All-Blog

We attended a surprisingly informative and interesting session about maternity benefits, presented by Dick Hehr (no, really). Dick is a pretty good champion for teacher's rights, a good listener by all accounts, and I really liked his no-nonsense, unapologetic yet friendly style.

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Well, with Adam getting in so many Wii comments, I thought I might as well share a bit of a survey of the titles that we have picked up, and re-review a couple that we had already:

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Link: http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/games/2007/06/games_frontiers_0617

There's a good article from Wired about the effect of voice chat within online gaming. Personally, while I'm more than happy to use it while gaming -- it's pretty much a requirement when participating in a WoW raid -- I never speak unless participating only with people I know from a face-to-face milieu. I'm not really sure why, but that seems to work best for me.

Link: http://www.loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/208/Rejected+WiiPlay+Games

I may have to create a Wii section on the blog at this rate... Anyway, link is to a video of a few "rejected" Wii games!

(Via Kottke)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N-LpbXF33g&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fuk%2Egizmodo%2Ecom%2F2007%2F06%2F15%2Fstar%5Ftrek%5Ftheremin%5Fwiimote%5Fmoo%2Ehtml

More YouTube silliness: the original Star Trek theme as played on a Wiimote.

(Via Gizmodo)

Link: http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/06/15/german_chicks_in_bikinis_smash.html

I'm at a total loss to explain the audience for this one, other than people looking for bizarre videos.

Still, at least she's following basic safety procedure by donning protective eye-wear prior to destroying the PowerBook.

(Via Gizmodo)

Google recently added full photographic views of some parts of some cities to GoogleMaps. Much like with GoogleEarth, people have been spotting a few interesting events on camera. Here's Wired's take on it.

BoingBoing also has an interesting discussion on some of the pros and cons of the concept.

Over at CNet's NewsBlog, there's more.

The feature is very cool indeed but I just haven't the imagination to figure out how it's useful rather than fun. That said, Calgary's not covered yet. Dang!

Link: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/bootcamp.html

While Parallels is the way I prefer to run XP on my MacBook these days, DF notes that Apple's Boot Camp windows environment now has a new feature that suspends OSX and BootCamp launch. Thus when you return, you can pick up where you left off rather than restarting from scratch. Cool!

(Via Daring Fireball)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/technology/11code.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Neat article from the NYT on the rise and fall of the captcha ("Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart") authentication process.

(From TalkingPointsMemo)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRGCMc59Wao

Oooh! One of my favourite game franchises is back. I can't wait to see what they do with it this time around.

(Via Nodwick)

Link: http://passiveaggressivenotes.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/when-phds-get-frustrated/

Basic physics with an attitude.

(Via OptimusCrime)

This subscription card appeared in a recent Macworld issue. Spot the mistake.

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Every now and again, you come across something written decades ago that says a lot about a subject, and you realize that the writer had a surprisingly modern outlook on the subject as well. It is in this frame of mind I found myself after running across Robert Ingersoll's "Some Mistakes of Moses". This was a treatise on the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. While humour is present throughout, he takes umbrage to the idea that the first five books were inspired, accurate and to be used as a moral guide.

That the arguments he uses ring true over a hundred years later is partly due to the skill and craft of a good orator and writer, and partly due to the disappointing backslides towards literal readings.

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This one's for the new Wii owner on this blog. From Wired 15.05:

Link: http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/968.html

Link is to a blog-related funny from The Joy of Tech.