my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

Archive for the ‘education’ Category

David Monroe moved to Buffalo and found he missed rockwiki – the people’s guide to Rochester, NY – and decided the way to stop missing it was to create a similar resource for his new home town. He invited me and a few other people to help get it started, and you know how I feel about building new web sites to connect people!

In fact, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a wiki about Buffalo for a while now, but recently, when folks from out of town were going to visit me, they asked me for a list of things to do while in Buffalo, and my Google search didn’t find any one web site that was dedicated to an encyclopedic description of our fair city. So I was ready to help, and that day I set up the framework of a wiki site so that we can start filling in the blanks.

On his blog, David wrote:

To that end, I’ve started a Google Group http://groups.google.com/group/buffalo-wiki?hl=en that is made up of Buffalonians, and computer savvy folks from outside of Buffalo to create a wiki just like the one I know and love. So far, we have some excitement and interest. If you want to lend a hand, join the group and give your opinion.

What do you say, are you the wiki type? Want to start writing wiki entries about the Buffalo topics you love?

Well, what is a wiki type, anyway? To write entries for a wiki, you just need to know about your topic, you don’t have to be a computer nerd. You just log in, do your best writing, and then wait for someone else to come along and try to prove that they know even more about the topic than you do.

Just be sure to proofread your work carefully, because otherwise, you’ll be one of the writers we post about on ShamefulTypos.com.

In class today, we discussed how to write microcode to perform the operand ADD on our virtual Von Neumann-style CPU.

Just remember, that just because you have a register (the stack pointer) that says where to find your top of stack value, doesn’t mean that the value in your top-of-stack register actually equals the value in the top of the stack.

Know what I mean?

Can you imagine a different Buffalo with a downtown as vibrant as a huge university would make it? Can you imagine the number of bicycles–and bike taxis?

UB to build $30 million education center downtown
By Jay Rey 10/17/07

UB’s vision will help revitalize downtown
The University at Buffalo can’t change that it built a sprawling campus in Amherst instead of downtown, as some would have liked. But the school is making good on its word to expand its downtown presence.

I work on the west side (for my day job), but it’s pretty close to downtown, and I have said it many times: Wouldn’t it be a different Buffalo had the university built downtown instead of in the suburbs. I don’t see how they really get to keep the name BUFFALO since the majority of their campus is in Amherst. Same with the Bills. A downtown stadium would make sense, changing the name to the Orchard Park Bills would not.

The New York State Partnership for Walk Our Children to School is encouraging all schools to participate this autumn on Wednesday October 3rd in International Walk to School Day. This great event is working to join communities and children through a partnership that will create positive steps for change. Whether it’s through participating in the writing contest “Why the principal should walk to school with me” or the poster contest “Walking to School Safely” there are many simple and easy ways to get involved. Simply by registering your event at walktoschool.org/register/ your school is eligible to receive prizes for all student participants. Our goal is to:

• Develop life long safety habits for children,
• Promote the health benefits of walking and cycling,
• Create safe and more livable communities; and
• Spend healthy, active time with friends, family and the community!

Find out more about how encouraging walking and cycling to school can build quality of life in your community. For more information please visit: Safe Routes Partnership.org or NYS walks.org.

Click here to download the Art Contest form, and click here to download the writing contest form.

There was a stabbing at a local college this week, and it’s got me thinking: Where should students go if they find out there’s a mass-murderer loose on campus?

Buffalo State defends notice to students about stabbing
Says attack was ‘no imminent threat’

Buffalo State College administrators say they are satisfied with their decision to wait 11 hours to notify students by e-mail about an on-campus stabbing Monday night because there was “no imminent threat” to the campus community.

(Click here to read the full story at BuffaloNews.com.)

Let’s say they had LED billboards that they could update instantly, all over campus, and something bad happened like at Virginia Tech. What does the billboard tell people to do? Do buildings have bomb shelters students could use?