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Submission + - Should Disney Credit the Late Randy Pausch for its Hour of Code Tutorial?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Tens of millions of kids across the nation will take to school computers this week to participate in the 2014 Hour of Code. In this year's signature tutorial, kids will be introduced to coding concepts through exercises like using Google's Blockly to make Disney Frozen Princess Anna ice skate in a square. If this strikes you as familiar, it could be that you've seen this Disney movie before. In The Last Lecture, the late CMU CS professor Randy Pausch displays a programmable cartoon ice skater from an Alice Project tutorial as he explains how the project's novel approach to programming could stealthily teach tens of millions of kids to code (YouTube) [by making characters skate in a square, for example]. "To the extent that you can live on in something," said Pausch, "I will live on in Alice." He added, "I, like Moses, get to see the promised land, but I won’t get to set foot in it. And that’s OK, because I can see it. And the vision is clear. Millions of kids having fun while learning something hard. That’s pretty cool. I can deal with that as a legacy." So considering the similarities, and that Pausch spent sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering (Disney even sells The Last Lecture ), isn't it kind of surprising that neither Disney nor Code.org mentioned Pausch or Alice in their announcements of the flagship Hour of Code tutorial? Is this a case of the left Disney hand not knowing what the right is doing?

Submission + - 2014 Hour of Code Frozen Tutorial: Disney Remake of CMU's 2005 Alice Ice Skater?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Thanks to the backing of some of tech's wealthiest corporations and individuals, tens of millions of kids across the nation will take to school computers next week to participate in the 2014 Hour of Code. In this year's signature tutorial, kids will be introduced to some basic computer science concepts for the first time by using Google's Blockly to advance Disney Frozen Princess Anna a specified number of units, turning her 90 degrees, and repeating the steps 4 times to skate in a square. While neither Disney nor Code.org mentioned it in their announcements, their 2014 Hour of Code tutorial looks very similar to a circa-2005 ice-skater based learn-to-code tutorial from the Alice software research group at CMU that was once led by the late Randy Pausch (Pausch mentions the Alice project in The Last Lecture). A quick Google search even turns up a 2009 Alice homework assignment that asks kids to make their animated 3D ice skater skate in a square. Commenting on Duke's recent CS 201 cheating scandal, CS Prof Owen Astrachan (coincidentally, a Code.org advisor) noted that there is a fine line between collaboration and cheating in computer science. So, could the flagship tutorial for this year's Hour of Code — touted as 'the largest learning event in history' by its organizers — be one of those cases?

Submission + - All I Really Need to Know About Coding I Learned in Monopoly

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Thanks to the backing of some of tech's wealthiest corporations and individuals, tens of millions of kids across the nation will take to school computers with high-speed internet connections next week to participate in the 2014 Hour of Code. In this year's signature tutorial, kids will be exposed to important computer science concepts for the first time by advancing Disney Frozen Princess Anna a specified number of units, turning her 90 degrees, and repeating the steps 4 times to skate in a square. Yep, kind of like what one might learn by playing the board game Monopoly, which also exposes one to other coding concepts like IF and GOTO statements! By the way, while neither Disney nor Code.org mentioned it in their announcements, their 2014 Hour of Code tutorial looks like it has roots in a circa-2005 ice-skater based learn-to-code tutorial (associated skate-in-a-square HW assignment) from the Alice software research group that was once led by the late Randy Pausch.

Comment Order 537 more for Congress+Biden+Obama? (Score 3, Interesting) 262

by theodp (#48503793) Attached to: Obama Offers Funding For 50,000 Police Body Cameras

The Circle: Meanwhile, the Circle continues to develop a range of sophisticated technologies, including SeeChange, light, portable cameras that can provide real-time video with minimal efforts. Eventually, SeeChange cameras are worn all day long by politicians wishing to be 'transparent', allowing the public to see what they are seeing at all times.

Submission + - Google, National Parks Partner to Let Girls Program White House Xmas Tree Lights

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Washington Post reports the White House holiday decor is going digital this year, with dog-bots and crowdsourced tree lights. "Thanks to Google's Made with Code initiative," reports a National Park Foundation press release, "girls across the country will experience the beauty of code by lighting up holiday trees in President’s Park, one of America’s 401 national parks and home to the White House." Beginning on December 2, explains the press release, girls can head over to Google's madewithcode.com (launched last June by U.S. CTO Megan Smith, then a Google X VP), to code a design for one of the 56 state and territory trees. Girls can select the shape, size, and color of the lights, and animate different patterns using introductory programming language and their designs will appear live on the trees. "Made with Code is a fun and easy way for millions of girls to try introductory code and see Computer Science as a foundation for their futures. We're thrilled that this holiday season families across the country will be able to try their hands at a fun programming project," said former Rep. Susan Molinari, who now heads Google's lobbying and policy office in Washington, DC.

Submission + - '94 Harvard Crimson: Require CS or Grads of 'Much Shittier Schools' Get Jobs

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Produced by Code.org, Computer Science Education Week kicks off on Dec. 8th, which its organizers explain is all about extending CS beyond 'the lucky few'. It's quite a pivot from more than 20 years ago, when the Harvard Crimson reported on a call from a Code.org co-founder for mandatory CS coursework to essentially extend Computer Science to 'the lucky few' in an effort to prevent people from 'much shittier schools' than Harvard from getting hired for computer-related jobs. From the 1994 Crimson article: "It would not be bad if there was some sort of simple math or science or statistic or computer science course required," says Ali Partovi '94. "It is really going to be a big thing in the future. People from much shittier schools will get jobs because they know more about computers." It's nice to see things are pivoting towards computer-science-for-all — heck, Codecademy notes that Asian and White boys are now the only students Google says don't count towards the $1,000 funding bonuses Google's offering to public school teachers who get 10 students to take a JavaScript course!

Submission + - A Programmer's Life 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If you're a programmer who's put a few miles on your life, be sure to check out Stephen Hazel's Bout Steve which may just be the most poignant 'About Me' you'll ever read. Tucked away behind his PianoCheetah piano practice software website, Hazel covers the ups and downs of his journey from being born into a family headed by a manic depressive missionary father to his current life as a (young) grandfather, and he frames it all within the context of an illustrated timeline of family, music, electronics, computers, and software. This is Parenthood for the Slashdot set, kids!

Submission + - Taxi Medallion Prices Plummet Under Pressure From Uber

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Most major American cities have long used a system to limit the number of operating taxicabs, typically a medallion system: Drivers must own or rent a medallion to operate a taxi, and the city issues a fixed number of them. Now Josh Barro reports at the NYT that in major cities throughout the United States, taxi medallion prices are tumbling as taxis face competition from car-service apps like Uber and Lyft. The average price of an individual New York City taxi medallion fell to $872,000 in October, down 17 percent from a peak reached in the spring of 2013, according to an analysis of sales data. "I’m already at peace with the idea that I’m going to go bankrupt,” said Larry Ionescu, who owns 98 Chicago taxi medallions. As recently as April, Boston taxi medallions were selling for $700,000. The last sale, in October, was for $561,000. “Right now Uber has a strong presence here in Boston, and that’s having a dramatic impact on the taxi industry and the medallion values,” says Donna Blythe-Shaw, a spokeswoman for the Boston Taxi Drivers’ Association. “We hear that there’s a couple of medallion owners that have offered to sell at 425 and nobody’s touched them."

The current structure of the American taxi industry began in New York City when “taxi medallions” were introduced in the 1930s. Taxis were extremely popular in the city, and the government realized they needed to make sure drivers weren’t psychopaths luring victims into their cars. So, New York City required cabbies to apply for a taxi medallion license. Given the technology available in the 1930s, It was a reasonable solution to the taxi safety problem, and other cities soon followed suit. But their scarcity has made taxi medallions the best investment in America for years. Where they exist, taxi medallions have outperformed even the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. In Chicago, their value has doubled since 2009. The medallion stakeholders are many and deep pockets run this market. The system in Chicago and elsewhere is dominated by large investors who rely on brokers to sell medallions, specialty banks to finance them and middle men to manage and lease them to drivers who own nothing at all. Together, they’re fighting to protect an asset that was worth about $2.4 billion in Chicago last year. “The medallion owners seem to be of the opinion that they are entitled to indefinite appreciation of their asset,” says Corey Owens, Uber’s head of global public policy.. “The taxi medallion in the U.S. was the best investment you could have made in the last 30 years. Will it go up forever? No. And if they expected that it would, that was their mistake.”

Submission + - Codecademy: Google Bonus for Getting Kids to Code Excludes Asian/White Boys

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Good News, according to a recently revised web page at Codecademy, is that Google will no longer only provide funding for teachers who convince high school girls to take a JavaScript course. The Bad News, however, is that under the revised deal described by Codecademy, Google will now provide public school teachers with bonus funding for getting all HS students to learn to code — except Asian and White boys. "Thanks to Google," reads Codecademy's new copy (old/new screenshots), "students like you at U.S. public high schools who complete this 12-hour JavaScript curriculum will receive a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code to put toward awesome resources for your classroom. If your teacher helps 10 or more students from groups traditionally underrepresented in computer science (girls, or boys who identify as African American, Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native) complete the course, they’ll earn an additional $1,000 DonorsChoose.org classroom funding credit." To those who would ask, "Why is the bonus funding specifically geared for girls and students of color?," Codecademy points to Google's Diversity Page, suggesting that today's Asian/White boys are paying the price for Google's past hiring sins. Coincidentally the move comes as Harvard faces a new lawsuit filed on behalf of Asian-American applicants for engaging in racial "balancing." In a recent Talks at Google video, Google gave its employees an update on how Google.org is working behind the scenes on K-12 experiments with partners like Codecademy, DonorsChoose, Code.org, Equal Opportunity Schools, and CollegeBoard, including data mining kids' PSAT test scores to cherry pick students of high potential to help determine which under-served schools will get AP STEM funding.

Submission + - Tech Companies Stoking Fears of Talent Shortage to Get Cheaper Labor?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Things subject to the Tinkerbell effect, explains Wikipedia, exist only so long as we believe in them. Need a real-life example? Well, while President Obama believed it was necessary to take executive action to expand the controversial OPT STEM visa work program (his wealthy dining companions are still hungry for something more), Businessweek is reporting that The Tech Worker Shortage Doesn't Really Exist. “There’s no evidence of any way, shape, or form that there’s a shortage in the conventional sense,” says Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers. So, why then would Tech Companies Stoke Fears of a Talent Shortage? “It seems pretty clear that the industry just wants lower-cost labor,” argues Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “We don’t dispute the fact at all that Facebook and Microsoft would like to have more, cheaper workers,” adds Daniel Kuehn, a research associate at the Urban Institute. “But that doesn’t constitute a shortage.” Asked what evidence existed of a labor shortage, a spokesperson for Facebook e-mailed a one-sentence statement: “We look forward to hearing more specifics about the President’s plan and how it will impact the skills gap that threatens the competitiveness of the tech sector.”

Submission + - Back to School: Steve Ballmer's Guest Lecture at Harvard's CS50

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire looks at the 'game film' from ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's guest lecture at Harvard's CS50, in which Harvard alum Ballmer touched on a wide variety of topics, including the LA Clippers ("500 times less complicated than Microsoft"), how his career started at Microsoft (BillG convinced him to drop out of Stanford Business School), his views on Net Neutrality, his favorite products ("Surface Pro 3 in modern days and Windows 1.0 in historic days"), and his 15-year-old's biggest concern about Dad leaving Microsoft (no more early access to new Halo releases). Ballmer was fairly subdued in the lecture and Q&A, but couldn't resist cranking it up to 11 for a CS50 intro. Ballmer, who was an applied math and economics major at Harvard, was visiting his alma mater to drop off a $60 million check to beef up Harvard's Computer Science faculty.

Comment Disney Sued Over Alleged No-Coder-Poaching Accord (Score 1) 125

by theodp (#48446149) Attached to: 2014 Hour of Code: Do Ends Justify Disney Product Placement Means?

Disney, DreamWorks Sued Over Alleged No-Poaching Accord: "Walt Disney Co., DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. and other film industry companies were sued in an antitrust case that may reflect a new wave of litigation applying traditional price-fixing claims to labor markets. Today's lawsuit accusing the California-based companies of colluding to not hire each other's software engineers , digital artists and animators comes as Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. are trying to resolve similar claims after failing to win court approval of a proposed $324.5 million settlement with 64,000 of their technical workers."

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