Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

80% Reducation In Carbon? No, In Media Coverage

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Depressing report in the Montreal Gazette: A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists, says a newly released federal document. "Scientists have noticed ...

A Broad Definition

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Janice Cuny, Lawrence Snyder, and Jeannette Wing co-authored a paper for SIGCSE 2010 titled "Computational Thinking: A Definition".  I can't find a copy that isn't behind a paywall, but their definition is: Computational Thinking is the use of abstraction, along with automation and analysis, in problem solving. They then talk about data ...

Currently Juggling

Monday, March 15th, 2010

I keep telling my students not to over-commit themselves. It's a shame I don't take my own advice :-). Here's what I've currently got on the go: Software Carpentry teaches basic software development skills to scientists and engineers. I have 80% of the funding I need to spend ...

Something That Won’t Be On The Final Exam

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

The final exam for my CSC302 software engineering course was due this week, and I thought I had come up with a good--and fair---question to put on it. Four out of four of the other instructors I spoke to, however, didn't like it, so I left it out. I'd be ...

SIGCSE 2010 Wrap-Up

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

I wanted to go to SIGCSE (the computer science education conference) this year, but breaking my self-imposed no-fly rule once made me feel guilty enough. Lots of people have been blogging about it, so I have lots of catching up to do (and lots of videos to watch). The theme ...

An Army of Interns

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Here's an interesting complement to both the GSoC model (students work full-time for 12 weeks on a project) and the UCOSP model (students work on a project as one course among N during term): hire a bunch of interns from MIT during their one-month inter-term break, cram them into a ...

Graphing Ass Pain in the Third Dimension

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

No, really, that's what MyTTC.ca does to find transit routes from A to B.

Choosing The Change We Want To Be

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Brief article from The Economist about how some technological innovations help empower women, while others do harm. Not much depth, but worth reading. I wonder where stalker-assistive technologies like geotagging will eventually be found to fall?

Stephen Walli on Book Publishing

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Interesting post about the future of book publishing: it's brighter than you think, but quite different from today. And yes, I remember Sam's too...

What Would You Do For Five Dollars?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

From fiverr.com's front page: Looking at the "Programming" section: This is actually really useful career advice. If people are willing to do something for $5, it has been so thoroughly commoditized that there's only marginal value left. Putting it another way, if you're looking to earn a decent living, you'd better be ...