I was talking to a – male – programmer the other day, and he was telling me how much his high school CS teacher sucked. This is not an uncommon story. I know some good high school teachers. I’ve heard about a lot of bad ones. This particular bad one taught Visual Basic, and gave […]
Category: Education
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Not a Good Use of My Time?
Every so often I do something that is such a waste of time it makes me pause. Reading a non-fiction book I’m not into, it drags and I don’t retain much of it. Horse-riding with my friend at the weekend, we booked the trail option and it was over an hour of… walking, didn’t even make […]
Abstract: In a world where computing power doubles roughly every two years, the goal is no longer efficiency, but effectiveness. The education system prepares students for efficiency, but to be successful when we go out into the world (or before!) we need rather to learn to be effective. In this workshop, we’ll discuss more useful things […]
On the way to Toronto my friend is telling me I need to give up bagels, and I say, there’s enough change in my life right now without introducing more. But that I think it will be better next month. She says, “you always think that; you said that in August, too”. She’s right. This […]
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Trying To Be Everything
It was inevitable, the amount I’ve been flitting about, and the number of bugs that have been going round, but Thursday last week I came home early and pretty much keeled over. I barely got up for 3 days. Monday I got up but I was berating myself for being so lazy, annoyed at myself […]
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Blood, Bones and Butter
I read about Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (Amazon) on the Eloquent Woman blog, which discussed a section of the book in which the author writes about a panel she was on, and things she wanted to say, but didn’t. It was a panel about female chefs. Initially she has an attitude of “why are […]
Recently, I heard about a school that has a mandatory “technology” class that students have to take in order to take CS classes in later years. It features: wood-working, circuit building, and Excel. This is horrifying. I want to go there with picket signs and stage a protest. Dress up as robots and chant things. […]
Rise (Amazon) is focused on helping you become CEO. As a result I found some of it a bit overly-ambitious for me. But – it contained some really great advice. 1. Ruthless Priorities. You have too much to do, but hey – don’t we all. The trick is to decide what’s critical and do an outstanding […]
My first proper day on my new project, and our PM says to me – “Cate, you seem to like to travel. How about you spend time in New York?” – I’m tasked with helping another team out, and being the bridge between that team and my team here. Initially I was a bit… thrown. […]
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First, Do No Harm
We took a whale watching boat in Lunenburg. As we pulled away from the pier, the tour guide talked about the history of the town. How many boats used to go out. Where the fish came in. Until the big fishing boats came, and drove out that way of life. He said, the old fisherman […]