Category Archives: Friends, Family, Life

Scratch: Lowering the floor, widening the walls, raising the ceiling

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Read about the principals behind the design of Scratch in Communications of the ACM: Scratch: Programming for All: “Digital fluency” should mean designing, creating, and remixing, not just browsing, chatting, and interacting.:

It has become commonplace to refer to young people as “digital natives” due to their apparent fluency with digital technologies. Indeed, many young people are very comfortable sending text messages, playing online games, and browsing the Web. But does that really make them fluent with new technologies? Though they interact with digital media all the time, few are able to create their own games, animations, or simulations. It’s as if they can “read” but not “write.”

As we see it, digital fluency requires not just the ability to chat, browse, and interact but also the ability to design, create, and invent with new media, as BalaBethany did in her projects. To do so, you need to learn some type of programming. The ability to program provides important benefits. For example, it greatly expands the range of what you can create (and how you can express yourself) with the computer. It also expands the range of what you can learn. In particular, programming supports “computational thinking,” helping you learn important problem-solving and design strategies (such as modularization and iterative design) that carry over to nonprogramming domains. And since programming involves the creation of external representations of your problem-solving processes, programming provides you with opportunities to reflect on your own thinking, even to think about thinking itself.

A lot of time to think when you have the flu

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It’s been a long week. Last Sunday I started to come down with symptoms of the flu. Classic symptoms. High fever, chills, aches and pains, cough, a gurgle coming from the chest when I breath out here and there, feeling run down. So this week I’ve been spending time basically doing a few things:

  1. Sleeping
  2. Being a pain in the ass to Richelle
  3. Over-sharing on Twitter and Facebook
  4. Trying to answer email from work whenever awake.
  5. Watching Babylon 5’s first season for the first time.
  6. Reading Logicomix
  7. Watching the Phillies take the National League Championship and move on to the World Series!

Along the way I’ve had time to reflect on how blessed I am. Sure, this flu came down during a very, very bad week – things are running tight on a project I’m part of at work and I feel like my body has let people down. But then again, I haven’t caught the flu in years. I guess I was due. The problem is – it comes on the tail end of a nasty cold. So I haven’t been running 100% for over a month. A crucial month.

I’ll be heading back to work soon (if not Monday, then very close to that), and I know it will be a challenge. But it has to be better than the throbbing in my head that I feel even now, a week after coming down with this thing.

Phillies + Flu == Cheers?

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Monday night I went to the ER as suggested by my family doctor for flu symptoms. It was a long night. The ER was overrun and understaffed. Nerves were frayed in the waiting room as minutes turned to hours.

One thing that helped pass the time was the Phillies/Dodgers game. Rooting for the Phillies took some of the edge off, but after an early lead, the Dodgers not only caught up, but looked to win.

Later that night, in the patient room I was finally assigned to, waiting for the doctor to visit to give me his five minute diagnosis (yes I have the flu, here’s a prescription for Tamiflu) the 9th inning was coming to a close.

The buzz in the ER slowed down for a moment as Jimmy Rollins came to the plate.

I was on the phone with Richelle giving her my status, taking pause to watch.

I pretty much screamed into the phone as yells of joy erupted around me as his 2 run double brought people home and the Phillies won the game.

A great night.

Some personal growth pieces to read and re-read

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Just some recent links that have connected with me as of late:

Derek Sivers: If you think you haven’t found your passion…:

If you keep thinking about something like putting on a huge conference or being a Hollywood screenwriter and you find the idea terrifies but intrigues you, it’s probably a worthy endeavor for you.

You grow by doing what excites you and what scares you.

t3rmin4t0r: A Simple Survival Guide for your Inner Child:

There are only two basic rules of survival for the individual:

  • Work the system
  • Fuck with the system

It doesn’t get any more contradictory than that.

Howard Weaver – with echos of “Data Smog”, by David Shenk – : Infobesity: the result of poor information nutrition

Chris Dixon: What carries you up will also bring you down

Pace and Kyeli Smith: The Freak Manifesto

Institute for Artificial Intelligence: Michael A. Covington: How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily

Michael Montoure: Hack Yourself:

Stop assigning blame. This is the first step. Stop assigning blame and leave the past behind you.

You know whose fault it is that your life isn’t perfect. Your boss. Your teachers. Your ex-lovers. The ones who hurt you, the ones who abused you, the ones who left you bleeding. Or even yourself. You know whose fault it is — you’ve been telling yourself your whole life. Knowing whose fault it is that your life sucks is an excellent way to absolve yourself of any reponsibility for taking your life into your own hands.

Forget about it. Let it go. The past isn’t real. “That was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.” If we’re not talking about something that is real and present and in your life right now, then it doesn’t matter. Nothing can be done about it. If nothing can be done about it, then don’t spend your energy dwelling on it — you have other things to do.

“Programming is an exercise in overcoming how wrong you’ve been in the past.”

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Kickingbear: “Blog Archive » Don’t Be A Dick: Compiled Flash and You.”:

Programming is an exercise in overcoming how wrong you’ve been in the past. At first you’ll overcome the syntax errors, then you’ll overcome the structural errors, and then you’ll come to align your code with the standards of a greater community and you’ll feel safe and like you’ve made it. You haven’t – you’re still wrong because you’re always wrong. You are playing a game you cannot win. And let’s face it – if it was a game you could win you’d not be playing at all.

via Arpit’s Web Quotes tumblr

Comic books dealing with mental illness

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Darryl Cunningham is a comic book creator, blogger, sculptor and more. He also spent time working in a psychiatric ward.

He is chronicling his experience working in a psychiatric ward in a new graphic novel titled “Psychiatric Tales”. He’s been posting draft chapters of of the book on his blog over the past year.

Every chapter has been speaking to me on one level or another, but I want to call out two for now: “It Could Be You” and “People With Mental Illness Enhance Our Lives”

Along a similar vein is “LOGICOMIX”, a graphic novel documenting the experience of some of the largest names in mathematics, and what they sacrificed to make their contributions, including, sometimes, their mental health.