Computer World: “Today’s $60 1TB drive would have cost $1 trillion in the ’50s”
YouTube: “TEDxPhilly – Robert J. Moore – The data explosion “:
Related:
Hal R. Varian, University of California, Berkeley: Economics of Information Technology
MIT Technology Review: “The 70 Online Databases that Define Our Planet”
guardian.co.uk: Data Store
TechCrunch: Devin Coldewey: “The Dangers Of Externalizing Knowledge”
O’Reilly: Mike Loukides: “What is Data Science?”
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Decoding the Value of Computer Science”:
Computer science exposed two generations of young people to the rigors of logic and rhetoric that have disappeared from far too many curricula in the humanities. Those students learned to speak to the machines with which the future of humanity will be increasingly intertwined. They discovered the virtue of understanding the instructions that lie at the heart of things, of realizing the danger of misplaced semicolons, of learning to labor until what you have built is good enough to do what it is supposed to do.
The Education Nation Scorecard provided by NBC News, the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, and designed and built by Fathom.
Flowing Data has more on it.
Lately I’ve been part of a project helping tutor an individual in assisted living, who is disabled, in learning how to navigate the Web and email, with the eventual goal of uploading his music to YouTube. I can’t wait to introduce you to him – he’s fantastic and his songwriting is interesting.
It has been a terrific experience, an eye opener, and a reminder of things I I might have forgotten from when I used to develop applications for folks I worked with at Sears, who were not familiar with using a mouse, let alone an application of some sort.
Two things that come to mind that I will probably talk more about in later posts are that metaphors and analogies are terrific communication tools and that we as programmers and web service producers still make things too damn hard – there is still tremendous opportunity for innovation.
Example idea:
Markup that web browsers recognize for Login and Logout links/activities/forms so that the web browser itself can present a common interface for this kind of common action. Everyone has these interactions in different locations, with different looks and feels, but for those people who are disadvantaged in some way, this could provide a common interface. This way, web designers can keep the flexibility in their UI designs they seek *and* an additional utility would be available in the browser itself, to assist those who need it.
Just an idea to throw out there.
I’m thankful to be in a position to do this, and I hope to share more as this project progresses.
Zen and the Art of Programming: Antonio Cangiano, Software Engineer & Technical Evangelist at IBM: “The Pursuit of Excellence in Programming”
Related:
rc3.org: “Becoming a better programmer takes exercise”
Derek Silves: “After 15 years of practice…”
Peter Norvig: “Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years”
Michael J. Fox’s latest book is ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future’ and yes, he is the high school drop out in question. In the book Michael J. Fox certainly does not promote quitting High School! Far from it. What the book focuses on, by sharing his story, and the challenges he faced and took on along the way, what you can learn as a student of life, being open what the people around you (especially your children) can teach you, and to be present in the moment. The only book I can think of to compare it to, and this is high praise considering my love of it, is Randy Pauch’s “The Last Lecture” (another must read). It’s a fantastic book, a great story, with lessons all of us can learn from.
Thank you Richelle for buying me this for Father’s Day. It came at a good time.
YouTube: “Good Morning America: Michael J. Fox’s Life Lessons “
NPR.org: A Lesson In Life From Michael J. Fox (with excerpt)
Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
He signs the book off with “Live to learn.”.
This sounds like a fantastic opportunity for programmers who want to become familiar with journalism, and journalists to become familiar with programming.
Starbulletin: “Khan’s tutorials display promise of broadband”.
PBS NewsHour: Math Wiz Takes Education to New Limits on YouTube
Related:
YouTube: Taylor Mali on what teachers make:
via @alexknowshtml
NPR.org profiles the hosts of Snopes.com in “Mom-And-Pop Site Busts The Web’s Biggest Myths”.