Computer Science

In insight into the thinking of the NPR crowd.  A story about how public schools are failing to provide any education at all in computer science.  

Because they are forced to pay equal salaries to all teachers, and the products our education "schools" can't use a calculator, much less a computer.  But then the NPR conclusion?  It's a problem of "inequality."  No, it's the consequence of the fact that anyone who possibly can is pulling their kid out of the dysfunctional public school system, and trying to save them. 

Spending more on public schools will not help; as the story notes, the people who run public schools think that having a computer available means students know how to code.


That's about like saying that having a car in my garage makes me a mechanic.  No.  It doesn't.

It Could Have Been Love: The Turing Test Solution

DWIM

You may know the piece of computer jargon, "DWIM."

It's an acronym for "Do What I Mean."  Of course, computers can only do what we SAY; they really can't tell what we mean.  The LMM DWIMs all the time (yes, DWIM can be a verb).

I had just asked her to remind me to Skype with the EYM (he's in Chile) on Sunday at 4 or 5.

She wanted to display her virtuosity with computers (We saw "The Internship" last night, so we're feeling pretty post-millenial).  So, she woke up SIRI, and said, "Remind me to tell Michael to SKYPE on Sunday at 4 or 5."

Of course, the computer "brain" has no way of understanding what "4 or 5" means.  SIRI could do it at 4, or at 5, or at any specific time.  But "remind me later" is a DWIM move; no way SIRI can do that.

I was staying very quiet so I could eavesdrop on the resulting hilarity.  But SIRI just punted, and said she would "Remind you to tell Michael to SKYPE at forty-five," which doesn't mean anything.  A missed opportunity.

Free Falling

Cute prank.  Interesting that it worked; the monitors must in fact be pretty good.


Nod to Angry Alex

IT Humor

So, I had never noticed this.  Have used this thing for years, never saw this.  When you are finished with using the projector system in the big auditorium (White Lecture Hall) on East Campus here at Duke, you get this confirmation screen.  And I always just pressed "yes" at the bottom.  But look at the choice in the middle:

Well played, IT android drones, well played!  Ya got me.

Marital Advice

Some quick marital advice:  I will celebrate 26 years of being with the LMM, on Thursday!  Hooray!  She is somewhat less excited.

It may be because she just got a new iPhone.  And then she could not get the voice mail set up on her iPhone.  She was more than a bit miffed about this.

So I set it up, with the following message, using my voice:  "This is [LMM's] phone.  She is digitally challenged, and so could not get her own voice on this greeting.  But if you leave a message, I promise that she will accidentally delete it and then yell at me."

For some reason, the LMM was MUCH more than miffed about this.  Now she is hearing my actual voice say,  "It was just a little joke, sweetie!  Sweetie?"

Anyway, the advice.  Don't try this at home.  I am TRAINED.  Sweetie?

Computer Audio

Loyal reader Gerardo asks,

"If you hadn't made the jump to digital music beyond CDs, how would you go about doing it"?

Let me start by saying that I'm an analog guy. I use a home-made 2 watt vacuum tube amp. I have a record player and hundreds of LPs.

I made the jump to no-CDs by burning all my CDs onto an external hard-drive. Because a lot of music that I like doesn't come in a lossless digital format (i.e. digital downloads are often MP3), I still buy CDs, burn them onto my hard drive and then get rid of them. Until uncompressed downloads are routinely available, I will probably stick to this ritual. If you are OK with MP3s or are willing to limit yourself to music available as either uncompressed CD quality or higher resolution downloads, then you can get away from having any physical items except a hard-drive.

It drives me nuts that LPs are offered for sale with a free MP3 download instead of a FLAC download.

If you are planning to make the jump to computer based audio, the Well-Tempered Computer is an excellent resource and the Computer Audio Asylum is a lively forum. There are places to get hi-rez downloads, like HD Tracks.

You basically have two choices:  (A) Put together your own system with storage, computer, playing software and DAC, or (B) buy an all in one music server device, like the SB touch or the J-River

The "audiophiles" seem to prefer putting their own systems together based on a computer. Mac minis are popular; I use a Macbook and prefer Pure Music for playback software.  I learned a lot about computer audio from this guy.

Daughter loses laptop, gains entrepreneurial advantage

Follow up here. Not sure it's real, of course, but entertaining.

HOW SHE GOT CAUGHT: The Dog Did It.. no, really.

I finally came out and told her this today, partly because it was too funny NOT to share.

When my daughter made her post, she used Facebook's privacy settings to block "Family" and "Church" friend's lists. All her other friends could see it. We, of course could not.

One of our dogs is always getting in photos and therefore has her own Facebook pa...ge. It's just a cute dumb thing we did for fun. Well, the dog's profile is rarely used except when funny pictures of her are posted. Since that's not too often, and she has very few friends on Facebook, her wall is kind of bare, with relatively few posts showing up on it.

The other night we gave the dog a bath and there was a funny photo we uploaded to Facebook and tagged her in. I logged in as the dog the next morning to comment on the photo. However when I logged into the dog's profile, my daughter had forgotten to add her to the "family" list.... so our family dog's profile showed her post right there on the front page.

It wasn't any parent-hacking, computer spying, or monitoring of any kind.. the dog actually ratted her out completely by accident. She hasn't petted that dog all day today...

On Computers / WiFi in Class

It is so important to this professor that people only pay attention to him in all his narcissistic glory that he forced the class into a smaller room....

JUST so there is no wifi.

Wouldn't it have been easier to stay in the large class and ban laptops? Or make it possible to jam wifi somehow? It can't be hard.

Or, you could just let the students decide. As I argued before.

Laptops in Class: I say "Allow Them"

So, a debate between truth and craven falsehood over at KOSMOS.

With me, as always, taking the side of truth. Should laptops be required / allowed / prohibited in class?

Falsity gets its chance, arguing the "ban laptops! They are da debbil's woikshoppe!" tomorrow.

Excerpt: If you have to pay someone to attend you, that’s prostitution. If you have to force someone to attend you, that’s slavery.

I have never understood why so many professors believe that students must be prostituted or indentured. But that is what the “ban laptops” crowd is arguing: We can’t count on students to learn voluntarily. So we have to bribe them, or we have to force them to leave their laptops home.

Look, profs: If you seriously find that most of your students are daydreaming, facebooking, or cruising porn sites (not that that’s a bad thing…), you might want to try an old and honorable solution. Two words.

Stop.

Sucking.

It was 1979

Dutch Boy sends this video. It was 1979. Pretty impressive.