Showing 35 posts tagged interesting
High-res
From a series of illustrations created to make the viewer declaim one particular interjection.
Here is the log of our first #APBio twitter chat. It goes from the bottom up. I thought it went well. So did everyone else, since it’s already a go for next week (topic: ”Adding inquiry to labs”)
We’ll be running these for the foreseeable future, every monday night 8-9pm EST. Join us if you are the target demo.
Wyandanch Representin’!
The link above is to a really great article about just how big a bastard Roald Dahl really was (hint: HUGE!).
Here is an article where my favoritest book in all of children’s literature is described thusly:
“A novel about a pedophilic monster who abducts a young girl and forces her to stare at the phalluses of larger giants”
And still, the awe-struck wonder that I feel towards Roald Dahl’s children’s books remains unaffected. I have no doubts that he was a royal prick, but it just doesn’t matter.
My course website has been crying out for a “Colleagues” page for some time, given the amount of material that I exchange with folks. So I made one. The link above takes you there.
Nothing too special, just an aggregated collection of my stuff. One new thing that I did do was make my AP Biology and Honors Chemistry Google Doc folders public and then link to them on the page. Useful, I hope.
High-res
I rather enjoy this helpful graphic outlining all of the possible English renderings of the current leader of Libya’s name.
High-res
But complaining about the price of gas just feels so right.
Seriously, why don’t we tack another buck or two on and use it to pay off the national debt (or pay for the wars that keep the gas so cheap).
Gas prices around the world
“One of the main uses of antimatter would be a starship…Because you want concentrated energy. And you can’t get more concentrated than antimatter.”
“It’s an entirely new lineage of life that was being eaten and sold in restaurants for food,” says Grismer. “But it’s something that scientists have missed for hundreds of years.”
We are pretty much past the point where Simpsons episodes make me say “Wow”… My favorite bit has to be the kittens.
Simpsons (via banksyfilm)
One of the nice things about the Chrome OS, is the fact that there are a lot of cool online toys available in it. Some of which I was not aware of until I got the site up and running. You can wait until you have a chrome of your own to see these, but if you want early access, here’s the list of things that were new to me. Most of these are in the “productivity” listing in the chrome menu:
That’s five interesting toys to start with. There’s lots of other stuff around, too, but I have really tried to focus on things that might find their way in to my workflow.
I know, it’s shocking. But there is actually a good article up on “HuffPo”. Obviously, that means it’s not about science. It’s about programming, the shocking technological apathy of the modern student, and how there is precious little opportunity in American education for the twain to meet. The issues that Douglas Rushkoff discusses are a good synopsis of why I decided to step up and start teaching kids computer science this year (in a district that had no curriculum for it, whatsoever, before I got the urge to write one).
Of course, this being the Huffington Post, he has to overdo it a bit at the end:
“I’ve been a computer enthusiast since the late 70’s, and I still do believe that this is the moment we have been waiting for. We are gaining the ability to consciously participate in our evolution as a species. We are networking ourselves together into something perhaps greater than the sum of our many parts.”
Ugghhhhh. So, he’s not an evolutionary (or particularly competent) biologist. That’s certainly nothing new in Arianna’s little digital rag. He’s still slinging an interesting looking book. I’ll have to see about getting me a copy…
Readers of like mind to my own may be interested to know that the Chromium OS (the open source version of Google’s upcoming Chrome Operating System) is up and running and available for anyone with a 2gig usb stick and a willingness to run a few terminal commands.
In point of fact, an endeavoring 17-year-old, European lad has spent a good part of the last year furnishing some 200-thousand odd experimental souls with early alpha releases of the OS. I have been dimly aware of such things, but now that the actual release is not so far away, I figured I might give it a shot. Thus it is that I find myself typing this note to you from an “operating system” that looks a whole lot like my normal, chrome web browser.
For anyone who spends as much time on the internet as I do these days, you will find much to enjoy about Chrome OS. It’s an operating system that only does Internet. Nothing of any real note is kept on the computer, hence the smidgeon of memory necessary to run it. Given my propensity for Google Docs, Gmail, Google News, Youtube and all of the other, allied services the internet supplies (twitter, tumblr, my banking), I could be quite happy for most of my computing time on an OS like Chrome. Sure, I like a hard drive, but that might soon start to seem like a comfort born of familiarity more than of any particular utility.
I won’t bore the reader with a point-by-point review of the Chrome OS. Frankly, given the early state of things, it wouldn’t be accurate, or fair (running an OS off of a USB stick is a decidedly stop and go affair). But if you have a few hours and a spare flash drive around the house, you might think about giving it a whirl. If only to take a peek at the future.
High-res
I always get a laugh from the photos over at peopleofwalmart.com. Recently, the site has had a few action shots from Chinese Walmart’s. This one of customers picking raw meat out of bins is a particular favorite.
Interfacing with your brain. Through your eyes.
Ask and ye may receive.
Polish Godzilla Poster
Loading tweets...
