Code anyone?
Who needs AI when you can just plug a cockroach into your robot?
Now, i’m not going into the ethics of this, and the youtube comments are a major mix of “that’s cool” to “that’s so wrong”… which is to expect. My favourite was along the lines of “why not just train monkeys to use machine guns”. Okay - why not? ;p
The youtube linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwZD59Ic9T8
The authors web page + notes etc http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/
I know this is a late post many days after, however just to let ppl know that as far as I am concerned, Lucien doesn’t get away that easy and any excuse I can find to involve alumni staff, espically officially in his new job, in our byteclub business - it’s happening! Lucien was the founding force - I mostly tried to nod in the right place. Its been great to work with Lucien and i’m really missing that. Lets just say IM chats ease the pain.
Also, knowing my human limitatins I am actively seeking help from other staff with byteclub and making plans. Okay, it’s not “all happening” at the moment the way we wanted, and I honestly (sadly) don’t have enough time for cool stuff here on byteclub as is, but the byteclub project is definitely an on-going and supported venture.
Here’s some ideas I have - and I would really like your help and feedback (easy on the “pain points”).
So, do I have any helpers? Comments? Suggestions? Comment or send me emails or just plan knock on my office door and have a chat - that would be nice.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
I’m a happy subscriber to the SitePoint techtime newsletter, and the lastest one gave me a solid but enjoyable bit of reading this evening (after following the links in the newsletter).
Emil Stenström : Levels [0 to 6] of CSS Knowledge
(11th Jan 2006)
http://friendlybit.com/css/levels-of-css-knowledge/
0. “CSS? Isn’t that a multiplayer game?”
1. “Yeah, I use it to remove underlines on links sometimes”
2. “No, I don’t like divs; tables are much easier to work with”
3. “Yeah, I’ve heard it’s good, but I can’t use it because…”
4. “CSS? Oh! Yeah, I use divs for all my layouts”
5. “I use CSS for design, it’s better than tables because of…”
6. “What version of CSS? Yes, I do. Did you read my book about…”
(133 comments… good, bad and obvious… I find it funny that some people in comments and trackbacks don’t realise the 0 to 6 levels == 7 levels, but hey, coders know about 0 indexes so that’s okay… :~).
It written well enough (+grain salt) but this one really got me starting to think about teaching, learning and where our students may be at with web dev and CSS and how we reach them. (I’ve now got Blooms taxonomy levels and everything else zooming in my head after that one.)
anyway, that last post then then inspired …
Roger Johansson : Levels [0 to 6] of HTML Knowledge
(30th May 2006) http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200605/levels_of_html_knowledge/
The levels have headings like “HTML LEVEL 3″, but the typical quotes are nice…
0. “Age-tee-em-what?”
1. “HTML? It’s those tags you use to make text bold or italic.”
2. “The controls I drag and drop in my IDE work fine in Internet Explorer, so why should I have to even look at the HTML?”
3. “Yeah yeah, I’ve heard about those fancy new ul and h1 tags, but I’m doing just fine with my trusty old table, img, and br tags.”
4. “How can I create a data table with divs and spans instead of tables?”
5. “Hmm. I wonder which type of list is the most semantic way to mark up this part of my document.”
6. “I think the HTML 4.01 and XHTML 2 specs are too semantically limited, so I am working on a new markup language.”
(178 comments, although #comment94 is a kicker… :~)
I like the writing style, and the points are very good but again some of the points (and especially the quotes i just listed) may not be understood properly unless the reader is somewhere down the list of levels and they know when to engauge “sarcasm” or “smug” mode while reading. Mind you, third paragraph is …
This is all written in a tongue-in-cheek way and is just my personal opinion. Please don’t over-react if you don’t agree or think some of the descriptions are a bit harsh. Try laughing instead.
Good advice for lots of post. I am always amazed when people go balistix on peoples post, like its their duty to correct the injustice of the world… from their point of view. Anyway, i’ll just start ranting, so on to…
Joe Clark : Levels [0 to 7] of Accessibility Knowledge
(2nd June 2006) http://blog.fawny.org/2006/06/02/niveaux/
Headings are just “Accessibility Level 3″ etc, so here’s my take on his points…
(I’m just trying to capture the points, not make my own)…
0. User level, not developer. Use common (MS) products, and don’t really think about how disabled users might go
1. Developers (FrontPage) who know that alt value = tooltips. Knows blind people will ask to “feel you face” (’cause that’s what they always do on TV).
2. Developers who know enough to be even more dangerous …
3. CSS is so good you don’t have to worry about poor HTML layout. Owns GoLive4.
4. jab at someone (who doesn’t “do” what they “preach” aka hypocrite issue?)
5. jab at someone (who doesn’t evangelise enough?)
6. jab at someone (who networks with publishers/people, suffers from 4 and 5, and looks down on mortals?)
7. jab at .. self? (interested in obscure subtopics, grating personality quirks… X in village).
No comments (doesn’t want them?). Eloquent writter, but my interest fades with my comprehension, so I get/smirk at most of the early points, but don’t see the point in wasting electrons for the rest - and I’m pretty sure Joe would think the same about my take - doesn’t care if i get it because it wasn’t meant for me. Hey, maybe that’s the subtle accessiblity point… :) nope. I still don’t get it.
Roger (Levels of HTML) then also inspired
Dean Edwards : Levels [1 to 6] of JavaScript
(2nd June 2006) http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2006/06/levels/
Written in JavaScript of course! I had to repeat this one…
alert(“Hello World”);
var WORLD = “World”; function hello(who) { alert(“Hello “ + who); }; hello(WORLD);
<button onclick=“hello(WORLD)”>Say Hello</button>
<button id=“hello”>Say Hello</button>
var button = document.all.hello; button.onclick = function() { hello(WORLD); };
var button = document.getElementById(“hello”); button.addEventListener(“click”, function(event) { hello(WORLD); }, false);
var Hello = new Binding({ greet: function(who) { alert(“Hello “ + who); }, onclick: function() { this.greet(Hello.WORLD) } }, { WORLD: “World” }); document.bind(“#hello”, Hello);
On a related note, has anyone else tried FireBug with Firefox for js debugging? Giving it a burl now… hmm. http://www.joehewitt.com/software/firebug/
Just spotted (2003) Aaron Swartz’s powerpoint “remix” of Edward Tufte’s essay on powerpoint. hehe… argh.. anyway.
Sadly, that demonstrates my sense of humour. Oh well. :~/
Thought i’d also point people to the Don Norman / Chris Atkinson (ask Mr Cain) interview for more powerpoint is good or bad powerpoint chatter. Enjoy.
Mr Coathup and Mr Cain
Have you heard of Edward Tutfe (wikipedia)? If not, but you care about information and presentation, then please check him out … I have three of his books, and I think they’re awesome! (A bit of a stunner for the coffee table too… but too precious for small children and animals perhaps :~)
There’s something to learn even if you don’t become a believer in his religion. His religion eh? Well, strong words I know, but he does believe very strongly about good and bad forms of visual communication. Guess which category the Prof. puts Powerpoint into eh? Well, to be more accurate, he says the use of powerpoint templates “usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning”. See his essay info and some slides on powerpoint.
Famously and somewhat controversally, he’s credited powerpoint (usage) with contributing to NASA’s space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Google away for more on that one…
However, I like this quote of Don Normand over at jnd.org:
“Is PowerPoint bad? No, in fact, it is quite a useful tool. Boring talks are bad. Poorly structured talks are bad. Don’t blame the problem on the tool.” in defense of power point The rest of that article is good too and gets me thinking.
Lucien and I were recently wondering about different printed material for a subject, and how to most effectively revamp some material. Again, Don makes an interesting distinction for three very different types:
When teaching and presenting lectures, how can we capitalise on this? Point 2 has been the topic of recent discussion around here… slides in lectures eh?. They should add to the talk, not distract from it. Words are not needed. “What good is a cleverly drafted talk if the audience is not listening” writes Don. And this brings me back to Andrew Cains recent personal observation experiments on whether attention is on the slides, the presenter etc.
Hmm.. gets me thinking. Back to Don “And don’t blame the tool for a poorly prepared, poorly presented talk.”
Yeap. Nuf said. Now if i can just stop being human, and start being perfect…