Ridley Scott’s Forever War to be 3D: author Joe Haldeman enthusiastic - SFFMedia
I’m a big fan of Haldeman’s novel… enough to get it autographed by him at ICFA a few years ago. Read it in high school, I think. Nick Davis lent it to me. I think I still have his copy.
Just learned about BetterWorldBooks.com: The online bookstore with a soul
Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than two million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.
Chatting with Nick about various things such as Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, and we got onto the notion of the World Wide Web. And I found this picture of the first web server. Of course I knew it was a NeXt cube, but I’d never SEEEN it.
Ok, they DO know what teabagging means in this video clip, but what are the Republicans thinking (R-rated definition, likely to offend: Urban Dictionary: teabagging)
Profs blast lazy first-year students
Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university’s rigours, survey of faculty says.
University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and “expect success without the requisite effort,” says a province-wide survey to be released today.
And guess what? In this case, many students agree with their profs.
I think we fail our students when we don’t have high enough expectations, and there is no opportunity to learn from failure. I want to support students and I want them to succeed. The only way they can really do that is by raising the bar and helping them figure out how to meet higher expectations. With the decline in the economy, I’m sure that the increased push for people who can’t get jobs to try to get into higher education will give us the opportunity to do that. Supportive competition isn’t a bad thing.
SlashDot article says:
“Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit chemicals called phthalates, are more likely to have autism, according to research by Swedish and US scientists published Monday. … The scientists were surprised by their finding, calling it ‘far from conclusive.’ … The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother’s smoking, family economic problems, and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation. Infants or toddlers who lived in bedrooms with vinyl, or PVC, floors were twice as likely to have autism five years later… than those with wood or linoleum flooring. … Several scientists who did not participate in the study cautioned that it has too many limitations to draw conclusions, but they suggested that new studies be designed to look for a connection between autism and indoor air pollutants.”
Scientists Find Baffling Link between Autism and Vinyl Flooring: Scientific American notes: “Bernard Weiss, a professor of environmental medicine at University of Rochester and a co-author of the study, said the connection between vinyl flooring and autism “turned up virtually by accident.” He called it “intriguing and baffling at the same time.”"
Brazil President Blames ‘White People’ for Crisis
Brazil’s president blamed “white people with blue eyes” for the world economic crisis and said it was wrong that developing countries should pay for mistakes made in richer countries, sparking accusations of racism.
“This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who thought they knew everything and now show they know nothing,” Lula da Silva said…
When challenged about his claims, Lula said: “I only record what I see in the press. I am not acquainted with a single black banker,” according the Guardian newspaper.
I can’t say anything about banking. The only banking officials I’ve dealt with over the past 20 years were Zelia, and she is Portuguese (Azorian I think), and Munisa, and she’s of Indian extraction. Perhaps it is a Toronto thing, but I don’t remember seeing blond/blues in my banking experience. Perhaps Lula da Silva should come and hang in my neck of the woods. To be fair, everyone who has bought into the model that economists can tell anything of value from their models with any certainty or that they would be responsible for their thoughts and actions should look in the mirror first. I never understood why countries didn’t bypass the G8 and do their own thing… but no… greed is universal, and Brazil like everyone else wanted to play with the big boys, and got bit along with them. Nothing to do cept look in the mirror and ask “why did I buy in to the system?”
on some beach in st petes. Got minimal sun. And we got a lot of work done, seriously.
The sun is setting behind us, but still. so beautiful.
Home - Jason Nolan - Confluence tells me I have a new wiki space at Ryerson. I wonder where that came from. Hmmm.
I got another pair of fluevogs today… I think that’s my 14th pair. They were on sale for almost half off, and I do need a nice and shiny pair for when I have important meetings and all.
iPod touch—not lies—sets kid’s pants on fire; parents sue
“Liar liar, pants on fire!” goes the tag line. WHo said that technology isn’t dangerous…
Legally Deafblind
March 15, 2009 - May 3, 2009
The Varley Art Gallery
216 Main Street Unionville mapOrganized by Natalie Schonfeld Howard
Legally Deafblind is a photography-based multimedia body of work about individuals who are deafblind by photographer and artist, Natalie Schonfeld Howard.
The exhibition addresses the importance of language and communication as a window to independence and is an intimate journey of discovery about our dependencies on the senses.
It consists of 40 international photo-documentary images, works on canvas, and an immersive environment of multimedia installations exploring the sensorial experiences of a place when being deafblind.
For additional information, please contact the gallery at (905) 477-9511 or visit www.varleygallery.ca.
1337 Speak! OMG! | SPIRITlive.net is by a Ryerson student, and includes me babbling. I wish I could speak coherently. 
This is from FOX new: Fluffy Toilet Paper Said to Be Worse for Environment Than Hummers
That super-soft toilet paper you’re fond of using? It’s an ecological disaster, environmentalists say.
Millions of trees are harvested throughout the Americas – including rare old-growth forests in Canada – to sustain the United States’ obsession with quilted, ultra-soft, multi-ply toilet paper, the New York Times reported.
Although toilet paper manufacturers could produce products from recycled materials at a similar cost, the newspaper reported, the fiber taken from standing trees are necessary to help give the tissue its fluffy feel.
The United States is the largest market for toilet paper in the world, the newspaper reported, but tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. People from other countries throughout Europe and Latin America are far less picky about what they use to wipe.
“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” Hershkowitz told the Guardian newspaper, which cited the chemicals used in pulp manufacturing and process of cutting down forests.
“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age,” Hershkowitz said. “Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”
However, hope is on the horizon, if Hollywood is any indicator. The Times reported the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend used 100 percent recycled toilet paper at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms.
What’s in your bathroom? Hope it’s not a hummer.
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