These past few weeks have been absolutely mind boggling -- I went to Long Beach for the incredible TED conference, Boston for a Harvard's Model United Nations conference, and I'm now back in Berkeley trying to absorb the incredible things I've learned this month. In the coming few weeks, I'll publish the thoughts I had on the inside-scoop of the TED Conference, the fundamental flaws of the United Nations, and of course, more ideas related to innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the meanwhile, I've been thinking a lot about taking small, basic ideas and extending them into new applications that are difficult to foresee. Most of the incredible innovations of the past century seemed dull at conception, but now revolutionary in hindsight. Some obvious examples include the invent of the world wide web, the cell phone, the personal computer, etc... The founder of the world wide web "wrote a proposal in March 1989 for 'a large hypertext database with typed links', but it generated little interest." Neither he nor his naysayers could envision the incredible extensibility of what's now the internet. Who knew that a pitiful "database of typed links" would eventually help people communicate, find information, and perform tasks crucial to the 21st century?

But such examples exist in the world around us -- fellow TEDster David Merrill presented an invention at the TED conference called Siftables, which are basically "computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too." Siftables is a great example of a seemingly simple invention that is yet to discover the vast extensibility of it's abilities. Wait until Siftables go 3D -- every side of the block gets its own screen, and childrens' imaginations can be taken to the next level. David made it seem as if his toddler-aged beta tester didn't know how to use Siftables, because the child just wanted to stack the blocks vertically. However, I'm sure that there are hundreds of more applications that can arise from taking these Siftables and making them interact on a three-dimensional level. This just comes to show how a seemingly basic concept has the potential to grow into an incredible invention that's difficult to foresee.

For your enjoyment, David Merrill's live demo of Siftables at the TED 2009 Conference.

The following post was inspired by a random flash-back I just had. I'll look for old photos and post them if and when I find them!

Oh, the days of computer camp! I attended a computer camp from 2002-2006 and watched it transform from small intimate startup into a big nasty corporation. There was a huge influx of campers and counselors, and the management staff became uptight and nasty authoritarians. Here's the story from the eyes of 13 year old Jessica Mah:

I remember going to a summer camp fair, where dozens of summer camps showcased their pictures and activities in their booths. I walked around, and most of the camps were sports related. Being the young, geeky, unattractive 13 year old Jessica Mah that I was, I immediately picked up the brochures for the only computer camp there. My engineer dad was pushing me to go, and of course, I did! That summer, I was sent off to computer camp and experienced the best two weeks of my life. What's better than eating pizza while tinkering with C++ and playing counter-strike at 3AM? Nothing can top that!

So why were these two weeks at computer camp so significant to my growth as a geek and eventually an entrepreneur? As always, it's about the people. In my first hour at computer camp, I had already befriended four other 12/13 year old tech geeks -- at which point, I had an amazing revelation. I realized that I wasn't alone in this world! Yes, as lame as that sounds, I realized that I wasn't as nerdy weird as I had always thought I was. I FINALLY found a place where I was the "coolest" of the pack. Within 24 hours, I was tooling around with Apache server and dual booting with Fedora Linux on my 800mhz Compaq laptop thanks to camp friends.

Summer after summer, I continued going to computer camp, and I continued to love it... that is, until things got strict. There was bureaucracy. The counselors and directors took advantage of their power. Counter-strike was banned. 1/3 of our time was re-allocated to being required outdoor recreation time. Hundreds of more kids came, counselors were abusing their power, internet was banned from the dorms, and boys couldn't hang out in girls' rooms. All of a sudden, senior campers found themselves lost in a major corporation that decided to fire the founders and hire Harvard M.B.A. types. All of the new rules in place were to appease the "investors" (parents) at the expense of "customers" (campers). And to this day, my fellow camper friends and I chat on AIM about how the summer camp lost its touch and became just like every other major organization.

I think it's time that a new startuppy computer camp takes foot-hold in Silicon Valley -- except it should be WAY more than just a geeky computer camp: it should teach the fundamentals of running a startup and being entrepreneurial. How to attract users, how to co-create products with customer input, revenue models, etc... Such a summer camp would be for smart and motivated geeks 13-18 years old. There's an application process to get admitted into the summer camp, but that would insure that the campers are only of top caliber. Bureaucracy and rules exist to manage incompetent employees -- same applies to children. For recreational activity, we'll offer DDR and counter-strike themed laser tag. Together, we can re-create the geeky teenage summer camp that will always maintain its small start-up culture. In other words, we would be creating the "Rackspace of Computer Camps" or a TechStars targeted to teens. Sounds like a plan!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early college, Bard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

How are the virgin advertisements so good? Observe:

Some people thought there wasn't another way to hate AT&T more than we already do... well, AT&T did it again. I have an iPhone, as you probably know. I love my iPhone. I love my Apple products, but I despise AT&T for their terrible service, stupid customer service reps, and now this problem:

In a nutshell, they disabled my internet. I'm paying for unlimited internet, yet throughout the day, I've been being charged as if I didn't have that plan. In order words, my iPhone automatically billed me for over $50 today for internet related charges only. According to the customer rep I'm speaking to now, this problem happened to everybody with an iPhone. This is just a terrible excuse from a terrible company, and I'm going to blog about it. If they wanted to avoid bad word of mouth from this, they would offer every iPhone customer with a free month of internet or something among those lines.

My two cents: Avoid AT&T! Tell everybody you know how terrible they are!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.