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Comment Better act soon or else... (Score 1) 990

by donotclickjim (#37835900) Attached to: The Real Job Threat
More people like Ted Kaczynski will rise up. Ted (the Unibomber) Kacynski feared the coming jobpocalypse which motivated him to write his manifesto and commit the atrocities that he did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Manifesto I've read the like of Hazlitt, Mises and Adams and am a huge fan of Ron Paul but the swift change in technology and its impact on jobs does concern me since our other systems (e.g. our economic and educational systems) are not fast enough to adapt and there are very few people (esp. our political leaders) who see this quickly approaching present danger, let alone have any idea on what to do about it.

Comment Re:Data caps then? (Score 1) 427

by donotclickjim (#35089942) Attached to: Senators Bash ISP and Push Extensive Net Neutrality
I'm with you on treating them like other utilities. The concern is it will hurt high bandwidth legit companies e.g. Netflix. Just look at the backlash Canada stirred up after they forced data caps. The "hogs" won't just be the pirates. It will be all content providers as the ability to introduce large bandwidth applications and services increases and becomes more common.

Comment Data caps then? (Score 1) 427

by donotclickjim (#35012424) Attached to: Senators Bash ISP and Push Extensive Net Neutrality
I didn't read anything in the bill that said ISPs couldn't tier their pricing structure based on data caps. While perhaps not a crucial as the ISPs limiting content this artificial barrier also prohibits innovation and free enterprise. I understand the ISPs argument that it isn't fair that a few players can use up all the bandwidth but I would be more willing to go along with them if I didn't think they were just trying to screw me. Show me your infrastructure investments vs. your other expenditures and we can talk.

Submission + - What "IT" stuff should we teach ninth-graders?

Submitted by gphilip
gphilip writes: I have been asked to contribute ideas for the preparation of a textbook for ninth graders (ages circa 14 years) in the subject of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Could you suggest material to include in such a text? More details below.

Background
-----------------

This is for the public school system of the state of Kerala, India. The state has near-total literacy (we achieved this goal in 1991 following a massive literacy drive), and the government is keen on achieving total e-literacy as well. This drive for e-literacy — and the school curriculum that is the subject of this question — is based entirely on free and open-source software; the school system uses a customized version of Debian for teaching purposes.

  ICT is a subject that has been recently introduced into the school curriculum. Currently we have, for all intents and purposes, a "first generation" of students (and teachers) in this subject. To be more precise, the general public is just beginning to use computers in a big way, and the goal now is to familiarize them with the use of computers, and more specifically, with FOSS. The ICT textbook for the eighth grade (native language version), therefore, focusses on introducing various GNU/Linux software and showing how they can help in learning the other, more traditional, subjects. This textbook introduces the following software: The Gimp, Sunclock, OOO Writer, Calc, and Impress, Kalzium, Geogebra, Marble, and Kstars. In addition, there are simple introductions to elementary Python (variables, the print statement, and if-else), networking, and the Internet.

What we need
--------------------

In the ninth grade textbook, we would like to shift the focus a bit. We want to introduce concepts which give more scope for creativity, and form a basis for further studies and/or a vocation in the future. The student spends one more year (the tenth grade) in the school system, and so there is scope for developing further on the theme of the ninth grade ICT book when designing the textbook for the tenth grade.

  Given this background, are there some other FOSS software that, in your opinion, it would be good to introduce to our ninth graders?

  I am partial towards introducing more of Python : the two loops, and perhaps the notion of a function. Do you have suggestions/pointers on how to go about doing this in a way that is easy to learn and to teach?

  I would also like to give a glimpse of some ideas from computer science — the idea of an algorithm, for example — so that those kids with a math/cs aptitude get to see that there are such things out there. Which algorithms would be good for this purpose? Binary search is perhaps a good candidate, given that it is easy to describe informally, relates easily to things with which the student is familiar (phone book, dictionary), and it is easy to bring out the contrast in running time with the more natural linear search. What other algorithms would be instructive and motivating? Which other notions from computer science can be introduced to this audience in this manner?

  Any other ideas/suggestions about this are also welcome.

Thanks,
Philip

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