President Obama on Immigration Reform:

So this steady stream of hardworking and talented people has made America the engine of the global economy and a beacon of hope around the world. And it’s allowed us to adapt and thrive in the face of technological and societal change. To this day, America reaps incredible economic rewards because we remain a magnet for the best and brightest from across the globe. Folks travel here in the hopes of being a part of a culture of entrepreneurship and ingenuity, and by doing so they strengthen and enrich that culture. Immigration also means we have a younger workforce -– and a faster-growing economy — than many of our competitors. And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.

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And while we provide students from around the world visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities, our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or power a new industry right here in the United States. Instead of training entrepreneurs to create jobs on our shores, we train our competition.

This is an issue that important to me. As a Swiss citizen, trying to integrate myself into the Silicon Valley culture, I am acutely aware of the deep problems in US immigration law. I am here under an F-1 student visa, which will eject me from the country once my studies are over.

This summer, I landed an internship at Tapulous (now Disney). I had to go to great lengths just to get approved by the government’s bureaucracy. For argument’s sake, imagine after the internship is complete they’d like to keep me. Because my visa does not allow for permanent employment, I wouldn’t be able to accept. I would have to apply for an H-1 visa, which would require me to leave the country while waiting for months (or maybe even years) for the process to be complete. All of this setting aside the fact that H-1 requires a completed bachelors degree, which – were I to drop out of school to take the opportunity – I would not have.

If, hypothetically, I were eligible for the visa; its fine print puts a great burden on the employer, making me an unattractive prospective employee. The employer would have to sponsor me, spending a great deal of money on application and lawyer fees, all on the uncertain hopes that my visa gets approved. Additionally, they have to prove that they could not find a suitable employee who is a US citizen, with documentation showing that they interviewed other candidates and that none were fit for the position.

All of this makes it very hard, or even impossible for me to start a career in Silicon Valley. I believe – if I may say so – that I would be an asset to the US economy, rather than a burden. Preventing me from being a part of this great country – which, even with all its faults, I love – makes no logical sense.

The Power of the Cloud

a.k.a. What It Feels Like Having Two Months Of Your Digital Life Wiped, And Then Subsequently Restored Thanks To Cloud Computing

I’m usually pretty diligent about backing up regularly. I’ve even got a terabyte drive and a Time Capsule both setup to backup automatically. But these last few months have been quite eventful. I’ve finished up my first year of college at the California College of the Arts, moved into a new apartment, and took up a job at Tapulous. With all this commotion, I never managed to take the time to setup my Time Capsule.

As luck would have it, my hard drive dies on me last Friday, literally the same day I get the Time Capsule out of its box and end up putting off setting it up to the weekend. At the moment, I paniced a little, thinking of how catastrophic a two-month data loss would be. All my photos, my music, my work, my whole digital life… gone!

So, though a little depressed, I decided to take the opportunity to perform a much-needed clean install. As I was setting up my most frequently used software, and putting back in all my accounts, I realized that I had not lost as much as I feared. The first sign was in re-installing 1Password, the app which contained all my password and important banking credentials. Luckily, I had set its database to be stored in my free Dropbox* folder, which syncs automatically to the cloud. Getting that restored was as easy as typing my Dropbox credentials in.

Through MobileMe, all my emails, calendars, address book, keychain and settings were preserved. I managed to recover my lost photos and music from my iPhone using Ecamm’s great PhoneView app. My work was under source control, and was regularly pushed back onto my servers (git is amazing, really!). My Things library synced back from my iPhone onto my Mac. Various other services (including Google’s) kept track of other aspects of my digital life. It’s amazing how much data was able to survive this otherwise catastrophic crash. What couldn’t be recovered was restored to its month-ago state. This include most of my schoolwork, and business data. Thankfully, I hand’t done any schoolwork in the last month, and the data loss on that front was pretty minor overall.

In order to make sure this never happens again, though, I have committed to keeping all of my data in the cloud. I signed up for a Dropbox Pro account, to which I moved my iPhoto Library, Things Library and any folder where I store documents. As a bonus, I get all that data now synced up between any Mac I own, and my iPhone and iPad.

I am now fully convinced that Cloud Computing is the biggest step technology has taken since the invention of the computer.

* Full Disclosure: referral link, gets me an extra 500MB of storage, and gives you an extra 250MB if you sign up using that link.

The USA has long had one of the strictest alcohol policy of the world. While countries like China or Italy have no age limit on alcohol, and most of the rest of the world sets the limit at 16 to 18 years of age, the US maintains a 21 year old drinking age.

Some people argue that all alcohol is inherently bad. This sentiment is what brought about prohibition in the 20’s, and as history has taught us, it was an utter and total disaster. Alcohol consumption actually increased, a majority of American citizens were turned into criminals (spreading the notion that crime is okay) and organized crime rose up to fill the demand.

Alcohol diminishes your social inhibitions, and some people grow into a pattern of chronic drinking and become aggressive and unpleasant to be around. We have to realize that this is only a small subset of the much larger drinking population. Should everybody be punished, prohibition-style, for the few people who abuse alcohol? I don’t see the governments banning knives because some use them to stab people…

So then, what makes 21 a fair age to let people consume alcohol? The most common response is “Kids shouldn’t be drinking… under 21s aren’t mature enough to drink responsibly.” Yet, they consider us mature enough to get a job, live by ourselves, go to jail, pay taxes, or even enroll in the army to fight and die for our country.

The most sensible argument for the 21 age limit states that the law saves lives, citing statistics from the brief time in the 70’s when some states lowered the drinking age as a response to the Vietnam War, and alcohol-related fatalities went up. However, it’s a biased interpretation. The vast majority of deaths were because of drunk driving, and the solution to the problem is not to prohibit drinking (which, by the way, most people are going to do regardless of the law), but rather to educate people that they should never drive under the influence.

This brings up the parallel of sex and condoms. The argument used to be that one should not have sex before marriage, period. Of course, people would still engage in premarital sex, and with the growing spread of HIV and teen pregnancy, it became an issue much like drunk driving still is today. However, we moved past our moral block, and told people “If you’re gonna have sex, use a condom!” Through education, most people today now use condoms when they have sex outside of a serious relationship.

When we look at European countries where alcohol is much more accepted (I would drink wine with my family during meals, for example), we don’t see the delinquent apocalypse that nay-sayers predict for America, should we ever lower the restrictions. In fact, the alcohol-abuse situation is much worse in the USA, with the law, than in restriction-less Italy, or the rest of Europe. Prohibiting alcohol just adds extra incentive for youngsters wanting to rebel.

On the other hand, there are many disadvantages to the strict American laws, first of which is that it turns a great many teens into criminals, and prevents us from enjoying a drink or a party legally. Not only that, but it also makes it extra difficult for us to enjoy nightlife in great urban areas, to go out and enjoy our favorite bands or djs. Even for adults, other annoying laws force all alcohol sales to stop at a certain time, meaning that most venues will close at that time, cutting our night short at 2am, or whatever the time restriction I’d in your particular county / state.

I really think the US would do well to lower its drinking age to 18 and start to educate people on alcohol, rather than blindly prohibit its consumption.

Tethering your iPad to your iPhone

So you bought a WiFi iPad, and you already have an iPhone. You don’t want to pay extra for yet another monthly 3G subscription, and/or you don’t want to wait for the 3G iPad to come out later this month. Thankfully, you can use your iPhone’s 3G connection on your iPad using the following magic recipe.

You will need:
- A jailbroken iPhone. (Google for “blackra1n” if you need help with this)
- $9.99
- Optional ingredient: an extra battery pack for your iPhone, because this is pretty draining on the iPhone.
- A pinch of fairy dust to make things go extra smooth. (Just kidding about that one)

Search for the app MyWi on Cydia and install it. That’ll also install another package manager called Rock. You will have to create a Rock ID. This will allow you to have a free 10-day trial of MyWi, and then to purchase it using your credit card or PayPal account.

Using MyWi, create a WiFi network from your iPhone. You may want to give it a password, to prevent strangers from leeching off your connection. Connect from your iPad, and watch the magic happen. Don’t forget to turn MyWi off on your phone when you aren’t using it, or it’ll drain your its battery dry in no time.

My Proposed Solution to the App Review Situation

What if any app could be posted to the App Store instantaneously, without having to go through a review. Apple would still review each app, to even higher quality standards than currently. If an app is approved, it would receive some kind of “Apple-approved” badge. If denied, the app would live on, but without the badge. Apple would kindly provide the developer with a reason for why it was rejected, worded in english (as opposed to the legalese they use now).

Only approved apps would show up when one browses the App Store and in the rankings. Rejected apps could still be accessed through search (though approved apps would get priority in search results), and by knowing the iTunes store URL. Important updates (such as critical bug-fixes) would be instantaneous.

Users can opt to only allow verified apps on their phones, if safety is a concern to them. Developers have the security of knowing Apple won’t kill their business on a whim.

A Short Case for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

I think we’re missing the point. The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy doesn’t withhold any rights from gay men and women serving in the military. Serving in the army is a very tough job, and the soldiers need to focus on the job to be done rather than on their differences.

The policy is not asking gay men and women to lie, or renounce their sexual orientation. Rather, it’s about asking all soldiers to distance themselves from their personal feelings in order to give their full attention on the job to be done.

Ideally, this would not be an issue and the military would be able to function just as well with openly gay members, but the reality is that that would make other members uncomfortable, cause a division within the force and damage the social dynamic of the military.

Imagine a site or service that would analyze your whole Twitter stream and analyze each tweet to figure out your mood at the time. Imagine that it could aggregate that data, figure out patterns and report it in a meaningful way. Think of it as a Mint for your happiness rather than for your financials.

It could also help you correlate this data with other data, such as global / average happiness, Facebook data such as the friends you currently communicate most with or your relationship status, political and economical factors, your personal financials (by integrating with Mint), your eating habits, or anything else that could affect your happiness.

Many of us record our thoughts and feelings online through Twitter. When we’re happy, maybe because we just saw the greatest movie ever (Avatar), or because we had a great date with our significant other, we tweet about it. When we’re drunk, angry, frustrated, tired, relaxed and so on, we’ll tweet about it. That’s one huge pile of seemingly useless and insignificant thoughts – we’ve all heard the stereotype of the Twitter-addict who tweets about what he had for breakfast – but used and compounded as statistical data, it could be very powerful.