Jamey Erickson from Sevnthsin stopped by last week to talk about the exploration of space and a high flying project he and some friends – including Nerdery Nerd John Heimkes - are working on to send a rocket into space. Above is a video of his talk. You can find more information about his project on http://ison.sevnthsin.com/.
You’ve no doubt listened to, or at least heard of author Neil Gaiman’s commencement address to The University of the Arts Class of 2012, right? Well, now someone has taken his advice and made good art out of it.
Head over to Zen Pencils to read the full comic.
The following is a true story.
Before one of our account execs was up-to-speed on all the tech tools of our trade, a potential client called asking if we did Drupal. This rep – let’s call him Brendan – said indeed we did, and then padded his claim by adding that he sat just down the hall from Donnie Drupal.
This was about four years ago; now, there’s still no Donnie Drupal – but we truly do have 24 Drupal Nerds, including Frost and Will, hosts of The Nerdery’s next webinars about a robust, open source CMS we like to call Drupal (OK, everyone calls it Drupal).
RSVP for one of two free webinars, Tuesday, June 5 at 10:15 a.m. CDT, or on Thursday, June 7 at 3:15 p.m. CDT to learn what to consider when considering Drupal.
We’ll cover the types of organizations using Drupal, why it’s popular, and how it stacks up against other content management systems. We’ll demo how to apply themes and install modules, and we’ll show examples of sites using social media integration, multiple languages, and Drupal commerce.
We’ll look to Drupal’s future with advances in mobile, possible advantages within the Symfony framework, and we may even spill some beans on the recent firsthand hacking we did on Drupal 8 as hosts of the Twin Cities DrupalCamp sprints.
Bring an open mind, provocative questions and Donnie D himself.
Show Notes:
Responsive Tables http://css-tricks.com/responsive-data-table-roundup/
To access the library of past Nerdery Primers, check out Vimeo and SlideShare. Stay tuned to blog.nerdery.com or send an email to primers@nerdery.com to learn how to participate in upcoming sessions.
To access the library of past Nerdery Primers, check out Vimeo and SlideShare. Stay tuned to blog.nerdery.com or send an email to primers@nerdery.com to learn how to participate in upcoming sessions.
Does the Internet really need another article about Facebook? No. But that’s not going to stop me from pointing you to a piece from The New Yorker. In Leaving Facebookistan Steve Coll explains why he’s deactivating his account and it has nothing to do with not being brave enough to post this status for one hour. Rather it has to do with unease around so much corporate power. It’s an interesting point of view, especially this part:
“There is something vaguely dystopian about oppressed peoples in Syria or Iran seeking dignity and liberation inside a corporate sovereign that is, for its part, creating great wealth for its founders and asserting control over its users.”
Who hasn’t been annoyed by loud-chewers, cellphone texters, and needlessly loud people at a movie theater? We all have. Well, today The Mary Sue talks about a sure-fire way to make sure your movie-going experience is more pleasurable. Go at with the geeks:
go at midnight, when the geeks come out to play. Why? Because they’re actually there to see the actual movie, not socialize. Which leads me to wonder why all these other people pay upwards of $12 just to text in the dark.
“Give a nerd a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a nerd to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
– adapted proverb, some liberties taken
Congress just got an earful from a group of Nerdery-mentored 8th grade students from Project Infinite Green who hit up Dave Kam, our Chicago branch manager, for some after-school tutelage in programming.
“Their advisor, Catherine Greenspon, heard about us due to the Overnight Website Challenge and contacted me to see if we would be interested in building an app for them,” said Kam. “I told them we could mentor the students so they could build it themselves. It was decided that they would come in and we would give them guidance.”
Project Infinite Green was built to encourage STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education by taking school children on a journey through U.S. energy sources.
“The kids have studied both renewable and nonrenewable energy sources,” said Catherine. “After completing the nuclear module, our nuclear team decided that our nation, at large, does not understand the realities of nuclear energy. Their plan is to start a nuclear awareness campaign – one component of the campaign is the nuclear awareness windows mobile app.”
“The programming of the app has forced the kids to really think about the variables of the nuclear plant,” said Catherine. “We also have one student, Jeremy, who is now thinking he wants to be Dave when he grows up. He was originally thinking of becoming a chemical engineer.”
The students are in D.C. May 16-18, presenting to the STEM ED Caucus (members are from both the House and Senate) and the Global Environment Facility (The GEF). Catherine said she hoped Congressional leaders would “give the kids a global perspective on their green business plans and also help them apply their plans to emerging countries.”
“I would wager even Congress is never really ready for their day with Congress, but I think the kids are well on their way” said Kam. “They have a wealth of information and various presentations they have prepared. The web app we worked on is just part of all that. I was impressed with their eagerness to learn. Not just about HTML/CSS/Javascript, but about things in general. The kids are focusing on nuclear energy and have been doing a good amount of research on the subject. They are pretty much like sponges and soak everything up.”
“The Nerdery has provided a unique opportunity for me to learn to code,” said Kevin, an eighth-grader with Project Infinite Green. “Dave spent over 20 hours helping us develop our app. With his expertise we have created an excellent beta version of our Nuclear Awareness app.”
Asked if he sees any future Nerds among these students, Dave replied, “I’d say so! The kids have shown a high degree of self motivation and should succeed in whatever they choose to pursue in the future. They should now have basic HTML/CSS skills and have a better understanding on how web technology works. They were briefly exposed to Javascript and OOP (Object Oriented Programming) as well. So hopefully that sparks their interest in software development in general.”
“My time at The Nerdery has been a wonderful,” said Philip, an eighth-grader. “I was able to learn more about computer coding than I would have been able to learn on my own in 24 hours. The people here are also very friendly and they make my stressful Wednesday more fun. We also learn about each other while we are here and how well everyone is doing with computer coding … I believe that The Nerdery is the best place ever!”
“It was great working with people who may not know what exactly web development entails and getting the opportunity to explain it to them and even guide them while they got their hands dirty doing it,” said Dave. “It was a lot of fun!”
“The team didn’t want to leave on our last night,” said Catherine. “ They were all wondering when we would see Dave again. He has a fan club.”
