Today’s Tech Tuesday will let you in on a bit of computer science secret language. Sometimes when discussing a solution to a problem an engineer will say something like “that’s too slow – it’s O of n squared” (that’s the letter “O” not a zero). What does it mean? Well it is a shorthand way of describing the growth behavior in the time or space required by an algorithm as n (the number of things we are processing) grows large. More formally it is known as “Big O Notation.” As we have seen in t...

Today’s Tech Tuesday will let you in on a bit of computer science secret language. Sometimes when discussing a solution to a problem an engineer will say something like “that’s too slow – it’s O of n squared” (that’s the letter “O” not a zero). What does it mean? Well it is a shorthand way of describing the growth behavior in the time or space required by an algorithm as n (the number of things we are processing) grows large. More formally it is known as “Big O Notation.” As we have seen in t...

For the New Year, I tweeted that we should “ll work together in 2014 to keep the Internet open for the benefit of humankind everywhere." That couldn’t be any more pressing as there is a full scale assault under way and we don’t seem to be doing much about it. First, thanks to Edward Snowden we have a much better view into the extent of domestic and international surveillance activities. The non-democratic ultra-secret and blackhat based approach taken by the NSA has done much to undermine the...

For the New Year, I tweeted that we should “ll work together in 2014 to keep the Internet open for the benefit of humankind everywhere." That couldn’t be any more pressing as there is a full scale assault under way and we don’t seem to be doing much about it. First, thanks to Edward Snowden we have a much better view into the extent of domestic and international surveillance activities. The non-democratic ultra-secret and blackhat based approach taken by the NSA has done much to undermine the...

Here on Continuations I have covered a lot of seemingly disparate topics such as the end of work, government surveillance and the digital balkans. They are, however, all part of my fascination with the transition from the industrial age to the information age. While that latter term was coined all the way back in the 1960s, there is reason to believe that the transition is beginning to happen now. Today I want to provide a large scale historical context, taking us all the way back to hunter g...

Here on Continuations I have covered a lot of seemingly disparate topics such as the end of work, government surveillance and the digital balkans. They are, however, all part of my fascination with the transition from the industrial age to the information age. While that latter term was coined all the way back in the 1960s, there is reason to believe that the transition is beginning to happen now. Today I want to provide a large scale historical context, taking us all the way back to hunter g...

Today we will be filing our quarterly reports with the New York City Department of Education. In addition to the Individualized Home Instruction Plan (or IHIP), quarterly reports are one of the legal requirements for homeschooling in New York. The report that we actually send in to the DOE is the minimal one possible by law – essentially an affirmation that the children are progressing well. But for ourselves and for the kids we pull together a detailed report from all their tutors. So just l...

Today we will be filing our quarterly reports with the New York City Department of Education. In addition to the Individualized Home Instruction Plan (or IHIP), quarterly reports are one of the legal requirements for homeschooling in New York. The report that we actually send in to the DOE is the minimal one possible by law – essentially an affirmation that the children are progressing well. But for ourselves and for the kids we pull together a detailed report from all their tutors. So just l...

At DLD earlier this week I gave a talk that’s an illustrated and expanded version of my recent blog post about Entering the Information Age. And here are the slides, including a final slide with image credits (most images come form flickr are CC licensed): Looking forward to comments and suggestions. I am planning to expand this material over the coming weeks and months.

At DLD earlier this week I gave a talk that’s an illustrated and expanded version of my recent blog post about Entering the Information Age. And here are the slides, including a final slide with image credits (most images come form flickr are CC licensed): Looking forward to comments and suggestions. I am planning to expand this material over the coming weeks and months.

We live in the Chelsea part of Manhattan, which in turn is part of New York City, one of the iconic cities of the US and arguably the world. We have exactly one broadband provider available at our address. There is zero competition. Never mind an oligopoly or a duopoly. Broadband for us is a monopoly. And that’s exactly why net neutrality matters, as much of the US finds itself in a similar situation. A competition based solution to net neutrality is simply not possible given the current mark...

We live in the Chelsea part of Manhattan, which in turn is part of New York City, one of the iconic cities of the US and arguably the world. We have exactly one broadband provider available at our address. There is zero competition. Never mind an oligopoly or a duopoly. Broadband for us is a monopoly. And that’s exactly why net neutrality matters, as much of the US finds itself in a similar situation. A competition based solution to net neutrality is simply not possible given the current mark...

One of the great opportunities in homeschooling is the amazing access that now exists to classes online. Whether it is EdX, Coursera or Skillshare, there is a wealth of classes and it is growing seemingly by the hour. One advantage of this emerging system that I had not considered before is that they are largely age agnostic. Two of our children are taking courses right now where I suspect that they are on the younger end of the range of participants. But nobody knows that and as a result the...

One of the great opportunities in homeschooling is the amazing access that now exists to classes online. Whether it is EdX, Coursera or Skillshare, there is a wealth of classes and it is growing seemingly by the hour. One advantage of this emerging system that I had not considered before is that they are largely age agnostic. Two of our children are taking courses right now where I suspect that they are on the younger end of the range of participants. But nobody knows that and as a result the...

Having grown up in Germany, I am well acquainted with “Datenschutz” or literally “data protection” – a set of attitudes, laws and regulations around how companies should deal with data collected from individuals. In the wake of the NSA disclosures there has been a lot of debate about how to further strengthen these protections. Much of this is well meaning but it seems to me a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. We can never perfectly protect data nor should we ...

Having grown up in Germany, I am well acquainted with “Datenschutz” or literally “data protection” – a set of attitudes, laws and regulations around how companies should deal with data collected from individuals. In the wake of the NSA disclosures there has been a lot of debate about how to further strengthen these protections. Much of this is well meaning but it seems to me a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. We can never perfectly protect data nor should we ...

In the last two Tech Tuesdays, I introduced the topic of computational complexity. Today as promised I want to dig a bit deeper into the question of best, average and worst case complexity. The canonical example used for this is sorting. For simplicity we will assume that we are sorting a list of numbers. Several different sorting algorithms have been developed over the years that go by fun names such as Insertion Sort, Quicksort and even Bubble Sort (here is a past Tech Tuesday three-part in...

In the last two Tech Tuesdays, I introduced the topic of computational complexity. Today as promised I want to dig a bit deeper into the question of best, average and worst case complexity. The canonical example used for this is sorting. For simplicity we will assume that we are sorting a list of numbers. Several different sorting algorithms have been developed over the years that go by fun names such as Insertion Sort, Quicksort and even Bubble Sort (here is a past Tech Tuesday three-part in...

One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that it allows for fine grained quality control. With a school you are getting a complete bundle and if the math teacher is no good in a particular grade you are basically out of luck. In homeschooling on the other hand you can switch to a new method, try a different course, add or remove a tutor, etc. This is incredibly empowering not just for us as parents but also for our kids as we involve them deeply in this process. One might at first suspect...

One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that it allows for fine grained quality control. With a school you are getting a complete bundle and if the math teacher is no good in a particular grade you are basically out of luck. In homeschooling on the other hand you can switch to a new method, try a different course, add or remove a tutor, etc. This is incredibly empowering not just for us as parents but also for our kids as we involve them deeply in this process. One might at first suspect...