I’ll miss her . . . she was funny, she pushed the envelope and she didn’t apologize.
RIP Joan Rivers
Teaching Computer Science: Remembering Names
I’m teaching AP Computer Science . . . today was the first real day of instruction. Yesterday was just introductions and housekeeping.
The first kid I called on to answer a question was named Sean. The second kid? Also named Sean.
“Is everyone in the class named Sean?” I asked.
Unfortunately they weren’t. It would have made it a lot easier to remember everyone’s name.
Teaching Computer Science
Tomorrow is my first day as an AP Computer Science teacher at Corona del Mar High School. It’s a volunteer gig through the TEALS organization.
Only about 10 percent of U.S. high schools offer computer science classes and at most of those schools, it counts as an elective, like Home Ec or Wood Shop, not as a class that can be applied toward graduation like math or science.
The most popular AP exam in 2013 was US History — 439,552 students took the AP US History exam. Only 31,117 students took the AP Computer Science exam. That’s about the same number as the AP Art History exam. I don’t want to denigrate the study of art history, but given the ubiquity of computers and software and programming in daily life, the study of computer science seems more likely to enable a person to be self-supporting and to contribute to the common good.
I’ve heard people say that computer science should be taught in every high school in America. That may be a good idea, but no one ever says where all the qualified computer science teachers are supposed to come from. The TEALS vision is to put high-tech professionals like myself in schools to teach computer science and to teach teachers to teach computer science.
I’m happy to have the opportunity but I’m also scared, I might as well put that out there. What am I scared of? Like everything else, that I won’t perform to expectations and that I’ll be exposed as a phony.
Don Pardo, 1918-2014
In February 2002, I published a list of people I (incorrectly) thought were dead:
- Joey Bishop – TV host
- Ernest Borgnine – actor
- Red Buttons – actor
- Kitty Carlisle – game show panelist
- Alistair Cooke – TV host
- Buddy Ebsen – actor
- Glenn Ford – actor
- Eugene McCarthy – U.S. senator
- Jack Paar – TV host, “The Tonight Show”
- Don Pardo – TV announcer
- Artie Shaw – clarinetist and bandleader
- Byron White – U.S. supreme court justice
- Richard Widmark – actor
With the death of Don Pardo this evening, all of those people are actually dead:
- Joey Bishop – died 10/17/2007, age 89
- Ernest Borgnine – died 7/8/2012, age 95
- Red Buttons – died 7/13/2006, age 87
- Kitty Carlisle – died 4/18/2007, age 96
- Alistair Cooke – died 3/30/2004, age 95
- Buddy Ebsen – died 7/6/2003, age 95
- Glenn Ford – died 8/30/2006, age 90
- Eugene McCarthy – died 12/10/2005, age 89
- Jack Paar – died 1/27/2004, age 85
- Artie Shaw – died 12/30/2004, age 94
- Byron White – died 4/15/2002, age 84
- Richard Widmark – died 3/24/2008, age 93
R.I.P. Don Pardo
Last Night at the Beppo
The Buca di Beppo restaurant in Irvine is closing tomorrow. We stopped in this evening for a final meal. It was a sad occasion. Buca has been one of our culinary mainstays for over a decade. Here we are laughing to keep from crying:
We had antipasto salad and baked ziti, a very close call over the spicy chicken rigatoni.
Programmers Don’t Play Polo
On the product page for a book on software development principles, Amazon showed me this:
The product on the right — is that a bug in the cross-selling algorithm? I’ve worked in software development for about 30 years and have never met one person interested in the game of polo . . .
By Way of Explanation
I was yelling this morning and I scared the dog. I wasn’t angry at him or at anyone in the house, I was angry about a whole life insurance scam we got in the mail. (That’s redundant, isn’t it? “Whole life insurance scam”?)
Anyway, the dog got scared and crawled under the bed. His joints, especially in his back legs, are not too good anymore and once he got under the bed, he couldn’t get back out. I had to crawl under there myself, roll him on his side, which he didn’t like, and then slide him out.
That’s in case you’re wondering why I showed up late for work this morning looking like I just crawled out from under a bed . . .
Did Robin Williams Have a Dog?
Hi everybody! It’s me, Lightning!
I’m seeing a person named Robin Williams on TV a lot. He always seems excited and happy, like a puppy! It’s scaring people that he ended his own life.
Dogs never end their own life, no matter what. You might think we couldn’t do that but we could run in front of a car or jump off a balcony, just to name a couple of things.
I wonder if Robin Williams had a dog . . .
My owner and I are getting old together. We can’t run like we used to, or see very well or hear very well. He’s sad about it sometimes but I think it helps people to see dogs trying our best in every situation. Everything is temporary.
— Lightning 
National Scholarship Award
It would be nice if modesty prevented me from mentioning that my kid’s fraternity, the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) chapter at UC Berkeley, was awarded the National Scholarship Award at the ATO National Congress for having the highest GPA of any ATO chapter in the nation.
“Yeah, and we actually have hard classes,” he said.
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: “He Was Even Better as a Person”
A person named Will Arnett was taping the Conan O’Brien show yesterday when they found out about Robin Williams’ untimely demise.
Arnett said this: “As funny as he was — he’s truly one of the all-time greats — he was even better as a person.”
That’s a reliable formulation: As great as he was as a [thing the person was known to be great at], he was even better as a person.
Of course because the person was known to be an outlier at the one thing, he (or she) was almost certainly NOT even better as a person.
How great was Robin Williams as a comedian? Top 10? I don’t know, that’s pretty competitive . . . I’m thinking of Groucho, Cosby, Charlie Chaplin, Steve Martin, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Leno, Letterman . . .
But I’d say Top 20, definitely. So according to Will Arnett, Robin Williams was one of the 20 best people of all time!?
Was he a better person than Buddha? The Dalai Lama? Jesus? Mother Teresa? Abraham Lincoln? Gandhi? Socrates? Albert Schweitzer? Raoul Wallenberg? Nelson Mandela? Aung San Suu Kyi? Mr. Rogers? Your sweet, elderly grandma? Billions of other people doing their best to get along in the world?
I get that you might find yourself on the spot to say something nice about a person and you can’t think of anything to say but this “even better as a person” bullshit cannot be eradicated too soon in my opinion.
Robin Williams, 1951-2014
Robin Williams dies at 63 in apparent suicide — LA Times
Past a certain point in life, there’s not a great deal to look forward to. I imagine it’s more difficult if the process includes transitioning from fame to anonymity.
Maybe he should have taken up golf . . .
Can You See the Real Me, Doctor?
I decided to get off meds for a while . . .
Things That Are the Same
- I start every morning thinking about how great it would be to just stay in bed the rest of the day. Repeatedly hitting the snooze alarm — does life get any better than that?
- I live in fear of negative judgment.
- I dread being around other people. (May be just a restatement of #2).
Things That Are Different
- I don’t feel like I’m in as much of a fog all the time.
- I feel sadder, angrier, happier, more scared, more alive for better or worse.
What Are You Looking At?
When you step out of a shower and there’s a full-length mirror available, what do you look at?
I look at upper-body muscle tone. I don’t look at anything above the neck or below the waist. Does this change as you get older? I used to look below the waist, front and back, not all the time but occasionally. I don’t do that now.
I asked my wife and she doesn’t look at anything.
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Breastfeeding Celebrities
“In paths untrodden,” as Walt Whitman marvelously put it. “Escaped from the life that exhibits itself . . .” Oh, that’s a plague, the life that exhibits itself, a real plague!
Who the heck is Olivia Wilde and why is there a photo all over the Internet of her breastfeeding an infant in a restaurant booth? I mean, not a surreptitious candid photo of her discreetly breastfeeding. A posed photo! In a designer dress!
(I’m not posting or linking to the photo. If you haven’t already seen it, I’m sure you can find it.)
Well it’s a natural function, breastfeeding — right? Yeah, but there are a number of natural functions that need not be performed in public and photographed.
The life that exhibits itself . . . what a plague indeed.
Are There Any Intelligent People Currently Living?
I was at LA Fitness this morning . . . one of the TVs was showing an interview with Jameis Winston on ESPN. Winston is borderline retarded but thinks he’s articulate — a deadly combination.
He’s a very talented athlete. Just show clips of his athletic accomplishments. They’re impressive and fun to watch. Why would anyone want to talk to him or listen to him talk? The interviewer is paid to endure it, I get that, but why foist it on the viewing public? Maybe it’s the train wreck element. It was very painful to watch and yet I couldn’t look away!
Rarely is one person gifted in multiple ways. Some people are great athletes, some people are intelligent and interesting . . . the overlap between the two groups is very small.
Listening to Jameis Winston talk is like watching Milton Friedman take batting practice or Albert Einstein work on his five-step drop.
(I know the Milton Friedman and Albert Einstein references are dated but I’m having trouble thinking of anyone who’s a) highly intelligent; b) well known to the general public; and c) currently alive.)
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Dr. Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou received quite a few honorary doctoral degrees in her lifetime and elected for some reason to refer to herself as Dr. Maya Angelou, despite not having an earned doctoral degree and despite, to my knowledge, never attending college at all.
Many famous people are given honorary doctorates by universities but thank god they don’t all go around referring to themselves as, say, Dr. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Mike Tyson, Dr. Glenn Beck, etc., etc., etc.
I’m also sick unto death of people who quote insipid thoughts from Maya Angelou as profundities, particularly if they refer to her as Dr. Maya Angelou when doing so.
We Were All Put on the Board Somewhere
We were all put on the board somewhere. We make our moves. Stuff happens. Be sure to blame what happens on where you started. That'll help.
— Ron Jeffries (@RonJeffries) March 21, 2014
Hawaiian Shirts
My Hawaiian shirts are like my children . . . I love them all equally.
The Who: The Kids Are Alright … Except the Ones With Ebola
Ebola Outbreaks: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
