Harvey Mudd redesigned their intro computer science course to make it more accessible and meaningful to students not already exposed to programming:

To reduce the intimidation factor, the course was divided into two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and “black” for everyone else. Java, a notoriously opaque programming language, was replaced by a more accessible language called Python. And the focus of the course changed to computational approaches to solving problems across science.

“We realized that we needed to show students computer science is not all about programming,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas, chairman of the department. “It has intellectual depth and connections to other disciplines.”

The article is about making their computer science program more accessible for women, but I think this applies equally to everyone: make it meaningful and people will get it.

Charlie Kindel thinks Google will abandon the Android brand for “Play”:

I predict Google will go so far as to push the Play brand over Android even with developers. They’ve already started this with marketplace submission and you can bet there will be a new, more stringent, app certification program under the Google Play moniker in an attempt to raise the quality of apps for the new Google Play tablet. Watch for Google Play specific APIs and services as well.

Kindel believes that rather than try to combat Android’s fragmentation, Google should abandon it and build their own cohesive, end-to-end platform based on Android. Doing so would make a lot of sense, because there’s no way they’ll be able to rein in device makers and make Android a cohesive platform.

Of course, it would also dampen device manufacture and carrier interest in Android. If “Android,” the open source operating system that anyone can use, (1) doesn’t include important APIs that Google’s Play version does, and (2) Google is directly competing with their devices by selling and heavily pushing their own devices, I would expect less devices to use Android as we know it, and more use of Android as a base to build your own platform on, like Barnes and Noble and Amazon have done. Effectively, I think a move like this would kill Android as the relatively open platform that we have today.

Which, of course, may be better for Google.

(Via John Gruber.)

Randall Stross writes for the New York Times about how different schools are introducing computer science courses intended to teach students from unrelated fields “computational thinking”:

At Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., Mark D. LeBlanc, a professor of computer science, teaches “Computing for Poets.” The only prerequisite, according to the course syllabus, is “a love of the written (and digital) word.”

Professor LeBlanc has his students learn the basics of Python, another modern language used in the software industry. But this course is tied to two courses offered by the English department on J.R.R. Tolkien and Anglo-Saxon literature. Students in the computing course put concepts to immediate use by analyzing large bodies of text. The syllabus is more like what one would find for a humanities course.

“In the class, we take on big problems,” Professor LeBlanc says. “The majority of the students are overwhelmed — ‘Where do we start?’ ” This provides opportunities to illustrate the concept of decomposition, which he describes as “breaking a large problem into small manageable problems.”

I love that, and I love the trend toward trying to teach people who aren’t going to necessarily develop software for their occupation how to think like programmers do. The sort of things you learn—breaking a larger problem down into smaller problems, thinking very precisely and step-by-step, thinking about things as a system—are skills that are widely applicable and useful. It teaches you how to analyze a problem, how to move from “we want this accomplished” to “to accomplish this, we are going to break it down into these pieces,” and it teaches you how to see how systems work. Both are incredibly powerful.

I’m not sure that everyone needs to know how to program, but I absolutely believe that people are better off when they’re exposed to it and the kind of thinking it requires. Moreover, it is only growing more important for people to have a good idea of how software works, because more and more things are being replaced by software. It’s important that most people move from understanding software as some kind of magic created by shamans that, if given the right incantations, does what they want, to having a good idea of what it’s doing. If we don’t begin to fix that, we’re going to allow a very large technical divide to develop between people who can work with software and people who can’t, and that’s going to lock out a huge number of people from the benefits of our future economy.

John Garnaut in an excellent piece about Wen Jiabao and a long-running schism within China’s Communist party:

“In the past I did not have a fully positive view of Wen Jiabao, because he said a lot of things but didn’t deliver,” says a leading media figure with lifelong connections to China’s leadership circle. “Now I realize just to be able to say it, that’s important. To speak up, let the whole world know that he could not achieve anything because he was strangled by the system.”

Hu Yaobang’s most faithful protégé, who carried his funeral casket to its final resting place, is building on the groundwork laid by Hu and his children ostensibly to prevent a return of the Cultural Revolution. Wen Jiabao is defending the party line set by Deng Xiaoping’s 1981 historical resolution against attack from the left. Between the lines, however, he is challenging the Communist Party’s 30-year consensus from the liberal right.

If you have any interest in China (or would just like to learn about a very opaque country), this is a must-read. Garnaut uses Wen Jiabao’s recent speech where he warned that a similar tragedy to the Cultural Revolution could reoccur if there are no political reforms and Bo Xilai’s sacking to consider a long-ranging debate that’s fractured the CCP: should the party open China’s government, push for greater rule of law, and eventually allow democratic elections? Or should it solidify the party’s control and use it to shape Chinese society toward revolutionary, communist ideals, and crush those who oppose it?

On the very far left, you have Mao Zedong, who pioneered the latter argument, and Bo Xilai, who advanced that argument; on the a-bit-closer-to-the-center-but-still-the-left, you have Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, who both pushed for a smaller role in society for the government and party, separating the government and party, fighting corruption and free markets, and Wen Jiabao, China’s outgoing Premier and protégé of Hu Yaobang, who has quietly continued his legacy.

This debate cuts to the core of the party and to China’s future, and it’s been thrown into the public sphere in a way that I’m sure makes many in the party extremely uncomfortable by Wen’s speech and the downfall of Bo Xilai. This is especially important because China is transitioning now to its next set of leaders, so this debate—and the very-public show of what happens behind closed doors when certain leaders lose favor and are removed—couldn’t have popped up again at a more pertinent and sensitive time.

Michael Schechter points out that because SimpleNote now has a URL scheme, users can send selected text from Instapaper to SimpleNote.

This is great. I routinely read articles in Instapaper and come up with a specific idea to write about on TightWind based on it—but by the time I post it, I’ve usually forgotten what my thought was. I’ve been wanting something like this for a long time.

(Via Shawn Blanc.)

Horace Dediu analyzes Charles Arthur’s report that Android has only generate $2.5 billion of revenue since 2008:

My take is that it’s not a bad business. But it’s also not a great one. As long as there is exponential growth in units, Android will improve its position inside Google relative to iOS. But from Google’s perspective, iOS is today a bigger business. And iOS is not standing still. It’s growing not only in terms of units but in revenue per unit.

Dediu figures that Google only makes about $3.50 per Android device sold over its lifetime, and that revenue per device has decreased since 2009. As usual, outstanding work by Horace.

Mike Davidson:

The anger about the financial side of Readability seems to come from the opinion that the company is “keeping publishers’ money” unless they sign up, but I guess I look at it differently: I don’t think it is the publishers’ money. I think it is Readability’s money. Readability invests the time and resources into developing their service and they are the ones who physically get users to pay a subscription fee. It’s hard to get users to pay for content and they are the ones who are actually doing it. They realize that the popularity of their service is a direct result of content creators’ efforts so they are voluntarily redistributing 70% of it back to publishers in the only way it is feasible to: based on pageviews from publishers who register themselves.

Very measured take from Davidson.

Speaking of killing blockbusters, my friend Pat Dryburgh made a short film called The Rose Is White, and it is excellent.

Watch it, then consider that they made this film in 62 hours. 62 hours. I love short films like these, that are actually telling a story about individuals (what a concept!), because it’s something Hollywood rarely does anymore. Most movies now tend to be about something greater, some disaster or big event happening in the world or superheroes or whatever. It’s rare to see a movie now that’s simply about people, and a story about them and their otherwise normal lives. They don’t have super powers, they aren’t involved in some fantastic conspiracy or disaster or world event, they’re just people trying to live their lives.

I’m attracted to stories like this because I think these sorts of stories ultimately tell us more about ourselves and our society than big movies do. I think we learn more from the micro level in film than we do the macro.

Matt Wigham, one of Big Cartel’s co-founders:

I want to challenge you to forget about the Hollywood dream of huge rounds of funding and giant acquisitions, and instead focus on building something you’re proud of. I think you’ll find that the joy of doing something you love, and the freedom to control the vision to be uniquely yours, is worth much more.

Make something with value.

Marcelo Somers:

Businesses big and small (yes, even you startups) continually focus on tasks and features. Iterating on new features. That’s great and can sustain businesses for years or even decades.

The problem is, the disruptive companies focus on experiences: people and activities.

When products are designed-by-feature, customers have to figure out how it fits in their lives. Well, if I use it to do this, it could be useful, or maybe this too. Oh, no, wait, that won’t work… Maybe this? But when they’re designed for experiences, they don’t need to go through that thought process, figuring out what purpose it serves for them—because it was designed to serve that purpose from the beginning, and it fits effortlessly into their lives.

Charles Arthur:

Android generated less than $550m in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011, if figures provided by the search giant as part of a settlement offer with Oracle ahead of an expected patent and copyright infringement trial are an accurate guide.

Ouch. Last December, I speculated that Android could be contributing as little as $833m in revenue to Google over the course of a year. Google just confirmed that estimate was wildly off—Android is contributing much less than my estimate.

Remind me again, please, what Android is providing Google? Because it certainly isn’t revenue from mobile devices. They have Apple to thank for that.

Paper is a new sketching app for the iPad:

The team spent months painstakingly figuring out how to emulate materials on a digital screen. For example, they had to understand how lead plays on the texture of paper, and how pen ink moves when you apply an artistic wrist flourish. Even more time was spent getting watercolor paint to bleed just right when you hold down your finger in place. Swipe your finger side to side quickly and the watercolor smudges like you’d expect it to. The point here is providing real tools to use every day while sketching, drawing, and creating — and to that extent FiftyThree has succeeded.

Looks fantastic.

An Iraqi woman was killed in San Diego after a note that called the family terrorists and told them to “go home” was placed on their door:

Ms. Alawadi’s husband, Kassim Alhimidi, says he wanted to call the police. But his wife said no, insisting the note was only a child’s prank. Like many others in the neighborhood, the couple were immigrants from Iraq. In 17 years in the United States, they had been called terrorists before, he said.

But last Wednesday, Ms. Alawadi was found in the family’s dining room by her 17-year-daughter, lying unconscious in a puddle of blood with a severe head wound. Nearby lay another threatening note, similar to the one the family found a week earlier.

Absolutely sickening and enraging. And unfortunately, this view—that Arab immigrants are not American and are even terrorists—isn’t rare. This is why, when we hear people saying things like that, the right thing to do isn’t to shrug it off. The right thing to do is to address it and call it what it is: racist bullshit.

Many of these families fled Iraq (and other Arab countries) because they were persecuted for being Christian, and now that they’re in a free country where we are all supposed to be free to practice whatever religion we please, they are facing discrimination like this. Shaima Alawadi lost her life, and her family lost a mother and wife, because they’re Arab.

Thanks to Pilotmoon Software for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

When Apple announced they were bringing iOS features “Back to the Mac” with OS X Lion (and doubled down on it with Mountain Lion), the iOS implementation of copy and paste was not included.

PopClip is a clever Mac app that brings iOS-style copy and paste to OS X, and raises the question of why Apple hasn’t done this already. If you’re curious as to how well it works, the answer is: pretty well. The most common sentiment in the user reviews is: “I’m hooked.”

If you have a Mac, you should check this out. You can download a free demo at Pilotmoon Software. The full version costs $4.99 on the Mac App Store.

Lyle Denniston:

If Justice Anthony M. Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government’s defense of the new individual health insurance mandate, or can think of one on his own, the mandate may well survive.  If he does, he may take Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and a majority along with him.  But if he does not, the mandate is gone.  That is where Tuesday’s argument wound up — with Kennedy, after first displaying a very deep skepticism, leaving the impression that he might yet be the mandate’s savior.

I wish I could have seen today’s oral arguments.