Jun
30
2006
There’s a new technology that will allow more data to be packed onto a hard disk platter, and Hitachi has a new video to explain how it’s done. A nice happy little ditty that turns into a disco spectacular! Am I going to be humming this song all day now? Get PerpendiculAAAAR! Get more ParticulAAAR!! [...]
Jun
29
2006
Our session in Second Life yesterday, led by Martha was just what I needed and it’s a terrific example of Situated Cognition in action. The basic idea of situated learning theory is that learning is contextual. It also heavily emphasizes the idea of apprenticeship. Martha, while she wouldn’t call herself a “master” yet, was leading [...]
Jun
27
2006
So I discovered I can do this in Second Life.
Jun
27
2006
Eamonn Sullivan and I have some similar thoughts about Second Life. Martha is going to be leading a session on optimizing our experience in this virtual world this week. I am looking forward to it. I’ve mostly flailed and stumbled around, but then I discovered something I could do . . .
Jun
27
2006
OK, now I’ve done it. Two political posts in a row. Actually, this is just funny and it playfully promotes Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Truth. I actually prefer this type of promotion, as opposed to the website with the “scary” music.
Jun
26
2006
In this space, I try very hard not to be blatantly political. In Friday’s Washington Post, columnist Richard Morin’s Unconventional Wisdom claims that research shows that The Daily Show is bad for democracy. I’m re-reading it to try to find the clue that this guy can’t be serious. Nothing yet.
Yes, it’s true that we have [...]
Jun
26
2006
I’m still trying to decide whether I would want my home theatre to look like this one, but I decided it was time to at least blog about it. The chap who claims this setup is a retired naturalist who obviously spent too much time talking to bats. I wonder if they pump in some [...]
Jun
19
2006
Nate Harrison recorded the audio for this video in the winter of 2004. This is the story about a 6 second drum “break” in a song from 1969 called Amen Brother. Now known as the “Amen Break”, this snippett of musical history is now used ubiquitously in multiple forms and mutliple variations. The shame is [...]
Jun
19
2006
I had glimpsed this story on a couple of sites last week but never followed the link. It seems kids are using a high frequency ringtone to signal incoming text messages in class (how pervasive this is, who knows). Well I’m proud to announce that at 41 years old (for another month and a half) [...]
Jun
15
2006
Just a quickie on a strange phenomena sited last night. Windows computers all around the world restarted themselves yesterday, and this morning, with some “important” updates. At home last week I had my Bluetooth wireless keyboard (Logitech MX500) just decide it was not going to communicate with the computer. The mouse (the matching BT laser [...]