Will the robot news never cease?

The geniuses at the Pentagon are going to build robot soldiers that supposedly won't commit warcrimes.

Check out the photo at the top of the article. Now Skynet doesn't even have to create itself, we will do that oursevles.

You might want to check out this video for some good tips on how to get by.

More Good News

Apparently the criteria for the May 2009 internal assessment has been changed as well. You can take a look at the new criteria and see what has been done. The documents are called New portfolio criteria and New project criteria. Read through it and I will go over it in class.

For those of you working on the HL Extension I have also posted two presentations from another teacher about what to do in the interview and report. They are called PFXInterview and PFXReport. They have the main points and we can go over this in class as well.

We have some editing to do.

For the 12IB ITGS HL Students

I just read this at the OCC:

In terms of the Porfolio Extension pieces, are you having students provide a brief 100 word description prior to Criterion N? Do you think it's necessary? Charles Newman

Answer
Absolutely! I take up all offers that will maximise my students' marks and this is a big opportunity!

I did this last November and it was most successful. It meant that they didn't waste words in Criterion N writing introductory information that didn't gain marks. It also set the scene for the moderator who, unlike me, was not familiar with my students' topics.

To summarise for other teachers it is suggested that students:

Begin the Extension with an introduction (not part of the word count)
-Use the heading introduction
-Write no more than 100 words (otherwise they count!)
-State briefly the issue, and the stakeholders, as identified in criterion C
-State the interviewee(s), and justify their qualifications as a stakeholder Elizabeth

This is the first I have heard of it, but it seems that you are allowed to write introductions that are not part of the word count.

UBC Update

The reps from UBC and Toronto will be at our school on Tuesday at 8am. If you have applied get your documents together and get ready to present yourself.

If you want to meet either of the reps individually you must arrange it with me in advance. This will not be a full presentation, it is for interested students only.

This week in ITGS

For the seniors, you will be writing the Robotics essay question in your first class on either Sunday or Monday. The second class we will be watching the video The Intelligence Revolution from the BBC. It will be a good wrap up for this chapter.

For HL seniors, you need to have your interview subjects and questions settled before we break so that you can write the first draft over the break.

For the juniors, we will be covering software piracy this week. Both classes will include discussion and analysis. We will also be watching both parts of Steal This Film, it will give the other side of the downloading debate.

When we get back from break I am going to start a section on your internal assessment, so you will need to be thinking about choosing either HL or SL.

Tuesday we have a visit from the University College of Bahrain at 9:30. This will be during the period 2 12IB class. I also received an email from the UBC and Toronto reps. They are going o come on Tuesday as well, but just to meet with the students who are applying. If you want to be on this list let me know so I can arrange it for you.

I will see you all tomorrow.

Robots from China

This guy has a lot of free time on his hands.

Linux Rules

If you needed more proof, here it is.

The best part of the article is where the writer says

'You see, there are no Microsoft programming tools to write supercomputer compatible applications. That will come years from now with Visual Studio 2010 and when Microsoft's F# is more than a research project language. In short, Windows HPC isn't ready for prime time.'

Microsoft doesn't even have tools for developers at this point. Meanwhile, over 90% of the pros are using Linux.