Forgive me, Gnu, for the sins I am about to commit.
I have a plain old text file, whose contents are valid xml. It is my task to convert it into some sort of PowerPoint monstrosity.
Forgive me for embarking on this path. Forgive also those who have asked for said monstrosity, as they may know no better. Give me the strength to show them the light you have given the world. Indeed, thank you for showing me the way, that I decided initially to put my data into plain text, knowing that it could later be converted to anything.
I do not know if it is a larger sin, or some sort of compensation, that my current plan of attack is to first convert my file into an odp file. Or that I will be doing as much of the conversion as I can on a Linux system.
In the name of Stallman, Raymond, and Torvalds (and the many eyes I know not), amen.
Showing posts with label cs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cs. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A New Kind of Wiki
Well, not really... I'll just explain.
So, when Wolfram|Alpha (referred to as w|a below because I'm lazy) came out, I, like many of you, was pretty excited to play with it. I was primarily interested in its use as a free, online, computer algebra system (CAS). So when I tested it, I gave it the sorts of questions that I give my calculus students (in fact, I essentially tested it with exams I've given students). In many areas it was obvious what to do, in some areas I could mess around and get a reasonable answer, and in a remaining few areas, w|a seemed to come up lacking.
I thought it would be great to have a resource telling how to input questions you might typically ask a CAS, since apparently entering straight-up Mathematica code doesn't always work (I guess Wolfram still wants to sell copies of Mathematica). One of my early thoughts was that I should make one. And then I thought, surely somebody else has already done so. In fact, the folks at w|a probably already have some nice documentation online. I made a note to look into it, and thought it funny that I was hoping to find documentation for such an online system.
Not long after that, and before I did any more playing with things, Maria Anderson, @busynessgirl on Twitter, posted a tweet: "I am toying with the idea of taking a standard algebra TOC and putting up a webpage that shows which topics W|A can do." A fantastic idea (which she quickly refined: webpage -> wiki). Extend it to calculus, and I'm there. And show not just what it can do, but what it can't do, what it does wrong (or oddly), and ways to make it do what it can do.
I think such a thing should come into being. Perhaps it already has, and I missed it? Or perhaps there is some nice documentation for w|a that I've not yet found? If either of these is the case, could somebody point me to it?
If there is no such thing yet, I say it's time to make one. I'm getting antsy. In the comments below, if you want such a wiki to exist, would you please leave some helpful feedback? I'm particularly interested in: (1) What (free, hosted) wiki software would you suggest or suggest avoiding? I think right now I'm leaning toward wikispaces, though I've not looked into things a whole lot. (2) What should it be called? (3) Any other comments or suggestions you have.
To get things rolling, I'll say that this coming Saturday (May 30), if no links are provided to an existing webpage, I'll start a wiki somewhere that seems to fit the consensus of the comments (I hope there are comments, and they have a consensus). I'll then let you know where it is.
Update 20090526: Derek Bruff left a comment that he was starting one, and posted the link http://walphawiki.wikidot.com/calculus-i via twitter. Looks promising!
So, when Wolfram|Alpha (referred to as w|a below because I'm lazy) came out, I, like many of you, was pretty excited to play with it. I was primarily interested in its use as a free, online, computer algebra system (CAS). So when I tested it, I gave it the sorts of questions that I give my calculus students (in fact, I essentially tested it with exams I've given students). In many areas it was obvious what to do, in some areas I could mess around and get a reasonable answer, and in a remaining few areas, w|a seemed to come up lacking.
I thought it would be great to have a resource telling how to input questions you might typically ask a CAS, since apparently entering straight-up Mathematica code doesn't always work (I guess Wolfram still wants to sell copies of Mathematica). One of my early thoughts was that I should make one. And then I thought, surely somebody else has already done so. In fact, the folks at w|a probably already have some nice documentation online. I made a note to look into it, and thought it funny that I was hoping to find documentation for such an online system.
Not long after that, and before I did any more playing with things, Maria Anderson, @busynessgirl on Twitter, posted a tweet: "I am toying with the idea of taking a standard algebra TOC and putting up a webpage that shows which topics W|A can do." A fantastic idea (which she quickly refined: webpage -> wiki). Extend it to calculus, and I'm there. And show not just what it can do, but what it can't do, what it does wrong (or oddly), and ways to make it do what it can do.
I think such a thing should come into being. Perhaps it already has, and I missed it? Or perhaps there is some nice documentation for w|a that I've not yet found? If either of these is the case, could somebody point me to it?
If there is no such thing yet, I say it's time to make one. I'm getting antsy. In the comments below, if you want such a wiki to exist, would you please leave some helpful feedback? I'm particularly interested in: (1) What (free, hosted) wiki software would you suggest or suggest avoiding? I think right now I'm leaning toward wikispaces, though I've not looked into things a whole lot. (2) What should it be called? (3) Any other comments or suggestions you have.
To get things rolling, I'll say that this coming Saturday (May 30), if no links are provided to an existing webpage, I'll start a wiki somewhere that seems to fit the consensus of the comments (I hope there are comments, and they have a consensus). I'll then let you know where it is.
Update 20090526: Derek Bruff left a comment that he was starting one, and posted the link http://walphawiki.wikidot.com/calculus-i via twitter. Looks promising!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Learning Group Name?
I recently ran across projecteuler.net, a collection of intriguing programming puzzles with a mathematical bent. Before long, I had decided that it would be fun to get a group of my fellow UVA math grad students together to work through these problems. I've wanted to learn python for a while now, and thought perhaps others might as well, and that using the problems from projecteuler.net would be fun. So I sent out an email and have gotten several others who would like to join me, which is pretty encouraging. We're going to start after the semester ends, which is just a few weeks away.
When I was thinking about the group initially, I thought perhaps we'd organize some meeting time and talk about our code. But then do we print out our code and pass it around? Write it on the chalkboard? Perhaps bring in thumb drives and a laptop and projector and present out code to each other? And then I thought maybe just putting all of the code up on a group-run blog would be the best idea. We don't have to worry about organizing meetings, people can look at anything on their own time, and, for what it's worth, our work would be out in the wild for anybody to see.
My question is... can you think of a clever name for such a blog (one that you'd happily let us use)? My first thought, something like "Let's Learn Python", or so, isn't hugely fun. I feel like there's potential using π instead of "py" in "python"...
Once we get going, you can expect to see a link.
Update 20090513: Here it is: Leonhard Euler's Flying Circus!
When I was thinking about the group initially, I thought perhaps we'd organize some meeting time and talk about our code. But then do we print out our code and pass it around? Write it on the chalkboard? Perhaps bring in thumb drives and a laptop and projector and present out code to each other? And then I thought maybe just putting all of the code up on a group-run blog would be the best idea. We don't have to worry about organizing meetings, people can look at anything on their own time, and, for what it's worth, our work would be out in the wild for anybody to see.
My question is... can you think of a clever name for such a blog (one that you'd happily let us use)? My first thought, something like "Let's Learn Python", or so, isn't hugely fun. I feel like there's potential using π instead of "py" in "python"...
Once we get going, you can expect to see a link.
Update 20090513: Here it is: Leonhard Euler's Flying Circus!
Friday, December 12, 2008
A Few Quotes
The other day on slashdot, the article "Twenty Years of Dijkstra's Cruelty" showed up. I was intruiged, and read the pdf it mentioned - a lovely handwritten paper by Dijkstra. I'm not a CS educator, so I don't have much to comment on about that aspect of the paper (the main point of it). However, I pulled two quotes out, and thought I'd share.
"... by developing a keen ear for unwarranted apologies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today."
"And when it comes to mathematics, you must realize that this is the human mind at an extreme limit of its capacity."
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