Category: Education/Undervisning

Topics related to education (danish:undervisning), edutainment etc.

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Education/Undervisning Frivillig arbejde Hackers Historier/Stories Musik NGOs Rumforskning Undervisning Videnskab

Hyldest til “ideer” – TEDx København 2010

Den 30-November-2010, og for andet år i træk lykkedes det WEMIND at få stablet en Københavnsk TEDx begivenhed på benene, og det skal de have en stor tak for. Selve begivenheden foregik i “Pressen”, det tidligere avistrykkeri under Politikens Hus.

Jeg elsker viden, ideer og folk der virkelig brænder for det de gør, så TEDx ville jeg under ingen omstændigheder gå glip af.

TED er et globalt fænomæn hvor inivterede talere får 18 minutter til at dele deres ideer og passioner. TEDs kredo er “ideer der fortjener at blive udbredt” – “ideas worth spreading” – hvorvidt vi blev præsenteret for det tirsdag i “Pressen” undersøger jeg nedenfor.

Forstå dit biom

Det er en rigtig god idé at forstå at bakterierne er vore venner, eller måske rettere at vi skal forstå dem, og stræbe efter balance, det fortalte Professor Morten Sommer os om – det hedder tilsyneladende “biomet”. At dette er et højaktuelt emne er blevet understeget af NASAs annoncering af at der er opdaget liv på jorden, baterier, der har en helt anden biologi end vi har observeret tidligere, vi ved stadig ikke ret meget og bakterier.

Mod det uendelige univers

Jeg har altid synes at det er en god idé at udforske rummet, og at prøve at sigte efter det gennem open source tankegang, var det Kristian von Bengtson fra Copenhagen Suborbitals prøver at gøre, der kan være optakt til en gentagelse af 20ernes tyske “Raketenrummel”, og tænk hvis rumfartsprogrammet havde været “open source” fra 30erne og fremad, så var vi nok nået længere i dag. Og så skal man huske at filmen om Wernher von Braun hed “He aimed for the stars” (“but sometimes he hit London” blev det tilføjet) – raketteknologi har en skyggeside, det virker dog som om de civile programmer har fundet en fornuftig symbiose med myndighederne, det vigtigste for mig er “open source” tilgangen, noget der er i stærk kontrast til millitæret og vel også til Burt Rutans SpaceShip One/Two/White Knight.

1-2-3-4 GLÆDE!

Arbejdsglæde er også en god idé, noget der virker, og det blev demonstreret helt lavpraktisk 1-2-3-4 og vi var klar til at omfavne hinanden, tak til Alexander Kjerulf. Mine tanker gik til en kollega, der netop altid siger god morgen når jeg møder, og hvor glad jeg er for at hun gør det.

Vi er smukke

Lone Frank synes at vi skal dele vores smukke genom, og det synes jeg er en god idé, fordi det kan være med til at få os til at forstå vores samhørighed, og at vores genom er del af en flydende “strøm”. Den “personlige genom” revolution er lige om hjørnet, fortalte Lone Frank, jeg vil dog næppe bruge 6.000 kr. på det, og jeg kan ikke se hvorfor det ville være interessant for mig, så jeg vil nok holde mig på sidelinjen i denne revolution, men det er ihvertfald dybt fascinerende, og egentlig er jeg tilhænger af at man laver samfundstjeneste for Big Brother, noget jeg har gjort de sidste 3-4 år gennem sociale medier, det er i hvertfald at foretrække at vi “deler” frivilligt fremfor at det sker gennem ufrivillig overvågning.

Han HAR tøj på!

Martin Fernando Jakobsen vil have pladespillere i verdens flygtningelejre, og det er en god idé, jeg elskede også hans ydmyghed, jeg mener bestemt IKKE projektet er udtryk for “Kejserens nye klæder”, og man kunne se at de unge elskede det. Fik ikke fat i om musikken de unge producerer bliver udgivet, men det håber jeg.

Lad bjerget komme til Muhammad

Kaspar Colling Nielsen & Mik Thobo-Carlsen talte om den fuldstændig vilde idé, at bygge et 3.500m højt bjerg, Mount Copenhagen – eller “Rasmus Bjerg” som jeg synes det skulle hedde, udenfor København. Det er nok ikke en god idé at gennemføre det, men det er en rigtig god idé at tænke så vildt, jeg er overbevist om det er et projekt der rent faktisk er muligt at gennemføre, og jeg synes menneskeheden mangler superliga projekter som disse.

Min idé: “THAT is NOT a moon/to boldly go”

Hvis jeg skulle foreslå et projekt så ville det være at vi byggede en “Livsstjerne”, en rumstation gerne på størrelse med en måne, selv om mindre da også kan gøre det. Et projekt vi alle, under ledelse af Copenhagen Suborbitals og Mount Copenhagen, kan samarbejde om. Oplyst af arbejdsglæde bygger vi “Livsstjernen”, og lad os fylde den med vores smukke genomer, musik og kunst. Der bliver plads til alle, også til bakterierne, og det gælder også de arsen-baserede.

At det ikke er så langt ude som det lyder til, understreges af at der for tiden er en indsamlig på nettet der går ud på at købe en kommunikationssatellit – Buy This Satelitte, i skrivende stund er der indsamlet over $23.000 ud af det første mål på $150.000, hvis tempoet holder, så er det mål nået om 14 dage.

Ideer der fortjener udbredelse? Ja, det synes jeg! Se alle videoerne på http://video.tedxcopenhagen.com

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Manic Panic Undervisning

The Two Abandonments

1. There is no God – oops sorry There IS a God
2. You have no ownership of anything, except your life – oops sorry It’s not even YOUR life

Otherwise we got it pretty much right

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Blogs Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English)

Amazon Kindle – Vision og forretning

Who's afraid of Virginia WoolfHvad er en Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle er en kompakt enhed der minder om en computer, men er beregnet til at vise tekst, f.eks. digitale bøger – eBøger/eBooks, på en skærm der bruger en teknologi der hedder eInk. Denne teknologi adskiller sig fra traditionelle computerskærme, ved at den danner billedet med magnetisk blæk, og at skærmen virker med reflekteret lys, som papir, oplevelsen minder derfor meget om papir, og i øvrigt gør det at enheden bruger meget mindre strøm, da det kun er når billedet dannes på skærmen at der bruges strøm, den relativt langsomme opdateringshastighed skærmen arbejder med, gør at man ikke kan vise ting som video.

Kindle har en 6″ skærm med en opløsning på 800×600 punkter, dette giver en meget tydeligt skærm, som skal ses før man tror det. Teknikken gør dog at skærmen ikke kan vise farver, men det er noget der bliver arbejdet på det, og netop i dag afholdes der en konference i Frankrig, hvor der efter sigende er rigtig mange brugere af de nye eBogs læsere.

I denne artikel, som nok bliver en artikelserie, vil jeg fokusere mere på visionen bag, så der er ikke rigtig tale om en anmeldelse, og alle de steder der står Amazon Kindle, kunne der lige så godt stå noget andet, f.eks. “Tölva” – som en fremtidig enhed kunne hedde – “tilfældigvis” er det netop det jeg har kaldt min Kindle 😉

Hvorfor!
Så hvorfor købte jeg en Kindle? Først og fremmest så var jeg så heldig at få en i hænderne til reboot11, og jeg ønskede mig straks en, så da Amazon annoncerede at Kindle ville bliver lanceret internationalt, trak jeg straks et nummer. Den officielle lanceringsdato var den 18-oktober, den blev sendt den 19-oktober og jeg havde den den 22-oktober, hvilket inkluderede en nat på DHLs lager – den moderne internationale handels evner til levere imponerer mig altid.

Visionen
Den virkelige grund til at jeg anskaffede en Kindle, var nu også at jeg længe har haft et erklæret ønske om at læse noget mere, og her synes jeg Kindle giver os et glimt af fremtiden. Bøger og aviser er utroligt “upraktiske”, jeg glemmer dem, synes de er uhandy og tunge, og dette gælder også paperbacks – jeg føler at det er en af grundende til at jeg ikke læser så meget som jeg selv ønsker. Nå ja, jeg er jo glad for dimser, og da Nikolaj Sonne fra “So Ein Ding” så min Kindle til Copenhagen Cocoa Development Camp et par dage efter jeg havde fået den, stoppede han helt op midt i sin “procedure”, jeg havde en Kindle før Mr. Ding himself.

Når jeg ser en Kindle tænker jeg i øvrigt iPod anno 2001. Kindle er ikke rigtig en dims (gadget – savner dansk ord), det er en platform. Som iTunes og iPod, udnytter Kindle en eksisterende infrastruktur, nemlig Amazons, og husk at iTunes Music Store ikke var i nærheden af at være klar da iPod blev introduceret, Amazon er klar, og har allerede 360,000 titler tilgængelige, og Amazons vision er rent faktisk at samtlige (skrevne) værker der er udgivet i menneskehedens historie, skal være tilgængelige på Kindle. Jeg synes dette er en smuk vision, som det undrer mig at man skal høre fra en privat, kommerciel virksomhed fra USA.

Unboxing
Det første jeg bemærkede, da jeg pakkede min Kindle ud, var at den viste nogle instruktioner på skærmen, jeg prøvede at fjerne den plastik jeg antog var placeret på skærmen, sådan plejer det jo at være, ude af stand til at finde plastikkens kanter, gik det op for mig at Kindle viste et billede på skærmen! eInk skærme er virkelig anderledes, sammenlignet med traditionelle computerskærme – når skærmbilledet først er dannet har det ikke brug for strøm, så selv om enheden var slukket viste den et billede.

Whispernet, trådløs adgang der bare virker!
Jeg var godt klar over at Kindle var en opkoblet dims (wireless device), så jeg var meget overrasket da jeg ikke var i stand til at finde en eneste reference til opsætning, det værende sig SIM-kort, WiFi eller lignende, i den korte dokumentation der følger med – underligt – hvordan kommer den så på nettet?

Så jeg var yderst overrasket da jeg, efter at have været en tur forbi MyKindle websitet på min computer for at ændre navnet og e-mail adressen for min Kindle, og efter en kort lur, opdagede at Kindle havde opdateret sig selv, og at der nu stod “Tölva” i stedet for “Kim Bach’s Kindle” på skærmen.

At se en opkoblet dims der bare virker så snart man har pakket den ud, burde ikke føles som en fantastisk ting, det er sådan teknologi burde virke, men vi er anderledes vant – knockout sejr til Kindle her!

24-November-2009 sendte Amazon i øvrigt en opdatering til version 2.3 af Kindle softwaren, og den virkede perfekt, og blev sendt automatisk – endnu et eksempel på hvordan teknologi burde virke – ingen iTunes og computer nødvendig – tak og lov!

Jeg er dybt imponeret over den aftale Amazon har fået med AT&T, der er nemlig tale om intet mindre end en gratis, global, mobil data-roaming aftale.

Passioneret fællesskab
Naturligvis skrev jeg om Kindle på twitter, og der gik ikke lang tid før jeg fik et svar. Det kom fordi jeg undrede mig over hvor jeg ville finde åbent og frit indhold – det andre kalder gratis – altså bøger der allerede findes på Internettet – f.eks. gennem Gutenberg projektet.

Disse bøger findes som regel i nogle standard formater der hedder .mobi, og dem kan Kindle læse direkte.

Svaret jeg fik på twitter, og jeg havde ikke formuleret et spørgsmål, bare luftet en undren, var at jeg skulle få fat i softwaren calibre. calibre og det er et must hvis du har en eBogs læser. Der er tale om et open source program som fungerer lidt som iTunes til eBogs læsere, det kan konvertere mellem mange formater, og sidst men ikke mindst, importere RSS feeds og overføre dem til Kindle og andre eBogs læsere.

Der er iøvrigt flere muligheder for at overføre data til Kindle, man kan enten gøre det via. Whispernet (e-mail), men det koster så $1/megabyte, så det er bedre at bruge det medfølgende USB kabel, som er standard mikro-USB.

PDF – ikke en eBogs standard
Mange er nysgerrige for at høre om Kindle understøtter PDF. Det korte svar er ja, det lange er noget mere kompliceret. De fleste PDFer er sat op til at blive udskrevet på A4 papir, og det passer ikke ret godt til Kindles 6″ skærm. Et af problemerne er at PDF er mange ting, skannede sider f.eks.

Dette skuffer sikkert mange, men problemet er altså PDF, ikke Kindle, man er simpelthen nød til at omformatere sin tekst så den understøtter variable “papir” størrelser, og der bliver nødvendigt at “teste” sine udgivelser på mange enheder.

En lidt sjov ting jeg har brugt PDF visning på Kindle til, er at jeg har lagt billetter på den, og brugte min Kindle som billet to gange under CPH:DOX – desværre havde de ikke stregkode skannere til nogle af arrangementerne, men jeg synes det ser sandsynligt ud at det ville fungere.

Amazon Kindle Store – impulskøbsalarm
Amazon Kindle Store virker som det skal, gå til forretningen, søg efter den titel du er intereseret i – her er det smart at Kindle har et tastatur, køb og titlen er klar på din startside i løbet af 30 sekunder – imponerende. Kindle bruger din Amazon konto, så hvis du har one-click slået til, så er din Kindle, effektivt, et kreditkort. Samtlige bøger kan i øvrigt hentes i en prøveudgave med adgang til udvalgt indhold, så man kan se om det er den rigtige titel, dette fungerer virkelig godt, men det er lidt for let bagefter at komme til at trykke køb, da det er standardknappen – derfor har jeg nu en kopi af “Pigen der legede med ilden” på engelsk. Det skal dog tilføjes at man straks får muligheden for at fortryde sit køb.

Der er også mulighed for at abonnere på en lang række aviser og tidsskrifter, jeg valgte straks International Herald Tribune og Asimovs Science Fiction. Det smarte, og farlige, ved aviser og tidsskrifter er at man får den 14-dage gratis.

Kindle som browser
Selv om Kindle umiddelbart er en “iPod for bøger”, altså har sin egen hukommelse hvor indkøbte bøger bliver downloadet til, så er Kindle også en computer der kører en speciel version af Linux. Der er også indbygget en browser, som tilgås gennem Kindles menupunkt “Experimental features” – her finder man “Basic Web”, og her får man adgang til en webbrowser, der, i den internationale version, ser ud til kun at give adgang til Wikipedia, men det er da heller ikke så tosset, gratis adgang til Wikipedia uanset hvor man er i verden.

Jeg har testet hvordan sider med f.eks. matematiske formler viser, og det ser virkelig godt ud.

Kindle er bestemt ikke verdens hurtigste browser, men det virker, og er gratis.

One Kindle Per Student (and Teacher)
En vision jeg får når jeg ser en dims som Kindle er at en dims som denne burde være tilgængelig for hvert eneste barn, eller rettere hver eneste “studerende” og lærere, og hvorfor nu det?

Kindle er enkel, virker robust, og kan allerede i dag, indeholde en kopi af alle de skolebøger man har brugt i hele sit aktive studieliv, det er lige fra Folkeskole til Universitetet.

Kindle eller Dynabook?Jeg synes at Kindle ser meget bekendt ud, og den minder mig om Alan Kays vision – Dynabook – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “A Personal Computer For Children Of All Ages.”

Hvis samtlige børn (“studerende”) havde en platform som Kindle, ville det også skabe et nyt marked for skolebøger, hvilket burde være med til at forbedre kvaliteten – hvis man ellers tror på markedsøkonomi.

I dag bliver innovationen indenfor uddannelse bremset af ophavsretsloven, det er, f.eks., meget svært at hjælpe børn med ting som matematikopgaver over Internettet, fordi det ikke er muligt at dele skolebøgerne online, eller som downloads til en eBogs læser.

Lærer er i øvrigt i den brede definition, fordi vi alle vil blive, potientielle, lærere hvis denne teknologi blev gjort tilgængeligt for alle.

Rent faktisk er vi også alle studerende, nutidens samfund kræver af os at vi fortsætter med at uddanne os hele livet, er det ikke vidunderligt, og det er også sundt! Få din hjerne til at “pumpe jern”.

Hvor er verdens førende IT land?
HVORFOR kan jeg ikke få lov til at betale for min avis (og heller ikke BØLGEN ;-)) – der er nemlig ikke en eneste dansk avis der synes det var umagen værd at levere aviser gennem Amazon? Tilgengæld kan jeg, via. RSS og den uundværlige calibre software, hente Information, og det koster helt gratis.

At ingen danske forlag har fundet det nødvendigt at kunne distribuere via. Amazon var mere forventet.

Rygtet om litteraturens død er stærkt overdrevet
Kindle kombinerer vision og forretning, Amazon har leveret en dims der er så let at bruge som jeg mener det er muligt med nutidens teknologi, og der er en klar forretningsmodel. Amazon har en vinder her.

Hvordan går det så med at læse noget mere. Jeg er f.eks. nu halvvejs gennem min første bog, “The Raw Shark Texts”, som blev indkøbt til mig af min veninde @anetq fra den fine Undr! blog – tusinde tak for “gaven”.

Igen virkede twitter på mystisk vis. Da jeg roste bogen på twitter, og skrev forfatterens navn, gik der ikke mange minutter før jeg fik et “thanks” fra @steveha11 – forfatteren af the “Raw Shark Texts” – en bog jeg nyder meget. Det er fantastisk at forfatterne nu kun er et tweet væk. Så vidt jeg kan forstå, så arbejder Steve Hall på en filmatisering af “The Raw Shark Texts” – noget der ikke bliver helt let.

Jeg tror virkelig at Amazons vision kan få os til at læse mere, hvilket også vil få os til at skrive mere, så rygtet om litteraturens død (Information 2059: Amatørerne har gjort en ende på litteraturhistorien) er stærkt overdrevet. Hvordan det kommer til at gå med “bogen” – jeg tror personligt at bogen, som vi kender den, forsvinder, men at vores enheder vil blive så gode at vi slet ikke kan se forskel.

Her er et tip til hvordan Danmark kan blive nummer 1 på rigtig mange af de lister Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen snakker om – sats på åben og fri digital distribution af alle skolebøger, og vi kan få en renaisance for læsningen og viden.

Bogen er død, længe leve bogen!

Tidligere dækning:

Eksterne henvisninger:

Her kan du hente gratis eBøger

  • epubBooks.com http://www.epubbooks.com/ – et bredt udvalg af eBøger i ePub formatet. Skal konverteres, f.eks. med calibre, før de virker på Kindle, noget calibre gør automatisk
  • Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page – her er der over 30.000 gratis eBøger
  • Planet eBook.com: Free eBooks – en række klassikere i PDF format

Litteraturliste:

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Undervisning

Amatørshow i Lufthavnen: Sikkerheden er en flok “mænd” der leger “Røvere og Soldater”

Episode i Lufthaven i morges efterlod mig i choktilstand.

Jeg ville hjælpe en pyskisk syg, der havde prøvet af få hjælp længe, til bussen, det tog lang tid. 25 m fra busstoppestedet kommer en flok hjemmeværnswannabees rendede med walkietalkies, og vel også våben, og fører manden væk, 10 mand til at fcuke mit 45 minutters socialarbejde op, sikkert til politiet.

Himmelråbende amatører, få dog ansat nogle social-arbejdere.

Hvor mange fjolser har man ansat i Lufthavnen, til at lege røvere og soldater, og København skal være vært for, hvor mange, om en måned?

Manden ville for HELVEDE bare hjem til sin hund i Dragør.

Da jeg så går væk overhører jeg en samtale om at han OGSÅ havde generet dem. Jeg råbte efter dem at de får FOR meget i løn!!!

Jeg er RASENDE!!!!

Jeg skal tilføje at jeg rapporterede episoden til lufthavnens information, hvis civile personale, i øvrigt opførte sig eksemplarisk, empatisk og yderst korrekt og professionelt – de troede sørme jeg var fra politiet.

nå ja, også sendt til Kristeligt Dagblads Debat.mail

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Frivillig arbejde Kim Blog (English)

2.112



2.112

Originally uploaded by Kim Bach


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Blogs Computere og Internet Education/Undervisning Hackers Historier/Stories IT Guruer Kim Blog (English) Open Source Technology Undervisning Videnskab

Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans… – Celebrating women in tech

March the 24th 2009 is Ada Lovelace Day, the brainchild of Suw Charman-Anderson. Suw pledged to write a blog-post about a woman in tech that she admired, if at least 1,000 would make the same pledge, and since I’ve admired and been fascinated by Ada Lovelace since childhood, and especially after I read the wonderful book The Difference Engine, so I embraced the project, but at the same time I knew that it would be difficult for me to find just a woman in tech that I admire, that is because the list is long, and I’m happy to say that it’s actually getting longer.

In the end it turned out to be quite simple to name one single woman in “tech” that I admire, a woman that I’ve admired for 2,5 years since I met her at the wonderful BlogForum 2 – an initiative that we really need to revive – and almost did at Copenhagen Twitterfestival.

Since 2006 the woman I have in mind has become quite the celebrity, due to her uncompromising and relentless pursuit of the truth in the murky waters of the Danish tech-business, and this year she’s the natural selection, she’s the woman behind the mainstream breakthrough of the blog-media in Denmark, she is – of course – Bizzen/Toften: the journalist and blogger par excellence Dorte Toft.

Love/hate relationship with “tech”
I have a love/hate relationship with my field, the field known as “tech”. Tech is definitely one of the places where change is happening today, and I feel blessed that I’m involved in bringing this change.

But “Tech” is a field that is riddled by paradox. On one hand it’s crawling with greedy snake-oil salesmen, on the other it’s home to the most revolutionary, idealistic and altruistic people ever as well as some of the most wonderful concepts that humankind has ever come up with.

The problem with the snake-oil salesmen, is that, until now, they’ve pretty much got away with cheating their customers, the authorities, the business community and worst, their employees, and a lot of the snake-oil has been sold under the heading that Denmark is number one in tech.

It’s been a constant embarrassment to me, and I actually left the business four years ago, and it took me two years of “repenting” before I felt that could return to “tech”, and today I’m luckily to be employed by a tech-company that doesn’t carry any snake-oil.

Emperor’s new clothes
I’m just going to, briefly, mention the fact that Dorte Toft was the woman that noticed that Stein Bagger and IT Factory didn’t wear any clothes, thus exposing one of the biggest scams the Danish tech-sector has seen to date, but thank you Dorte for exposing these people, so that we can be protected against these predators and making it possible to feel proud about working in “tech” again.

Feminism isn’t “low-status”
What I’d rather celebrate today is that Dorte Toft is a self-proclaimed feminist, even though it’s – in her own words – a field that is “low-status”, and her labour of love “Nærmest Lykkelig I Nørdland” (“Almost happy in Geekland” – something got lost in translation sorry about that), where Dorte Toft has been writing and writing and writing about the benefits young women would have if the choose to join the so-called “though” fields, technology and science, a very noble cause.

I noticed that Dorte Toft also wrote a blog-post in observation of Ada Lovelace Day today. In this blog-post Dorte is pledging to return to “Nærmest Lykkelig I Nørdland”, I’m so, so happy to hear that, Dorte Toft has been toiling away, trying to ease young women into the fields of tech and science, and her work deserves so much more attention than the perpetual Stein Bagger saga.

To all the wonderful women that I’ve worked with, am working with and will work with in the future, thank you so, so much for putting up with us, we need you, and remember how far you’ve come.

When I mentioned to my father how much I loved having female managers, he simply said that he could never ever imagine have a female manager, I was appalled.

Women, “tech” is too important to be left to men
Women please don’t stop now, so that next time I’m in a position where I’m hiring tech-staff, I hope that I’ll receive applications from women. Looking at the number of students at the IT University in Copenhagen I’m quite optimistic that that would be the case.

DORTE TOFT: Please go work on “Nærmest Lykkelig I Nørdland”, I’m waiting for it, unlike the book about “Banditterne i habitterne” (“The Bandits In Suits”) – and remember feminism isn’t “low-status”!

YOUNG WOMEN: We really, really need you in the tech-sector. Tech is far too important to leave to us men, and listen to, and get inspired by Dorte Toft!

Celebrating the Enchantress of Numbers
I’ll close this post with these wonderful quotes.

We may see aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves
Lady Ada Lovelace

Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans – everything in short but the Enchantress of Numbers
Charles Babagge, inventor of the Analytical and Difference engines

Notes
If you want to learn more about the fascinating life of Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, by many considered the inventor of programming languages, I’d strongly recommend “The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter“, “Zeroes and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture” and “The Difference Engine“.

I’m also building a “shrine” to Ada Lovelace on Algorim.dk, a result of “mellemrumssingulariteten” which was inspired by a young woman I know, this woman is, BTW., working in the purest field of them all 😉

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Frivillig arbejde Historier/Stories Kunst Music Musik Resources Undervisning

Working Class Hero by John Lennon

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and class less and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Education/Undervisning Frivillig arbejde Hackers Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) Open Source Resources Technology

BarCamp Copenhagen 8.2: BarCamp Copenhagen Intelligence Agency – Part I

BarCamp Copenhagen 8.2 - one of my bagsBarCamp Copenhagen 8.2 on the 22nd of November 2008 is over, THANK YOU SO MUCH for being such a great crowd.

I’d like to extend a special thank you to the sponsors (Signal Digital, Københavns Erhvervs Akademi, Nabz.dk, basementcopenhagen and Toothless Tiger), Ras Bolding and our fabulous team Henriette Weber, Thomas Kristensen, Anders Bendix, Troels Wittrup, Benjamin Wendelboe, Laura Kiralfy and Mark Wubben – you ALL rock, and you KNOW it!

BTW! We’re trying to build a community site at barcamp.dk, so check back often for updates

Pre-camp game
I’m a 3 time veteran of BarCamp Copenhagen, and this time I had multiple roles, primary Henriette challenged me to host a pre-camp game, and this article is focusing on how that unfolded.

My roles were these:

  • Co-organiser
  • Co-host
  • Host of pre-camp warm-up – hmm, it was freezing wasn’t it – event
  • Co-sponsor through Nabz.dk – reseller of the Nabaztag
  • Speaker (accept my sincere apologies for that disaster of a session, but I did learn some important Xcode/Interface Builder tricks)
  • Webmaster at barcamp.dk

Phew! I think that’s about it, no wait, I also found time to be a participant!

“Un-conference”
For those of you not familiar with the concept, BarCamp Copenhagen is part of the world-wide phenomenon BarCamp, and can best be described as a conference with a twist, a so-called un-conference.

I’ll try to illustrate the differences between a conference and BarCamp below.

Conference

  • The list of speakers usually is announced and scheduled
  • Active participation is neither required nor the norm
  • Speakers are invited and often payed
  • Attendees usually pay a fee

BarCamp (un-conference)

  • The list of speakers and the schedule is made up just before the camp starts
  • The audience is expected to participate actively
  • Speakers are volunteering, and access is only limited by the number of presentation slots

Technological treasure hunt, huh?
My major contribution to BarCamp Copenhagen 8.2 was being organiser of the pre-camp warm up.

As mentioned, the task of organising a pre-camp warm-up was given to me by Henriette Weber, she had envisioned a “technological treasure hunt”, and I immediately jumped at the chance, but what to do?

Technology and treasure hunt, we’ll that should be something with GPS, isn’t that something you can assume that people have these days?

After looking into what existed in the market, and even considering if we should try to build our own, I was sort of stuck for at while.

I suspect that Henriette was getting a bit worried, so she sent Mark Wubben to the rescue, and that was great! Mark is probably the coolest guy I’ve ever met, and it’s hard to believe that he’s only 22. Mark is destined for greatness, and I’m humbled by his presence!

I quickly started down an avenue of sending the participants out to research the history of the neighbourhood where the event was to take place, but Mark, in diplomatic terms, told me that that sounded too boring, I instantly agreed, it did sound like a school project didn’t it? I guess my short career as a school teacher had a bad influence on my creativity ;-).

Brainstorm
On October 28th I met with Mark, and he made a couple of important points.

  • The game must not be boring
  • The game should be “hackable”
  • The game should be directed using SMS by the game master

We had a great brainstorming session, and immediately we were turning in the direction of spies, conspiricies etc. Mostly because I instantly made the connection to November 22nd and the mother of all conspiracy theories, since November 22nd is the day of the JFK assassination.

So what we came up with was the concept of a spy-game where you were supposed to find an assassin, take a picture and return with it to the headquarter.

The assassin would be meeting with a contact at an undisclosed location, I thought of Nørrebroparken because it has a “grassy knoll” ;-).

The participitants would be divided into teams, and then sent around in the area looking for codes that, when found, should be relayed to HQ, resulting in another hint about the whereabouts of the assassin.

Planning
On the 8th of November Mark Wubben and I met to investigate the area, and we found several places that would be suitable for waypoints, we decided that Nørrebroparken would be too far away, since we only had two hours for the game, and wanted 5 hints/waypoints.

I didn’t really work too much on the detalis of the game, after the 8th, but when the 22nd of November approached, I suddenly decided that we needed a website to support the game, and what you can whip together in two shakes of a rats tail using Drupal is just amazing, I had a full community site with full geolocation support up and running in a few hours.

Calls for participation
Approx. one week prior to the event, we issued an e-mail with a call for participation, and people were asked to sign-up for the pre-camp event, this was before I had configured the website, so I received a possitive answer from a few people.

Teaser
On the eve of the event, I then sent out this e-mail to the people that had responded to the call for participation:

Dear Agent,

You’ve been selected as a prospect to lead a team at BarCamp Copenhagen.

You will be given a mission that requires that you operate as a field agent from 10am to 11:59am.

Any technology you bring can potentially help you, but you’ll need, at least a camera and a cellphone.

There will be a briefing at 10am on November 22nd @Lygten 16.

Until then you can get updates at the barcamp.dk site, so check back frequently. http://barcamp.dk/content/barcamp-copenhagen-intelligence-agency

If you choose to accept the mission I’ll need your cell-phone number.

Kind regards
Kim Bach aka. K.ox
BCCIA Director

I received commitment from 4 people, I picked them as team-leaders, so that we would have four teams, and now I started building the website, having specific locations geocoded on the website helped me produce nice maps, so all I needed was to finalise the plot.

In the week leading to the event I had enlisted two of my friends to act as agents, and one of them is an experienced role-player so she helped me debug the game, she suggested that I should get rid of the good/bad distinction, and focus on making it much more confusing what was good and bad.

We met the night before BarCamp and decided that the mission should be for the teams to located the whereabouts of an agent, deliver documents, that they should document the handover of the documents, and return to base. What they weren’t aware of was that there was a second agent operating, and that he should steal the documents and disappear.

Hackable game
As mentioned, Mark Wubben tought me the importance of the game being “hackable”, this means that you should be able to bend the rules, so what I came up with was this:

  • Information about the waypoints would be made available on the website once the teams had departed
  • It would be possible to guess the access-codes, and get the hints faster. I choose these numbers for the 5 codes that should be gathered: 13-21-34-55-89 – does that ring a bell? Not? Well it’s the 5 two digit Fibonacci numbers 😉
  • You could get help if you asked for it

The plot
I ended up with a plot where the participants were sent out to locate field agent Szeba, they would be guided by hints that were given to them once they had gone to a waypoint and located the access code and sent it by SMS to HQ

The mission was to hand over some documents to the agent, and return with proof that the documents were delivered to the agent, and return to HQ.

The twist
What the participants didn’t know, was that I had also enlisted another agent, Petrus. The idea was that the agent would steal the documents once they were delivered to agent Szeba.

Game-on
On the eve of the evening I met with agents Szeba and Petrus (aka. Signe and Kim, thank you for helping me, you guys rock).

We went over the plan.

Szeba would be at Nørrebro Station at 11:30 waiting for the documents, Petrus would be lurking, wait for the next train, steal the documents and jump on the train just before it left.

We were ready for the game – mu-ha-ha-ha – it will be GREAT!

Stay tuned for the part two of this where you’ll be told how the game actually unfolded.

The picture that accompanies this article was taken by Karin Høgh, it’s copyright Karin Høgh and she has allowed me to use it here. The picture shows one of my bags!

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Blogs Bookmarks Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Kunst Music

Planning for Kulturnatten 2008 (Copenhagen Night of Culture) despite elitist selection practices by organisers

Kulturnat2008It’s time for the yearly Copenhagen event “Kulturnatten”, or “Night of Culture”, and I’m basically done planning for it.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a list of events I’ve saved to my profile on kulturnatten.dk, unfortunately they don’t have a RSS feed or a URL that I can share, so I had to copy/paste/edit the list :-(.

I’m planning to attend the events below, but I usually stray, and end up in strange places, my recommendation is to just go with the flow, and stay in places longer than you originally planned for, if you feel “good vibes”.

Last year the high point for me, was a visit to the old shipyard crane on Holmen, which is back this year, and Ars Nova in Marmorkirken, which isn’t :-(.

The events hit by elitism
I’ve been a huge fan of Kulturnatten for several years, but this year the organisers has decided to limit the official program, and has weeded out some events that had been running, successfully for several years, for instance the event by IT Politisk Forening.

I’ve been noticing that Kulturnatten over the years has become more and more like a carnival, and that was somewhat annoying, but I think that the strict selection of “relevant” events is an example of elitism.

This being said, the Kulturnat is an impressive show of strength, and I’ll keep on attending, even though I strongly disagree with the new policy of the organisers.

List of events I’m planning to attend:
Kultmusik og magiske videoinstallationer
Kultfænomenet Snöleoparden fylder gården med sin særlige equilibristiske nordiske version af østens musik, alt imens den verdensberømte kunstner Yang Fudongs magiske videoinstallationer tegner billed…

Time: 18:00 – 00:00
Place: GL STRAND, Gammel Strand 48

Lasershow illuminerer facaden på Charlottenborg
Facaden på Charlottenborg er hele kulturnatten illumineret med klassisk italiensk billedkunst. Lasershow arrangeret af den romerske kunstner Livia Canella.

Time: 18:00 – 00:00
Place: Danmarks Kunstbibliotek, Kongens Nytorv 1, Postboks 1053

Konspirationsteorier fra Tempelriddere til 11. sep
Konspirationsteorier er som en virus, der angriber, når immunforsvaret er svækket. Med benhård historisk kildekritik afmonterer Dan H. Andersen nogle af nutidens mest populære myter og konspirationst…

Time: 20:30 – 21:30
Place: Frederiksberg Bibliotek, Falkoner Plads 3

Polkageist Power Party
Nyd energifyldt koncert inspireret af salsa, calypso, funk, rock og balkanmusik sammen med “cool” øko-snacks.
Generel info: handicapfaciliteter, bespisning

Time: 21:00 – 22:30
Place: Det Europæiske Miljøagentur, Kongens Nytorv 6

Social networking /foredrag
Kim Sneppen, Models of Life, NBI

Time: 22:00 – 22:30
Place: Niels Bohr Institutet, Blegdamsvej 17

Herredømmet – Lykke, Thordal, Trier & Zahle
Carsten Lykke, Kenneth Thordal, Tobias Trier & Oliver Zahle pisker stemningen helt i vejret med en vittig, varm og swingende koncert om den moderne mands genvordigheder. Sangenes tema “Mænd forstår a…

Time: 22:00 – 00:00
Place: Frederiksberg Bibliotek, Falkoner Plads 3

Salsa Loca – Kulturnattens hedeste danseaften
Traditionen tro spiller Salsa Loca op til dans. Kulturnatten afsluttes på denne måde med et brag af en fest med livesalsamusik af bedste kvalitet og dans til den lyse morgen.

Time: 22:00 – 03:00
Place: Krudttønden, Serridslevvej 2

See also:

Categories
Education/Undervisning Historier/Stories Humor Kim Blog (English) Rumforskning Technology Undervisning Videnskab

The Pod Bay Doors have been opened – Godspeed Arthur and thank you

HAL Sheeding a tear for Arthur C. ClarkeThis week, the world got a lot less interesting, when the visionary, humanist, inventor and author Arthur C. Clarke died. I really considered not commenting on it, because others would be better at it, and the picture from Joy of Tech on the left sums up my feelings.

Remembering a great visionary and humanitarian

Arthur might not be the best writer, but his clear visions, belief in humanity and always good spirit was such an inspiration.

Clarke has mostly been remembered for his two most famous contributions to the collective heritage of humankind:

  1. The movie 2001
  2. The concept of Geo-synchronous communications satellites

The only thing that I feel sorry for, is that Arthur didn’t live to witness the discovery of Extraterrestial Intelligence, which I’m sure is on the verge of happening, and when we have First Contact, I hope that the politicians and scientists read the works of Arthur C. Clarke, before trying to understand E.T., I really feel that Arthur did.

First Contact

I’ll give you an example, and it’s my favourite part from one of his books, “The Fountains of Paradise”.

As is traditional with the novells by Arthur C. Clarke, the plot contains several independent sub-plots, and that is the strongest aspect of his writing, it never gets dull, and it’s filled with humour, and insights into humanity.

The main plot in the “Fountains of Paradise” is really about the construction of an elevator to the Clarke Belt, the geo-synchronous orbit, 36,000 kms from Earth.

But the by-line is a story about First Contact – e.g. the discovery of intelligent Extraterrestrials – a favourite topic of Clarke – it’s also about Artificial Intelligence – the favourite topic of Clarke.

The sub-plot is similar to “Rendezvous with Rama”: Due to universal limits of relativity, you can only travel at sub-light speeds. Another universal law is that the ordinary life-spans are too short even for ET, so ET is investigating the universe using unmanned probes.

Earth, or rather the solar system, is visited by such a a spaceship, and onboard is a computer or more correctly an AI – that is somewhat secretive – but co-operative – and we have so much to learn, like the fact that we’re an emerging level 1 Civilisation, at least in the 22nd Century, where the book is taking place.

Clarke suggested that advanced Civilisations goes through three levels:

  1. Civilisation can control energy on Planetary level
  2. Civilisation can control energy on Solar level
  3. Civilisation can control energy on Galactical level

Needless to say we’re not even a level 0 civiisation right now. When ET finally arrives, some hundred years after the probe visited, he expresses admiration for the achievements of “such a young civilisation.

Well the computer abroad the space-probe, is co-operating and teaching us lot’s of things, without violating the rules about giving away information posessed by a higher level civilisation, so we’re only given hints, like a level 1 civilisation, has mastered the conversion of matter to energy and back – e.g. has things like matter transporters and replicators, like in Star Trek.

That is until someone at a Theological Institute decides to transmit the complete religious scriptures to the computer, it painstakingly analyses it, points out the fundamental flaws of religious thinking, shuts down communication with a comment that expresses disappointment at such tribal manners from an emerging level 1 Culture, and sorry but now you have to switch to direct communications, going to cruise mode, shutting down, bye.

Mind you, ET is 50 light-years away, so everyone was upset by the actions of the religious people, but really it was also the end of religious thought, and humanity could move on the bigger projects, like building the space elevator.

The concept of the Space Elevator was lifted from a Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, that Arthur credits in the closing notes of “Fountains”. Clarke also suggests that it might be possible to build it already in this century, and the concept is well thought out, and actually feasible with current technology, unfortunately the current funding of space exploration, dictates direct military benefits, and the military seems to love chemical rockets, what a shame.

Other contributions

Another important contribution by Clarke, was his 80th birthday special feature, where Discovery dedicated an entire evening to Arthur, another was his series The “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World”, where he was also dealt with myths and Urban legends, paving the way for the “Mythbusters”.

Clarke deserved the Nobel Peace Price, not least for deciding to live his final many years in war-torn Sri Lanka.

The Pod Bay doors have been opened, Godspeed Arthur

The Imperial Cinema in Copenhagen is showing “2001: A Space Odyssey” on Monday 24th of March oops April 28th at 3.45pm CEST.

Imperial has one of the best cinemas in Northern Europe, expect me to be in the audience, I can’t really think of a better way to pay tribute to Arthur, get your ticket here (link will probably expire soon ;-)).

I’m humbled by your creative vision: The Pod Bay doors have been opened, and my God it’s full of Stars. Godspeed Arthur!

The picture that accompanies this article is from the great comic strip, The Joy of Tech. I dare to claim “fair use”, and why don’t you click here to buy some merchandise, or one of the paintings – I’d love to own “HAL 9000 shedding a tear” as a painting. BTW: I’m not making any money from providing Joy of Tech with such a link, welcome to the future of advertising ;-).