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Tuesday, 28 February 2006
memoriam

 



 

 Today is flat, empty, still. Not even enough presence to be black..it's a dull, lifeless grey. No sounds. Nature is muffled and its shadows washed out. Unfinished conversations left dangling.

The world finally said goodbye to Lyn Emily Nisbet (Williams) on Feb 24. A beautiful person, creative, intelligent and brave. An indescribable loss. 

Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear...

(Old Friends, P.Simon 1968)



 

  

posted by: kenjprice at February 28, 2006 22:35 | link | comments |
home and personal

Monday, 27 February 2006
we interrupt this program...

As Cameron Horn's article in  The Age has cleverly pointed out. Kerry Packer's funeral was broadcast on Nine Television without adverts: the first time that an hour-long broadcast has been advert-free.

"Thus viewers could experience, for once, what it is like to watch a program on Channel Nine for an hour without fools screaming at them for 15 minutes to buy things. The only people who protested against this disgraceful, taxpayer-funded event - four members of the noble Kerry Packer dis-memorial society - were arrested."

posted by: kenjprice at February 27, 2006 21:31 | link | comments |
home and personal

Librarian in camo

Look hard, there is one there

posted by: kenjprice at February 27, 2006 20:46 | link | comments |
home and personal

Thursday, 23 February 2006
games and transfer of skill

For some time I have sought some evidence for the assumed truth that "things you learn in games are valuable and transferable".

This harks back to the "team work is useful in the workplace, so learn to play football" idea, a statement that is overturned quickly by the number of excellent team sports people who are totally unable to move past their own huge ego in any other situation.

One current assumption is that the skills kids acquire in online gaming are transferable and useful. There are very good reasons to believe some of them are, but little solid empirical evidence (and some evidence of the converse, in relation to social skills). The research that does exist often focusses on interpretation of these skills, and assumes its own conclusions (eg "Kids learn about money trading in games, so they will of course be better users of money in real life" is hardly convincing evidence, any more than expecting Grand Theft Auto players to be obviously better car drivers. Or that the drunks playing chess on the corner are in fact training for runing the nations miltary campaigns. remeber all those kids that were going to be fighter pilots cos they played flight simulators every night?

There is a quite overt attempt by many researchers to see any technology use as cool and thus good, as some sort of response to the digital native concept.

There are some, however, who assert the converse (that games convey no useful skills and in fact may be damaging).

The truth is probably between these views.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml has an interesting perspective on "things that games teach that are wrong". In summary, MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft iare "still teaching literally millions of children that time spent is more important than ability and that group activities are strictly superior to personal improvements and self-reliance"

As they say in exams: Discuss.

posted by: kenjprice at February 23, 2006 21:51 | link | comments |
tasite, it subject area, home and personal

Action at a distance

Signing books is easy. But what it you are in a different city to the book?

You need a long pen. You need LongPen

posted by: kenjprice at February 23, 2006 21:29 | link | comments |

1 use for cats

I like cats. Taste like chicken. Here is a wonderful use for them.

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7424

posted by: kenjprice at February 23, 2006 21:01 | link | comments |
home and personal

a seahorse eating

From those wonderful classificatory scientists, the biologists: the sound of seahorses eating

Dammit stop clinking that cutlery you noisy little critters....

 

posted by: kenjprice at February 23, 2006 20:30 | link | comments |
home and personal

Mathematics spoken here

Mathematics is a language in its own right

"Robyn Arianrhod's theme in Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics is that mathematics is a language, with its own grammar and (implicitly) a number of dialects."

American Scientist Article

posted by: kenjprice at February 23, 2006 20:21 | link | comments |
home and personal

Tuesday, 21 February 2006
spot the difference.

The audio file has been deleted from user's Mediablog.

 

 

" Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal "

answers in a special envelope please.

posted by: kenjprice at February 21, 2006 21:33 | link | comments |
sounds

Saturday, 18 February 2006
OECD computer use survey

OECD has undertaken global research on use of computers by  kids at home and at school.

Some rather interesting comparisons, and an indication that

Of some concern is that in the scheme of things school computer use really isn't of high importance. At least, in comparison.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/61/36002531.ppt has the summary info.

So:

posted by: kenjprice at February 18, 2006 12:10 | link | comments |
tasite, it subject area

Wednesday, 15 February 2006
optical illusions

whoa... this took me a while to understand. Click the meu marked "Hors point de vue" and select Ouvrir to open views from other directions.

Damn some people are clever

posted by: kenjprice at February 15, 2006 19:35 | link | |
home and personal, mthings

life imitates art

rather pretty images.  Some mathematical

posted by: kenjprice at February 15, 2006 19:23 | link | comments |
home and personal

bottled water

ho ho

The ecological impact of buying plastic bottles of water is now getting serious

 

posted by: kenjprice at February 15, 2006 19:10 | link | comments |
home and personal

consume consume consume

This study was done by Adrian North and colleagues from the University of Leicester. T

hey played traditional French (accordion music) or traditional German (a Bierkeller brass band - oompah music) music at customers and watched the sales of wine from their experimental wine shelves, which contained French and German wine matched for price and flavour.

On French music days 77% of the wine sold was French, on German music days 73% was German - in other words, if you took some wine off their shelves you were 3 or 4 times more likely to choose a wine that matched the music than wine that didn't match the music.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2006/02/music_wine_and_will.html

posted by: kenjprice at February 15, 2006 19:03 | link | comments |
home and personal

Tuesday, 14 February 2006
Midsomer Murders: the facts,,,

I was surprised that nobody seemed to have noticed the odd statistics in the English area of Midsomer. Every week a corny TV show details yet another grisly murder. Given its mainly full of people beyond prime childbeairng age, this place has a use-by date that is fast approaching. Im guessing about Nov 2008 the Midsomer area will be devoid of human life

But no. Someody else has noticed that it has passed all logical levels of credibiiity

posted by: kenjprice at February 14, 2006 21:37 | link | comments |

Friday, 10 February 2006
Subliminal advertising

How companies and others use subliminal processes to make you buy stuff.

http://www.howtheychangeyourmind.com/

posted by: kenjprice at February 10, 2006 15:12 | link | comments |
home and personal

Tuesday, 07 February 2006
style, but not as we know it

[ fashion from Hell ]

OHS warning: the following sites may affect your vision. And stomach.

  • 40's
  • 50's
  • 60's
  • 70's
  • 80's
  • Crafts

    Oh please make it stop.

  • posted by: kenjprice at February 07, 2006 20:12 | link | comments |
    home and personal

    Thursday, 02 February 2006
    the cold has that effect...

    Ripon College tackles the big issues in education

    posted by: kenjprice at February 02, 2006 22:13 | link | comments |

    apostrophes or, apostrophe's

    Reader tells BBC all about punctuation

    posted by: kenjprice at February 02, 2006 22:12 | link | comments |

    Commercial failure number 24203

    Be the life of the party with this wonderful toy.  Full story available on request.

    posted by: kenjprice at February 02, 2006 22:00 | link | comments |
    home and personal


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