college attracts female software engineers

4.3: news.cyb/dev.py/
college attracts female software engineers:
. after switching to an easy programming language
(going from Java to Python)
Mudd college is attracting many more females
into their computer science programs .
David MacQuigg:
edu-sig@python.org/transforming CS at Harvey Mudd/5:40 PM:

Excellent article.  It is good to see the revolution
moving forward in at least a few schools.
Khan Academy is also adding CS.
This is very encouraging.
When I read the headline
"Giving Women the Access Code",
I was worried that it sounded like a
watered-down course for women.
It's not that at all.
It's the guys that need to change their attitude.
When I see our introductory class
with 220 freshmen in a course on C,
2/3 of whom will be "washed out" by next year,
I wonder how many of them will go on to be
leaders in law, politics, even technology.
What will be the impact of their lack of
understanding or appreciation of what us techies do.
It's no wonder engineers are not even in the room
when important decisions are made.

my response:
. the article he refers to said women got interested
in a computer science program
after the program shifted its focus:

"(. this course isn't about wrestling with
monster languages like Java or C;
we use an easy language like Python
so you can get on with what's important:
getting your machine to do more of your job .)

I think he goes on to say:
. so many of tomorrow's leaders
are being put off by the monster languages;
and, they are destined thereafter to have
little understanding or appreciation
of what techies[automators] do.
(make the world a more efficient place).
. engineers are not invited to requirements meetings?
I don't think it's because of a lack of
understanding or appreciation of what techies do;
rather, the psychology of leadership
includes something like computer science's
Principle of Least Priviledge:
the safest and simplest way to conduct business
is to develop modules with clean, minimal interfaces:
that means interfaces that don't include
inputs a module doesn't need .
. engineers may prefer having a say in their job,
but an engineer's performance should not require that,
unless it's a very new technology,
in which case the mgt has no idea what is possible
without the engineer's input .
. what's missing from an optimal world
is making everyone fluent in their ability to
automate or precisely document their job;
and, I think moving to Python
is a step in the right direction .

Pisa's Valdera Polo Sant'Anna School` bionic arm

12.5: news.adds/cyborganics/Pisa's Valdera Polo Sant'Anna School` bionic arm:

Man controls cybernetic hand with thoughts

Crave Dec. 2, 2009

A brain-controlled bionic hand attached to an amputee's nervous system

via electrodes implanted into the remaining part of his left arm

has been developed by scientists at Pisa's Valdera Polo Sant'Anna School.

The patient was able to experience sensations when grasping and making a fist.

Man controls cybernetic hand with thoughts

European scientists have successfully built a brain-controlled bionic hand

allowing amputees to feel hand sensations

and manipulate their limb--via the brain--as if it were still there.

Pierpaolo Petruzziello--who lost his arm under the elbow in a car crash several years ago

--has done just that, Italy's University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome announced Wednesday.

The biometric hand was developed at

Pisa's Valdera Polo Sant'Anna School

and surgically attached to Petruzziello's nervous system

via electrodes implanted into the remaining part of his left arm,

meaning the robotic body part was actually like an extension of his body.

After the surgery at the University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome in November 2008,

it took Petruzziello just days to start using the device.

During the LifeHand trial, which lasted a month,

Petruzziello, 26, was able to experience sensations when

grasping, making a fist, ...

The responses from the hand to commands sent from the brain were 95 percent correct,

Paolo Maria Rossini, head of neurology for the project, said Wednesday.

The next step, which is still at least a couple of years away,

is to work out a more long-term experiment that would hopefully lead to

cybernetic arms like the LifeHand as a viable option for amputees.

The EU has spent $3 million and five years on the project so far,

cyborganics

11.21: news.adds/cyborganics/Chips in brains will control computers by 2020:

Computerworld, Nov. 19, 2009

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer,

say Intel Corp. researchers,

who are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology

into a headset that culd be used to manipulate a computer,

working with associates at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Their next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor

that could be implanted inside the brain.