January 28th, 2010 | 
Author: The forecast was just for flurries, but it’s been snowing like crazy since I got to work this morning.
Here’s the Union Street webcam on campus for a live peek: Read the rest of this entry »
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Please. I’m ready for it.
I ordered new snowshoes from MEC yesterday. Now, I’ve always been a traditionalist with snowshoes. I have a pair of willow and rawhide Huron shoes that my parents bought for me in the 70’s and they’ve always done the trick for me. Until last February when Greg and I hiked in to the cottage. A large portion of that walk was on the ice and having two big frames of wood strapped to one’s feet is downright dangerous on the ice. Greg was marching along just fine on his plastic and aluminum abominations while I wound up having to carry mine across the ice, then put them back on when we got to the Island.
You see, the bindings on his had crampons (ice spikes) built into them. Bastard.
I had no idea that book piracy was so prevalent. Music pirates are pikers by comparison:
Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher’s Weekly that “publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy” comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry.
From what we’ve been able to piece together, the book “lending” takes place in “libraries”. On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a “card”.
Gever Tulley is a hero of mine. His 2007 TED lecture, 5 Dangerous Things for Kids, was a revelation.
Tulley is the founder of The Tinkering School:
Too bad it doesn’t exist any more.
You may have heard the outrageous story last week about a school vice-principal wetting his pants in terror and calling the bomb squad upon seeing an 11-year-old student’s electronic project? No, I’m not kidding. At a so-called technology magnet school. That’s bad enough, but the kid and his parents are now supposed to get “counselling” for, presumably, daring to let their child think for himself and experiment.
Murilee Martin posted a wonderful reminiscence of a prank that he pulled in high school that amounted to much the same effect: bomb squad and evacuated school. But for a notable exception: Read the rest of this entry »
If you subscibed to a service from Shaw (cable/internet/satellite), this doesn’t necessarily happen. Well, we have Shaw Direct satellite service and it hasn’t happened to us. I’d leave if it did.