StarCraft features in University of Florida's '21st Century Skills' course

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: StarCraft features in University
of Florida's '21st Century Skills' course via Joystiq by Richard
Mitchell on 8/24/10
It seems games are seeping even further into our education system.
We've already reported the inclusion of Portal in the coursework at
Wabash College, and now we learn that the University of Florida is
offering a class in StarCraft -- 21st Century Skills in Starcraft
(EME2040). The course, taught by doctoral student Nathaniel Poling,
uses Blizzard's classic RTS to impart students with skills in the areas
of "critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and
adaptive decision making."

Poling told Technology Review that StarCraft requires players to
manage "a lot of different units and groups of different capacities," a
skill that translates in real world business. The course -- the
university's first fully online class -- requires students to play the
game, watch recorded matches, and write papers "which emphasize
analysis and synthesis of real/game-world concepts." Oh, the class also
has no final exam and does count toward a student's GPA. In other
words: enroll in this class now.

[Thanks, Kai]
StarCraft features in University of Florida's '21st Century Skills'
course originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:01:00 EST.
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Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.
via Kevin Rose by Kevin Rose on 8/17/10

My stats:
938 unread work emails.
1002 unread personal emails.

The madness has to stop. What was once a 30 minute annoyance is now my
full-time job. Here are 5 time saving tips:

#5: Add a http://three.sentenc.es/ email signature and keep them short.

"Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number
of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count
sentences instead.

three.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses
regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less.
It’s that simple."

Example signature:
--------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email three sentences or less?
A: http://three.sentenc.es
--------------------------------------------

#4: Type "Sent from iPhone" under your short responses. People don't
expect long responses when you're on your phone. Don't forget to
mispell a few words.

This all looks graet +1!!
Sent from iPhone.

#3: Create a 'VIP' filter. Add your boss, investors, and close friends.
Flag them red and throw them in a separate folder. This is the first
place I check every morning.

#2: (Gmail only) Keep the spam out. If you're giving your address to a
potentially shady website, tack on +spam to the end, example:
yourname+spam@gmail.com. You can then filter those emails into a spam
folder you check periodically. (ProTip: the +spam is a variable that
can be anything you want, eg. yourname+football@gmail.com etc., make as
many as you like)

#1: (Apple Mail or similar program) Setup an email bankruptcy filter.
This is a little bit of a dick move, but if you're getting hundreds of
new emails a day, it just might work.

Step 1: Create a filter that auto-responds to all unopened emails > 14
days old w/the following message:

Your email (below) is now 14 days old and has not been opened. To
minimize email buildup your email has now been placed in the archive.
Should you still require a response simply respond back and you'll
automatically be added to the priority queue. Thank you.

Step 2: Setup another filter that looks for the text "Your email
(below)", this will catch the email responses back to you from those
still requiring your response. Filter these into a special folder you
check and respond to daily.

Good luck!

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Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: Google launching a Chrome OS
tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November 26 via Download Squad by Lee
Mathews on 8/18/10

Filed under: OS Updates, Hardware, Google
The title pretty much says it all on this one, folks.

Yes, our source tells us that Google is building a Chrome OS tablet.
It's real, and it's being built by HTC. No surprise there, since HTC
churned out the Nexus One for Google.

Yes, they plan to offer it in conjunction with Verizon -- which
probably doesn't come as a shock to anybody at this point. The two
recently tag-teamed that Net Neutrality proposal and they've had plenty
of discussions in the past about cooperating in some capacity.

As for the launch date of November 26th, well, that's all kinds of
brilliant. It's Black Friday 2010 and the busiest shopping day of the
year in the U.S. -- so what better day to have a shiny new tablet in
the cabinet at Verizon kiosks and stores all over the country? You can
bet Google's Chrome OS tablet will be heavily subsidized, and I'd go so
far as to say it will be substantially cheaper than the iPad -- if not
totally free -- with a Verizon data contract.

So what will the Google tablet pack for hardware? While our source
didn't provide any specifics, my guess is that the device could be
based on NVidia's Tegra 2 platform and sport a 1280x720 multitouch
display, 2GB of RAM, minimum 32GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/LTE connectivity,
GPS, webcam, and possibly expandable storage via a multi-card reader.
Again, these were not given to us by our source, but expect it to be
every bit as geek-tastic as the Nexus One -- Google won't want to
disappoint its early adopters. Share Tweet
Google launching a Chrome OS tablet on Verizon, goes on sale November
26 originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:00:00
EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google - Verizon - Network neutrality - Download Squad - United States
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It’s Not About THEM, It’s About Us

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: It’s Not About THEM, It’s About
Us via ATTACKERMAN by mikeyhemlok on 8/14/10

Depending upon their willingness to demonstrate a straight-up, full on
bigotry or a kinder and gentler sort of discrimination, opponents of
the Cordoba House project will tell you it’s about Islamists, Muslims,
or the victims of 9/11. Their opponents counter that it’s about freedom
of religion, the constitutional guarantees of liberty and basic human
values of tolerance and diversity.

But here’s the thing. It’s not about Ground Zero, it’s not about the
constitution, and it’s not even about religious freedom. Ultimately,
its about us. All of us Americans, collectively. We need to decide what
kind of society we want to live in. We need to figure out to what
extent we want other people’s hatred to determine whether we can
actually have faith in the promises and guarantees made to us in the
founding documents. We need to decide if we want to follow the example
of Ibn Saud, or that of Thomas Jefferson. We need to choose whether we
show the world we stand uncaring and powerless before our base fears
and tribal hatreds, or if instead we stand up and demonstrate, once
again, that America defends her values fearlessly and without
reservation.

No matter how you personally feel about Muslims and mosques, you have
to recognize that this is a one-way trip, a simple, irreversible binary
choice. As there can be no real doubt that the Imam and his
congregation have every right to build their mosque where they wish, it
comes down to something more nuanced, and much more pernicious. Do you
want people, either by dint of their popular majority or their frantic
shrieking and hand-waving to have the power to over-rule the basic
rights and freedoms granted to all Americans? Do you understand that if
it’s just Muslims today, it will be Jews tomorrow and atheists after
that and in the end, the battle for the smouldering rubble of the
American experiment will be fought between Catholics and Protestants,
with the victors laying claim to just another totalitarian theocracy?

It truly makes me wonder. Can even the likes of Gingrich and Palin
actually be proud of an America so willing to run away from her core
values? In the name of political expediency and tribal nativism,
balanced against all the history and sacrifice that has come before? If
they actually got their way, and Cordoba House project was blocked,
would they see it as a bright and shining moment for America? Or would
it be a Pyrrhic victory, with the taste of ashes, as they wondered if
it could be a Mosque in New York today, might it be a Church in Kansas
or a book in Georgia or a political party in South Carolina tomorrow.

We need to stand up as Americans, collectively, and tell the demagogues
and fear-mongers, the politicians and pundits alike, that we’re better
than this. Indeed, this is what makes us Americans, and this is why we
believe America is important. We need to tell them that its not about
how we feel, or what we’d prefer, it’s about what we believe, and
ultimately, its about who we are.



Related posts:
- Cafeteria Constitutionalists, Ancient Mythology and Cordoba House
- Getting Ugly Out There
- Saturday Morning

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Global Cities 2010: The Rankings

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: Global Cities 2010: The Rankings
via Foreign Policy by Rebecca Frankel on 8/12/10
Include CSS From Upload(s): rankings_table2.css The Global Cities Index
2010 In this second collaboration between Foreign Policy, A.T. Kearney,
and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, we bring you the world's top
global cities. RankCity Rank by Population Rank by GDP 1 New York 6 2 2
London 28 5 3 Tokyo 1 1 4 Paris 20 6 5 Hong Kong 31 14 6 Chicago 25 4 7
Los Angeles 12 3 8 Singapore 38 23 9 Sydney 43 24 10 Seoul 22 19 11
Brussels 54 48 12 San Francisco 46 16 13 Washington 42 10 14 Toronto 36
20 15 Beijing 13 33 16 Berlin 48 46 17 Madrid 34 22 18 Vienna 55 40 19
Boston 41 11 20 Frankfurt 64 20 20 Shanghai 7 21 22 Buenos Aires 11 12
23 Stockholm 59 52 24 Zurich 61 58 25 Moscow 19 13 26 Barcleona 37 31
27 Dubai 56 49 28 Rome 49 37 29 Amsterdam 63 60 30 Mexico City 5 8 31
Montreal 44 35 32 Geneva 65 61 33 Miami 58 54 33 Munich 35 18 35 Sao
Paulo 3 9 36 Bangkok 32 42 37 Copenhagen 60 59 38 Houston 40 17 39
Taipei 53 26 40 Atlanta 39 15 41 Istanbul 21 30 42 Milan 52 39 43 Cairo
17 36 44 Dublin 62 55 45 New Delhi 2 32 46 Mumbai 4 25 47 Osaka 16 7 48
Kuala Lumpur 57 65 49 Rio de Janeiro 14 27 50 Tel Aviv 50 40 51 Manila
15 34 52 Johannesburg 45 43 53 Jakarta 24 47 54 Bogota 29 45 55 Caracas
51 62 56 Nairobi 47 64 57 Guangzhou 27 38 58 Bangalore 30 53 59 Lagos
18 63 60 Karachi 10 50 61 Ho Chi Minh City 33 56 62 Shenzhen 26 28 63
Kolkata 8 44 64 Dhaka 9 50 65 Chongqing 23 57
For more on how the index was put together, go here.

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Facebook, Farmville Now Wasting a Third of Your Web Time [MediaMemo]

Sent to you by Rio via Google Reader: Facebook, Farmville Now Wasting
a Third of Your Web Time [MediaMemo] via All Things Digital by Peter
Kafka on 8/2/10

Perhaps you think you’re doing something useful when you boot up your
PC and head online. Odds are, there’s a one-in-three chance you’re
spending your time on Facebook. Or playing with virtual sheep.

So says Nielsen in a new report about what American do online. Title:
“What Americans Do Online.”

The key takeaway here is that social networks and online games take up
about a third of our Web time. That’s up from last year, when the two
categories combined to take up about 25 percent of our time.

And that’s good news for Facebook and Farmville-maker Zynga, which
dominate the two categories. It’s neutral news for Google (GOOG), since
search’s share has stayed consistent at about 3.5 percent, and it’s bad
news for Yahoo (YHOO) and AOL (AOL), since portal time has decreased by
19 percent.

Here’s your data in chart form (click to enlarge):



And in a groovy graphic:



Interesting side note is that usage patterns change if you’re talking
about Internet use on your phone. There, Nielsen says, you’re much more
likely to spend time tapping out email:



What accounts for the difference? Nielsen doesn’t hazard a guess, so
I’ll make a couple:

- Even on sophisticated handsets like Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and
Google’s Android, it’s easier to check email than just about any other
online experience. And if you’re talking about cruder feature phones
with very limited Web access–the kinds that average Americans still use
in great numbers–that difference is even more pronounced.
- The mobile content people keep telling us that that phone users are
interested in “snacking” on content. Can’t get more snackable than an
email, right?
One other data point to consider when considering the different data
points: The data comes from different places.

Nielsen’s PC-based Web stats come from both self-reported surveys and
panel data, where a small group of users allow Nielsen to track their
behavior. The mobile data only comes from self-reported surveys. So it
may be that people would like us to think that they’re less likely to
screw around on their phones than they really are. So be truthful–how
much does your Web usage differ when you get on your phone?

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How Programmer Reacts On Different Situations (Cartoon Strip)

Sent to you by John via Google Reader: How Programmer Reacts On
Different Situations (Cartoon Strip) via Free and Useful Online
Resources for Designers and Developers by AN Jay on 7/28/10

The classic definition of a programmer actually rarely exists anymore.
Being a programmer can be a difficult job trying to figure out why the
code you have developed isn’t working and if everything is going good
according to the specs then he’s feeling himself a happiest guy around.
It’s not unusual for them to face dynamically new situations so often
while performing their job. But they are use to with it. However
excitement, enthusiasm, love, horror, frustration and other emotions
are the vital part of their professional personality.

Below is a cartoon sequence to find out how programmer reacts on
different situations. Let’s enjoy and relate it with you if you gets
these reactions too while programming.



Via Programmer’s life (cartoon)
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