This isn't Python-related, but things have been quiet here lately and I
figure we can spare the bandwidth. . .
I'm really excited about the upcoming Jeopardy! shows next week
(Mon-Wed) with champion human players facing off against IBM's Watson.
It's been a great opportunity to get students to think about what
Moore's law means, and how computer technology is likely to affect their
lives over the next few decades. Obviously the IBM hype machine is in
overdrive, but I think they've earned the right.
In my class, we were just discussing how chips are not getting faster
these days because of thermal problems, but are still getting more
powerful in their ability to do parallel computation, and what that
means. IBM has a very good not-too-technical video on their site about
how this applies to their system
http://www-943.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/what-is-watson/a-system-designed-for-answers.html
There's also an episode of PBS's Nova about Watson that aired earlier
this week, available on-line:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html
I know that my kids are always surprised and excited to see stuff that
we do in class have some relevance in the real world, and this is the
best alignment I've ever encountered.
Thanks,
Andy
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