Why Grading Sucks
It’s not just that the student provided solutions are unexpectedly “creative” and don’t fit the designed rubric. Nor that they make you wonder “Why am I even trying?”. Nor that they invoke thoughts such as “How did we ever make…
Circular Searching
Yesterday, at work I was surfing the web to try and figure out how I to setup my machine so that I could use my CAC card to login (at the kdm prompt). So, using google to search for things…
Natural Programming
I read an article today about Natural Programming. This really piques my interest, because the psychologists have had to study how humans wish to translate their thoughts into a working program. Of course, the research done has necessarily been limited…
Tyranny of Corruption
Voting is an interesting process. Ideally it gives a democracy much power for the public to get what they want. Though there are many different systems of voting, they are all possesed of various flaws, so let’s examine just how…
Noticeability
“Son — Just do something important that people will want.” Leroy may have been drunk when he said this but it did cause me to rethink my approach to things. I have been assuming that if I did whatever the…
Words, Thought, and Meaning
Studying German I realized that, much of what I think consists not of pictorial representation nor of idealogical conceptualization of objects, but rather of linguistic terms. My thought are formed by, and therefore controlled by language. More importantly, my thoughts…
Terminal and GUI
The power of the linux os is in the terminal. It was arranged from a few very powerful utils that can be piped with each other. This modularity needs to be extended to the gui, for the gui to be…
Axiomatic Law
I was reading some article on Asimov’s 3 Laws, and thought that they have some difficulties. 1. The laws are in english, a language that is inherently ambigious. This ambiguity is difficult for machine implementation, but may imbue the robots…
Math and Occam’s Razor
In discussion with Ben about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I concluded that the success of mathematical elegance in solutions is a physical manifestation of Occam’s Razor. Indeed, mathematical elegance is to be held above normal logic. As…
Blasphemous Ideas
I was on the bus and these two old men boarded at a stop and were embroiled in some sorta argument. One was sorta bummish, and was saying “there is no fear, I love everything” while the other, kept repeating…