There are very few movies for which I’ll brave opening day crowds. I lined up for Star Wars: Episode 1 and all three of the Lord of the Rings movies. Given all the work that has gone into building up the cinematic Marvel universe, with six films over the last four years setting up [...]
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Converting to WebM, OGG/Theora and MP4. // by Paul Rouget
ffmpeg command lines for converting to OGV, MP4 and webm for HTML 5 video.
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The SLC at Carlton is nothing if not inventive in their ways to raise money for building a school in Ecuador. The latest challenge is a doozy! Twenty-four teachers have pledged to do various acts of insanity once certain monetary marks have been reached. Take a look at these posters I made for the challenges [...]
We Order Whopper With 1050 Bacon Strips, Struggle to Level Comically Huge Burger – RocketNews24
This might be too much bacon for even me… or not!
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Improbable research: why random selection of MPs may be best | Education | The Guardian
New research suggests that governments will work better if a portion of their MPs are selected at random from [...]
A Radical Manifesto for teaching computing
A well-argued essay on why all school kids should be taught how to code.
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So here are two pretty decent movies that don’t quite live up to their source material.
In the case of John Carter, I think the filmmakers were too ambitious. There’s a lot a meterial to cover in any one of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, and to take elements of three of them, while at the [...]
CameraSim simulates a digital SLR camera – SLR Photography Demystified
Ever wonder what all those settings on the manual mode of your camera do? This dSLR simulator can let you fiddle around [...]
Better late than never, right? Here is my movies-to-see list for 2012.
Jan 20 – Underworld: Awakening – Having seen and enjoyed the previous three outings, it just makes sense to come back for more.
Jan 20 – Coriolanus – Gritty Shakespeare starring Voldemort and King Leonidas.
Jan 20 – Red Tails – I’m a sucker for true [...]
Lisa Parkin: Top 10 Young Adult Fantasy Books You Should Read
Good list of YA Fantasy books. I’d add Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness.
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Drinkify
Hilarious tool that pairs booze with whatever music you’re listening to. Profoundly goofy or just profound. You decide.
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Here are some radio commercials I helped put together to promote our school. The first one was recorded in what amounts to an echo chamber in our school (unintentional). The other three were done in a room that has a much flatter sound. We used a Blue Yeti and Audacity, and some royalty-free production music [...]
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 [...]
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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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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Fotoshop by Adobé on Vimeo
Beauty product ad that hits the nail on the head.
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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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
