Reader and Twitter woes

It is bad enough that reader is closing down today - I missed twitter rss feeds closing down completely. Have been busy the past couple of weeks for various reasons and even though I did check into my reader I did not realize that the updates from twitter were not coming in.

I still don't understand why google did not continue with rss. From what I think it would have been a data mine of inputs of the reader's choices and interests - personal choices. Isn't this what google wants to know ?The articles read on reader could be used to display relevant ads. What is not to like ?

As for its loss of relevance - seriously ? I agree that twitter may have made inroads into rss but not everyone wants to be awake for every single tweet. Lots of people like to read news / articles asynchronously. [ Especially with the sheer number of articles to browse through ] One may not want to miss even one article from our favorite sites !

Anywayz have switched to feedly which is good so far. There is a slight discomfort which a change always brings but overall I have liked feedly. I am still reading from reader though .. last day after all !! :)

Oh well .. letz move on.

Twitter shut down its public rss REST api on June 11th 2013. I had these in my reader b'cos there are users out there whose tweets I do not want to miss even if I am unable to log in to twitter for a week ... This happens .. whether holidaying, studying or just plain unplugging - it happens. So these feeds have disappeared ! Annoying.......

I know twitter for all its popularity has not managed to convert it into a profitable business so it needs users to come to the site but reducing readability is not a way to do so. Because I got so many feeds I would always end up going to twitter and checking out the links - so both twitter and the relevant website profited.

Sigh .. guess just have to take it in my stride and move on. The new api with its embedded timelines and OAuth requirements does not translate into rss for me since they have clearly mentioned that they will not support rss ... so now have moved my do-not-want-to-miss-tweets-people to facebook, google reader, mail subscribe and the good old rss feeds.

See ??? Twitter's loss .... I still have them in my following list no doubt but like I said I am not the sort who wants to read everything synchronously !

Although perhaps I am the wrong kind of user - after all Twitter is meant for immediate consumption but hey as long as the service gets used and used well shouldn't one be happy about it ? Don't have the answer for that.

However it does mean a change in my blog layout - have to remove the "My Twitter Updates" widget.

The Curse of Knowledge

I remember when I was to be a parent .. I was worried that I would not love my child. Seems a little silly in retrospect but it did cause me a lot of anxiety at that time.

And so I did what I like to do - I asked around. Especially girls who had had their children early and had previously mentioned they felt they were ill-equipped to handle the responsibility.

And one prize winning answer - "Oh it worked out ... it will come to you naturally" !!! I was in one word disgusted by this reply. Until I realized this person was cursed by .... The curse of knowledge !

She no longer remembered how it felt to be unsure, the feelings of uncertainty, of sometimes the sheer terror of having to take care of a small life and where being wrong could mean death ( okay okay sounds like an exaggeration but it felt like the scope for errors was definitely low ). And yes she had her mother to help out at the crucial juncture.

And I see this everywhere - a lack of empathy due to the curse of knowledge. I used to wonder about this phenomenon until I saw the coin termed in "Made to Stick".

A star math student - who is so good at maths that he does not understand how others do not seem to "get it". Presumably he has never known what is it like to be unsure in maths ? Or another computer algorithm genius who does not understand why double linked list is not easy to understand in the first round ! :)
I heard one son berating his parent for not being more receptive to learning to use the computer and was espousing how such fear was completely baseless. CA's wondering how people can confuse creditors and debtors :)

I am also not immune to this flaw.

In what I still think as the most hilarious episode - I wrote a set of Dbase programs for a friend who wanted to do her project in the allotted time and she felt she was ill-equipped to finish it. I had taken a printout of all programs and had handed it to her to type them ( she studied in a different institute ). When she told me it gave her umpteen errors I was puzzled. I had run those programs and they had worked perfectly and did not need any kind of local configuration. When I asked for an error list - I was flabbergasted to find she had typed them all in one program !!!!! In spite of clear demarcation with names of programs at the top ( there were about 6 programs in total ) she had done this.  Phew !!!

I must say I could not fathom how she could not make out something as simple as that ?
Luckily - she made the changes and the programs worked fine. Yet I could not help wondering at her.

This is still something that is not too serious perhaps ( but then if she looks for a job based on that certificate... ?? ) but the curse of knowledge attacks in other areas too.

When a brother is teaching his sister the 2-wheeler, a parent teaching her child, a mother-in-law not understanding her daughter-in-law's inability to merge seamlessly into the household routine .....

I see people who are mentally strong who do not understand or empathize with the plight of the abused. Time and again I hear the same refrain - "How could he / she have .. stayed on ? ", "How could he / she have ended life ?" [ Mind you ... I think it takes an awful lot of courage to commit suicide .. I mean it is "THE END" ... how can one just feel like doing that and of course not worry about the physical pain too  ?? Guess it takes desperation ..... ]

I feel the pathology of a victim is different and unless one understands that compulsions of that person one cannot judge the actions taken by him / her.

For listening / understanding / empathizing - negating the effect of the curse of knowledge and understanding and / or remembering what it felt like at the beginning is key.  It is the key to effective communication.
It seeks first to understand and then be understood.

As for .... why is empathizing important ? This is my take on it - Empathy.

Comparing CS50x and 6.00x

I am comparing the two free edx courses - 6.00x from MIT and CS50x from Harvard. I think this comparison may be unfair - since I did not complete 6.00x. The more apt title would probably be - why I stuck to CS50x and not to 6.00x.

I should make it clear - I think the 6.00x course is great - the course syllabus, lectures, the problems and the quizzes too.  May be I will look it up in the future.

A.  MIT - 6.00x

1. Time commitment is on the higher side. Needs a lot more time.

2. Tougher - more scientific bent.

3. Lectures cannot be easily downloaded. The HTTP downloads for about 400 MB files do not work out well when uninterrupted net connections cannot be taken for granted. Torrents would have helped.

4. Stricter deadlines for the problems / quizzes. Was difficult to handle this along with other commitments. I do not consider this something bad / good ; just something that did not allow me to complete the course.

B.   Harvard - CS50x  - If I had to use a single line for this course's USP I would say it was their making the classes at CS50 alive for the masses. It was like stepping into a live classroom at Harvard.

1. Vicarious pleasure ! :-) - This probably is the closest I will ever get to the hallowed halls of an Ivy League Institution. Doesn't that sound sycophantic ? :) But .... it is true ! Unlike 6.00x - this one made me feel like I had actually stepped into a live class! Fantastic!

2. Fun !!! Cannot underestimate this part. It was like being back in college .. made it easier to stick to it. Nostalgia pangs anyone ? :)

3. Truly aimed at beginners. I thought their introduction of Scratch to learn the basics of programming was a genius move !

4.  Self paced and doable. Can be managed with other commitments because the only true deadline is the last date of the course. All problem sets, quizzes and the project can be submitted any time at all. Plus they have a simple schedule which based on the date you have logged in suggests various dates for all the items that you need to submit.

5. The walkthroughs ! These introduced the problem sets and gave direction.  A fantastic idea especially when one does not know where to start; which is almost always ! The Psets are imaginative and more importantly - the pointer to real life scenarios was appreciated.

For e.g - we had to code a program to recover lost jpeg files from a RAW image. This was the 'forensics' Pset.  Another to zip and unzip files based on an algorithm - the Huff 'n' Puff Pset. Very much enjoyable.

6. The introductions to W3C validator, gdb, valgrind and usage of js/css scripts from other websites, standing on other developers' shoulders. Real life software development is not always completely self-contained.  These were great inclusions I thought.

7.  They had short intros to various items - like the different types of sorts, SQL, jQuery, HTTP, gdb, valgrind etc. These were short videos that explained something in slightly more detail that in the main lecture. These were very helpful and they had these funny bits at the end ! :)

8. Sections - There were 2 types of sections - one called hacker edition type for those more comfortable with programming and the simpler one for beginners. These were in addition to the lectures, here problems were worked on and doubts clarified. Helpful again.

9. The vibrant student community !! This simply amazed me. So many people - always willing to answer queries. When stuck for a few hours on a problem, all I needed to do was go to the discussion forum. Mostly the Q would already be answered but I got replies for all the queries I put up online. Fabulous support !

10.  The lecture videos that I could download easily via torrents. I watched most of the lectures/shorts/sections/walkthroughs on my phone while waiting for my daughter's classes to finish. While I did not use captions whenever I watched the lecture online I liked the inclusion of the same. Very thoughtful I would say.

11. CS50 appliance - All my work for the course was done via their Virtual Machine. The code was backed up in Dropbox - and all this is a part of the setup for CS50x. Including dropbox - is another brilliant move. Who thinks they can lose their work ? :) And beginners ? No way .... !!!  More importantly - a seamless backup apart from being helpful is a pointer towards professional development.  Version control was the only thing missing and perhaps not really applicable to these Psets.

I had no problems with the appliance itself and I went through 2 laptops and a Windows upgrade :) Easy to set up and work with. And no no-availability problems.

Areas of improvement

1.  The sections should also have torrent downloads.

2.  I would like a T-shirt with "I took CS50x"  -  similar to the one Zamyla wore in one of the walkthoughs. now how do I get that ? :)   I wish they would make this possible.

To summarize I found CS50x - Fun .... and eminently doable !!! :)

I took CS50(x)

So ..... I took up CS50x .. a Harvard course free on edx.org. I have finished all Problem Sets and all Quizzes. Additionally did a small project towards the course completion. Today I am waiting for April 15th 2013 ...... the day after which I should get an honor certificate from Harvard ! :)

Now - I have worked in the IT field so why would I take up an introductory course in computer science ? Well - how about 'Just like that' ? Yes and then - I was intrigued and honestly wanted a certificate from an Ivy league institution. That I would get one for free was like icing on the cake.

David Malan - the course instructor

We all have dreams - some fulfilled and some not. If I had had my own way - I would be teaching in Harvard / Stanford / MIT / LSE / Princeton / IIM / Cambridge - after I had completed my doctorate and an MBA of course. :) Strangely enough the IITs were never in my dreams. At least this was one of my dreams ! :)

I am not sure how much value the honor certificate has and to me it does not matter now.  I had fun doing the course and while I did not expect it when I signed up - I felt like I was in a live class at Harvard. Definitely a bonus !

I have learnt C eons ago and it was like going back to college ! Sorting algorithms - bubble sort ( God thought I had left that behind me! ), malloc, pointers ! :) I struggled .... especially in the memory management zone.

Pointer logic / Sorting algorithms were demonstrated with students

My curiosity first led me to MITs 6.00x ( especially after the 6.002x ) - but I  dropped it midway.  These were the only 2 courses that I tried and I preferred the Harvard course.

For my project while I first had another in mind - I ended up doing something that was much simpler. I struggled;
not because of the project requirements itself but because suddenly everything seemed to fall apart. My laptop's hard drive started emitting a strange whining sound - which I thought was a sign of an imminent hard drive crash and it became very very very slow !!!

I had to use another laptop - install everything again. I decided to do a mini Android app and this environment is not part of the CS50 appliance. The ADT ( Android Development Tool ) is tedious. There must a lighter version somewhere but I did not have too much time to explore so I went with the one provided by google.

And then the second laptop did not have audio !! LOL .. so while I did the video editing there with my app - I recorded the audio on my mobile and integrated it with the video and cross-checked on my first laptop !

And now of course - since all submissions are over - the whining hard drive sound has stopped on my comp !! Really !!!!! :)

Tommy and Rob - two teaching fellows for CS50

Anyway here's the link to my project submission - http://youtu.be/sGWY8kxvqfc. It has to be within 2 minutes.

All in all - I had fun ...... Now looking to see if I can deploy this small app in the real world. The php page is after all written inside the CS50 appliance which will not be available to the outside world.