Karl Martino

Useful Wget and cURL links

2009-07-08T01:51:17Z

Using cURL to interact with Google data services

insanesecurity: Wget all the way

cURL: Tutorial

Some interesting social science, programming, infographics, overlaps

2009-07-07T23:59:45Z

The New York Observer: In the Battle Between Facebook and MySpace, A Digital 'White Flight'

FlowingData: Rise of the Data Scientist

Coding Horror: Code: It's Trivial

Zero Intelligence Agents: How to: Use Python and Social Network Analysis to Find New Twitter Friends

"Computer Science is Really a Social Science" and danah boyd joins Microsoft Researc

2009-07-07T23:45:34Z

Two links from Jon Pincus of Microsoft Research:

research.microsoft.com, January 2005: Jonathan D. Pincus,: Computer Science is Really a Social Science

Jon Pincus, on his blog, sharing the recent news regarding danah boyd joining Microsoft Research's New England Lab

Quotes from Paul Lockhart's terrific essay about the state of Mathematics education in America

2009-07-07T19:43:13Z

Paul Lockhart's terrific essay about the state of mathematics education and what should be done: A Mathematician's Lament (25 page must read PDF):

G.H. Hardy's excellent description:

A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker
of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than
theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

So mathematicians sit around making patterns of ideas. What sort of patterns? What sort of ideas? Ideas about the rhinoceros? No, those we leave to the biologists. Ideas about language and culture? No, not usually. These things are all far too complicated for most mathematicians' taste. If there is anything like a unifying aesthetic principle in mathematics, it is this: simple is beautiful. Mathematicians enjoy thinking about the simplest possible things, and the simplest possible things are imaginary.

By removing the creative process and leaving only the results of that process, you virtually guarantee that no one will have any real engagement with the subject. It is like saying that Michelangelo created a beautiful sculpture, without letting me see it.

By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an empty shell. The art is not in the "truth" but in the explanation, the argument. It is the argument itself which gives the truth its context, and determines what is really being said and meant. Mathematics is the art of explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this activity-- to pose their own problems, make their own conjectures and discoveries, to be wrong, to be creatively frustrated, to have an inspiration, and to cobble together their own explanations and proofs-- you deny them mathematics itself. So no, I'm not complaining about the presence of facts and formulas in our mathematics classes, I'm complaining about the lack of mathematics in our mathematics classes.

If teaching is reduced to mere data transmission, if there is no sharing of excitement and wonder, if teachers themselves are passive recipients of information and not creators of new ideas, what hope is there for their students? If adding fractions is to the teacher an arbitrary set of rules, and not the outcome of a creative process and the result of aesthetic choices and desires, then of course it will feel that way to the poor students.

Teaching is not about information. It's about having an honest intellectual relationship with your students. It requires no method, no tools, and no training. Just the ability to be real. And if you can't be real, then you have no right to inflict yourself upon innocent children. In particular, you can't teach teaching. Schools of education are a complete crock. Oh, you can take classes in early childhood development and whatnot, and you can be trained to use a blackboard "effectively" and to prepare an organized "lesson plan" (which, by the way, insures that your lesson will be planned, and therefore false), but you will never be a real teacher if you are unwilling to be a real person. Teaching means openness and honesty, an ability to share excitement, and a love of learning. Without these, all the education degrees in the world won't help you, and with them they are completely unnecessary.

It's perfectly simple. Students are not aliens. They respond to beauty and pattern, and are naturally curious like anyone else. Just talk to them! And more importantly, listen to them!

Read the whole thing. This essay has reinforced some beliefs of mine about software engineering, teaching and parenting.

Slashdot has a decent thread on the piece.

CMS Related Links for Wednesday, July 1st 2009

2009-07-02T00:50:30Z

Content Here: Code moves forward. Content moves backward. - about the migration of code and content in various environments.

My Conference Presentation: "Just Put That In The Zip Code Field" - why content modeling is so important to a CMS project's success, with evaluation and implementation tips. via Content Here.

Terrific happenings in the governing and citizen related Web

2009-07-02T00:06:07Z

Tim O'Reilly: Radical Transparency: The New Federal IT Dashboard (and check out the site itself at it.usaspending.gov)

Data.gov iteratively grows from 47 to 100,000 data feeds (source Atrios)

EveryBlock blog: EveryBlock source code released

Tim Bray: "Hello World" for Open Data - Tim Bray reviews, and is inspired by, happenings in Vancover.

And locally SEPTA has started to work with Google to help riders plan trips online

A huge round of thanks needs to go to the folks behind iSepta for showing just what is possible.

This and more was discussed at this year's Personal Democracy Forum - which I missed, which I hopefully won't next year. Sounds like it was a great event.

O'Reilly radar: John Geraci: The Four Pillars of an Open Civic System

Ignite Philly 2: Geoff DiMassi and Paul Wright "Open Source Philadelphia"

IllustrativeProgramming

2009-07-01T15:49:40Z

Martin Fowler coins a useful term: "Illustrative Programming": languages that "fuse the execution of the program together with its definition". "Illustrative programming requires information from the actual running of the program." He uses Excel as an example.

I think MIT's Scratch provides an example of this as well. I need to pass it along.

Challenging conventional wisdom about the direction of media

2009-06-30T10:20:17Z

New Yorker: Malcolm Gladwell: Priced to Sell - a scathing review of Wired's Chris Anderson's new book "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" and the concepts promoted within.

NYTimes: Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia - the NYTimes coordinated with Wikipedia staff to keep a factual event from appearing on the service.

Say Everything: Chapter One: Putting Everything Out There [Justin Hall]: a review of Justin Hall's history and his efforts on the Web. How they laid the foundation for all that came later.

NiemanJournalismLab: Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian's (spectacular) expenses-scandal experiment

Scott Rosenberg: Salon.com IPO: It was ten years ago today

Chris Anderson (not Wired's): We've Been Living Through a Twitter Revolution for the Last 10 Years

Michael Jackson's reach was across generations, across the seas

2009-06-28T23:38:58Z

YouTube: (Michael Jackson) Billie Jean - Sungha Jung:

Wow.

I had posted the following to Twitter, but it belongs here:

"11 years old, standing on chestnut st. near 11th, outside store, watching tvs play Thriller thru a window. that was me."

Michael Jackson's death triggered moments of reflection for many. So many that services across the Web struggled to stay functional as people either reached out for news, or to share their memories with one another.

He stands as a kind of Rorschach test. What you think of him and his contributions to music and entertainment are dependent on you - the information published about him you cared to absorb, rationalize, relate to, or reject.

He was a force. He left an imprint.

YouTube: Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" cover by Amanda Palmer (live):

Some links:

WNEW.com: The Epic of Michael Jackson

Metafilter: Ongoing thread

Attytood: The Love You Save: Michael Jackson and the rear-guard Baby Boomers

NPR.org: Michael Jackson: Life Of A Pop Icon

Susie Madrak: The Life and Death of Michael Jackson

Jeneane Sessum: Have You Seen My Childhood

Comcaster Scott Westerman: Michael Jackson's place in the pantheon of our lives

Lisa Marie Presley: He Knew.

CSMonitor: Outpouring over Michael Jackson unlike anything since Princess Di

Koax! Koax! Koax! (via boing boing): Some thoughts on Michael Jackson

YouTube: I'll Be There Acapella:

And lastly, a very deep thought by co-worker John: "The Michael Jackson we knew died a long time ago"

Two Links on Car Repairs, Crashes, and Infrastructure

2009-06-28T22:36:36Z

Fellow CIMer Mr. Aaron Held: Designing a new Infrastructure is like buying a new car:

** You usually start this process due to a crash **

code: User gen data + no cache eviction = FAIL
car : SUV from the side + swerve = One less Stop sign.

Shelley Powers: Car Repair:

Car repair is not a linear progression, with incidents sweetly spaced so as to remind us, gently, that nothing lasts forever.

It is an aggregation of aggravation, where one failure begets another, in clumps timed to crest when your wallet is flattest.

How to get started in IA or UX

2009-06-28T20:28:43Z

Fellow CIMer Livia Labate shared some advice for those looking to get started in Information Architecture.

At a recent brown bag she reviewed a number of great design games for generating ideas.

If I was in Chicago, I'd be going to see "Little Brother"

2009-06-28T13:58:59Z

BoingBoing: Videos from the stage production of Little Brother

A Blogging History Worth Reading?

2009-06-27T12:40:17Z

I'm really looking forward to reading Scott Rosenberg's "Say Everything".

I'm sure "Say Everything" will be a book I can share with others (which I do with "Dreaming in Code") to provide them insight into why I do some of the things I do and why I get so damn passionate about them.

Writing a book on blogging's history and how it related to the Web, Internet, and society is a difficult task. Based upon excerpts I've read so far, Rafe's review of the first half, and reading his fantastic "Dreaming in Code", I know this book is going to be terrific and insightful.

Speaking of blogging, I got to agree with Rafe - the most awesome thing about blogging *is* "corresponding with so many of the people I met through blogging back then here, on Twitter, and elsewhere.".

Absolutely.

Thank you Web.

"Listening To NRBQ" by Jim Boggia

2009-06-25T01:01:07Z

YouTube: "Listening To NRBQ" by Jim Boggia:

More on Graphviz

2009-06-24T18:20:27Z

Linux.com: An Introduction to GraphViz

Emacs mode for Graphviz

OmniNerd: Automating Data Visualization with Ruby and Graphviz