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Education

Adafruit To Teach Electronics Through Puppets In New Kids Show 68

Posted by timothy from the needs-tmbg-as-musical-guests dept.
coop0030 writes "Wired has an article up about how Adafruit, the kit-based electronics retailer and promoter of hobbyist engineering, is aiming to teach electronics to a younger demographic. So young that they're enlisting the help of puppets. Their new online show, titled Circuit Playground, will teach the essentials of electronics and circuitry to children through kid-friendly dolls with names like Cappy the Capacitor and Hans the 555 Timer Chip. Limor 'Ladyada' Fried, Adafruit's founder and chief engineer (and 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year), will host the episodes, with her team assisting with onscreen and puppeteering duties. Episodes will premiere this March, and Fried holds hope for them to help inspire the next generation of designers and builders."

Comment Re:Is it just me? (Score 1) 346

by hendridm (#42401839) Attached to: Google Docs Vs. Microsoft Word: an Even Matchup?

The nail int he coffin for me on the Google side was the Google Drive sync client on OS X, it crashed constantly, failed to sync files all the time and used a crap ton of CPU time draining the battery of my MacBook Air

I used to have a lot of issue with Google Drive on my Mac when it first came out (the sync issues were certainly frustrating), but it's been running very smoothly for quite awhile now. I can't comment on the CPU/power consumption, though.
Android

KDE's Plasma Active Ported To Nexus 7 55

Posted by timothy from the looking-handy dept.
sfcrazy writes "KDE developers have succeeded in running the touch-optimized Plasma Active Linux Distribution on Nexus 7. Earlier Ubuntu developers managed to create a installer for Nexus 7, but those builds also showed that Unity, in its current form, is not ready for touch-based devices. KDE has an edge here as they have optimized versions for netbooks, desktops and touch-based devices so a user doesn't have to make any compromises as one has to do with other DEs or shells which are focusing more in touch-based devices only." Here are detailed instructions on how to install it.
Encryption

WW2 Pigeon Code Decrypted By Canadian? 158

Posted by timothy from the pinned-down-send-fries-and-gravy dept.
Albanach writes "At the start of November Slashdot reported the discovery of a code, thought to be from the Second World War, found attached to the leg of a pigeon skeleton located in an English chimney. Now a Canadian by the name of Gord Young claims to have deciphered the message in less than 20 minutes. He believes that the message is comprised mostly of acronyms."

Comment Re:Nothing wrong with him (Score 2) 529

by hendridm (#42240155) Attached to: Ubuntu Community Manager: RMS's Post Seems a Bit Childish To Me

Yes they can currently apparently be turned off but I don't want to be messing like that.

It's not too difficult: sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

That said, I still agree with you. Once an OS starts to have a ton of stuff you have to turn off upon install/reinstall, I tend to want to use something else.

Comment Re:It's very possible (Score 3) 526

by hendridm (#42159121) Attached to: Steve Jobs Was Wrong About Touchscreen Laptops

A shame. My mother owns a Transformer, my brother owns a Transformer and my wife owns a Nexus 7. They barely ever get put down.

I, personally, haven't bought a tablet because I need and prefer a full laptop. However, my next laptop will have a touchscreen because it seems like a nice compliment.

I'm just waiting for a touchscreen laptop that also has a Thunderbolt port (yes, I know /. hates Thunderbolt, but I have a TB monitor, so deal with it). I'm eyeballing the HP Envy Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook. My current laptop is getting pretty moldy...

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