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Professor Created a Trap in His Midterm to Catch Students Using AI
2 months ago
- Dr. Jason Gibson of Alcorn State University planted the hidden word 'Madagascar' in white font within an exam prompt to catch students using AI to generate essays without proofreading.
- 32 out of 35 students failed the midterm section because their AI-generated responses included the hidden word, revealing they had copied directly from a chatbot.
- Gibson's TikTok videos about the trap went viral, sparking debate on AI's role in education, with some praising his integrity lesson and others criticizing the tactic.
- Only two students appealed the grades, and one had her grade changed because dark mode made the white text invisible on her screen.
- Gibson emphasized his goal was not to fail students but to highlight the issue of students outsourcing learning, as many responses contained nonsensical AI-generated phrases.
The Power of Possibility - Anil Dash
2 months ago
- The Lower Eastside Girls Club provides year-round free programming in arts, STEM, civic engagement, leadership, wellness, and college/career pathways, including a green roof, recording studio, kitchen, crafting room, and planetarium.
- The club boosts graduation rates 15% above the district average and has produced alumni who become students, community leaders, entrepreneurs, activists, artists, and mentors.
- The organization faced a backlash against DEI and community support, threatening its survival; the author stepped up as board chair to help.
- The club distributes free meals and offers multi-generational wellness classes, addressing holistic needs to support education and life changes.
- Donations are used efficiently, with a personal tour offered to donors; support can be given directly or by attending the 30th Anniversary Gala on May 7 at Webster Hall.
- The club's motto is 'Joy. Power. Possibility,' and the gala will honor Natasha Lyonne, Donna Dozier Gordon, and Miladys Ramirez with cocktails, dinner, and dancing.
Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison
2 months ago
- From 2023, leads product, research, and analytics for Yarn Spinner, a narrative game tool used in top Steam games with over 6M units sold, and spearheaded its spinoff as a new company.
- Since 2020, co-founder and Head of Product at Secret Lab, focusing on game design and UX for award-winning projects like Night in the Woods and ABC Play School games.
- From 2025, presents a monthly space news segment on ABC Radio Hobart and Northern Tasmania.
- Authored about 30 technical books for O'Reilly Media (2011-2023) on topics like Swift, iOS, game design, ML, AI, and astrophysics, with global conference talks.
- Worked as Product Manager at Meebo/Google (2007-2013), building mobile apps debuted at Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 event serving ~70M users.
- Since 2008, teaches HCI, mobile development, AI, computer graphics, and programming as a sessional academic at the University of Tasmania.
The Age of the Essay
2 months ago
- Real essays are explorations of ideas, not defensive arguments; they begin with a question, not a thesis.
- The teaching of writing in schools historically became intertwined with literary analysis, making essays seem pointless.
- Essays are a tool for thinking, not just communication; writing helps form ideas, as Montaigne discovered.
- Good essays aim for surprise, following interesting threads like a river, even if they meander.
- To write well, be disobedient: question conventions, observe anomalies, and write for yourself, not for a teacher.
A Version 1.0
2 months ago
- Good writing requires extensive rewriting, with false starts and cuts being common.
- Real essays are exploratory, not argumentative; they begin with questions, not theses.
- School essays, focused on literary analysis, are disconnected from real writing and often discourage students.
- Essays should aim for surprise and follow an interesting, meandering path like a river.
What You'll Wish You'd Known
2 months ago
- You don't need to have your life figured out in high school; focus on learning your options and discovering what you like.
- Don't let the college admissions process define your life; treat school as a day job and pursue real work driven by curiosity.
- Work on hard problems that interest you, stay open to new possibilities, and let your curiosity guide you rather than following fixed plans.
Undergraduation
2 months ago
- To become a good hacker, focus on programming a lot on hard problems and work on engaging projects, not necessarily class assignments.
- Learn from other skilled programmers and professors by volunteering as a research assistant, but avoid those working on uninteresting topics.
- Math is not strictly necessary for most hacking but is valuable for metaphors; study math for its own sake beyond high school level.
- Worthwhile fields to study include math, hard sciences, engineering, history, architecture, and classics; avoid social sciences, philosophy, and politically motivated departments.
- For jobs, learn practical skills: for big companies, hack Blub on Windows; for startups, learn Ruby on Linux; to start your own company, master powerful tools.
- Classes differ from real-world programming: they are small, start from scratch, and have predetermined problems; contribute to open-source or start your own projects to gain real skills.
- Grad school is mixed: it involves a painful dissertation but offers smart peers and a baseline confidence; admissions rely heavily on recommendations from professors who know you.
- The key to success in college is to figure out what you truly love and pursue it genuinely, as faking stops working after college.
News from the Front
2 months ago
- College choice may matter less than commonly believed, as individual effort and learning depend more on the person than the institution.
- Startup success, as observed by Y Combinator, shows negligible correlation with college prestige; performance in the real world is determined by what you build.
- Elite colleges often perpetuate a system that favors brand names and conformity, but this advantage is less relevant in startups where user satisfaction is the only measure.
- Admissions processes are imperfect and based on superficial criteria, leading to weak predictors of future success.
- The biggest disadvantage of not attending a desired college is often self-imposed insecurity; the actual benefits of elite schools are often overestimated.
- Focusing on learning and doing, rather than college credentials, is both more rewarding and increasingly the path to success.
The Lesson to Unlearn
2 months ago
- School trains students to hack bad tests for good grades instead of focusing on actual learning, leading to a disconnect between grades and true knowledge.
- This mindset carries into adulthood, especially in startups, where founders often seek shortcuts (e.g., fundraising tricks) rather than building great products.
- Real success comes from doing good work, not hacking tests; in startups, winning means creating value for users.
- Bad tests are typically those imposed by authorities and are inherently hackable, while non-authority tests (e.g., sports) are unhackable.
- As authority erodes, more fields reward good work over test-hacking, and both individuals and society must unlearn this damaging pattern.
A Project of One's Own
2 months ago
- Working on a project of your own is like skating, more fun and productive than ordinary work.
- School often steers students away from self-directed projects toward dutiful work, but the author values projects over grades.
- To preserve the excitement of working on one's own, autonomy is crucial; collaboration can also maintain it under right conditions.
- High standards can deter starting new projects; recapturing the careless confidence of childhood can be powerful.
Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI
2 months ago
- A professor embedded hidden white text in an assignment prompt, instructing AI to include nonsensical references to Madagascar.
- 32 out of 35 students across two classes copied the question into a chatbot and submitted the AI-generated output without reviewing it.
- The AI outputs contained bizarre phrases like 'Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon' in essays about the Industrial Revolution.
- All students caught using AI failed that portion of the midterm, and only two of them contested the grade.
- The incident highlights the growing problem of students using AI to cheat, with teachers struggling to find effective countermeasures.
Teaching Kids Forth – Anna Liberty
2 months ago
- The author chose Forth, a stack-oriented concatenative language from 1970, to teach middle and high school students programming over more popular options like Python or Scratch.
- Forth was selected because it avoids complex syntax, focuses on fundamental concepts, and integrates well with a custom learning environment, with a side benefit that even experienced students learn something new.
- The curriculum consisted of 12 one-hour sessions with the goal for students to create their own art (drawing, animation, or game) using Forth, runnable on their own computers without installation.
- Students learned the stack data structure using paper plates to physically simulate push and pop operations before using a digital Forth interpreter (Easy Forth).
- In the final session, students modified a snake game and created pixel art, demonstrating familiarity with Forth without needing advanced refactoring skills.
- The author reflects that while Forth's low-level stack focus may not be ideal for beginners, a concatenative language with immediate visual feedback could be effective, but ultimately the environment and opportunity for self-direction matter more than the specific language.
- The author emphasizes the importance of human-centered teaching programming, especially as LLMs become common, to prevent skill atrophy and ensure safe, reliable learning.
Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027
2 months ago
- Czech government bans mobile phones in kindergartens and elementary schools from September 2027, applicable during both classes and breaks.
- President Petr Pavel highlights cultural festivals as key to fostering dialogue and social cohesion in divided societies.
- Government approves pension increases for people over 80 and working pensioners, starting in 2027 and 2028.
- Metro line C in Prague experiences temporary disruption due to collision with a stroller; escalator issues also occur at another station.
- Ticket price for Petřín funicular to rise in September, with discounts for digital purchases via Lítačka app.
ArsDigita University: Five Years Later (2006)
2 months ago
- The author describes their experience attending Arsdigita University, a free intensive computer science program founded by Philip Greenspun in 2000.
- The program aimed to provide world-class computer science education to those unable to access it, lasting 10.5 months with lectures from MIT professors.
- Despite initial enthusiasm, challenges arose including lack of certification, funding cuts, and the dismissal of foundation staff, leading to no second class.
- The curriculum covered topics like mathematics, programming, systems, and a software engineering course, though plans changed with unexpected Microsoft involvement.
- After graduation in 2001, alumni pursued diverse careers at organizations like IBM, The New York Times, and various tech firms, and some continued their education.
- The author reflects on the program's legacy, noting its influence on online education and open courseware, while expressing gratitude to Philip Greenspun and director Shai Simonson.
Immersive Linear Algebra Book with Interactive Figures
2 months ago
- The book introduces vectors and teaches addition, subtraction, and other operations.
- It covers the dot product, a tool that takes two vectors and produces a scalar.
- In 3D spaces, the cross product is introduced, producing a vector from two others.
- Methods for solving systems of linear equations are discussed.
- Matrix concepts are introduced, including fundamental properties of square matrices.
- The behavior and power of matrices are explored, emphasizing linearity.
Ergo: Long Form Philosophy Lectures
3 months ago
- Ergo is a nonprofit organization publishing long-form philosophical lectures online.
- Content is ad-free and accessible without paywalls.
- Lectures feature thinkers known for depth and clarity in teaching.
- Inspired by Aristotle's idea that philosophy begins in wonder.
Trees are mostly made of air and a generalizable lesson for AI safety
3 months ago
- Many people engage in activities labeled as 'AI Safety' without a deep conceptual understanding of the basics, which may inadvertently worsen the situation.
- A lack of foundational knowledge, such as instrumental convergence and inner alignment, is common in AI safety education, where focus often shifts to prosaic empirical methods over strategy and fundamentals.
- Understanding basics like 'trees are made out of air' illustrates the importance of foundational knowledge for sample-efficient epistemology, crucial in AI alignment due to sparse rewards.
- AI safety basics are often not internalized or exercised in practice, leading to incoherent answers about existential risks from AI among students and researchers.
- Deep understanding of AI safety fundamentals helps maintain focus and motivation, preventing distractions and fostering meaningful contributions to the field.
Why don't people use Git properly?
3 months ago
- The author introduces Arca, an educational project with a landing page, offering early access soon and free slots for donors.
- Git is a crucial version control system widely used in software development, but many people struggle with it, leading to issues like merge conflicts, poor commits, and misuse of repositories.
- The problem stems from inadequate education and experience with git, especially among those who are not in core software roles and lack institutional support or motivation to learn.
- A significant barrier is git's reliance on command-line interfaces, which many developers, especially those on Windows or using IDEs without CLI familiarity, find non-intuitive and difficult to master.
- People often don't understand the problems git solves, such as fast rollbacks, deployment automation, and risk-taking in development, because they lack hands-on experience with projects that require these features.
- The author compares git to Roman armor, explaining that the safety it provides allows developers to take more risks and be more ambitious, but without experiencing this security, users may develop defensive habits and avoid new tools.
- To improve git usage, the author suggests integrating version control early in education and promoting DevOps rotations in companies, but acknowledges the challenges in scaling these solutions.
David Beazley – Programming Courses
3 months ago
- The author taught project-based programming courses from 2007 to 2026 in week-long immersion formats, but these are no longer scheduled.
- Due to a market collapse in continuing education since 2023, which was their primary income source, the courses ended, impacting their ability to teach into retirement.
- With children going to college and a desire for change, the author is pursuing a Professional Educator's License in Secondary Education instead of continuing with the courses.

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education

Professor Created a Trap in His Midterm to Catch Students Using AI

The Power of Possibility - Anil Dash

Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison

The Age of the Essay

A Version 1.0

What You'll Wish You'd Known

Undergraduation

News from the Front

The Lesson to Unlearn

A Project of One's Own

Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

Teaching Kids Forth – Anna Liberty

Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

ArsDigita University: Five Years Later (2006)

Immersive Linear Algebra Book with Interactive Figures

Ergo: Long Form Philosophy Lectures

Trees are mostly made of air and a generalizable lesson for AI safety

Why don't people use Git properly?

David Beazley – Programming Courses