freedman) * The Innovator's Dilemma (Clayton M. Christensen) * Crossing the Chasm (Geoffrey A. Moore) * The Clue Train Manifesto (Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger) * Out of Control (Kevin Kelly) * Only the Paranoid Survive (Andy Grove) * In the Plex (Levy) * iWoz (Wozniak) * Creativity, Inc. (Catmull) * Contagious: Why Things Catch On (Berger) * The Martian (Weir) * The Everything Store (Stone) * Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal (Bilton) * The Vertical Farm (Despommier) * Makers (Anderson) * Public Parts (Jarvis) * What Would Google Do (Jarvis) * The Lean Startup (Ries) * Where Wizards Stay Up Late (Hafner, Lyon) * DNA (Berry, Watson) * The Alchemy of Air (Hager) * Republic, Lost (Lessig) * ENIAC (McCartney) * The Demon Under The Microscope (Hager) * Automate This (Steiner) * Steve Jobs (Isaacson) * What Technology Wants (Kelly) ==== If you want to understand me better read the following ==== * Specifically read: Hackers (Steven Levy) but in general, read all of Steven Levy's work ===== Viewing List ===== Mostly on Netflix, some you can find on YouTUBE * A Crude Awakening * FUEL * Cadillac Dessert * Frontline: College. Inc. * Frontline: Ten Trillion and Counting ===== Reading List ===== * Vicky King: How to write a screenplay in 21 days * Save the cat: The last book on writing screenplays you'll ever need ===== Things I want but don't want to make myself===== * 2010-09Jan-29: intelli-sense for Word (or word processing). I should be able to type "phil" and philosophy is rendered on the page. * 2010-01Jan-20: git (or git like) contact repository that syncs with my cell phone (whom ever may make it) ===== Random Thoughts ===== ==== tacocopter.com ==== (2012-03Mar-28) The most interesting part of this idea is that it's illegal to fly UAV's in the U.S. and the hazard of mid air collision with (anything) could create a public outcry should this actually be attempted which would put the company in a difficult position. I suspect its a publicity stunt to get funding. The nice line of thought for this idea is that its quite audacious and quite viable. But to make it happen will require a lot of infrastructure to make it work. I had been thinking about a similar idea but for pizza delivery. To make lots of UAV's flown by different entities over any area would require flight plans. These flight plans could be registered with a database so to reserve UAV air space. When a vehicle is about to take off it could file its flight plan provided no other vehicles will be in its path during flight. If the vehicle has on board internet connectivity, the flight plan could be updated in real time should the vehicle decide it wants to go somewhere else (though it would have to only alter course to non-reserved air space). If the system worked smoothly, it could be used for commercial air craft as well, eliminating the need for air craft controllers, or for that matter pilots. I've been told that Boeing 747's pretty much can take off, fly the there course and land all on auto. The pilot is there to taxi. Jacob On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Alireza Partovi wrote: Hi Guys, That is an interesting idea. http://tacocopter.com/ Best, Ali ==== Limited repeal of minimum wage, with emphasis on limited (2011-01Jan-09) ==== The idea: allow for 10-20% of a companies work force to have a very low minimum wage, say $2/hr, with the caveats that the particular employees must be provided with full coverage health care for their entire family. Additionally, they should receive compensation for a 40 hour week irregardless of hours worked and be entitled to holidays. Further, the positions must be in such that could only be filled by overseas workers. As economy recovers, the percentage of workers allowed with this status can slowly be reduced. The repeal would encourage companies to hire at a great discount while giving the low wage families an alternative to a higher salary with no health care. A side benefit is that it may encourage some companies to consider domestic production rather than foreign. Which would in turn reduce greenhouse gas emission by lowering fuel used to move good overseas. ==== Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon ==== Ever since hearing about the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (I'm three degrees myself) I have been fascinated with the idea, but recently I've had some interesting things occurred that are in hind site obvious to occur (but I guess not to me). I have some friend that have friend in common, one day I realized that two of these friends were in the room with me and had just met each other but neither realized that the reason they new me in the first place was that they had a friend in common. Visions of digraphs in my automatically rearranging came into existence. (for the record, I'm three degrees from Kevin Bacon) ==== e-mail agents ==== (2010-04Apr-23) I recently discovered [[http://www.hilarymason.com/|Hilary Mason]] and her talk on [[http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/ignitenyc-the-video/|how to replace yourself with a very small shell script]] which has emphasis on using scripts for answering e-mails for commonly asked questions. This has lead me to a few thoughts on the subject. * If you are contemplating such an activity (using scripts to answer e-mails), it probably means that you have reached a critical point in your life where your time is more valuable to others than you wish it were or have yet to determine a way to monetize the problem so that supply and demand can kick in. * If you had a smart intelligent agent I could see it having conversations with your associates that are divergent from your actual life and when you synchronize with your associates in person you may find that your agent has made commitments for you that you were unaware of (hence the need for a really smart agent). ==== Our Brains Crave Knowledge ==== Many years ago (in my early to late teens), despite my early hatred of school I discovered that I loved learning. Further thinking on this led me to believe that I'm not alone, and that people in general crave new knowledge without even realizing it. The result is our general fascination with television and video games. Both provide immediate stimulation to our brains without (in most cases) substance that helps further our survival. ==== Our Brains Crave Orthogonal Knowledge ==== (2010-02Feb-22) In computer science, it is my opinion that, it is generaly regarded among better computer scientists that computer languages that are orthogonal in nature, that is, look the same for different behaviors, are better than (or easier to use) than those that are not. Today while coding some stuff that is used by non-computer scientist I've been wrestling with an issue due to its lack of orthogonality. While doing this I had the insight that the reason it was bugging me was not that I wanted it to be orthogonal for the sake of be orthogonal but that if it was orthogonal that the non-computer scientist that would be using the program would find the program easier to use as well. This in turn made me realize that not only to our brains crave knowledge, but they crave orthogonal knowledge. It makes sense if you think about it, things that operate the same way are easer to deal with once one of those things has been mastered, hence the popularity of windowing GUI interfaces and the frustration with MS Windows every time Microsoft releases a new version that works differently than in the past. As I think on, orthogonality is all around us in the products we use and design, the first thing that comes to mind are the controls for an automobile. We already know that truck drivers and motor cyclists are required to have special licenses for these vehicles with specialized controls and challenges to operate. Imagine if each vendor had a different user interface for there automobile, it may require specialized licenses for each make and model of car sold. So if our brains crave this orthogonality and companies continue to patent GUI innovations they may be in essence hurting themselves by limiting the use of there innovation if every other program works differently but the same. ==== One World Networked Drive ==== (2010-05May-08) This is an idea that has been festering in my head for about 17 years from my days of having to deal with 6GB of storage spread across 6 or more computers as a CAD admin and constantly dealing with missing files due to the vast amounts of storage we had (I personally have about 10TB of storage myself now on two computers). Recently, I've had clarity of vision on how to implement a partial solution to the problem, that is keeping track of ambiguous data without wasting storage capacity. The clarity came from learning and gawking over Linus Trovald's git version control system. My idea may not be unique and others may already be implementing such systems and I'm just not aware of it, but here here is my plan... The idea is to build a world network drive that stores users file by sha1 hash therefor keeping only a single copy of any single uploaded file that may be in the possession of millions. Stage one would run on a single server, stage two would use torrents to allow you retrieve your file from the world network. Stage three would be the appearance that all your terabytes of files are on your local machine by caching your most frequently accessed 500GB or so, maybe even caching the first 1-10% of less frequently use mp3 files so that you can start listening right away while the remainder is downloaded over a slower network connection. This would allow 500GB of mp3 storage to appear as 5-50TB of local storage as long as the network is there to retrieve missing portions. Sha's could be calculated locally with disambiguating numbers as well so that if your file is already in the cloud then there is no need to even upload it, it would be just added to your list of files (this could pose security issue by allowing someone to spoof a sha to get access to your cloud data. Just wanted to put the idea down in case I don't have time to implement it, maybe someone else could benefit from the vision. ==== On the starting point of a computer program ==== (2010-06June-03) Although it is generally the case (especially with PC software), [computer] programs do not have to always start at the same point. ==== An idea for bit.ly ==== (2013-10Oct-02) Crowd sourced link correction Hilary (Mason), I had an idea for bit.ly today. Maybe you've already thought of it or have one up'ed my idea and have something in the works. I'm sharing it because I don't have time to implement it and its inline with what bit.ly already has working. On more than one occasion I've clicked a link in a e-book or even on a web page that take you to a like that has been moved, taken down or generally changed from the original link intent. Wouldn't it be nice if crowd sourcing could help fix the broken link. Say you come across the following link: http://bit.ly/16iyT7M but the server or file is missing. The users of the link could log into bit.ly and indicate this is the case and offer alternatives to the missing url. The next users that come along instead of being redirected are presented with a page that has a link to the original link as intended and also alternatives that were added by others. Jacob