What has happened to online programming courses?

We all know that Stack Overflow usage has tanked, but what has happened to online programming courses? I assume there was a dip, but is it rising again now that junior programmers are seeing their career hitting a wall?

How AI Impacts Skill Formation

I finally got around to reading the paper How AI Impacts Skill Formation last night. The data is from a very small group of participants, but this is common for these kinds of studies. The summary is that the struggle to understand is necessary even for short term recall. The interaction patterns listed on pages 12-14 are useful, especially so for mentoring and self-learning.

I liked this exoskeleton analogy

For data science tasks, Wiles et al. described the impact of AI on non-technical consultants as an “exoskeleton”, the enhanced technical abilities enabled by AI did not persist when workers no longer had access to AI.

Also fascinating is that in the pilot study some 25% of participants surreptitiously used AI even thou they were told not too. Cheating really is endemic.

Visualization at the edge between intuitive and training

I've had a long term interest in visualization -- mostly implementing other people's designs. I don't believe that all visual tools need to be intuitive; many will need training to use effectively. I think this one is on the edge between intuitive and training needed.

This Widget Forces You to Think - YouTube

Preparing "Approval Tests" for refactoring Python

Emily Bache's short example of preparing "Approval Tests" for refactoring Python code is very good. Not only for the approach, but also for how advanced IDEs like PyCharm greatly support developers common editing and refactoring needs.

Reaction: Arjan Codes wrote tests the HARD way - My way is BETTER - YouTube

Don't look up

If you live in RI your home's electric meter was recently replaced to enable remote access. I have wondered how secure is that remote access? While this presentation does not address the electric meter, it does address how much of our satellite infrastructure is unsecured and accessible with cheap hardware. The presentation is about the available downlink data, but note the presenter's off-hand comment that if you fly a drone between the uplink site and the satellite you could likely gather the uplink data.

39C3 - Don’t look up: There are sensitive internal links in the clear on GEO satellites - YouTube

Liberalism doesn’t necessarily maintain itself

At dinner last night a friend's comment about "being right and being ignored" reminded me (somehow) of this conversation between Cass Sunstein and Tyler Cowen

In particular,

COWEN: Now, your new book On Liberalism is primarily a defense of the liberal concept, but if someone asks you, what’s the most likely scenario for liberalism being self-undermining, what’s your worry?

SUNSTEIN: Low probability. The likelihood is that we’ll be undermined by anti-liberal and illiberal forces, not self-undermining. I think it’s fair to say or to worry that liberalism doesn’t create the conditions for its own self-perpetuation, so it’s not as if it’s self-undermining, but it doesn’t necessarily maintain itself [emphasis added]. The reason is that a society that is flourishing needs a lot of stuff in it, including norms of cooperation, norms of charity, norms of mutual support. Liberalism, in my view, doesn’t undermine those things, but other forces can undermine them, and it’s not clear liberalism has the resources to respond.

Given the times we are in, I do very much worry about our not having the resources to respond.

I enjoy the "Conversations with Tyler" podcast. The participants mostly assume you know what they know and, since I don't, this results in me very often pausing the audio and searching for a primer on what was just said.

Multi-Terra Helio Cell Vehicle

My children would have loved this Multi-Terra Helio Cell Vehicle 407 cockpit control. I especially like the addition of the fans!