Archives

Categories

The Start of My Computer Career

When I was about 11 years old I decided that I wanted a career related to computers. My first computer was the TEC-1 single-board Z80 based kit computer from Talking Electronics magazine (see the photo below). I think that I built this when I was 10.

The computer is 16cm high and 25cm wide. […]

Is Hand-writing Necessary?

The Washington Post has an article about handwriting, apparently for some university entrance exams in the US 85% of students write their essays in block letters. The article claims that students who have poor writing skills demonstrate lesser ability to construct sentences – and claims that this indicates that there is a link between hand-writing […]

Praising Children vs Praising Programmers

In a comment on my blog post titled Childhood, Don Marti refers to an earlier blog post he wrote which refers to a New York Magazine article about the effects of praising children. The article does in some depth to describe scientific research into the issue of praising children for being “smart” vs praising them […]

Childhood

Recently there has been some discussion and controversy about a 15yo boy being allowed to perform a Caesarian operation on a woman (without her consent). Don Marti seems to think it’s OK and gives some examples of what 15 year old people used to do in past times. However he misses a couple of significant […]

Documentaries about Gifted Children

On several occasions I have watched part of a TV documentary on gifted children, but I have never been able to watch one completely because every one that I have seen has been offensively wrong.

One thing that they always seem to do is say that gifted children have special needs and often claim that […]

Lord of the Flies

Apparently they are planning a reality TV show that might be named “Kids Nation” where 40 children are allowed to develop their own society for 40 days. The claims are that there is “no parental supervision”, but of course with many TV cameras watching I’m sure that even the most stupid children can work out […]

school rating

The web site http://au.ratemyteachers.com/ allows Australian students to rate their teachers. Ratings are anonymous and give teachers a score out of 5 as well as allowing students to comment on teachers. […]

death threats against Kathy Sierra

The prominent blogger and author Kathy Sierra has recently cancelled a tutorial at a conference after receiving death threats.

Obviously this is a matter for the police to investigate – and the matter has been reported to them.

It’s also an issue that is causing a lot of discussion on the net. The strange thing […]