Careers, People•
on January 21st, 2010•
From analyzing the contours of the ocean floor to protecting our financial systems from hackers, software is a vital part of the global economy. The men and women who understand the science of computers — computer scientists — will be critical to every industry for the foreseeable future. The career of computer scientist is crosscutting. Computer scientists can work across any of the in-demand fields, from biology to space science.
The general public sometimes confuses computer science with vocational areas that deal with computers (such as information technology), or think that it relates to their own experience of computers, which typically involves activities such as gaming, web-browsing, and word-processing. However, the focus of computer science is more on understanding the properties of the programs used to implement software such as games and web-browsers, and using that understanding to create new programs or improve existing ones.
Computer science deals with the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application. Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results, while others, such as computational complexity theory, study the properties of computational problems. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to people.
While some computer scientists work for universities, pushing the theoretical boundaries of the science, others become Master Coders. Master Coders write software code with grace and beauty, mastering languages no less elegant than Chinese or Russian. They rule a world that is beyond the imagination of most. Their code and algorithms power all of the hardware that we touch: cars, smartphones and computers. It is their code that brings the greatest animated movies to life and makes our video games seem so real. Even floating digital clouds are brought to life by elegant algorithms.
When I was in high school, we had two choices if we wanted to study a “foreign” language: French and Spanish. Today, there is a new set of languages that should be studied by all students. “Students need to study programming languages to be literate in our increasingly technological society” commented Roderick Weldon Woodruff, Executive Director of the Urban Video Game Academy. Certainly not all students will become Master Coders, but some will be inspired at an early age and go on to push the boundaries of the science, protect us from hackers, and design the software that communicates with life across galaxies. It is a good idea to get your son or daughter involved in a digital arts, video game or computer-oriented summer camp at an early age.
If it isn’t obvious, I am humbled by what Master Coders can do. This article was inspired by a few Master Coders, who I am fortunate to count as friends: Alan Zander of TomoTherapy and Bill T. Becker of SiTEL. In the months to come, I will be interviewing each of them as they are role models for future generations of Master Coders.
If you want to get a glimpse into how they think, there is a great book that was published a few years ago by O’Reilly Media. Beautiful Code answers the question, “How do Master Coders solve difficult problems in software development?” In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be able to look over the shoulder of major coding and design experts as they work through their project’s architecture, the tradeoffs made in its construction, and when it was important to break rules.
Written by Todd Borghesani
Internet, People•
on December 28th, 2009•
This generation of high school and college students — The Gamer Generation — stands to have the greatest impact on our society. At more than 90 million people, the “gamer generation” is already bigger than the baby boom.
They are already aware of the extraordinary problems of 21st century: feeding a growing population with a limited amount of arable land; the green revolution and alternative energy, managing the impacts of global warming and greater energy demands; and the spread of health threats that respect no national borders.
Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. It is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.
They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, Playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.
The gamer generation will dominate the workforce and they are already changing the rules of business. All the hours immersed in game culture have created masses of employees with unique attributes: bold but measured risk taking, amazing ability to multitask, and unexpected leadership skills: 21st century skills that employers want.
The Gamer Generation innately understands the nature of online life.
The philosopher Gilles Deleuze is a spring chicken in the history of philosophy, living and working from 1925 to 1995. Yet his influence has surged in the last 20 years, vying today with the most prominent philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. He established a different definition of “virtual” that speaks to games and online experience in particular.
The virtual is opposed not to the real but to the actual. The virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual.
Exactly what Proust said of states of resonance must be said of the virtual: “Real without being actual, ideal without being abstract”; and symbolic without being fictional. Indeed, the virtual must be defined as strictly a part of the object – as though the object had one part of itself in the virtual into which it plunged as though into an objective dimension.” – Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Deleuze opposed essentialism, that is, the notion that existences, such as human beings, could be distilled into a single common identity. Instead, he saw existence in terms of multiplicity in all its forms – that, for instance, we as human beings are not single selves but multiple selves spread out in time, that life itself exists in a continuum and state of alchemical flow and information exchange.
What we think of as “virtual” is in fact very real and important, accessed on a parallel dimension rife with meaning.
He lifts the virtual up above the “actual,” or the material manifestation of what we observe in metaspace. Deleuze’s virtual is neither intrinsically inferior nor superior to the material, but it is on an incomparably different plane of existence. This is a concept that would resonate with many World of Warcraft players. When we explore worlds online and connect with other players across vast physical distances, we do not become less real. Arguably, for those who have experienced this life, we feel more real – our physical masks pulled down, revealing the structure of ideas, passions and contemplations beneath.
Next time you start to castigate your son or daughter for spending so much time friending on Facebook, playing games, and socializing in Second Life, think about their play as pioneering work.
Excerpted, in part, from Erin Hoffman’s feature article, “Ditching The V-Word,” in Escapist.
Education, Internet, People•
on December 21st, 2009•
Washington D.C. — With the coolness of a card shark at the final table of the World Series of Poker, Matt Bergin pulls the hood of his brown sweatshirt over his head and concentrates on the task at hand.
The task: hacking into as many target computers as he can and then defending those computers from attacks by other skilled hackers.
Other skilled hackers like Michael Coppola, 17, a high school senior who, at this very moment, is hunched over a keyboard in his Connecticut home. Or like Chris Benedict, 21, from the tiny town of Nauvoo, Illinois. Chris is sitting silently nearby, one of 15 “All Star” hackers who have taken over this spacious hotel conference room.
At days end, the moderator of this unusual computer challenge declares the best of the best: Benedict is the winner, king of the hacker hill, followed by Bergin and Coppola.
The trio — a job seeker, a grape distributor for a vineyard and a student — are precisely the type of people whom organizers of this event hoped to attract: young techies with perhaps little formal computer education who, nonetheless, could contribute to the defense of the nation’s networks. In many cases, organizers of the U.S. Cyber Challenge say, hackers’ skills go unrecognized or unappreciated by those around them and sometimes even by themselves.
“I thought that I would get demolished,” Benedict said. “I didn’t think I would get anything at all.”
Organizers say the competition is aimed at identifying young people with exceptional computer skills and inspiring them to join the country’s woefully understaffed ranks of cybersecurity specialists needed to protect systems used by the military, industry and everyday people.
Hackers may see the U.S. Cyber Challenge, which culminated last Thursday, as a game. But Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, an information security training institute, says it is really a national talent search.
And one that gives hackers an outlet not usually open to them.
“This is to capture kids that can be very good at this, whose only real option is to do illegal things with it because there’s no place to do it in school; there’s no place to do it legally,” Paller said. “This creates an environment where they can show their skills and advance their skills and do it in the nation’s interest rather than for other purposes.”
A high-stakes game. Former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell says the United States “will suffer a major catastrophic event” in the cyber arena if it doesn’t boost its ability to protect its computer infrastructure.
A terrorist or extremist group could attack the financial system in New York, destroying data to cause the loss of confidence in banking transactions, McConnell said. They could follow up with an attack on the power grid during a snowstorm. They could cause trains to collide and could release contaminants in the New York subway.
Imagine being a top hacker and working for the National Security Agency. The new command will at least initially be part of the Pentagon’s Strategic Command, which is responsible for computer-network security and other missions. The command is meant to begin working by October and to be fully operating by October 2010.
Are you THE ONE. The goal of the U.S. Cyber Challenge is to find and develop 10,000 cybersecurity specialists to help the U.S. regain the lead in cyberspace. But McConnell feels that even more is needed. He suggests legislation to create a National Security Act for cybereducation.
As our world increasingly becomes more dependent on the cyber world, we need a growing array of private companies, public infrastructure and top secret government experts to protect us. Could this be your future world?
Environment•
on December 3rd, 2009•
Classroom Earth, a program of The National Environmental Education Foundation, defines environmental education as the process, activities and experiences—across disciplines—that lead students to have a greater understanding of how the earth’s resources and natural systems work and interact with each other and with human-made systems.
As awareness about environmental issues evolves and become more sophisticated, students move towards environmental literacy. Ultimately, environmental education, as it develops environmental literacy, helps foster an understanding of how everyday decisions, lifestyle choices, and activities impact the finite resources of this planet.
Environmental Education in the Classroom and Beyond
Environmental education can be taught in formal settings (schools or other traditional academic institutions) or in non-formal experiences. In addition, environmental education can and should be an integral part of every discipline. Classroom Earth can help you incorporate environmental learning into whatever subject area you teach, visit our Resource Library.
Environmental Education Guidelines
Sifting through the many environmental education resources available can be daunting. Determining the quality of materials can be even more overwhelming.
The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) has developed Guidelines for Excellence that recommend that all materials and activities have:
- Fair and accurate information describing environmental problems, issues, and conditions, and in reflecting the diversity of perspectives on them;
- Material about the natural and built environments, ecological concepts, and attitudes and values are presented in sufficient depth;
- An emphasis on skill building including: creative and critical thinking;
- An orientation towards civic responsibility;
- Instructional techniques that create an effective learning environment including: learner-centered instruction, multiple intelligences, and relevant topics; and
- Well designed and easy to use materials.
(Taken from Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence, published in 1998 by the North American Association for Environmental Education. Click Here for more information.)
by CLASSROOM EARTH