My thoughts and prayers are with the family, especially Emma. She got to know grandpop over the past couple months and she liked him very much.
She is blissfully unaware right now, but the questions will come. They can’t be blown off – she simply doesn’t fall for distractions so easily anymore.
How deep you explain death to a three year old – one that is intellectually curious and has the smarts to handle it – will be hard. Even if it is the simple, “he’s in heaven, with mom-mom Rita and God”.
NYTimes: Finding Hope Online, and Hoping a Job Follows – the story of Raymond Vaughn, out of work window installer, and his foray into online education in hopes to build a new career.
Salon: Gated communities of learning – the cost of higher education keeps rising, at time where it is increasingly an environment.
Ask Slashdot: With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35? – how should someone a little older than usual get back on track with his or her education?
guardian.co.uk: Online and on the money: – online and state colleges are seeing a boom in growth.
Times Online: Harvard’s masters of the apocalypse
The Internet revolution being felt in media, politics, art, will transform the education system over the next few years. Some related links:
Knowledge@Wharton: ‘The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching’
a vc: Hacking Education
a vc: One Thing You Don’t Need To Be An Entrepreneur: A College Degree
New Scientist: ‘iTunes university’ better than the real thing
correct me if i’m wrong: The Paradox of Self-Education
That’s Aislyn Oliver, who , along with her husband, John Washington, recently talked with Daniel Rubin, and shared their inspirational story with and the Inquirer.
Cinder, Shelley Powers’s favorite chimp at the St. Louis Zoo, passed away, along with her family members, from a cold last week.
Shelley, and all of you that followed their lives at the St. Louis Zoo – my thoughts are with you.
I didn’t know how to feel when I heard about the “Where the Wild Things Are” movie adaption or when I saw the trailer, but Emma liked it. A lot. Talk about a hard movie to produce. If they succeed, it will be magical. If they fail, it will be more of the same… unfortunately. Keeping my fingers crossed. It would be great to take Emma to this.
A lot of fears of mine were proven unfounded as my first class at Villanova has come to a recent close. While it was a challenge to balance out my responsibilities at work and home with the class, I made it. I participated in class (probably was among the top two conversation drivers in fact), and had a great time writing essays and reading the material required. Now I’m looking forward to re-upping, but this time, closer to either home or work. Villanova is perfect for a working adult, and I’m happy to have went there for my first class, but if I am to take multiple courses a semester, it has to be faster to reach or online. The hours spent driving were hours that could have been spent studying or helping at home.
Last week I attended an information session at Penn’s College of Liberal and Professional Studies. What it could provide in terms of flexibility, coursework, and distance were great – but cost – at about $10-$15k a year isn’t responsible for my family.
I’m planning on checking out the Graduate! Philadelphia organization next. There’s a solution that will fit and I’m looking forward to continuing this journey.
You have no idea how blessed I feel to have this opportunity.
I spent last night, like many recently, riffing in Scratch to Emma’s direction. You might wonder what the goal of that would be with a 3 year old – but its simple – programming can be – and is – fun. While we play there on the laptop – Emma has no idea that we’re programming – just that we’re being creative in a way that is similar to when we play music, or color, or sing and dance, or build with our legos. Next step is to get her a keyboard and mouse she can tear apart if so inspired. Like her own ukulele, or her lego brick creations, what she’ll come up with on her own is bound to be awesome.
I mention this because, as the title of the post says, yesterday was Ada Lovelace day. Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and can be considered the world’s first computer programmer. She was born in 1815.
For those not in the industry, it probably comes as some kind of shock that the person considered a computer programmer is a woman. That shock is no doubt due to the fact that the industry has so few women participating in it. It wasn’t always so. And it suffers because of it.
Here are some good reads and links:
Kimberly Blessing: Honoring Ada, Inspiring Women (the story of women in computer programming is commonly taught to begin and end with Ada – which is very incorrect)
guardian.co.uk: Let’s hear it for women in technology
Aaron Swartz: Margo Seltzer – on the creator of BerkleyDB.
KathySierra tweet on women who have made a difference in tech: Just a few of the tech women who made/make a diff: @whitneyhess @avantgame @xenijardin @zephoria @dori @burningbird @maryhodder @nicolesimon
findingada: Ada Lovelace Day
Authorware.com: 097 – Haiku Error Messages – for Howard Hall (visit his blog for why).
Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel, teenage students from IES La Bisbal in Spanish Catalonia, led by their teacher, Jordi Fanals Oriol, tie a Canon Powershot to a weather ballon and send it to the edge of space.
dailymail.co.uk: Students tie £56 camera to balloon and send it to edge of space to capture stunning images of Earth
telegraph.co.uk: Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon
Boing Boing: Teens send balloon into space, get aerial photos of Earth
Flickr set: set on Flickr
During one of my bouts not having a place to sleep, I ended up taking residence in a motel. It was a bad financial decision, borne in the circumstances I was in. When your credit gets shaky, its hard to find an apartment that will accept your application. This is doubly true when you haven’t saved enough for two months security. You end up being a rat in a maze, a maze whose exit gets harder and harder to find the longer you’re in it.
NYTimes: As Jobs Vanish, Motel Rooms Become Home :
Greg Hayworth, 44, graduated from Syracuse University and made a good living in his home state, California, from real estate and mortgage finance. Then that business crashed, and early last year the bank foreclosed on the house his family was renting, forcing their eviction.
Now the Hayworths and their three children represent a new face of homelessness in Orange County: formerly middle income, living week to week in a cramped motel room.
NPR: Sacramento Tent City Reflects Economy’s Troubles:
Job losses, home foreclosures and a deepening recession are sending scores of newly homeless people into a makeshift camp along the banks of the American River in Sacramento, Calif.
The tent city, spread over an area the size of several football fields, has local officials scrambling over how to handle the area’s homeless crisis.
The contrast to the news this weekend is beyond understanding.
NYTimes: A.I.G. Planning Huge Bonuses After $170 Billion Bailout
Metafilter: This is insanity