NSF Greenlights $1.1 Million Remake of Microsoft's 2016 'Code Trip' PBS Show 40
theodp writes: It's not just Hollywood that's running out of new story ideas. Fueled by a $1.1 million NSF award, PBS stalwart Roadtrip Nation is casting Computer Science Roadtrip (apply by June 14, kids!), which will send three young adults interested in computer science on a road trip across the country in a green RV to meet inspiring professionals working with cutting-edge technology. "This trip is about highlighting exciting careers connected to computer science and innovation," explains Roadtrip Nation, which just a few years back partnered with Microsoft on The Code Trip Roadtrip, which also sent three young people on a road trip across the country in a green RV to interview inspiring professionals (including Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes) and "inform others of the many career routes one can take with a computer science background."
Re: (Score:1)
Oh great, now the spooks are using Slashdot to exchange their coded messages in gobble-dee-gook spook speak. Can't you guys find some free disk space somewhere else?
(((biblical desert wandering returns))) (Score:2)
/|\ FTFY
That was three years ago. Maybe four. (Score:1)
And the film was probably shot the year before its release. Four years is a long time in technology.
This isn't like remaking Robin Hood for the fourteenth time.
Insert yet another advert for MICROS~! (Score:2, Funny)
to meet inspiring professionals working with cutting-edge technology .. and innovation
Seriously, cutting-edg and innovation in the same sentence as MICROS~1. Microsoft has been selling the same rehashed Windows for over a decade, over and over again yogi :]
Re: Insert yet another advert for MICROS~! (Score:1)
Sorry oprah, ms is the market leader. Try some humility in the future.
Re: Insert yet another advert for MICROS~! (Score:1)
How about highlighting a different career? (Score:4, Interesting)
Installing hardware requires travel. Fixing certain problems requires travel. Coding? That doesn't *require* travel, it only needs an internet connection.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't get it do you? Coders aren't cheap enough yet. So they're trying to get MORE of them into the industry to drive prices down even MORE.
Maintainability is a thing of the past now as well. Entire platforms get replaced daily. Companies don't want to invest in top talent to code products that last decades anymore. It doesn't benefit their next quarter enough.
You don't think things through, do you? (Score:2)
Installing hardware requires travel. Fixing certain problems requires travel. Coding? That doesn't *require* travel, it only needs an internet connection.
While that is true, this isn't about them coding fixes. It is about them meeting inspiring professionals working with cutting-edge technology.
If you are one of those inspiring professionals working with cutting-edge technology who is busy with work, are you going to be willing to take several days to travel away from work you enjoy and are busy with to be interviewed? Or, are you going to be more likely to take a few hours or a day to do an interview with people who respect your time and come to you?
Re: (Score:2)
If you are one of those inspiring professionals working with cutting-edge technology who is busy with work, are you going to be willing to take several days to travel away from work you enjoy and are busy with to be interviewed? Or, are you going to be more likely to take a few hours or a day to do an interview with people who respect your time and come to you?
They hop on a vehicle and take a road trip is just the base that they are using to get a group together with. It's sort of like team forming.
Certainly it would be more efficient to have a few people just fly to meet these people they are going to interview.
But the premise of the show is about "race" and sex - they specifically say it is - so you have to have a lot of different people to represent "race" and femaleness and inclusivity. So the bus/RV road trip makes a good vehicle to tie that all together
Re: (Score:2)
He said:
Installing hardware requires travel. Fixing certain problems requires travel. Coding? That doesn't *require* travel, it only needs an internet connection.
I stated that he didn't think it through because they are traveling to the people they wish to interview not to create some project with the people they are interviewing.
But the premise of the show is about "race" and sex - they specifically say it is - so you have to have a lot of different people to represent "race" and femaleness and inclusivity. So the bus/RV road trip makes a good vehicle to tie that all together.
None of that has anything to do with the topic discussed.
Certainly it would be more efficient to have a few people just fly to meet these people they are going to interview.
That is you agreeing with my entire response to OP.
Re: (Score:2)
Your response doesn't tie in to the OP to which I responded. He said:
Installing hardware requires travel. Fixing certain problems requires travel. Coding? That doesn't *require* travel, it only needs an internet connection.
I stated that he didn't think it through because they are traveling to the people they wish to interview not to create some project with the people they are interviewing.
That's surely true. He was using an oddly narrow definition of STEM, and a concept of how people get interviewed that is wrong. Can't say I disagree with you there.
But the premise of the show is about "race" and sex - they specifically say it is - so you have to have a lot of different people to represent "race" and femaleness and inclusivity. So the bus/RV road trip makes a good vehicle to tie that all together.
None of that has anything to do with the topic discussed.
Well, there you are wrong. The entire premise of the show is to load a semi-diverse group of young people onto an RV, and have them travel to talk to Tech Rockstars. Trying to separate that from the travel is silly.
The very idea of getting a group of young people and having them travel around the country has got to be an exciting concept for mos
Re: (Score:2)
"Yeah, it really opened my eyes. We ate a lot of artisanal avocado toast, drank a lot of coffee, saw a lot of pony-tailed hipsters screaming at each other in front of whiteboards covered in gibberish, trying to apportion blame for problems that didn't even exist and then we saw them clearing out their desks and leaving as one start-up after another evaporated. Real learning experience."
Re: (Score:2)
Installing hardware requires travel. Fixing certain problems requires travel. Coding? That doesn't *require* travel, it only needs an internet connection.
Yeah, but good TV requires some sort of frame story, so - ROAD TRIP!!!
Re: (Score:2)
PLC coding requires travel. You need to be physically present at the hardware to debug and deploy it
This is a much better idea for the show.
Society is not at fault. (Score:1)
The Web page [sgizmo.com] at Roadtrip Nation states, "Jobs in computer science are growing, but women, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaska Natives are underrepresented within the field. This trip is about ... showing people from minority and underrepresented groups that they belong."
The implicit assumption is that society has created emotional barriers preventing such people from entering the field of computer science.
Women whose ancestry are from East Asia have clearly proven that this assumptio
Re: (Score:2)
The under-representation of any particular group (e.g., Hispanic women) is due entirely to its members choosing to avoid the hard work of earning a college degree in computer science.
I guess that's the only possible explanation. I mean, we know that brains aren't biological, and that genes aren't inherited, so there's no way that different average clusters of genetically influenced characteristics could be found in distinct populations.
Party of science!
Re: (Score:2)
The
The implicit assumption is that society has created emotional barriers preventing such people from entering the field of computer science.
I give them credit for honesty. They are right up front sexist and racist and make no bones about it. I wonder if they are going to get into sexual preferences as well?
There are ways to attempt to achieve genital and skin melanin equity if we decide it is a problem. It is great to feature a person of whatever you are trying to promote in a program. Successful female engineers and scientists? Sure. People of heavy melanin skin tone? No problem.
But just show them, just talk to them. Don't make it about
Waste of money (Score:3)
NSF ? (Score:2)
Not Safe For what?
Re: (Score:3)
Both are remakes of Microsoft's 2008 'Code Trip' (Score:2)
Microsoft in early 2008 launched its own Code Trip [msdn.com] project, which it described as "a road trip, a bunch of developers cruising around in a tour bus and geeking out. It's also an online TV show (or video podcast, or vodcast, or whatever the kids call it nowadays) chronicling their adventures throughout the western United States." So, the Microsoft-funded, Roadtrip Nation-branded Code Trip PBS show that aired in September 2016 was itself a remake of Microsoft's own 2008 Code Trip [staticflickr.com].