No user-serviceable parts inside.
Name: The Rt Hon KJP
resistance is useless
today
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
visited *loading* times
{ better educational outcomes through... air conditioners...]
" A growing number of studies are confirming the relationship between a school’s physical condition, especially its lighting and indoor air quality, and student performance. One recent study of school districts in California, Washington, and Colorado indicates a strong correlation between increased daylighting and improved student performance. In the California district, for example, students in classrooms with the most daylighting progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests in one year than those in classrooms with the least amount of daylight.
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/schooldesign/highperformance.html
[ four-way rubber-bands ]
Certain people will know EXACTLY what these are just by reading the heading. You know who you are...and...
But for everyone else, these are rubber bands that let you wrap a parcel top to bottom at the same side as side to side.
http://www.themut.com/site/shop/4wayband/4wayband.html
[ Your mirror twin and you ]
If you've ever looked into a mirror and wondered what that person staring back at you is really like, you're not alone. Over in the Mirror Universe, your twin is wondering the same thing about you...
Will My Mirror Universe Twin Do My Chores?
If you're the kind of person who would exploit another version of your own self, chances are your Mirror Universe twin is dimwitted and gullible enough to go along with it. But be careful you don't end up with your books or your music collection re-filed from Z-A.
For tax purposes, can I claim my Mirror Universe twin as a dependent? Can he be a named beneficiary in my will?
No, because if he claims you as a dependent, it becomes a circular taxation conundrum.
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/10360.html
[ MyRead: site for promoting reading ]
Good Australian site for reading.
MyRead supports teachers of underperforming students in the middle years (Years 4 – 9).
MyRead is based on the beliefs that:
MyRead is a project of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) and the Australian Literacy Educators Association (ALEA). It has been funded by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST).
http://www.myread.org/index.htm
[ world's first inflatable pub ]
Need a pub in a hurry? No problem. This pub can be erected in 10 minutes with 2 small air blowers.
Looks a bit like a bouncy castle butbut has room for a bar and 30 customers. Presumably not inflatable customers
[ RedLightGreen ]
a rather nice bibliographic search, which will also spew out formatted references in MLA , Turabain, APA or Chicago format. Generates sub-categories of your search term... a bit like a librarian really.
http://redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/web/workspace.jsp
[ The Diagram ]
This is a very strange site, but oddly compelling. It simply collects diagrams, labelling systems, poems, information structures, tables, and so on.
I had never really seen a common thread amongst these things, but there seems to be one, and this site exposes it.
Some outstandingly good and exceptionally poor material. Good stuff to read on a cold night with rain on the roof.
With a friend. If one exists.
[ handy guide to French phrases ]
Example:
"Je pense que ce vin a déjà ete bu" ( I think this wine has been drunk before)
Not a hovercraft or eel in sight...
http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~mongoose/french/phrases.html
[ a pronounceable base-100 number system ]
no comment
http://jason.diamond.name/weblog/2005/04/21/base-100
[ daily dose of Jesus ]
A mathematical model of the spread of atoms of Jesus, based on the uptake of atoms of Jesus (initial Jesus-mass assumed at 64kg, and now fairly uniformly distributed across the Earth's biomass).
This indicates that approx 2.5 x 1011 atoms of Jesus are included in your daily food intake. Your mileage may vary.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1006624
And yes, it's an avoidance/survival behaviour...
[ how to make the Earth move ]
In a physical sense. And an explanation of why everyone jumping up and down is not going to shift the orbit of the Earth very much at all. If only someone could have convinced my dopey Grade 5 teacher, who continued to propagate this nonsense in the face of reasoning even 10-year-olds could understand.
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/geocide/moving.html
[ if at first you don't succeed...well, so much for skydiving.]
Man skydives from plane. After some time, he hits a plane on the way down. Even worse...it was the plane he jumped from.
"There are about 15 million jumps every year," the dive coordinator told The Daytona Beach News-Journal. "I only know of one other case where a sky diver was struck by an airplane."
And that was presumably another plane.
The poor skydiver had both legs chopped off in the accident and died later.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/24/skydiver.killed.ap/index.html
[Three Ancient Greeks walked into a taverna: world's oldest joke book]
Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) is a collection of some 265 jokes[, compiled in the fourth or fifth century.
Example;
A rude astrologer cast a sick boy's horoscope. After promising the mother that the child had many years ahead of him, he demanded payment. When she said, "Come tomorrow and I'll pay you," he objected: "But what if the boy dies during the night and I lose my fee?"
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/quinn_jokes.shtml
[Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney given appropriate honour: slime-mould beetles named after them]
Three new beetles of the genus Agathidium have been named after members of the current US administration: A. bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi.
Poor beetles..think of the ridicule they'll get at beetle-school...
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/beetle_names.html
[Targeted sound waves]
Thousands of soda machines in Tokyo will soon bombard passersby with the enticing sound of a Coke being poured, and several U.S. supermarkets will promote products to shoppers
This is all possible due to a sonic torch invented by Woody Norris. Unlike traditional speakers, which scatter sound, Norris' device streams it in a precise, laser-like beam for up to 150 yards with almost no degradation in quality or volume.
[the sad tale of Australia' s drug runners]
Non-Australian readers might be unaware of two recent cases where citizens have been arrested for alleged smuggling of illegal drugs.
The first involves young woman Shappelle Corby, who was found to have 4 kg of high grade marihuana in her luggage as she arrived in Bali. Some serious doubt has emerged, with claims that baggage tampering is being used to transport illegal drugs, and a very stupid incident in which a half-wit baggage handler removed a camel head disguise from someone's luggage and wore it around the tarmac at an Australian airport, in ful view of passengers, proving that luggage tampering was a reality. Corby faced potential execution in Bali but prosecutors asked instead for life imprisonment (which is of course horrendous if Corby is indeed innnocent). Oddly, the media seem to believe that being good-looking is a strong reason for Corby's innocence in this case. But either way it's a very sad situation. http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,11965-4271059,00.html
The second case, which occurred after the Corby case was in the public eye, is a group of nine fools who attempted to smuggle 8 kg of heroin into Australia, strapped to their bodies. Even our cautious foreign minister agreed these people must have some sort of intelligence problem...the penalties for drug smuggling were all over the press, so they must have been stupid. There are claims that the smugglers were flown to Bali then threats made against the lives of their families, but it is hard to see how they had any intention other than smuggling, and in a very amateurish fashion.
A final and less public case is an Australian who has been sentenced to death by firing squad in Vietnam.
Organised drug smuggling is starting to lose the battle. It will be interesting to see if there are any changes in social indicators and crime rates. At least we might see a reduction in addiction-related deaths. Let's hope so.
[ Guess - the - Google ]
This uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on some secret keyword.
The player must then guess what keyword made up the image.
It is remarkably addictive.
Essential Learnings: Being Arts Literate
http://www.weavedigital.com/guess-the-google
NOTE: Google's image search sometimes retrieves images that are unsuited to general classroom use. To be honest I haven't seen any of these appear in a Guess-the-Google image set, so maybe they are filtered. But be aware if you are using this with kids.
[quotations in our life, or your life in quotations]
For someone who loves words and thinking and wind and rain on a steel roof...
Some things about chiasmus, a literary form in which effect is gained by a reversal eg
Life imitates art far more than art imitates life. Oscar Wilde
or
I do now remember a saying,
'The fool doth think he is wise,
but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.' As You Like It (1599-1600)
[summarise a novel in 25 words or less]
We've all seen those 25 words or less competitions (some of us have seen a LOT of them). Why not summarise a novel in that way?
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=4328588
f'r'zample:
The Wizard of Oz
"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again."
Great Expectations
"I'm Pip. Who's my benefactor. Is she Havisham? No, the ex-con. I love Estella. She uses me for twisted games. Life's easier when you're poor. "
Harry Potter
"Inconfident orphan joins forces with wise-cracking pal, bossy intelligent girl and large hairy creature to fight forces of evil. Basically it's Star Wars with wizards. "
[Bubble bubble toil and trouble]
one bubble inside another.. and a new way to deliver medicinal drugs. Beautiful.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7577878/
