Monthly Archives: June 2010

It’s hard to know where to start with what is wrong with this article: Why Johnny can’t code – Education in Salon.com

First off, the author is making a virtue of a necessity we once had as users of computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Back when personal computers first came out, programming them in BASIC was something you did because, well, there wasn’t much else you could do with them! If you wanted your Commodore PET or 64 or TRS-80 to do something, you needed to program it. Later on came wordprocessors and spreadsheets that allowed you to use the computer without having to learn programming. But first, you had to program.

Second, most kids I knew back then did NOT use a computer. Did not program. That was for geeks.  I think that will always be the way it is with new technologies. There are a minority of kids who are tinkerers and changers of things, be it cars, computers, or some other new thing in the future. For the rest of them, they will be just happy to drive the car, or use the mobile phone or play the video game.

Third, young people have access to vastly more free technology and tools than kids of the 70s and 80s did. There is so much open source and free software to program with and use, be in Java or Python or Javascript or Clojure. You name it: there’s something that is easily downloadable with lots of great documentation and examples anyone can use to get coding.

Fourth, personal computers have had more layers of abstraction added to them, true, and you have less control over them than we had back then. But I would argue that as new technology comes along, that kids have that chance again. I am thinking in particular about mobile application development. Also, I look to things like Arduino devices which young people can get, attach to their computers, and program. It’s the same thing as kids from the 70s. In fact, looking at Arduino books and tech, it reminded me of being a kid back in the 70s. There’s still the same opportunities, but instead of programming the PC they are programming something else.

It’s a good article, and I think it is worth a read, but it subscribes to view of that time that I don’t have.

Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC

From Photos: Celebrities by The Times in 2010 – latimes.com

John Graham-Cumming, in his post, How to write a “Malcolm Gladwell Bestseller”, dissects the essence of Gladwell’s approach to bookwriting very successfully.

At first consideration, there seems to be something signfigant that Gladwell is attempting to say. But there is less there than it seems. It’s very good writing, and it is no worse and arguably much better than alot of business writing centered on case studies. But as this author says, they are a collection of interesting essays, and not a strong argument for some grand new idea.

While they don’t go as well together as other colours, this is a superb example of how to pull it off

It works well here because the brown suit is mid tone brown, while the blues are either very dark (shirt stripe, necktie) or very light (handkerchief).  To make it even better, he matches it all with a caramel colour briefcase. Lighter browns with reddish tones can work well with dark blues, and very light blues can work really well with dark browns.

Not surprising, this man is Florentine and was featured on The Sartorialist blog. The link is now gone.

P.S. The quality of the photograph, with the muted lighting, and the soft yellow/green walls and the terra cotta planter in the background, make it look even better. Then again, all the shots on this blog are great.

P.S. Thanks for reading this. If you have found it useful and you’d like to say thanks by buying me a coffee, you can do so here. Thanks! That’s awesome!

Via nymag.com

It’s this one:

Found on the always very smart blog, swissmiss

ThinkGeek totally pwns the lawyers of the National Pork Board. See: ThinkGeek :: Blurgh! The ThinkGeek Blog – Officially our best-ever cease and desist (via Andrew Sullivan).

Then you should read this: Hobbyists Use Etsy to Trade Day Job for Hard Work – NYTimes.com. This quote sums the article up well:

“Etsy saved my life,” Ms. Gibran said. But, she added, “this is the hardest job I’ve ever had.”

As anyone who has tried to make a go of it running a small business can tell you, it’s alot of hard work. Then again, it could be the best work you’ve ever had.

In this good article summing up the dire economic condidtion that California is in (California on ‘verge of system failure’ – The Globe and Mail), there is this quote:

Billionaire Warren Buffett, who advised U.S. President Barack Obama during his White House run, suggested recently that a Washington bailout of California and other troubled states is inevitable. How, he wondered, can Washington deny California after saying yes to General Motors, AIG and dozens of banks.

“I don’t know how you would tell a state you’re going to stiff-arm them with all the bailouts of corporations,” Mr. Buffett said.

Warren Buffett is a smart man when it comes to money, so I am wondering how he could have made that comparison. For the companies that accepted (or were made to accept) bailout money had to do so with signifigant strings attached. I wonder if the same could be said for states that were to accept bailout money. Would California turn governing over to the Feds? It seems unlikely, so that comparison seems invalid.

That said, there is a model of how this could be achieved that is already being demonstrated in the U.S. It’s the Race to the Top program that is part of the Stimulus Act (ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). Perhaps something similar could be put in place to spur reform in areas other than education.

Janelle Monáe video, Tightrope is brilliant and visually striking. But it’s the song itself that’s great all by itself. It has a great Motown/James Brown to a feel to it. And it’s as upbeat as anything. Perfect to fire up your day/week.

This is a good story for the U.S.: Interracial marriages at an all-time high, study says – CNN.com. There’s lots of good material in there that’s well worth a read.

So while you still have the likes of people like Sen. Jake Knotts in South Carolina calling people racist names, that type of thinking and the fear it brings with it is dying out. Instead you have people loving people for who they are and people supporting that. And that is a smart thing indeed.

You can find out more about this great poem, Lake Isle of Innisfree, at that link. But first, read it for yourself:

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,     
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;      
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,     
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.     
    
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon apurple glow, all a glimmer:
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.     
    
I will arise and go now, for always night and day  
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;      
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,     
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

So you have a router at home, or you are using your laptop in a cafe or an open space and you have an unsecure wifi network setup. You might think: what’s the big deal? How’s that going to help anyone? Well as Oscar González shows, you need to be careful when using WiFi. Your files could be exposed. (from his Techie of All sorts) blog. Even exposing a little information via wifi can potentially expose alot.

Now, you might think: fine, he can look up all that information about me, including personal information…big deal. Well, actually for someone malicious — unlike Oscar — it can be a big deal. Alot of institutions use that information to establish your identity. Someone can get that information and commit some nice identity theft (not to mention other theft as well).

Short of it is: follow Oscar’s advice and secure your connections as well as other information about yourself out there.

P.S. Even if you are not a techie, you should check out Oscar’s blog and in particular this post.

What is black humor? Well the wikipedia definition is a good one: a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo are treated in a satirical or humorous manner while retaining their seriousness. Synonyms include dark comedy, black comedy, dark humor, and morbid humor.

This image of how not to fast-rope onto a ship is an excellent example of that:

The recent events of the Israeli Defence Forces trying to stop the flotilla trying to break the embargo of Gaza is a deadly serious matter and it hardly seems worthy of laughter. However, this pseudo-instructional image satirizes and mocks the IDF for doing what they obviously should not have done. (At least in the eyes of the illustrator). I am a big fan of black humor: it is sometimes the only way to deal with extermely difficult subjects. This is a well done example of it.

From Fast-Roping 101 – The Daily Dish  By Andrew Sullivan