Erector/Meccano sets

With the youngest munchkin showing a distinct interest in tools and building things we picked up a couple of erector sets at the store this weekend. We picked up a set for the kid, and since I had never had Erector sets before one for me as well.

I won’t know about smaller set until after Christmas, but my set is really complicated. It makes Lego looked like it was designed for toddlers. It’s actually more than I’m mentally prepared to take on at the moment. I’m not sure where they found an 8-year-old to attempt it, but I want that kid working on my car in a couple of years.

The Importance of Mathematics in Education

Dr. Robert H. Lewis of Fordham University has written a great article on the importance of mathematics in education. Here’s a quick excerpt,

Education is not about any particular machine, system, skill, or job. Education is both broader and deeper than training. An education is a deep, complex, and organic representation of reality in the student’s mind. It is an image of reality made of concepts, not facts. Concepts that relate to each other, reinforce each other, and illuminate each other. Yet the education is more even than that because it is organic: it will live, evolve, and adapt throughout life.

Read the whole article here.

(via Slashdot)

Reading List

I just finished American Gods (for 1 Book, 1 Twitter #1b1t). Pretty good, better than my previous read; which was The Dream of Perpetual Motion. That book started out well enough, but I think the author either didn’t have a satisfactory ending planned, or needed serious editorial input. It followed the typical not ready feel of good beginning, slow middle, flip and disappointing ending. Pretty much it blew off any investment the reader had in the characters.

In the queue at the moment, The City and the City (in progress), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Hey, I won something!

You know those Internet sweepstakes that just about every website seems to host. The ones that end up getting you spam every couple of days, and that no one seems to win. I won one of them.

OK, it was the Esquire Augmented Reality give-away, and I only won one of the fifty webcams (Blue Microphones Eyeball 2.0), but it was a nice surprise to receive it in the mail. They were suppose to notify me back in January, but I never heard a word; it just arrived.

As far as getting spam, that particular contest didn’t increase my incidence of spam. Probably because at the time I was actually a subscriber to the print edition of Esquire. I do wonder if it helped my chances though…

Of iPads and eBooks

The best thing about the iPad is that it removes the clutter from reading. Traditionally, there’s a stack of books next to my bed that I’m currently “reading”, which is to say that I’ve started them, and not finished any. With the iPad (and the iPhone before it), I have that stack of books in a convenient digital device. I’ve been using the Kindle app mostly, since it manages to keep my Mac, iPhone, and iPad synced with my current position in each book, so that I can use whichever is most convenient at the moment. Most importantly, you don’t need to actually own a Kindle.

But recently I’ve been somewhat ticked off at Amazon. I purchased a couple of eBooks from them 4 years ago, and they’ve since closed down that particular store and associated format. I have my original (encrypted) PDF files, but they’re now worthless since Adobe has shutdown the associated authentication servers. The result is a bunch of bits I “own”, but cannot access. Amazon customer service is no help and based on comments in their own forums, I don’t think Adobe would be either.

So this week I’ve taken to converting all my Kindle books (of which there are many). It works out to be a fairly easy process once you gather all the software. I’m using iPhone Backup Extractor to retrieve the eBook files, a Python script to “modify” the files, Calibre to handle format conversion to the open ePub format. On the devices iBooks and Stanza read the results in pretty close to the same quality as the Kindle apps (sans location syncing). All but one of my eBooks was painless, and that other book was handled by a different tool that I don’t expect to need very often. The nice thing about this setup is that the Python script can be configured as a plugin to Calibre, and once you get the Kindle PID for each device (for instance, using kindlepid.py ) that part becomes seamless. If I can figure out the PID for my Kindle for Mac, I’d be able to eliminate the backup extraction, and could do everything from inside of Calibre.

As a side effect of all of this, I can convert and read any PDF I have handy on the iPad/iPhone as well. More importantly, I’ve future-proofed my eBook purchases against another boneheaded move from Amazon. Now I just need to figure out how to access those older files…

Computers, Cars, and a Tale of Two Apples

Here’s great article about the ideological path from open computing to computing appliance and the two Steve’s of Apple that were at the vanguard of pushing both ends of that spectrum:

Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and the long road to the iPad. – By Tim Wu – Slate Magazine.

I have long contended that computers have the same trajectory as automobiles. Initially the domain of cutting-edge enthusiasts, moving through eras of: mass-production (Model-T v. IBM PC), large-differentiation (trucks/cars v. laptops/desktops), into customization (hot-rods v. case-mods). Eventually, the car market evolved into what we have today, a highly commoditized market were owners are are unlikely to tinker with the vehicle and depend on specialists to maintain and repair their car. Rather than increase the performance of their car through tuning, adjustment, or upgrades, consumers choose to just purchase new cars. The same is probably now true of computer users as well. It has been common industry knowledge that a segment of the population only upgrades operating system by purchasing a new computer.

As a thoughtful and long-time computer user, I applaud the design and functionality that modern Apple products represent. As a long time computer enthusiast, I bemoan the increasing commoditization of computing. As a computer science researcher and educator, I worry over the fact that our students seem to be increasingly the former rather than the latter.

Initial iPad Impressions

I’m typing this on my new iPad using the virtual keyboard which is taking a little getting used to the new key spacing. I’m also using the new WordPress app that’s been updated to take advantage of the iPad’s increased screen real-estate.

The big revelation is that this thing is much faster than an iPhone; I don’t think I realized how slow my iPhone 3G is until now. Some of the apps are a bit underdone. The Netflix app has some minor flaws that I found after just a couple of minutes use.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem has to be the pricing some vendors are asking to move from their iPhone version to the newer iPad apps. Many authors are asking for the same amount or 2x to 3x more for their revised apps. While it might be warranted in some cases, I wonder if it’s really justified in all cases. For instance I paid $10 for a VPN app a couple of years ago; to upgrade to the iPad version would cost $25. It’s not clear that there has been that significant a change to the app beyond extending the screen size…

That’s all I have at the moment, but I’ll keep you updated as my experience with the iPad grows.

Sorta like Canabalt Deluxe

Mirror’s Edge was originally going to be an iPhone game, but looks to have been turned into an iPad launch title. If EA doesn’t decide to release it for the iPhone I suppose we’ll just have to hope for Canabalt II.