I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week at a local high school, helping out with computer science classes. The way the classes are taught, via an online curriculum, provides a great temptation to kids to get off-task, which they do, usually by entertaining themselves with their phones. They get off-task in other ways too — web surfing, doing homework for other classes — but the main distractor is the phones . . . “As I mentioned before, I worked with another CS class a couple years ago. No phones allowed in the classroom. “I remember one day the assistant principal was in class observing . . . a student had a phone out, looking at it . . . he was holding it under the table so no one could see it, but this guy, the assistant principal, he did see it. “Oh man, did he hit the roof!… Read more →
Rhapsody
I am glad daylong for the gift of song, For time and change and sorrow; For the sunset wings and the world-end things Which hang on the edge of to-morrow. I am glad for my heart whose gates apart Are the entrance-place of wonders, Where dreams come in from the rush and din Like sheep from the rains and thunders. — William Stanley Braithwaite, “Rhapsody” Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: A Man Called Ove
Universities Are Beautiful, California Is Beautiful, UCs Are Beautiful
“It’s those nights when you hike up to the Big C at 5 am, just to take pictures, that make college worth it.” ? #berkeleypov by @a.sp.m #ucberkeley #campanile #nightlights Edited by UC Berkeley A post shared by UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) on Feb 6, 2018 at 5:57pm PST And just like that, it's Friday again @ucsandiego | Photo credit: @alexislzarco? ? ? ? ? .?????????? .?????????? .???? ? ? ? ? #uofcalifornia #uc #ucsd #ucsandiego #sd #socal #southerncalifornia #cali #california #regram #geisel #geisellibrary #sunset #sunsetlover #sunsetlovers #sunsetgram #colors #colorful #triton #tritons #book #books #sky #skyline #purple #pink #lajolla #campus #college #weekend A post shared by University of California (@uofcalifornia) on Feb 9, 2018 at 7:27am PST Read more →
A Bite of Nostalgia
I drove through Carl’s Jr. today for lunch . . . “Would you like to try a Western Bacon Cheeseburger?” the girl asked. “Yes, that sounds good.” The Western Bacon Cheeseburger was a favorite of mine when it was introduced in the early 1980s. A taste of nostalgia! I was tempted when I got to the window to ask why she’d recommended a Western Bacon Cheeseburger and not some new-fangled menu item as is customary, but I was afraid she’d say they just had a couple lying around and needed to get rid of them . . . Read more →
Nietzsche Cartoons
All of My Great Ideas
Some Links on Work-Life Balance
Carol Bartz discusses the myth of work-life balance (Video) “Bartz Says ‘Work/Life’ Balance is a Myth,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2012. Beyond policies: Office culture must change (Article) Susan Dominus, “Rethinking the Work-Life Equation,” New York Times, February 25, 2016. The problem may be long hours not work-family conflict (Article) Robin Ely and Irene Padavic, “Work-Family Conflict is Not the Problem: Overwork Is,” Huffington Post, November 6, 2013. Managing work and life is an increasingly global problem (Report) EY, Global Generations: A Global Study on Work-Life Challenges Across Generations (2015). We know flexibility works, the challenge is execution (Article) Stew Friedman, “‘Having It All’ Is Not a Women’s Issue,” Harvard Business Review, June 26, 2012. The best way forward (Article) Gigi Liu, “From Work-Life Balance to Work-Life Integration– The New Way Forward,” Entrepreneur, March 31, 2016. When and where you work is increasingly the norm for many professionals (Article) Laura Vanderkam, “Work-life Balance is Dead —… Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Heaven has gates, a wall and extreme vetting. Racist! See you in Hell . . . Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Me Too
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth– PE] If women want any rights more than they’s got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it. I have as much rights as any man, and can do as much work as any man. And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? That little man in… Read more →
Hitmen Take Credit Cards?
Too Few Women in Computer Science?
Embed from Getty Images “We have too few women in computer science.” That’s something you hear a lot. It’s an opinion presented as a fact. I never hear anyone say, “In my opinion, we have too few women in computer science.” Just “we have too few women in computer science.” How do we know that? What is the right number? Maybe we have too many women in computer science. How do we know? I’d love to see more women in computer science btw, I just object to people presuming to know what other people should be doing with their lives . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Theological Question
I hear people say that bad things happen to kids in schools because God isn’t allowed in schools. Why do bad things happen to kids in churches? Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: When You Need Help, Ask For Help
I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week at a local high school, helping out with computer science classes. It’s a mixed class . . . most of the students are taking AP Computer Science Principles, and about 10 kids just recently started a second-semester Visual Basic class. The VB kids were pretty inquisitive at first but started to get discouraged . . . in my opinion because of the way the material is presented to them via an online curriculum. The current approach to teaching computer science in American schools, because of the shortage of (I almost said “lack of”) qualified teachers is to use packaged courses delivered to students online. My observation is students assume that because they’ve been put in front of a computer full of lessons, they’re expected to be able to read and understand the material and complete the assignments on their own with no help.… Read more →
TFW Hackers Steal $530 Million From Your Cryptocurrency Exchange
$530 million cryptocurrency heist may be biggest ever — CNNTech Read more →
It Was a Very Definite Thing
It was a very definite thing within myself, that happened, that I allowed myself be so open, and let my defenses down enough . . . it was almost as if, I’d got to the point . . . of no return . . . and I thought, “I’m going to go for it.” Read more →
All the Hemispheres
Leave the familiar for a while. Let your senses and bodies stretch out Like a welcomed season Onto the meadows and shores and hills. Open up to the Roof. Make a new water-mark on your excitement And love. Like a blooming night flower, Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness And giving Upon our intimate assembly. Change rooms in your mind for a day. All the hemispheres in existence Lie beside an equator In your heart. Greet Yourself In your thousand other forms As you mount the hidden tide and travel Back home. All the hemispheres in heaven Are sitting around a fire Chatting While stitching themselves together Into the Great Circle inside of You. — Hafez Read more →
19 Insane Tidbits From James Damore’s Lawsuit
The Federalist recently published 19 insane tidbits about the Google office environment gleaned from the James Damore lawsuit. Keep in mind I’m a programmer, not a lawyer, when I say that Damore has a prima facie case of illegal retaliation: he engaged in protected activity — i.e., exercising the right to improve working conditions — by opposing several discriminatory practices, and was fired from his job. Damore wrote in his famous (or infamous) memo that “Google has created several discriminatory practices.” Classic case of opposition to an unlawful employment practice. The law does not require that the employment practice actually be unlawful, only that the employee believes the practice to be unlawful. Read more →
Everyone’s a Critic
Funeral: For Us His Gold
after Gerald Stern The insect was yellow with crumpled-black banded legs and shellacked back that would outlast us and wistful eyes from what I could discern on that trail between fields, and we laid him out in the open air under a sky fast-blue with change, wedging a leaf beneath his triple-belted belly so he didn’t rest on plain dirt, and we placed two cloverblooms by his head and he was old you said, could tell by how definite the stripes were, how complete the patterns bold and dark, almost engraved, and he was beautiful in that pasture… Read more →