Nerd of the month

A German teen hacked the iPod OS by "listening" to its clicks -- the UI feedback sounds it is designed to make when a user manipulated the "clickwheel."

Man, never underestimate the power of a curious teenager armed with a little technology and a lot of free time. You know why you never hear of Japanese teenagers doing stuff like this, despite their equal fascination with technology? They don't have time. They're too busy going to cram schools. And in the U.S., homework is increasing as parents desperately try to distract children from sex, drugs and rock and roll. So now people wonder whether the whole homework thing has gone too far -- still have time to be children? If they don't have time to screw around with their own projects, where will we get the next generation of geeks?

Update: Check out this interesting debate from another position on Salon.com. One person writes:

Gen Y has been raised in an anti-reality vacuum. Everybody's a winner, everybody gets a trophy, even the preschoolers get a graduation ceremony, everybody's special, there are no such things as wrong answers, don't say no to them -- it hurts their widdle self-esteem. As always, once the kids are no longer small and cute, the truth dawns: You're not special, you can't have everything you want, there are no do-overs, and the weak members of the herd are culled by the lions. When you stumble, there are a billion others, bloodthirstily waiting to take your place. Life's tough.

Strangely, I find myself in sympathy with that view.
 

On another subject:

Great post on Gov. Schwa. on SFist.