Link Dump 2015-03-15
2015-03-15
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The porn star Stoya prefers people to pirate her work though torrents than to get it from streaming media sites.
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What is real rock climbing? It's when you build anchors while free soloing (but don't use them). Also, bouldering.
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If programming languages were Harry Potter characters. This list is more insightful than the cliche'dtitle suggests.
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The invention of vibrators is just like the invention of writing - it allows people do things which would otherwise be impossible.
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Massachusetts allows carrying hand guns in public, but not stun guns. Their justification is... strange.
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If you're like me and you've ever wondered what all those signs in airports mean - the signs for pilots and workers, not the signs for passengers - here's a brief guide.
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I already have very little use for another mobile device, but I really want one of these. Or maybe I just want a wooden phone.
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In the humanities, and worried that in the near future all funding will be given to STEM? Maybe it's because you're not teaching students well.
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I peruse Kickstarter's design products every couple weeks, and have indeed noticed that wallets are oddly popular. One possible reason? Wallets are the "hello world"s of physical products.
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Anonymity on the internet is once again causing problems with Yik Yak. Sometimes I'm surprised that this is still a problem - not because I think we have solved it, but because people have been capable of writing anonymous public posts for a long time now. There's something about the instantaneous nature of the internet - and now the localized nature of Yik Yak - that makes this harder to deal with than before. If anyone knows what that "something" is, we should talk.
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A public school teacher but private school parent talks about why private schools are better: because private schools require prior commitment.
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While I agree that the way we teach children to distinguish fact from opinion (or not) is problematic, the idea of "moral facts" also sits poorly with me. I am much more inclined to argue that these "moral facts" all serve a utility that is common among most people, but that the utility function itself can be argued about. I'm not sure why this appeals to me more than just the morals being arguable.
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Computer science education is hard. On one hand, not having programming is unlikely to impart computational thinking habits. In the other hand, we need more real world examples to attract students not traditionally interested in computer science (eg. women, minorities, etc.), and we need evidence that the topics we choose actuall work. These courses are also too easy and we should be "taking the kiddie gloves off". These goals are not mutually exclusive, but there is a tension between making things at once accessible but also impactful.
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In related news, I've been thinking really hard about whether computer science courses can get away with not having exams. Advantages: we are not forcing students to memorize random facts or do the job a compiler was built to do. Disadvantages: all other course assessments will have to be carefully designed to make sure students grok the material, and can access it reasonably efficiently.
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In unrelated news, there's been a growing concern that computers, unlike radios, cannot be taken apart and tinkered with - ie. computing is all packaged up and is too easy. I both agree and disagree. I think this is definitely true physically - I have no idea how a transistor actually works, and taking my computer apart won't teach me that. On the other hand, the abundance of software and programming tutorials means people can tinker a lot more than before - it's just a different kind of tinkering. And I think the potential of tinkering with software is much larger than was possible with hardware - how many hardware tinkerers ended up with a billion-dollar company?