Friends

This is the new CC3 export dialog box for update 8. As well as the aforementioned antialias option, we've added the ability to launch an editor for the image you've just saved, and restrict the export to the map border. Lots of images have a mask around the outside to hide symbols which overlap the edge, and this option ensures the mask isn't included on the export. I can export a 6500x5200 resolution image on my mediocre XP system.

I loved Poland.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/murder-re-enacted.html

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Current Location: 20852
Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: "The Great Commandment," Camouflage

Long are the days
When battle looms near
We wait alone
Surrounded by fear

Though we are many
Joined in this war
Each man stands alone
On this far shore

When will it come
The next frightening wave
Will we survive
Or lie low in a grave

All of our men
Stand ready to fight
From start of day
‘Til coming of night

Again and again
This pattern repeats
The low drums of war
Never cease to beat

For Freedom we fight
Liberty at stake
Death, bloodshed and pain
All lie in our wake

When at last this ends
And we are gone from this place
Who will remember
Know our name or our face

Our families will grieve
As victors rejoice
The Words that we write
Remain our last voice

The price has been paid
The cost quite dear
To live in a world
Without any fear

Remember the soldiers
Some who gave all
The peace they have fought for
Once and for all

- Kelly MacDougal

"It is something great and greatening to cherish an ideal; to act in the light of truth that is far-away and far above; to set aside the near advantage, the momentary pleasure; the snatching of seeming good to self; and to act for remoter ends, for higher good, and for interests other than our own." 
              - Joshua L. Chamberlain

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Current Location: 21740
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: "Du Hast" earworm

Took my car in again today, after crossing my fingers and hoping last Friday was just a fluke. No such luck.

(Got stranded at the Columbia Mall last Friday, which, thanks to the immediate and available assistance of werewulf and my local friends B & G, wasn't the absolute disaster it could have been.)

Car has continued to stall out periodically, or just be stubborn about starting. So I took it back to the dealer this morning. Their diagnosis: Bad fuel pump. Replacement cost? $1,300.00, approx.

I took the car to a local Sunoco for a second opinion, and got the estimate reduced to just over 1100, but that's not much better, frankly, and apparently most of the cost is the pump itself.

Sunoco gave me an additional tip, because apparently the pump is known to be faulty, based on a Toyota sheet that's distributed with the manual for the car. Failure within 60k or 6 years bears replacement under warranty.

My car is only 3 years old and change, but in the time I've had it, I've driven it up above the 70k mark. Nevertheless, it's only 3 years old, too young to expect a part that expensive to die. So much for avoiding purchasing the extended warranty.

So, now I'm waiting for the customer service folks to beat on the dealer and see if we can compromise on the total cost to repair. In the meantime, I'm continuing to drive my car, because I don't really have much choice, and I'm maintaining AAA. Hoping I won't have to use it.

Also needless to say, I've been distracted again. No writing of any sort over the last several days. Going to bed as soon as this posts. Grump.

Current Mood: cranky

Nov. 10th

So in geeking out with a new friend over standup comedy, I mentioned that one tape I really missed was my former NYC roommate Hamlet's VHS of "A Few Bits of Fry and Laurie"-- highlights from Stephen Fry's and Hugh Laurie's (before he was House, you damn kids) sketch comedy show. The stuff on that tape was freakin' genius; not only do Random and I still quote it to this day, but friends of ours who've never *seen* it will quote it based purely on our descriptions, because even describing them, they're still hilarious. Hamlet got rid of the tape sometime after we all moved, and it wasn't available on DVD.

I don't know if that particular collection is, but-- gasp! glee!-- the whole series is now!!!

*pause for happy dance*

I know what I'm picking up in the near future!

(By the way, Hugh Laurie, if you're reading this? I have always loved you. In an intensely carnal and perverted way. Call me.)

In case you haven't experienced the joy, I also found some samples (bless you, YouTube)-- more or less SFW except you might give it away that you're not working when you crack up.

This one's for Random:



This is one of my favorites...and if you hear me, upon hearing someone say something bizarre, say something like, "That sentence has never been uttered before in the history of the English language", this sketch is why:



Also a classic, and sadly still timely:



This one is hilarious but also kind of sad (to me at least):



And finally...




Enjoy!

Current Mood: amused

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Current Location: 21740
Current Mood: angry
Current Music: Electric Wizard, "Dopethrone"

And now, an educational rant.

I just listened to a webinar on gaming in education. For the most part, it was really cool. The last presentation was on a game by the Florida Virtual School on learning American history. In a nutshell, students complete history missions in the game and then do some type of assessment with their online teachers. It's a full, year-long history course that students can take instead of a regular online history course. I wish they would have talked about the assessments more as that is what most interests me.

What killed their presentation is when they showed a slide that graphed the grades between the game AH class and the regular online AH class. The kids in the game history class did significantly better than the kids in the regular online class. Thus my question - did the students in the game AH class get the same tests/assessments as the students in the regular class? The answer from one of the facilitators, "Yes, they are the same assessments, they test the same standards." My answer was, "Different things. Were the *tests* the same, not the standards." Another person said that the assessments were different but again, repeated that the standards were the same.

THIS IS WRONG!

Unless you use the same testing/assessment method, you CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT compare grades/scores/achievements between two classes, even if they teach the exact same material. Apples and oranges. If one class is tested with a multiple choice instrument and another is tested with a short answer/essay, those are two separate tests and cannot be compared to each other.

I see this happen ALL THE TIME and it drives me batshit. If you were having a race between two runners for a set distance and ran one on a gravel track and the other on a turf track, that would be an INVALID test. But they ran the same distance!! It's the same race!! Right. Tell that to the runners who will tell you that track surface makes a difference in racing times. So why, oh why, educators, do you compare student achievement with different test methods? That's right, you don't. Give me a multiple choice test and an essay test covering the same material and I can guarentee you that I will score higher on the essay test because I'm just weird like that.

Please save my sanity as well as others out there and quit trying to make comparisons and draw conclusions between different methods of teaching if you aren't going to use the same evaluation instrument. It makes school systems dump scads of money into programs that really aren't proven when you start to pick them apart. I'm sure your teachers would appreciate the raise instead or at least fix up the crumbling schools.

Well yesterday actually, Nov 9, 1989. I had noted it to myself, but let the post brewing in me slip by. Bad me. But Nov 10 counts too.

On Nov 9, 1989
A few friends and I heard "something" was going on at the Wall, and took the U-Bahn down to Brandenburg Gate to see. When I got there, I saw a few folks bloodied, nothing major - apparently they had been standing on top of the 12 foot high wall there, and the East German police had used firehoses to wash them off. There was an affable atmosphere even so, and a few media folks out, and a sort of electricity, anticipation in the air.

Then the Trabants, those little East German cardboard cars, started to move through. People cheered, cried, and pounded on the cars as they entered the West. After 20 years some details may be a little fuzzy in my head, but even now I can still remember the emotion that swept through the crowd, can still *feel* it.

By the next night, Nov 10, they weren't bothering to hose people down from the top of the Wall at the Gate. Tom Brokaw was there on a platform, and American service folks were clustered around him on the pavement, having him autograph $1 bills (I still have mine). Bits of the Wall were being chipped away at, with every tool imaginable.

20 years ago, a Wall fell, and a country reunited.

Today, we still build Walls. Some are to keep out illegal immigrants, others still are built in the name of security, but also serve to emphasize a division within a country, taking away property, killing farms. Today I remember all who died trying to cross a Wall trying simply to get to a better life. And I pray that someday those Walls too can fall.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: thoughtful

Including Halloween costumes - Bowser, Mario, and Luigi.

Babies

Current Mood: busy

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Current Location: 21740
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: "Soul Kitchen," The Doors

If you are interested in Science Fiction, and you read David Freer's books (military SF with a comic bent, IIRC) you might be interested to know that he and his family are emigrating from South Africa to Australia.  The reason I am posting that info here is that they want to be able to take their pets with them, which requires a 7 month (!) quarantine at the cost of many thousands of dollars.  They have about half of the funds they need.  Mr Freer has put a modern twist on the storyteller's bowl and is publishing a novel online, one chapter at a time, supported by donations to a fund to help them move their beloved animals.

If you've read his stuff before or think you might enjoy it, please consider going by the website and dropping a few dollars in the bowl.  I've seen before in online appeals how we can give just a small amount, money that's easy for us, and it adds up to a big difference for the people who need it.

There's a recent post about the situation on D Freer's blog about the move, and the Save the Dragons site has the novel to date (free to read) and a FAQ about the whole thing.

Current Location: 20904
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: "One," U2 (earworm)