Author: Roland Roberts

I recently picked up an older Thinkpad T400 that had Windows 7 installed. After a bit of angst, I went ahead with my plan to scrub the disk and install Fedora 21. Why the angst? Well, I had originally thought of using Windows 7 32-bit to control my older Canon Digital Rebel XT cameras. They are …

Testing Astro Video Capture in LinuxRead More

The authors point to teaching programming languages as opposed to logic as being a seriously weak spot in computer science education. While the “Hour of Code” has a lot of appeal and can introduce people to computing, they point out that new computing languages are continuously being developed to try to solve new problems. They …

Teach Foundational Language Principles (CACM May 2015, pp 30-31)Read More

This article initally caught my attention with it’s graphic and caption “SCIENCE:Gravity makes haveier things fall faster.” The author goes on to recount her experience with just such a poster in a local elementary science fair and her lack of success in having it taken down. The point: we have started pushing instruction of computing …

Education: What Are We Doing When We Teach Computing in Schools? (CACM May 2015, pp24-26)Read More

This has nothing to do with astronomy at all, but I can’t find a good place to save this information. So… If you’re trying to install Oracle’s Java on Fedora, after you’ve done,so, the following will set up all of the alternatives links you want/need alternatives –install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/latest/jre/bin/java 200000 \ –slave /usr/bin/jcontrol jcontrol …

Really installing Oracle Java on FedoraRead More

A lot of the incoming RSS feeds were dead, so I spent a couple of hours today to find replacements. This is as much for me as for you so I have one place to go for my space and astronomy news. I need to put togther another physics set of feeds, too, then I’m …

Feeds UpdatedRead More

I’ve clearly been on a long hiatus from posting here, largely because life has a way to doing that to you from time to time…. I’ve still be out doing some observing, playing with equipment, and more. But I have two teenage boys now and have taken on the role of Scoutmaster in a local …

So what exactly has happened to this site….Read More

The first talk I attended had Steven Pruitt, a representative from Achieve Inc., and Juan Carlos Aguilar, from the Georgia Department of Education. I won’t bore you with all my notes on the talk, but there were a couple of interesting points made which warrant some comments. Pruitt pointed out that the Process Skills descriptions …

NSTA STEM Expo 2013: Common Core and the NGSSRead More

I spent three days at the NSTA STEM Expo in St. Louis last week and over the next few days, I’m going to try to do a few posts related to the sessions I attended and things I learned (and cool freebies I learned about on the web). This is the second year I’ve attended, …

NSTA STEM Expo 2013Read More

It’s that time again. Actually, Globe At Night is running multiple campaigns, the first is going on right now, but there are others later in the year including later this month. Have a look. If you’ve never done this before, it’s a great way of participating in a citizen science project, learning a little about …

Globe At NightRead More

Well, our post-Sandy migration is nominally complete at this point. Pictures and all.