Too good to pass up...

I know this is old, but let's prove that 2 = 1.

• Let a and b be equal non-zero quantities
  
  a = b


• Multiply through by a
  
  a² = ab


• Subtract b²
  
  a² − b² = ab − b²


• Factor both sides
  
  (a − b)(a + b) = b(a − b)


• Divide out (a − b)
  
  a + b = b


• Observing that a = b
  
  b + b = b


• Combine like terms on the left
  
  2b = b


• Divide by the non-zero b
  
  2 = 1

Who can spot the fallacy?

Works Cited

"Invalid proof". Wikipedia. 26 Feb 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_proof>

Reading, Writing, and... Blogging?

Weblogs, or blogs, are the new digital diaries, and they are gaining popularity quickly. It seems that adolescents are particularly fond of blogs; as much as 51% of blogs are run by teens. (Huffaker) Given this context, should not our educators be using blogs in their curricula?

In my Social and Community Informatics class, we have been using blogs (this one, for instance) to write our responses instead of traditional essays. This has allowed not only for a more relaxed atmosphere, but also the use of media other than the written word, such as images, movies, and hypertext links. Proper use of these media can help get points across more effectively, which is important in education. If teachers kept blogs, they could link their students to useful resources. Students, who would use their blogs to write assignments, could give and get feedback to and from their peers.

While blogs are great for delivering content, but what is the best way to collect content? The answer is RSS feeds, XML documents with short descriptions of and links to articles, blog entries, and other such content on websites. RSS feeds are given to programs called RSS aggregators, which display the content of the feed in a human-readable format. One such aggregator is Bloglines, which we use in my Informatics class. I have a couple dozen feeds, including the New York Times, BBC News, and the Linux Journal.

While Bloglines is good, I prefer a client-side aggregator (one that runs on my computer). I use a widget for Dashboard called NewsReader. Having my aggregator running in the background all the time is much more convenient than having to navigate to a page to see what has happened in the last so many hours.

I try to pick feeds to keep me informed on subjects that interest me, therefore I have mostly technology, computing, programming, and Apple-related feeds, with a couple news feeds to keep me honest. Bloglines recommended some feeds, but mostly I took feeds from sites I already frequent so I can let my computer visit them for me.

Works Cited

Huffaker, David. "The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom". First Monday. 3 Jun 2004. 26 Feb 2007. <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/huffaker/>

Death of Computing?

Since its introduction in the '50s, the computer has gone from scientific instrument to household appliance. What was once used only by scientists to perform complex calculations has become a convenient way to send a message or organize photos. The average user knows next to nothing about programming; he buys and uses commercial products. In the modern computing context, where does computer science fit in?

Computer science was around even before the modern electronic computer. Up until the late '40s, the term “computer” meant a human who did calculations. According to the Wikipedia,

Early researchers in what came to be called computer science... were interested in the question of computability: what things can be computed by a human clerk who simply follows a list of instructions with paper and pencil, for as long as necessary, and without ingenuity or insight?

Later, instead of giving the problem to a clerk, who was prone to error and fatigue, a mechanical device was sought to do the calculations. After many attempts, most notably Charles Babbage's difference engine, the mechanical computer eventually gave way to the electronic computer, which evolved into the personal computer so familiar today.

It may seem that computer science faded as the computer evolved. After all, today's computers have operating systems to shield the user from the bit-twiddling required to run a computer, which means that the average user does not need to know how to program his computer. But this is just not true. As Edsger Dijkstra, professor of computer science, said, “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” ("Edsger") It does not matter if computer science is not required for daily use of a computer, computer science is still being studied and is still quite necessary. The same is true of the automobile; the average user does not know how to build, or even repair, his car, but the study of mechanics is still alive and well.

Software does not program itself. No matter how easy the software makes life for the end user, someone somewhere with a knowledge of programming and computer science had to write the code that makes the computer run. How do operating systems (Mac OS in particular) keep getting faster on the same hardware? Because there are advances being made in how the OS stores and retrieves data — a sub-field of computer science. Why are websites becoming more interactive? Because a new concept, AJAX, is being explored that allows better communication between the server and the client computers &mdash another sub-field of computer science. So while the user may not be aware of it, there are advances being made in the study of computer science every day, without which the internet and personal computing could not function.

So if computer science is alive and well, why are computer science enrolment numbers dropping? Most likely because people are realizing that computer science is a very difficult subject. It requires a combination of mathematics and creativity, and an uncanny ability to understand extremely abstract problems. I am studying computer science here at the university, and it seems that a large portion of the students in my classes have little or no idea what they're doing. The programming is hard enough (C++ code can at times look almost arcane), but the subject matter is demanding and unforgiving (remember the clerk &mdash the computer has no ingenuity or insight, it only does what you tell it). And like mathematics, from which computer science was born, the problems are exceedingly abstract and intangible; there's nothing to touch or hold. It is all in the mind. It takes a certain kind of person to excel at a subject like this. Maybe that is why enrolment is diminishing.

It makes sense (at least in theory) that computer science and social informatics could go hand in hand. Both fields have to do with technology — computers in particular. Indeed, in their conclusion Kling, Rosenbaum, and Sawyer suggest professionals who design ICTs (which describes a computer scientist pretty well) as one target audience for social informatics. However, their plan is to retrain the current designers to use social informatics. Based on my interactions and knowledge of programmers and computer scientists, I do not foresee this being a fruitful plan. Many programmers I have known see the user as an ignorant being whose unbounded stupidity must be anticipated when designing programs. I do not see the ideas of social informatics being very popular in the current design community. It seems to me that the best idea would be to teach social informatics to the next generation of computer scientists, and as the replace the current generation social informatics will be put into practice.

Works Cited

"Computer Science". Wikipedia. 12 Feb 2007. 12 Feb 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science>

"Edsger Wybe Dijkstra". Wikiquote. 12 Feb 2007. 12 Feb 2007. <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edsger_Dijkstra>

Kling, Rob, Howard Rosenbaum, and Steve Sawyer. Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics. New Jersey: Information Today, Inc., 2005.

McBride, Neil. "The Death of Computing". 22 Jan 2007. 12 Feb 2007. <http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.9662>

Outlook 2007: Pushing E-Mail Ahead -10 Years

Microsoft has been getting a lot of flack lately over some of its products. There's the Zune, whose DRM makes sharing music (its big selling point) a pain in the neck, and sometimes impossible. Then there's Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's big chance to jump ahead of the competition (read: Mozilla Firefox), which was received to lukewarm response by the web browsing community. But I don't think any of us expected Outlook to hit that list, or to hit as hard as it just did.

I never had a big problem with Outlook (although I do use Mozilla Thunderbird). Sure, its security was lacking, but that is to be expected from just about any Microsoft product with internet access. But Microsoft has decided that Outlook 2007 will be switching to the Word rendering engine for HTML e-mail. At first, this may not be a big shocker; after all, we've all be using Word for years without any difficulty. What does this mean for us?

Up to now, Outlook has used the Internet Explorer HTML rendering engine. Now that Microsoft has released the new IE 7 with all its new features, Microsoft has decided to switch engines for “in the interest of security”. (Utter) Unfortunately, the CSS support in Word is — to put it mildly — terrible. This means that “e-mails that use certain advanced HTML and CSS features will be somewhat degraded in appearance in Outlook 2007”, although advanced seems to be a relative term. ("Outlook") Check out this article for a comparison of one HTML e-mail in Outlooks Express and 2007. Kevin Yank, web developer and author of several books on web development, wrote,

Not only that, but this new rendering engine isn't any better than that which Outlook previously used — indeed, it's far worse. With this release, Outlook drops from being one of the best clients for HTML email support to the level of Lotus Notes and Eudora, which, in the words of Campaign Monitor's David Grenier, “are serial killers making our email design lives hell.”

Here's a nice list of the CSS short-comings in the Outlook/Word 2007 rendering engine from that same article:

• no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
• no support for forms
• no support for Flash, or other plugins
• no support for CSS floats
• no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
• no support for CSS positioning
• no support for animated GIFs

These are all basic functions — things HTML and CSS have been doing for years; not only that, they are pretty much expected by developers.

The best part is that Microsoft is now trying to defend their decision. Among their reasons are that “customers ‘wanted the richness of the editing experience they were used to from Word integrated throughout Outlook. While Internet Explorer 7.0 is great, it was never intended to be an editing tool.’” ("M-Dollar") Also, Outlook e-mail apparently needed a uniform appearance and greater security. Wait a minute, wasn't IE 7 (the ex-rendering engine) supposed to be the most secure IE yet?

No matter what Microsoft can dream up to justify the switch, it's not going to satisfy the writers of HTML e-mails, who will now have to work harder to make sure their e-mails are sufficiently simple to be viewable in Outlook 2007. Shouldn't support for CSS and HTML should be improving, not jumping backwards at Microsoft's whim?

Works Cited

"Internet Explorer 7". CNET. 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://reviews.cnet.com/Internet_Explorer_7/4505-3514_7-32111537.html>

Reimer, Jeremy. "M-Dollar: Microsoft defends lackluster CSS in Outlook". ARS Technica. 2 Feb 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/2/6873>

Reimer, Jeremy. "Outlook 2007 change sends HTML email back to the future, for better and worse". ARS Technica. 15 Jan 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8619.html>

Utter, David. "Kiss Your CSS Goodbye With Outlook 2007". Web Pro News. 12 Jan 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://.../wpn-49-20070112KissYourCSSGoodbyeWithOutlook2007.html>

Yank, Kevin. "Microsoft Breaks HTML Email Rendering in Outlook 2007". SitePoint. 12 Jan 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://.../microsoft-breaks-html-email-rendering-in-outlook/>

"Zune". Wikipedia. 2007. 8 Feb 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune>

Sharing is Caring

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes.

This is a really cool movie detailing how the Web is changing from an information web to a personal web.

Best of all, I'm posting this directly from YouTube. It can do all the heavy lifting for me!

Next are some deviations (artworks) from deviantART. I'll probably be posting some of the cool things I see from time to time. Today's medium is photography.

The Digital Divide: Minor Split or Iron Curtain?

The Digital Divide is often thought of as a split between those who have access to technology and those who do not. However, this is not an adequate definition. Access to technologies such as computers and the Internet are becoming more and more easily accessable. Schools and libraries have computers available for use, and the price of personal computers is much lower than it used to be. So how is it we are still plagued by this Digital Divide?

The answer is that many people who have access to ICTs do not know how to make effective use of them; that is, they are not e-ready. According to Michael Gurstein (2003), e-readiness is

...a measurable indicator linked to potential effectiveness of the implementation of ICTs systems at a national or regional level and specifically in the context of responding to the perceived crisis of the ‘DD’

Organizations and governments realize that the Digital Divide is not a matter of access, and that the people who will be receiving a new ICT need to be trained or otherwise prepared if the ICT is to be effective.

How could an effective use strategy be implemented? The goal of such an implementation would be to encourage people to become active users of the ICT; not just active consumers of content, but also active producers of content. To do this, the people would need to be provided with a reliable way to access the ICT. Computers, as well as some form of Internet access, must be made available. Training in the use of the ICT must be provided prior to its use. At least a basic understanding of the ICT is necessary, because if the user cannot use it he may become frustrated and any later use of the ICT will be an ordeal. Regular use of the ICT is important to increase proficiency. Once the user is proficient with the ICT, he then has valuable knowledge and insights he can apply to any other ICTs he may use.

This is an important concept: ICTs are inherently similar because computer systems are designed to be similar. Aditionally, most operating systems provide developers with certain guidelines detailing how to make their application fit in properly with the OS. Save should always be under the File menu. In Windows, Alt-F should always open the File menu. In Mac OS, Quit shoud always be the last entry under the application's menu — and it should always use the key combination ⌘Q. Many users do not understand this and treat each ICT as a separate problem to solve, forgetting (or ignoring) everything they already know, right down to standard symbols (a floppy generally means save, a folder generally means open) and standard controls (drop down lists and tabs). Effective use becomes much easier to achieve if the user already has a grasp of how to use the ICT. The user knows what to expect, and he can figure out what to do if he encounters something he did not expect, be it a new dialog or a new error message.

In his 2002 article "Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide", Mark Warschauer proposes his own plan, which he calls "Technology for Social Inclusion". He argues that the Digital Divide is similar to the Literacy Divide that occured when writing was first introduced. He says that if we want to fight the Digital Divide, we must fight computer illeteracy — it is not enough to just provide technology and basic training because people do not know how to use the training. This makes sense. As with any (reletively) new technology, computer illeteracy is quite widespread. Unfortunately, it is also taken for granted. There is no surprise when someone says that he dislikes computers because he doesn't know how to use one. Imagine the awkwardness if someone said that he hates books because he never learned to read. Govenments do not just thow books at people and expect them to learn to read — they send them to school. Why is it not the same with computers?

It is not as hard as it should be to find examples of computer illeteracy in the real world. In my high school color photography class, we spent most of the semester creating projects in Photoshop (because the art department did not get enough funding for more than one actual film shoot per semster — but that is a topic for another day). While we had done a little with Photoshop in black and white photography the previous year, there was never any real instruction on how to use Photoshop. I had used programs like it before and I applied my knowledge of them as discussed above, so I had no problems. However, most of the class had no idea how to use Photoshop effectively. The teacher was always surprised at and a little frustrated with the classes lack-luster attitude in the computer lab. Some students became frustrated themselves and came to strongly dislike Photoshop. It all came down to their computer illeteracy; they did not know how to use a computer properly and they were not taught. If they had been taught how to use a computer properly, not just Photoshop but the OS in general, I doubt there would have been so many problems and the projects would probably have been better across the board.

Ignorance and illiteracy in anything is undesireable. However, as computers become more and more important, computer illiteracy becomes more and more limiting. People are expected to know how to effectively use a computer, but they are never taught. Obviously the blame cannot be entirely on society. Perhaps the computer illiterate should attempt to teach themselves. All too often they become frustrated and defensive and say they hate computers in general. This is unacceptable; it is like a child saying he hates books because he has difficulty reading. In both cases, it is up to both society and the illeterate to work together to wipe out illiteracy.

Works Cited

Gurstein, Michael. "Effective use: A community informatics strategy beyond the Digital Divide". First Monday. 11 Nov 2003. 5 Feb 2007. <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/>

Stoecker, Randy. "Is Community Informatics good for communities?". The Journal of Community Informatics, Vol 1, No 3. 2005. 5 Feb 2007. <http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/183/129>

Warschauer, Mark. "Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide". First Monday. 14 Jun 2002. 5 Feb 2007. <http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_7/warschauer/>