The Stranger reviews Orkestar Zirkonium’s new album “Too Hot for Sleep”:
“Orkestar Zirkonium is a 13-piece marching band with bouncy tuba rhythms, circus-y horn flourishes, and a killer clarinetist ([UW CSE Ph.D. alum] Kevin Hinshaw) who sounds like he’s been airlifted from a concert of Rhapsody in Blue and dropped into a Bulgarian brass band playing around a campfire.”
Read the review here. Learn about Orkestar Zirkonium here. Buy the album here. Read Dan Savage’s latest column about Rick Santorum here. Read more →
The Seattle Times reports on a new study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education that highlights Washington State’s lack of bachelors capacity, which “forces employers to go out of state — and even out of the country — to find skilled workers.” The report “puts the blame largely on state leadership — especially Gov. Chris Gregoire, but also state legislators — for what the authors call a ‘policy leadership vacuum.'” The authors also “noted Washington’s four-year schools have high graduation rates compared with their peers in other states, and costs still are relatively low, meaning the system is fairly efficient.”
Seattle Times article here.
Executive summary of the Penn report here (pdf). Full report here (pdf). Presentation graphics here (pdf).
Grim data on STEM education at all levels in Washington State here (pdf). Read more →
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat writes:
“It doesn’t take college-level math to figure that a growing state also needs to continually expand its college system. So why not try what New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did? Throw out a little carrot. See who would compete to build a new college here.”
UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska responds:
“Here’s the conundrum:
“Public universities have traditionally been ‘accessible’ in two important respects: they are large, and they have low tuition (supplemented by public funds).
“Private universities have traditionally been ‘inaccessible’ in two important respects: they are small, and they have high tuition …
“From an ‘innovation engine’ point of view, it would be fantastic to have a great private graduate technology university here. That’s what New York was after. From an ‘educational access’ point of view, though, it would be unlikely to be helpful …
“The tragedy is that in Washington, and across the nation, the ‘contract’ under which the public supported a strong college education for smart kids regardless of means is being broken.” Read more →
UW CSE Affiliate Professor Alon Halevy, who leads the Structured Data Group of Google Research in Mountain View, California, has been moonlighting for the past few years as a coffee aficionado. The result of this effort is a just-published book, The Infinite Emotions of Coffee. Alon will discuss the book on Thursday January 12 at 10:30 in CSE 691 (the Bill & Melinda Gates Commons).
Based on travel to over 30 countries on 6 continents, Alon tells of the latest and greatest in the coffee world, and explains why a database researcher felt the need to venture on such a journey. The Infinite Emotions of Coffee provides a contemporary prism of the drink that so much of the world takes for granted every morning.
Halevy’s travels shed light on how coffee has shaped and is influenced by different cultures through the bean’s centuries-spanning journey of serendipity, intrigue, upheavals, revival, romance and passion. With more than three years of field research, over 180 color photographs, and richly illustrated infographics, this book is an immersive experience that brings alive the enduring allure of coffee and the nuanced emotions of both tradition-bound and avant-garde café cultures.
Written in an engaging narrative, this travelogue entertains through numerous coffee-related tales from around the world. It celebrates all parts of the inextricably linked global coffee ecosystem, from growers, importers, and roasters to baristas and consumers. Readers will learn about the rich, mysterious and often amusing history of coffee; discover the latest hotbeds of coffee and the complex issues facing the coffee industry today; and meet the worldwide network of inspiringly spirited and passionately committed professionals whose relentless pursuit of excellence are pushing coffee to unprecedented levels of quality.
Join us on Thursday January 12 at 10:30 in CSE 691! Read more →
“Lakeside School in Seattle produced a couple of the most famous computer scientists in the world four decades ago, and the subject is still an important one for many students at the school today. One reason is Lakeside computer science faculty member Lauren Bricker, our latest Geek of the Week.
“The University of Washington computer science alum thinks of herself as a ‘geek generator,’ as she explains in her answers to our questions below. Continue reading for more about Bricker, as well as her insights from the front lines of computer science education — including her advice to aspiring computer scientists and her thoughts on getting more women involved in the field.”
This is a superb interview. Read it here. Read more →
UW CSE is one of two dozen “Pacesetter” organizations of the National Center for Women in Information Technology – a fast-track program in which senior executives from universities and corporations commit to increasing their numbers of technical women by working to recruit previously untapped talent pools of technical women and retain women who are at risk of leaving, resulting in “net new” women for their organizations.
In the “Sit With Me” series of video interviews, representatives of the Pacesetter organizations, including UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska, discuss their organizations’ commitments to the goals of NCWIT. See Lazowska’s interview here. Check out the entire Sit With Me series here. Read more →
UW CSE undergraduate Sanjana Prasain is interviewed by RNIB Insight Radio in connection with her research on providing transit information to blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind users.
“A student from the University of Washington has developed an application which could dramatically improve the experience of blind bus users.”
RNIB, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, is the UK’s leading charity offering information, support and advice to almost two million people in the region with sight loss.
Listen to the podcast here. Read more →
An India Abroad cover story on UW CSE/EE’s MacArthur Award winner Shwetak Patel discusses Shwetak’s formative years in Birmingham, Alabama. Then there’s the bit about how he proposed to UW HCDE and iSchool professor Julie Kientz:
“He proposed to her at a ski resort in January of 2009, near Mt Rainier. The two sat down on the side of the slope overlooking Mt. Rainier.
“‘He then popped the question; he still had his snowboard gear on, so there wasn’t much kneeling involved,’ she added. ‘He didn’t have the real ring yet, since his dad had just come back from India with it, so he had secretly grabbed a ring from my jewelry box to propose with. Little did he know, it was actually a toe ring! How romantic!'”
Read more here (pdf)!
(Will this be our final 2011 post about Shwetak? Stay tuned …) Read more →
Prism, the flagship publication of the American Society for Engineering Education, features the teaching of UW CSE/EE’s Shwetak Patel:
“The 50 students who enrolled in Shwetak Patel’s Embedded Microcomputer Systems class last winter could not have expected to draw a public spotlight. But once they rose to his challenge, building and programming controllers for a fleet of remotely piloted quadrocopters, a video of their drones’ successful flight leapt from YouTube into the local media.
“Engaging students in exciting practical applications is the best way to teach advanced engineering concepts, argues Patel, a three-year assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington. Taking cues from his own research, … Patel overhauled the traditional platform for an embedded systems class. Instead of working with small motors and LEDs, he had students tackle the four-rotor helicopter drones project… Captivated, the students taught themselves concepts outside the scope of their coursework – a professor’s dream come true.”
Read more of this terrific article here. Read more →
MSNBC asks readers to vote among “11 scientific twists from 2011.”
Two are from the field of computer science: Watson’s Jeopardy! triumph, and the cracking of a decade-old AIDS-related protein structure problem by players of UW CSE’s Foldit game.
Read the article here. And vote! Read more →
