Segregating information by its mode of production, convenient and profitable for software houses, too often becomes a corrupting metaphor for evidence presentations. Why should the intellectual architecture of our reports and evidence reflect the the chaos of software bureaucracies producing those reports?
– Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence, p. 61
Award ceremony at the 2010 Poetry Out Loud regional, Fergus Falls, MN. Thomas McPhee (on far right) took first.
Thomas qualified for the state finals last year (along with MAHS student Alex McIntosh), so we had the good fortune to attend last year’s event. The quality of the performances was really exquisite, and I highly recommend the event to any fans of poetry and literature in the area.
Tim Ostby (the other MAHS student this year) placed fifth at the regional. Congratulations to him and all the other students that performed last night! While there were fewer competitors at the regional than last year, the quality of the performances was considerably stronger, and the venue (A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls) was vastly better than last year’s (a classroom at a regional community college).
Thomas McPhee, David Johnson, and Tim Ostby at the 2010 Lake Regional for Poetry Out Loud. Thomas took first, and Tim took fifth.
A huge thanks to David Johnson, drama coach and english teacher at MAHS. Dave’s been a huge influence and support for Thomas in both theatre and Poetry Out Loud. It’s greatly to Dave’s credit that MAHS has had a student in the state finals of Poetry Out Loud each of the last four years (which is every year MAHS could have competed), with two in last year’s finals. Further, every MAHS student that’s gone to state has placed in the top 6: Anika Kildegaard took 2nd in 2007, Mary Hu won the state competition in 2008 and went on to the National Finals, and Alex McIntosh placed 4th and Thomas McPhee 6th in 2009. In fact Morris is the only high school in the state to place four students in the top 6 from 2007-2009, with no other school has placing more than two. Not a bad track record for a small rural high school. Thanks a ton to Dave for all his support and assistance!
Some deluded people believe that textbook orders for Fall Semester were due a month ago, but I’m never, ever close to on-time on these things, and am just now getting to it in a serious way. I’m teaching three courses in the fall:
I’ve taught Refactoring several times and have a pretty good handle on that. Fuzzy Logic I’ve taught once before and am pretty comfortable with. The Systems course, however, is one I’ve never taught before and am still struggling with on a number of levels, including the textbook.
Any suggestions and ideas on any of these would most certainly be appreciated. I’ll say a little more about each course below the fold for those who want all the gory details.
Models of Computing Systems This is one of our three core courses (the others being Algorithms and Computability, and Software Design and Development), is a 5 credit course (4 hours of lecture and a 2 hour lab each week), and is intended to expose students to computing systems using a layer model that includes as major topics
I’m planning to use x86 assembly for the first item, and the sysadmin work will happen on Linux boxes. I’m planning (still in a vague way at the moment) to try to use computer security issues to motivate/illustrate a number of key concepts in this course. Things like file system and disk structure can be pretty abstract, for example, but I’m thinking that doing a lab where we see how those decisions lead to lots of “erased” data being recoverable might make it seem more “real” and significant.
I realize that no book is going to cover all these things, and on-line resources plus lecture can provide the necessary background for several of these. This course has typically using a “standard” OS book like Silberschatz, et al, but this is large and expensive and really only addresses one of the four topics. If anyone knows of a good book that would touch meaningfully on more than one of these areas, though, that would be really helpful.
Fuzzy logic This is a 2 credit elective course, and should provide a reasonable background in the theoretical definitions and concepts in fuzzy logic, as well as giving the students a chance to apply those ideas. (My current plan is to write robot race car drivers using fuzzy notions of concepts like fast, slow, near, and straight.)
I’m probably more interested in solid coverage of the theoretical material than the applications side. The students will benefit from a good introduction and reference on the mathematical material, and I can probably handle the motivation and application side in class pretty well.
When I last taught this (Spring, 2006) I used An Introduction to Fuzzy Logic for Practical Applications by Kazuo Tanaka, translated by T. Niimura. That book actually worked quite decently. There were some predictable translation issues, but nothing that we couldn’t manage.
Refactoring This is also a 2 credit elective course. I’ve taught this course several times, and I’m likely to again use a combination of Fowler’s Refactoring and Kerievsky’s Refactoring to Patterns. Fowler is the “standard” in the field; the first five chapters of his book are absolutely classic material on the realities of software development and should be read by pretty much anyone who aspires to write good software. Kerievsky’s book builds on Fowler and does a really nice job of demystifying design patterns, converting them from magical insights codified by geniuses into things you could discover on your own through careful refactoring. When I last taught it I think I had Kerievsky as the required text and Fowler as the optional book. Given that together they still add up to less than $100, I’m tempted to require them both. We have lots of copies of Fowler in the lab, though, so I might just require Kerievsky again. Ideas/thoughts on this would definitely be appreciated.
One of the problems we’ve run into in this course in the past has been attempting refactorings on code with limited automated testing. Without good tests you lose your courage to refactor mercilessly, or you have false courage and end up breaking things without realizing it until (sometimes much) later. With only 2 credits to work with, however, you don’t want to spend two weeks writing unit tests for a system before you can start refactoring it, especially when you don’t really understand what the units are and what they’re supposed to be doing. This time I’m planning to use BDD tools like Cucumber, RSpec, and JBehave this time to more cheaply write high level acceptance/functional tests that exercise the key parts of the system in meaningful ways without getting bogged down in a bunch of poorly understood unit tests. We’ll see how that goes.
Wrap-up
So, there they be. Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially on the Models of Computing Systems course.
Why should I sit with a straight back
when there are so many more interesting positions to take up?
Ivor Cutler’s poem “To take” (from his album A wet handle) in its entirety.
I suggested earlier that people should write a strange little poem and have the courage to share it as a tribute to this wonderful fellow. A strange little poem didn’t come to right away, but I decided to instead attempt to realize an photographic idea that’s been rattling around my odd head for quite a while.
These were some pretty weird stocking stuffers that WeatherGirl got for Sub-Evil Boy and I at Christmas. We each got a glow in the dark frog and a pack of the Cat Butt Gum (she was obviously channeling an 8 year old boy). I then got the weird snake/mermaid lady, and he got the “Plastic hut: Educational and funny toy”, which still completely cracks me up every time I think about it.
I’d been thinking about creating a still life with these oddments ever since Christmas, but had never gotten around to it. I figured that Ivor deserved a tribute, and that this would be appropriate in its strange way, so here you have it. For those interested in more traditional tribute images, I highly recommend this wonderful shot by mikey delgado.
The book in the background is Concerto for stray hand on upright piano by Charlie Fowler, who’s a pretty Ivor-Cutler-like character here in Morris, Minnsota. His book Plenty of room between the trees is an absolute classic and most definitely recommended. (I think you can buy copies at the PRCA Gallery.)
I’ll close with this wonderful excerpt from “A pain in the neck”, also from A wet handle:
God: “What’s going on out there?”
St. Peter: “It’s Ivor Cutler. He doesn’t like the set up.”
God: “Tell him to go to hell.”
St. Peter: “But you said…”
God: “Never mind what I said. He’s always been a pain in the neck. He’ll be happy there.”
St. Peter: “Well, you heard what he said.”
Ivor Cutler: “I did. Hey, he doesn’t sound so bad as I thought. A bit grumpy. That’s a good sign. Maybe I should stay. … No, not to sit at his feet. Tell him ‘thank you’. See you. Hell, here I come.”
St. Peter: “Oh, hang on. God’s coming with you. He wants to check out what it’s like. Just to refresh his memory … he says. Here he comes.”
God: “All right Ivor, let’s go.”
Exeunt omnis
A few interesting bits on the intersection of tech and intellectual property have popped up on my radar in the last day or two:
Here are three more of my haikus.
UFO in sky
Flaming meteorites fall
Man, this really sucks
A zoo is the place
monkeys, giraffes, bats, oh my!
now where’s my shoe gone?
my brain shuts down
the small gerbil is long gone
don’t bother me, Jerk!
More wonderful poetry from Sub Evil Boy. Check it out. My new poem. Christmas break.
Current temperature 19F/-7C
Christmas Break, New year’s eve. Falling snow, No more leaves
To our Jobs, we must return. Walk to the schools, where we learn
Valintines is next, a great holiday it is. A day filled with love and kisses
Christmas time, it is the best. But we’ve already put that to rest
For another year we shall not see. Santa’s sleigh, on christmas eve
To the [...]
Here is new peom that I call “A question of nobility”
I see my enemy before me. I raise my sword to strike. Then, I falter. The question in my mind is of nobility. For, my enemy’s back is turned. It is said to be foul play to kill from behind [...]