Apple Swift Programming Language Becomes Child’s Play

                                                             

When I first learnt coding in the late 1960s it was a long, tedious process. I was at a school which luckily had an “in” with the Victorian Education Department and Monash University to use Minitran, a cutdown version of the widely used Fortran programming language used for general scientific applications.

We’d start by breaking down the overall task into a series of steps, use a plastic flowchart template to create a logic diagram, translate it into code and then write the code across the top of pre-perforated cards. We’d then get paperclips and, in much the way you use them to open a SIM card tray, punch out the program statements, letter by letter.

We’d wrap the punched-out cards with rubber bands and they’d be sent in for processing. We’d get the results a week later. If you made mistakes and the program didn’t run, you’d resubmit it and wait another week. Needless to say we’d soon have several programs under development at the same time so when one was in error, others would come back working.

                                                            

 
Why this trip down memory lane? Because 47 years later, there are tools for kids learning to code that we could only dream about in 1969. And one of the most ingenious — called Swift Playgrounds for the iPad — is now available from the App Store in Australia.

I’ve been using Swift Playgrounds, and it’s like a game. It’s designed for the young but if you’ve never tried coding as an adult, it’s worth a shot. It features a penguin character called Byte and in “Learn to Code 1” you get to move Byte forward and left, collect gems and port instantly between locations by stringing together lines of code.

The code takes the form of instructions such moveForward(), turnLeft(), and collectGem() and when you run the code the little Byte character acts them out to the letter in a cartoon. If you fluff your code, you can fix it up and run it again — instantly.

“Learn to Code 2” introduces more demanding coding ideas and there’s several challenges you can try to hone your skills. It’s all completed on an iPad using a touch screen. Later on you build interactive text and graphics.

All along you are learning the basics of Apple’s Swift programming language used for building apps. In the end, you have the basics to go on and build your own apps for the iPhone, iPad and MacBook.

If you’re keen to use Apple’s code, there’s also the Code Swift app that gives examples of structuring Swift code and a Swift Compiler that compiles and runs Swift language programs on an iPad. It’s a case of searching the App Store. Being able to use code to create a cartoon movement sequence should appeal to kids.

Swift Playgrounds doesn’t have a monopoly on apps that use animation and games to help kids learn coding.

Tynker is a cross-platform app for iOS and Android that helps kids build apps for games, puzzles, interactive stories and animations. IOS has the Hopscotch app, which again sets out to explain to kids that coding starts with breaking an event into a sequence of commands. There’s Cargo-Bot and others. Apart from Tynker, Android has Run Marco, Hakitzu Elite, where coding is linked to gaming, and Lightbot.

With governments pushing for more science, technology, engineering and maths taught in classrooms, playing games that demystify coding will greatly help students. We live in a society increasingly dominated by technology and, while we’re savvy users, not so many of us are savvy at understanding the coding building blocks.

By Chris Griffith
With many thanks to The Australian

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English And Mathematics Are Being Sorely Neglected

Singapore High School Maths Problem Stumps The Internet - Goes Viral

 
                                                                 

The Perfectionist Trap

                                                           

With many thanks to TSOL: 

One of the greatest obstacles to a good life is the expectation of perfection. 

If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): http://bit.ly/2c8SGST

Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: http://bit.ly/2c1DdTq 

"We typically aim for a particular career because we have been deeply impressed by the exploits of the most accomplished practitioners in the field. We formulate our ambitions by admiring the beautiful structures of the architect tasked with designing the city’s new airport, or by following the intrepid trades of the wealthiest Wall Street fund manager, by reading the analyses of the acclaimed literary novelist or sampling the piquant meals in the restaurant of a prize-winning chef. We form our career plans on the basis of perfection.

Then, inspired by the masters, we take our own first steps and trouble begins. What we have managed to design, or make in our first month of trading, or write in an early short story, or cook for the family is markedly and absurdly, beneath the standard that first sparked our ambitions. We who are so aware of excellence end up the least able to tolerate mediocrity – which in this case, happens to be our own...."

You can read more on this article and other topics on our blog TheBookofLife.org at this link: http://bit.ly/2clTD85 
                     

                                                                  

More from Wiki:
             

Perfect is the enemy of good is an aphorism, an English variant of the older better is the enemy of good, which was popularized by Voltaire in French form. 

Alternative forms include "the perfect is the enemy of the good", which more closely translate French and earlier Italian sayings, or "[the] perfect is the enemy of [the] good enough". Similar sentiments occur in other phrases, including from English, and are all attested since around 1600.

The phrase is found in Italian as Il meglio è nemico del bene (The better is enemy of the good), attested since the 1603 Proverbi italiani (Italian Proverbs), by Orlando Pescetti.^[2]
The phrase was popularized by Voltaire. He first used the saying in Italian in the article "Art Dramatique" in the 1770 edition of the Dictionnaire philosophique.^[3] It subsequently appeared in French in his moral poem, "La Bégueule", in Contes (Tales), 1772, which starts, ascribing it to an unnamed "Italian sage" or "wise Italian":^[4]

Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien
Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

(In his writings, a wise Italian
says that the best is the enemy of good.)

This sentiment in English literature can be traced back to Shakespeare,^[5] In his tragedy, King Lear, the Duke of Albany warns of "striving to better, oft we mar what's well" and in Sonnet 103:

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?

A widely accepted interpretation of "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is that one might never complete a task if one has decided not to stop until it is perfect: completing the project well is made impossible by striving to complete it perfectly. Closely related is the Nirvana fallacy, in which people never even begin an important task because they feel reaching perfection is too hard.
An alternative interpretation is that attempts to improve something may actually make it worse. Neither the Shakespeare and Voltaire constructions suggest perfection, only improvement, lending support to this interpretation.

Earlier, Aristotle, Confucius and other classical philosophers propounded the related principle of the golden mean, which counsels against extremism in general.^[6]

      

The Pareto principle or 80–20 rule is a 20th-century analogue. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full-time to complete 80% of a task, while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort.^[7] Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficient.

Robert Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, propounded a "cult of the imperfect", which he described as, "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes."^[8]
[....]

       What Was the Enlightenment?                            
    
The Memory of Mankind Archive: The Greatest Time Capsule Ever                            

How Coloured Pencils Are Made

 Very interesting, especially for those now enjoying the resurgence of the colouring book.

I haven't heard of the brand above but I still have my set of Derwents.

                                                                 

As the last days of summer break dwindle away, students begin to mill through stores to stock up on back-to-school supplies and prepare for the upcoming academic year. But, one of our favorite writing utensils—the pencil—has a long journey before it is used in the classroom. 

Pencils travel down a winding factory production line to be shaped from slabs of wood, painted, and sharpened. In the video above, Axus, a stationery factory in Shanghai, China, reveals the steps of the precise process of constructing the perfect color pencil. 

The pencil production process actually begins outside the factory, where massive wooden logs are chopped into specifically proportioned “pencil blocks.” These are further reduced down to flat slats that are waxed and stained. 

At around 0:15 mark, you can see truckloads of the the rosé-colored slats make their way to the production line where thin grooves are curved. Lead cores fit snuggly inside the grooves before a second slat is glued on top. The lead-wood sandwiches are cut and shaped into the familiar slim, cylindrical shape of the pencil.    
At 1:34, you can watch rows of vibrantly colored pencils make their way to the end of the line. The final steps include stamping, painting, fastening erasers, sharpening, and packaging. These color pencils are ready to be used by students, artists, and office workers throughout Asia and Europe.

By Laren Young

With many thanks to Atlas Obscura 

Inside The Rainbow Factory: Where Crayola Crayons Are Made 

Insanely Realistic Pencil Drawings

The Colouring-in Book Craze Explained

The KARLBOX - Already A Waitlist For This $3,000 Set Of Colored Pencils

                                                                                                                                

Heteronyms

                                                                        

Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.

A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong for me to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?


Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France .. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. 

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. 

So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? 

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

 In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? 

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. 
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

People can be cool or hot - it means the same.


PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this.

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends.

And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.

People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special..

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.

In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.

It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP..

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for a while, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP.
For now my time is UP.

So.......it is time to shut UP!

Received via email.
Picture credit: Busy Teacher


See also 
Contronyms

Paraprosdokians

English And Mathematics Are Being Sorely Neglected

How English Gave Birth To Surprising New Languages

11 Inventors Who Became Nouns

Do All Languages Come From A Single Common Ancestor?

How English Gave Birth To Surprising New Languages

Can You Correctly Pronounce Every Word In This Poem?

He Named Me Malala - Review

                                                                   

This young girl has inspired millions. 

From her tragedy has come incredible achievements. 

The film is done in a way that works really well. Artistic animated images fill the parts that were no longer possible to film.

There is not a person who cannot learn something from her. 
She is highly intelligent,insightful and intuitive.


I was very impressed with her and her father. She is an excellent role model for young people, and older ones too!

Education is indeed the key to everything! 
She is a young girl who became a celebrity by accident, not by desire.
You can watch it here.

                                                                 

This Review by Jake Wilson from The SydneyMorning Herald

The word "inspirational" gets bandied around a lot, but it can safely be applied to Malala Yousafzai, the young Pashtun activist from north-west Pakistan who was shot in the head by the Taliban and survived. Now living with her family in Birmingham, she won the Nobel Peace Prize last year and continues to champion the cause of female education in the Muslim world and elsewhere.

Since her arrival in Britain, Malala has been courted by Western politicians of all stripes, even if her views on US foreign policy – drone strikes in particular – don't entirely line up with those of the White House. At the age of 18, she's also a fully fledged celebrity who has appeared on the cover of Time, enjoyed a well-publicised chat with Justin Bieber, and recently turned up on the Late Show demonstrating card tricks to Stephen Colbert.

The fullest account of Malala's career to date appears in her 2013 autobiography I Am Malala, co-written by the British foreign correspondent Christina Lamb. This documentary by the American director Davis Guggenheim – best-known for the environmentalist polemic An Inconvenient Truth – goes over much of the same ground, without supplying the same amount of detail. It does, however, succeed in conveying the lively personality of its subject, an extremely likeable young woman with a big lopsided smile, an easy laugh and a challenging look in her eyes: in short, anything but a goody-two-shoes figurehead.

Some of Guggenheim's footage seems meant to show that Malala at heart remains an ordinary teenage girl: we see her squabbling with her brothers, watching cartoons on her laptop, and giggling as she's teased about her celebrity crushes (who include Roger Federer and Brad Pitt). But none of this quite rings true, any more than we can believe the Pakistani critics who claim Malala is merely parroting the views of her father and role model, Ziauddin, a former schoolteacher who now works as an adviser to the UN. It's hard to imagine that Malala was ever "ordinary" in any sense, even if other girls might have spoken out as boldly with a Ziauddin to encourage them.

The truth seems to be that Malala is both a genuinely remarkable individual and a symbol of collective feelings much bigger than herself; arguably this could be said about most celebrities, but the contrasts of scale in Malala's case are a little more dramatic. Without taking anything away from her achievements, there's something absurd in the notion of any teenager winning a Nobel Prize – or failing to win and then struggling to conceal disappointment.

Considered strictly as filmmaking, He Named Me Malala is no more distinguished than the rest of Guggenheim's work. The narrative moves back and forth between Malala's present-day life and her childhood in Pakistan. Interludes of kitschy animation, created digitally with a simulated watercolour look, make the earlier period resemble a gradually darkening fairytale. The shooting and its aftermath are saved for the climax, which tastelessly uses shadowy, out-of-focus photography to simulate Malala's perspective as she hovers on the brink of death.

As the title He Named Me Malala suggests, this isn't only a film about Malala: her parents are equally intriguing, and in some ways more puzzling. Ziauddin is ready to burst with pride in his daughter, yet feels understandable guilt over the consequences of her following in his footsteps; still, this hasn't deterred him from supporting her desire to speak out. Malala's mother, Toor Pekai, is a more conservative, recessive figure, but her near-invisibility makes a statement in itself. She seems reluctant to be photographed at all, leaving you wondering what she thinks about Malala's very different path.

Plainly, Malala is her father's daughter, but she has also inherited some of her mother's reserve. "You don't like to talk about your suffering," Guggenheim says, and suddenly she loses her usual chattiness, uneasily rubbing her chin and agreeing she doesn't have much to say. If Guggenheim is aiming for a scene of tearful catharsis here, he doesn't get it. While Malala bears a deceptive resemblance to a typical 21st-century celebrity, she and her family remain part of a culture far removed from the confessional ethos of reality TV. Perhaps this in itself is one of the secrets of her charm.

                                                                

                                
See also

Malala Yousafzai Quotes: Heartwarming,Thoughtful and Inspirational!    
                                                               
Related: Jonathan Yeo:Try Bonding With Baby After A Facelift 

The Nobel Prizes In Numbers