Yesterday, Michelle Craig and I were discussing ideas for the last assignment for her CSC120 class, Computer Science for Scientists. The assignment had to include some components of databases, Python dictionaries, file reading, and string parsing. What we settled on was automatically generating a class composite; the idea was based off of what I had for the Food-In conference. Instead of including the group that each person belonged to as I had for the Food-In attendees, we’ll put something in like college, instruments played, favourite transition metal, or programme of study. Food-in composite, generated entirely in Python from individual headshots, after the jump.
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Hot Yam! Retreat
It’s reading week, so instead of taking up your precious reading time, I’m going to post some pictures. I was up at Hart House Farm at the end of January for a retreat with Hot Yam! and again this past weekend for the Food-In Conference, so I thought I’d share a few pictures (click to enlarge) from the Hot Yam! retreat in today’s post and some pictures from the Food-In at a later date. More after the jump.
Nonereliable
If your pocket calculator made a mistake every ten operations, would you still use it? Or if the brakes of your wheeled-vehicle of choice only worked 99.9% of the time, would you keep using it? Or what if one in every thirty flushes resulted in your toilette backing up and surprise alligators streaming out? After I lost all the data on my phone, save the Chuck Norris-like audio files, I started thinking about what technology I’ve abandoned because it was so unreliable that it was more trouble than it was worth, or “nonereliable” ((Yes, this entire blog post exists just so that I can make this word a “thing”)). More generally, I began to wonder what makes things or people so unreliable that we’re better off without them. So, in the blog post, I’m just thinking aloud, considering a few examples of things I consider to be unreliable and trying to determine some factors that influence whether I continue to rely on them.
I am Customer. Hear me ring!
Prologue
A fair numbers of people are under the impression I don’t own a cellular phone. I do. ((I’ve had one for a decade, now. I’m just very bad at answering calls and haven’t figured out this “voicemail” business, so I usually don’t give out my number.)) In fact, as of September, I’ve been the unhappy owner of an Android phone that’s more “special” phone than smartphone. The reasons for my discontent, as I’ve alluded to in a past blog post, lie in both hardware and software. Two weeks ago, I noticed that a minor software update was available for my phone (version 2.1 to a more recent version 2.1) and I thought that it might at least help reduce the number of random crashes/reboots I was experiencing. I expected to be no worse off, in any case. Instead, this software update managed to sour my opinion of both WIND Mobile and Android.
Debeakered: One year and 49 posts later
It’s been a year since Jorge managed to convince me to start blogging. Things have mostly been downhill since the 15K+ views for my iPad environmental impact analysis, but that was mostly to be expected, given the media coverage around iPad at the time. Besides, many of the views are just from spammers. However, truth be told, most of my personal favourite posts such as the Tragedy of the Commons 4-part series and Peddling an idea were written when I used to spend more time thinking about and writing posts.
Thoughts on programming for all: Part IIb — Downsides
Last week, I discussed one of the downsides of students being taught to think algorithmically, even if they absorb it all. Unfortunately, just because students can pass an introduction to programming course doesn’t mean they have any understanding of code that they or anyone else has written. Whenever I teach a course, I make a point to mention cargo cult programming and warn students not to fall into that trap.
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Thoughts on programming for all: Part IIa — Downsides
In my last post, I wrote about some of the benefits of teaching programming as part of a general liberal arts education. However, I did express some new reservations about doing so which I explore further in this blog post. Having let quite a bit of time elapse since writing the first post, I’ve unfortunately forgotten a number of points I had intended to make. And now, I’m going to break up the downsides into multiple posts.
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Thoughts on programming for all: Part I — The Merits
I was reading Ira Basen’s article The algorithm method in the Globe and Mail and was reminded of the talk given last week by Professor Mark Guzdial of Georgia Tech as part of the DCS’ Distinguished Lecture Series. Guzdial argued that an introduction to programming, if not computer science, should be an essential part of a liberal arts education due to the way it reshapes the way one views computers, an increasing part of our everyday lives. While I agree with his position that being able to understand the algorithms that dictate whether one is approved for a mortgage or make predictions about climate change search could be useful and important, Basen’s article caused me to question and temper my own beliefs on the importance of introducing programming to undergraduates.
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Census draft
I started this blog post shortly after writing Let’s scrap the long-form census!, but have only recently finished it. No, this is not about “drafting” or conscripting people to fill out long-form versions of the census. It’s about the draft form of a census; that is, how a long-form census is born and its future relevance.
No smoking in cars or no consistency
I recently noticed a car with a non-smoking sign inside. It had a trillium on the side, so it was likely owned by the provincial government. My next thought was why we permit smoking in cars. I’m not here to debate whether any government should get to have a say about this, but allowing smoking seems to be politically and logically inconsistent with a certain one of Ontario’s currently-enacted laws.