Thursday evening, a friend from school and I drove down to Saskatoon to see Robert J. Sawyer launch his latest book at the McNally Robinson bookstore on 8th St. The book in question was Wonder, the capstone to the WWW trilogy (Wake, Watch, Wonder), and the session was fantastic! In preparation, I had started to [...]
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It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world | | Independent Editor’s choice Blogs
Disturbing look at gender-selected abortions and infanticide of female babies in South Asia. According to the article, 200 million girls are “missing”. That would be close to the total female population of North America (around 227M).
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success
Article arguing that the remarkable improvement in the Finnish education system is a result of a focus on equality instead of competition.
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Fotoshop by Adobé on Vimeo
Beauty product ad that hits the nail on the head.
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WRITING IS THE GREATEST INVENTION | More Intelligent Life
Interesting argument that writing is the greatest human invention of all time, allowing progress to be recorded and built upon.
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How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet, the Most Menacing Malware in History | Threat Level | Wired.com
Fascinating long-form article on a computer virus designed to delay or halt Iran’s nuclear build-up. First virus ever (outside [...]
I put this together from a kit the other night. We had the kit sitting around left over from Grace’s birthday party (Mandi made mini-gingerbread houses for that day). I was aiming for a look like they had on the box. Unfortunately, whoever put the box houses together cheats. A lot. There’s probably twice as [...]
HTTP Status Cats – a set on Flickr
This photo series on Flickr of cat pictures with HTTP status codes is genius! Not only is it hilarious, it’s also highly informative.
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Make Your Dumb Phone Smart With ifttt
I’ve seen ifttt described around the web, but this is the first article that really shows the game-changing nature of the site. You can set up rules [...]
» The No New Gifts Holiday Challenge :zenhabits
A great post about dumping the holiday rush to create new traditions about time with family and eschewing consumerism in favour of homemade or thrift-store giving.
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I love the promise of Bluetooth: on the one side, wirelessly transmitted information that flows from device to device without impediment. On the other, wireless controls for hidden devices. Some Bluetooth products have fulfilled this promise better than others. The latest generation of consoles use Bluetooth for the wireless controllers to report back to the [...]
Mirage – The Full Experience – YouTube
Surfers captured with still cameras in a bullet-time-like look.
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How Woot Works: Printing Our Shirts – YouTube
I think the snark actually adds to this explanation of how shirts get printed at Woot.
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November is always an exciting time of year around the Hecht household… it’s National Novel Writing Month, and that means noses buried in computers (more so than usual) and plot bunnies and character outlines running rampant. This year, I’ve taken on a new challenge, and I’m the Municipal Liaison for the new Saskatchewan :: Elsewhere [...]
So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything up, and in the meantime, I have been to see a couple of movies and other things, so I thought I’d toss them all in one mega-pack of review-y goodness. Let’s get rolling!
PotC 4
Mandi and I saw this one in S’Toon at their swanky new UltraAVX [...]
Just some observations:
Every teacher that I have seen committed to making the switch to outcome-based assessment has been spending more time per student than under the previous assessment method.
Class sizes are not going down. If anything, they are going up at the high school level.
Something will give somewhere, and I just hope that it’s not [...]
Our trip this summer went from July 22nd to August 6th. The two older kids and I drove from P.A. to Peterborough, and Mandi & Noelle flew out to meet us. I took photos on both my phone and my regular camera, which is why they look slightly different. Highlights include:
Day 2: Kakabeka Falls
Day 3: [...]
So, it’s the end of another year, and I haven’t posted in a while,so there are at least two reasons to have this post today. This year has seen a lot of changes, not only in personal life, but professionally as well.
First, biggest and most important is kid #3, a.k.a. Noelle Joy. Unexpected arrival, but [...]
Pie crust makes everything better. Consider: is an omelette too low-brow for you? Throw it in a pie crust, and you’ve got quiche! Stew too runny? Pie crust it and you have pot pie, with its own little container! Apples on their own are okay, but you’d never consider eating one with ice cream. Toss [...]
I’m really enjoying the new Matt Maher album, Alive Again. A line from one song in particular (Flesh And Bone) has stuck with me:
I met a man who walked on water
Who wore His crown like a blue collar.
I met a man who treated children
Like they were ambassadors to the kingdom.
I wonder how often the church [...]
So, a little while ago, I posted the first of our student announcement videos. Following an evaluation, I made some changes, and we’ve done one a week since. I thought you all might like to see the results.
May 3rd – this is what our normal week’s announcements look & sound like now. Mics are much [...]
A teaching friend of mine sent around this letter recently. It’s written in response to CBC Radio Morning Edition’s Scott Watson’s take on the May 5th walkout. I don’t know the teacher who wrote it, but I think it bears repeating, particularly in light of recent developments. I think it speaks well to the challenges [...]
