4 ms·

Computer Science Unplugged

66 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

apotheon 17y ago
This is awesome. Seriously. Someone upvote this thing. I almost didn't see it under the mound of Erlang.
mgreenbe 17y ago
This is great. Computation exists outside of computers, and this seems like a great approach to highlight that idea. I only read http://csunplugged.com/~csunplug/programming-languages-0 http://csunplugged.com/~csunplug/programming-languages-0, but it gives a pretty good summary of the basic issues involved with programming a computer. The ideas are relevant and interesting, and the absence of an actual computer is barely noticed.
humbledrone 17y ago
Initially, I thought that the "unplugged" idea was kind of silly, but after I read about the parity check magic trick I changed my mind. What a good way to explain parity!
KiwiNige 17y ago
Reminds me if the time I was in as CS teachers office at uni getting course changes approved. Wasn't till after I left his office that I realized what was wrong with it. He didn't have a computer. He taught mostly post grad stuff, how to build a Turing Machine etc. that I never took so I didn't get around to finding out what he researched. Any way he managed to have a high level CS job with no computer in his office, well not in plain view anyway and certainly not the centre piece on his desk.
jhancock 17y ago
Certainly the best article on HN in the last 48 hours. Very cool stuff. In my part of the U.S., some public schools are talking about shortening the school week 4 days because of funding problems. I've been thinking about what kind of things I can do on a Friday to step in to teach if that happens. This is just the kind of thing that could work.
tdupree 17y ago
I was surprised to see that they have a very nice mobile version of their site for iPhone (and presumably others, although I only checked it on iPhone). This is a cool resource!
bwhite 17y ago
Awesome. Another great resource in this mold is the book The New Turing Omnibus by Dewdney. "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Dijkstra
dylanz 17y ago
What the... this is absolutely awesome. Showing some of these videos to my kids tomorrow!
gojomo 17y ago
Advanced students can move to the CARDIAC! http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/02/cardiac-paper-comput.html http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/02/cardiac-paper-comput.ht...
_sh 17y ago
Orthogonal to this is my all-time favourite, the paper enigma machine: http://mckoss.com/Crypto/Enigma.htm http://mckoss.com/Crypto/Enigma.htm More for teenagers than younger children, working with it highlights a lot of elements of cryptography. And its a real cipher, used by real Nazis! Also a great way to introduce Alan Turing.
xtho 17y ago
"Unplugged" in the sense of "page not found". Or am I missing something? When I open the homepage I get redirected to: http://csunplugged.com/de/home http://csunplugged.com/de/home that doesn't exist.
whimsy 17y ago
This was posted 498 days ago as well. Relevant comment page is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158948 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158948 I'm not saying a repost is bad. We clearly have a lot of new users from the last 500 days. However, it would be cool if there was a way to automatically see when a page got reposted, though, in case there was some interesting commentary that could be revived from the first time around. That sort of function could add value, I think. (This time around, it doesn't, really - only 5 comments with 7 karma between them.)

66 points by mbrubeck 17y ago

This is awesome. Seriously. Someone upvote this thing. I almost didn't see it under the mound of Erlang.

This is great. Computation exists outside of computers, and this seems like a great approach to highlight that idea. I only read http://csunplugged.com/~csunplug/programming-languages-0 http://csunplugged.com/~csunplug/programming-languages-0, but it gives a pretty good summary of the basic issues involved with programming a computer. The ideas are relevant and interesting, and the absence of an actual computer is barely noticed.

humbledrone 17y ago

Initially, I thought that the "unplugged" idea was kind of silly, but after I read about the parity check magic trick I changed my mind. What a good way to explain parity!

KiwiNige 17y ago

Reminds me if the time I was in as CS teachers office at uni getting course changes approved. Wasn't till after I left his office that I realized what was wrong with it. He didn't have a computer. He taught mostly post grad stuff, how to build a Turing Machine etc. that I never took so I didn't get around to finding out what he researched. Any way he managed to have a high level CS job with no computer in his office, well not in plain view anyway and certainly not the centre piece on his desk.

jhancock 17y ago

Certainly the best article on HN in the last 48 hours. Very cool stuff. In my part of the U.S., some public schools are talking about shortening the school week 4 days because of funding problems. I've been thinking about what kind of things I can do on a Friday to step in to teach if that happens. This is just the kind of thing that could work.

tdupree 17y ago

I was surprised to see that they have a very nice mobile version of their site for iPhone (and presumably others, although I only checked it on iPhone). This is a cool resource!

bwhite 17y ago

Awesome. Another great resource in this mold is the book The New Turing Omnibus by Dewdney. "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Dijkstra

dylanz 17y ago

What the... this is absolutely awesome. Showing some of these videos to my kids tomorrow!

gojomo 17y ago

Advanced students can move to the CARDIAC! http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/02/cardiac-paper-comput.html http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/02/cardiac-paper-comput.ht...

_sh 17y ago

Orthogonal to this is my all-time favourite, the paper enigma machine: http://mckoss.com/Crypto/Enigma.htm http://mckoss.com/Crypto/Enigma.htm More for teenagers than younger children, working with it highlights a lot of elements of cryptography. And its a real cipher, used by real Nazis! Also a great way to introduce Alan Turing.

xtho 17y ago

"Unplugged" in the sense of "page not found". Or am I missing something? When I open the homepage I get redirected to: http://csunplugged.com/de/home http://csunplugged.com/de/home that doesn't exist.

whimsy 17y ago

This was posted 498 days ago as well. Relevant comment page is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158948 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158948 I'm not saying a repost is bad. We clearly have a lot of new users from the last 500 days. However, it would be cool if there was a way to automatically see when a page got reposted, though, in case there was some interesting commentary that could be revived from the first time around. That sort of function could add value, I think. (This time around, it doesn't, really - only 5 comments with 7 karma between them.)