TITLE: This and That, from the Home Front
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 23, 2005  1:46 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
The daily grind of the department office has descended
upon me the last couple of weeks, which with the
exception of two enjoyable talks (described
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-15T20_51_37.htm">
   here</A>
and
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-11.html#e2005-11-18T21_37_50.htm">
   here</A>)
have left me with little time to think in the way that
academics are sometimes privileged.  Now comes a short
break full of time at home with family.

Here are a few things that have crossed my path of late:
<UL>
<LI> Belated "Happy Birthday" to
     <A HREF="http://www.gimp.org/">
        GIMP</A>,
     which turned 10 on Monday, November 21, 2005.
     There is a lot of great open-source software out
     there, much of which is older than GIMP, but there's
     something special to me about this open-source
     program for image manipulation.  Most of the pros
     use
     <A HREF="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html">
        Photoshop</A>,
     but GIMP is an outstanding program for a non-trivial
     task that shows how far an open-source community can
     take us.  Check out the
     <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development.apps/msg/b5a9a98ef1e9fd4d">
        original GIMP announcement</A>
     over at Google Groups.

<LI> Then there is this recently renamed
     <A HREF="http://osteele.com/archives/2004/12/grounded-proofs">
        oldie but goodie</A>
     on grounded proofs.  My daughters are at the ages
     where they can appreciate the beauty of math, but
     their grade-school courses can do only so much.
     Teaching them bits and pieces of math and science
     at home, on top of their regular work, is fun but
     challenging.

     <BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
     The great thing about explaining something to a
     non-expert is that you have to actually understand
     the topic.
     </EM></BLOCKQUOTE> 

     Content and method both matter.  Don't let either
     the education college folks or the "cover all the
     material" lecturers from the disciplines tell you
     otherwise.

<LI> Very cool: an on-line version of John Von Neumann's
     <A HREF="http://www.walenz.org/vonNeumann/">
        Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata</A>.

<LI> Finally, something my students can appreciate
     as well as I:

     <BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
     If schedule is more important than accuracy, then
     I can always be on time.
     </EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

     Courtesy of
     <A HREF="http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.TheSensitivityProblem">
        Uncle Bob</A>,
     though I disagree with his assumption that
     double-entry bookkeeping is an essential practice
     of modern accounting.  (I do not disagree with the
     point he makes about test-driven development!)
     Then again, most accountants hold double-entry
     bookkeeping in nearly religious esteem, and I've
     had to disagree with them, too.  But one of my
     closest advisors  as a graduate student,
     <A HREF="http://www.msu.edu/user/mccarth4/">
        Bill McCarthy</A>,
     is an accountant with whom I can agree on this issue!
</UL>
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