yjblog

Saw Wall-E last night (every bit as awesome as I had read), and was exposed to the trailer for what could be a terrifyingly bad local 3D production, Sing To The Dawn.

I looked up the official website hoping to find something to make fun of, and MDA certainly didn’t want to disappoint here.

Check out the horrible font choices, nigh-unreadable text size and colour contrast, the hilarious combination of drop-shadow AND outer-glow text effects on the main title, and the amazing playable “background music” involving screeching monkeys and a low-quality version of the (admittedly very melodious) theme song that builds up to a rousing climax and… stops. Even the standard Flash video controls on the trailer are mysteriously ginormous and pixelated. Aargh my eyes.

The world is as stupid as ever. Huzzah!

No, Seriously: Microsoft Patents Page Up & Page Down - GigaOM

The American Scholar - The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - By William Deresiewicz

So when students get to college, they hear a couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big questions. And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train them to ask the little questions — specialized courses, taught by specialized professors, aimed at specialized students. […] We are slouching, even at elite schools, toward a glorified form of vocational training.

What does it mean to go to school at a place where you’re never alone? Well, one of them said, I do feel uncomfortable sitting in my room by myself. Even when I have to write a paper, I do it at a friend’s. That same day, as it happened, another student gave a presentation on Emerson’s essay on friendship. Emerson says, he reported, that one of the purposes of friendship is to equip you for solitude. As I was asking my students what they thought that meant, one of them interrupted to say, wait a second, why do you need solitude in the first place? What can you do by yourself that you can’t do with a friend?

Some musings and collected links from the land of 140 characters this week.

• My chicken comic is the first Google Images hit for defenestrate. Hooray.
• I have a propensity for looking at my watch at exactly 13:37 and being needlessly amused.
• Colbert vs. Cookie Monster = awesome
• Poképresident = also awesome

That is all.

Dave Eggers, TED Prize 2008 winner, on making a difference in the classroom. Very inspirational.

You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person. Your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion. Sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time. Some of these kids just don’t plain know how good they are. How smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them one human interaction at a time.

I’m moving on to a new posting in January, and I have strong suspicions these next few months will be my final times as a professional teacher. Even so, I’m not quite sure I’m done teaching yet, so I’m just making a mental note here to revisit this video a year down the road.

Once Upon A School, Mr. Egger’s challenge for adults to support their local schools, is here.

Many Saturdays of getting-distracted-by-Xbox (and subsequent last-minute panicking) later, the new site is finally up!

Still plenty of things to do, and a few design elements I’m not super happy with, but Corp Comms wanted it up in time for the DSA talk. Comments and suggestions are, of course, welcome.

If you’re interested, here’s a screenshot of the old design:

Stumbled across this Ars Technica report on the MPAA’s newly-released list of top 25 movie piracy schools. On the list:

24. Stanford University - 405
25. University of California at Berkeley - 398

Alright! Way to make up for years of losing Big Game. Respect.

Also,

A number of schools have the dubious distinction of being on both the MPAA and the RIAA list. The overachievers are: Ohio University (#1 RIAA/#18 MPAA), Purdue University (#2, #5), University of Nebraska at Lincoln (#3/#13), UMASS (#6/#9), Michigan State (#7/#20), North Carolina State (#9/#14), University of South Florida (#11/#23), Boston University (#15/#3), and the University of Michigan (#18/#10).

Am I the only one who thinks that list reads like a NCAA sports ranking list, with AP ranking followed by USA Today ranking? For that matter, why can’t piracy be a NCAA sport?

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now — link.

Anyway, from daringfireball:

Remember back in November when Palm CEO Ed Colligan was quoted saying, with regard to a then-hypothetical Apple phone, “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Guess what? They’re just walking in.

Made especially amusing by the following table (TUAW):

Alright, now which of my friends in the US wants to sign up for a two-year Cingular contract this June so I can have my iPhone before 2008?