Made by Mikal – Page 28

More coding club

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 5, 2015
Post category:Coding_club

This is the second post about the coding club at my kid's school. I was away for four weeks travelling for work and then getting sick, so I am still getting back up to speed with what the kids have been up to while I've been away. This post is an attempt to gather some resources that I hope will be useful during the session today -- it remains to be seen how this maps to what the kids actually did while I was away. First off, the adults have decided to give Python for Kids a go as a teaching resource. The biggest catch with this book is that its kind of expensive -- at AUD $35 a copy, we can't just issue a copy to every kid in the room. That said, perhaps the kids don't each need a copy, as long as the adults are just using it as a guide for what things to cover. It appears that while I was away chapters 1 through 4 have been covered. 1 is about install python, and then 2-3 are language construct introductions. This is things like what a variable is, mathematical operators, strings, tuples and lists. So,…

Geocaching at the border

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 5, 2015
Post category:Diary

Today's lunch walk was around Tuggeranong Pines again. At the back of the pine forest is the original train line from the 1880s which went down to Cooma. I walked as far as the old Tuggeranong siding before turning back. Its interesting, as there is evidence that there has been track work done here in the last ten years or so, even though the line hasn't been used since 1989. [kml: 20150604-1]

Melrose trig

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 3, 2015
Post category:Diary

I went for a short geocaching walk at lunch today. Three geocaches in 45 minutes, so not too shabby. One of those caches was at the Melrose trig point, so bagged that too. There is some confusion here, as John Evans and I thought that Melrose was on private land. However, there is no signage to that effect in the area and the geocache owner asserts this is public land. ACTMAPi says the area is Tuggeranong Rural Block 35, but isn't clear on if the lease holder exists. Color me confused and possibly an accidental trespasser. [kml: 20150602-1]

In A Sunburned Country

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 2, 2015
Post category:Book

This is the first Bill Bryson book I've read, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Bill is hilarious and infuriating at the same time, which surprisingly to me makes for a very entertaining combination. I'm sure he's not telling the full story in this book -- its just not possible for someone so ill prepared to not just die in the outback somewhere. Take his visit to Canberra for example -- he drives down from Sydney, hits the first hotel he finds and then spends three days there. No wonder he's bored. Eventually he bothers to drive for another five minutes and finds there is more to the city than one hotel. On the other hand, he maligns my home town in such a hilarious manner I just can't be angry at him. I loved this book, highly recommended.

The linux.conf.au 2016 Call For Proposals is open!

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 2, 2015
Post category:OpenStack

The OpenStack community has been well represented at linux.conf.au over the last few years, which I think is reflective of both the growing level of interest in OpenStack in the general Linux community, as well as the fact that OpenStack is one of the largest Python projects around these days. linux.conf.au is one of the region's biggest Open Source conferences, and has a solid reputation for deep technical content. Its time to make it all happen again, with the linux.conf.au 2016 Call For Proposals opening today! I'm especially keen to encourage talk proposals which are somehow more than introductions to various components of OpenStack. Its time to talk detail about how people's networking deployments work, what container solutions we're using, and how we're deploying OpenStack in the real world to do seriously cool stuff. The conference is in the first week of February in Geelong, Australia. I'd be happy to chat with anyone who has questions about the CFP process.

Square Rock and Mount Franklin

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 29, 2015
Post category:Diary

I'm not really sure why it took me so long to write this set of walks up -- I think I just got lost in preparations for the most recent OpenStack summit and simply forgot. That said, here they are... Tony, Steven and I mounted an expedition to Mount Franklin, which is one of the trigs I hadn't been to yet. Its right on the ACT border with NSW, and despite not being a super long walk its verging of inaccessible in winter (think several feet of snow). So, we decided to get it done while we could. [kml: 20150426-4] We also tacked on a trip to Square Rock based on the strong recommendation of a good friend. Square Rock has amazing views, highly recommended. [kml: 20150426-2]

Ancillary Justice

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 7, 2015
Post category:Book

I loved this book. The way the language works takes a little while to work out, but then blends into the background. The ideas here are new and interesting and I look forward to other work of Ann's. Very impressed with this book.

Coding club day one: a simple number guessing game in python

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 1, 2015
Post category:Coding_club

I've recently become involved in a new computer programming club at my kids' school. The club runs on Friday afternoons after school and is still very new so we're still working through exactly what it will look like long term. These are my thoughts on the content from this first session. The point of this first lesson was to approach a programming problem where every child stood a reasonable chance of finishing in the allotted 90 minutes. Many of the children had never programmed before, so the program had to be kept deliberately small. Additionally, this was a chance to demonstrate how literal computers are about the instructions they're given -- there is no room for intuition on the part of the machine here, it does exactly what you ask of it. The task: write a python program which picks a random number between zero and ten. Ask the user to guess the number the program has picked, with the program telling the user if they are high, low, or right. We then brainstormed the things we'd need to know how to do to make this program work. We came up with: How do we get a random number? What…

Tuggeranong Trig (again)

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 25, 2015
Post category:Diary

The cubs at my local scout group are interested in walking to a trig, but have some interesting constraints around mobility for a couple of their members. I therefore offered to re-walk Tuggeranong Trig in Oxley with an eye out for terrain. I think this walk would be very doable for cubs -- its 650 meters with only about 25 meters of vertical change. The path is also ok for a wheelchair I think. [kml: 20150415]

One Tree and Painter

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 13, 2015
Post category:Diary

Paul and I set off to see two trigs today. One Tree is on the ACT border and is part of the centenary trail. Painter is a suburban trig in Belconnen. Much fun was had, I hope I didn't make Paul too late for the wedding he had to go to. [kml: 20150412-1] [kml: 20150412-2]