Reflections on being a Teaching Assistant - Grading

Grading is a very strange subject for me. On the one hand, I want all of the students I help to teach to succeed. On the other hand, sometimes the code that they hand in makes me cringe. If that just comes from experience or because it is just that bad, I have yet to find out. It is still a little weary for me to be controlling so many student's grades. I think the worst part about it is that since I am not the one to be coming up with the rubric, I don't always know how much things should be docked for.

That in mind, it always strikes me as irksome when I see students with code that clearly has not been tested. Even the times where I have had to throw something together at the last minute, I have the forethought to make sure that it will at least work to some extent. I know this isn't always the case for some students, if that is because they just legitimately hit a roadblock or something, but sometimes you can just tell.

I will say that I have found the work to be very insightful, as it has made me come to realize some of the bad coding practices that I still have to work on. For that I can be thankful I suppose.

News - Hacker's claims of Hacking Plane Disproven

In recent news, it came up that Chris Roberts, founder of security intelligence company One World Labs, had found a way to hack an airplane from inside the plane. This story has been circulating for a few days now, but it stands to reason that it is probably for the best that this came up as a false flag rather than anything else. As an avid flier, it would make my trans-national flights so much more annoying if I suddenly wasn't allowed to use devices on them because of a scare like this.With that in mind, it does stand to reason that this will probably still make transit companies look into increasing the security of their systems, which is an overall net positive.

Lit Review 5: FOSS Primer Trademark

This time we are heading back to the FOSS primer to take a look at Chapter 5!

Who:

The GPL Guide was written by Bradley M. Kuhn, Anthony K. Sebro Jr., and Denver Gingerich

What:

Where:

The document can be found Here

When:

2008

The Gist:

This chapter is all about trademarks and using them properly.

The Good:

• Very clear and concise
• Talks about actually applying for a trademark

The Bad:

• Not much in the way of defending oneself
• Doesn't really factor in anything outside US law, though that makes sense

Any Questions?

• What counts as being thorough?
•  What counts a Brand Confusion?

In Conclusion:

Overall a very good chapter, as expected of most of the Primer. It serves a needed service and is good to know. 9/10

Lit Review 9: Production Democratization

This time we are taking a look at an economics paper showing the value of Free and Open Source Software!

Who:

Joshua Pierce

What:

An economics paper showing the value of FOSS

Where:

It can be found Here

When:

December 2014

The Gist:

The paper basically tries to show the use of FOSS and FOSH as cost saving measures by showing what you can do with 3d printing a pump

The Good:

• Good Technical example of FOSS work for use in statistics
• Shows positive use for 3D-printing

The Bad:

• Equations can be a little difficult to follow
• Not sure if the data is entirely accurate

Any Questions?

• Are there other case studies where 3D-printing would have as strong an impact?
• How does economics actually work, because every time I see something, I just become more confused

In Conclusion:

Overall a difficult read with an interesting premise. I don't know if I am really the best person to judge though. 7/10.

Profile 4 Presentation: OWASP

mtubinis and I worked together on this presentation. I really like the idea of OWASP, even if I don't fully understand all of the work that they put into everything.

Profile 4 Presentation

Profile 3 Presentation: Indiegogo

mtubinis and I worked on this presentation. Indiegogo was fairly strange. I don't think I personally will ever use the service.

Profile 3 Presentation

Profile 2 Presentation: Lantern

mtubinis and I worked on this one. I still enjoy the fact that we actually did the wrong start-up for this because of them both having the same name and broad idea

Profile 2 Presentation