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Graphics

"FatFonts" to add to infographic accuracy? ->

Submitted by
00_NOP
00_NOP writes "FontFonts — a font where the weight of the number on screen or paper is proportional to the number itself — have been developed by researchers in Scotland and Canada as a way of adding numerical rigour to inforgraphic type displays, reports the New Scientist. A '2' has twice as much ink on the page as a '1' and so on. The magazine provides at example based on mapping Sicily and Mount Etna and reports that the fonts are to be tested with users and compared to alternatives such as heat maps. The big advantage is that the graphics can included detailed figures (with 0.1% accuracy) as well as be easy to understand and absorb for the casual reader."
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Education

OLPC project disappoints in Peru->

Submitted by
00_NOP
00_NOP writes "The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has disappointed in Peru, reports the Economist, apparently because in general teachers did not make creative use of the technology. As in other cases the computers seem to have been regarded as ends in themselves rather than tools to help change the ways kids are taught. Quite disappointing for those of us looking for Linux-Global-Domination but not really much of a surprise given the experience in richer countries either."
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Science

Scientists Find Evidence that Human Ancestors Used fire One Million Years Ago->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "An international team led by the University of Toronto and Hebrew University has identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

"The analysis pushes the timing for the human use of fire back by 300,000 years, suggesting that human ancestors as early as Homo erectus may have begun using fire as part of their way of life," said U of T anthropologist Michael Chazan, co-director of the project and director of U of T's Archaeology Centre.
The research will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 2."
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Comment: Re:Why stop there? (Score 1) 108

Incidentally you have mixed streamaing up with setting. Setting - which is "absolutely set in each subject according to ability, moving people up and down at intervals according to performance" is very much used in English secondary schools as I know from my own children's experience. Streaming is something very different - and it is a good thing it has been wiped out.

The idea that state education has been "demolished" is of course offensive nonsense.

Comment: Re:Why stop there? (Score 1) 108

I was taught a substantial amount of matrix maths for 'O' level - part of the "new maths" curriculum. As I am just on the cusp of the "micro revolution generation" there was no obvious connection with computers or computer graphics made and it seemed like pretty much a waste of time back then (sat the exam in 1982). For instance it was not taught at A level at all.

Now I can see its use (and obviously it also has uses in the physical sciences - eg describing relativistic space-time and so on) but not back then.

Education

"Radical manifesto" for computer teaching in English schools->

Submitted by
00_NOP
00_NOP writes "Everybody (or almost everybody) in England agrees that computing teaching to kids in high school is broken. In response the government promised a radical overhaul and a new curriculum. But then last week it was discovered the government had scrapped the bit of the education department that would develop any such curriculum. Not to be deterred John Naughton, the Cambridge University academic who wrote the "Short History of the Future" has now published his own "radical" manifesto on how computing should be taught."
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Apple

Apple's Package Apocalypse->

Submitted by ithyus
ithyus writes "Earlier this week a certificate Apple had used to sign flat packages over the last couple of years or so expired. Those of us running Apple Software Update servers had to rebuild our precious software caches. It's been recently discovered that the same certificate expiration issue also affects some *.pkg files downloaded from http://support.apple.com/downloads, as well as the iLife '11 DVD many Apple admins purchased specifically for redeployment.

If you are an Apple shop who depends on some flavor of package management solution (e.g. Munki, Casper, AbsoluteManage), now might be a good time to head on over to the Package Apocalypse to read up and grab some tools to help dig yourself out from under the rubble."
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Open Source

Torvalds helped teach Dries Buytaert how to make money on Drupal->

Submitted by
Julie188
Julie188 writes "The story of Drupal is like the movie The Social Network in reverse. Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert is such a nice guy he used to do personal tech support for big Drupal users at night for free. Drupal was his college project that turned into his life — but it took him a long time (8 years) to figure out how to make a living from it. Linus Torvalds was one of the people that helped him figure out how."
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Crime

Urban explorers: you can't talk to each other for a decade-> 1

Submitted by Trapezium Artist
Trapezium Artist writes "Four friends apprehended exploring the disused Aldwych station in London's Underground are faced with an "anti-social behaviour order" (ASBO) which would forbid them from talking to each other for a full 10 years. The so-called "Aldwych four", experienced urban explorers, were discovered in the tunnels under the UK's capital city a few days before last year's Royal Wedding and the greatly increased security measures in place led to their being interviewed by senior members of the British Transport Police. Nevertheless, once their benign intentions had been established, they were let off with a caution. However, following an accident caused by another, unrelated group of urban explorers in the tunnels a few months later, Transport for London applied to have ASBOs issued to the Aldwych four. These would forbid them from any further expeditions, from blogging or otherwise publicly discussing any exploits, and even from talking with each other for the 10 year duration of the order. One could argue about the ethics of urban exploration, but this nevertheless seems like an astonishingly heavy-handed over-reaction by TfL."
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Why do computer scientists use such lousy citation systems?->

Submitted by
00_NOP
00_NOP writes "Computer scientists often use the citation systems of the American Mathematical Society or the IEEE which seem to make it very difficult indeed for anyone to grasp what paper or book is being referenced without checking the bibliography directly. Given that one of the giants of the computing world, the ACM, promotes a reference system that does not have this problem and that there are pelnty of other systems about (eg., the Chicago system) which are clear as well as concise, why do computer scientists persist with such obfuscated systems? Is it something in our/their nature?"
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Canada's Conservatives used massive "Robocall" operation to mislead voters->

Submitted by choongiri
choongiri writes "Elections Canada has just traced thousands of illegal phone calls made during the 2011 federal election to a company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country. The automated VOIP “robocalls” appeared to be designed to stop non-Conservative voters from casting ballots in key ridings by falsely telling voters that the location of their polling stations had changed, causing them to go to the wrong location on election day.

This news casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of Canada's Government. The Conservatives narrowly won their "majority" by 6,201 votes in 14 ridings, with only 39% of the popular vote."
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