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Category: Blog
Failure to Communicate
Natalie Joy is a cutie. And I love drawing her. It’s a rare gift to have a muse, model, best friend, and partner, all in one. I am drawing on my new phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and it is WONDERFUL. The Wacom-powered S Pen stylus is spectacular, and the built-in version of Autodesk Sketchbook is a delight to use. Not to mention that the bundled Samsung apps are surprisingly good. S Note in particular, with its Evernote integration, is a lot of fun to sketch in. I also…
Using Office365 with WordPress
I have been enjoying using the new Office. Full disclosure: I got my first year of Office365 for free. I took part in the preview and genuinely enjoyed it. I said as much on Twitter and was rewarded by the Office team with a year’s subscription at no cost. That’s been great for me – as a new teacher without a huge budget for tech, having the service free for a year has been incredibly helpful. But as I use it, I’m more and more aware of the fact that…
Unfamiliar Ground
Last night, while walking Leo around 10:00, I realized (having stumbled onto it without realizing) that what is normally a field of tall grass on the way home had been cut flat. Instead of comfortable darkness, orange high-intensity lights, even far away, revealed heretofore unseen topography that made this familiar home stretch seem completely alien. The options were to walk back the way we came, down by the river, and add another half-hour to our trip, or to press on. With little moonlight, and with the air cooling quickly, we continued.…
Sunday Reading: Spaceplanes, Silencing Scientists, and Skepticism
Hey, look at that! We’ve got a little light alliteration in our title today, inspired in no small part by the excellent Canada’s Least-Watched Political Podcast. We’ve had CLWPP as a member of spillway(radio) for a couple of months now, and it’s been a blast. Big things are on the horizon with that show, and Greg, Will and I are very excited about the conversations we’ve been having about it. It’s a sunny day in Ottawa and, after breakfast, spillway’s Top Dog and I took a walk by the river.…
CLWPP Episode 8: Conservatives, Catholics, Consumers, and Collisions
The Ontario PC Party is having their policy convention, and Will and Greg have a lot to say about it. The “Name The City” quiz also returns. Special appearances by the Pope, Nova Scotia, and half the federal Liberal Caucus. Don’t forget to help us out by subscribing and rating on iTunes, using those fancy social media buttons to share the show, and by sharing your thoughts in the comments below! Also, you can directly support the show by checking out some of the new merchandise we’re offering through our Cafepress store!…
TEDx Is Not Dead. But Science Education Might Be.
A Natural News article was circulated on Facebook recently with the title “TED aligns with Monsanto.” Loosely, it claims that the organizers of TEDx events, which are independently organized events similar to the well-known TED conferences, are shutting down talks about contentious issues, as though it were becoming a more hardened, conservative organization. What is true about this is that TEDx isn’t going to be quite as generous with their stamp of approval in the future. Some months ago, complaints were made on the /r/tedtalks subreddit about the quality of speakers…
Sunday Reading 07/09/2013
My stars, a new one-sheet and a new Sunday Reading in the same weekend? Well fan my peaches, or mint my julep, or something. It’s almost like I’m making content for the website. Where’d the Southern thing come from? No idea. Let’s get into some fun things to read with your coffee. Geeking Out on the Logo – Marissa Mayer, Marissa’s Tumblr Yahoo is a weird thing. I still don’t fully understand the brand or the company myself, but it seems to be popping up with increasing regularity since Marissa…
My Tenuous Relationship with Tonsils
First thing: I insisted that the scanner bed is big enough to fit my new watercolour paper, and clearly it ain’t. Natalie Joy was right. >.< I will need to draw narrower next time, I guess. But, getting back to the theme, I’ve always hated my tonsils. Just like I’ve always kind of hated my epiglottis. They fall into the broad category of “things that make the human body kind of gross.” And tonsils are never quite symmetrical. There’s nothing beautiful about ’em, and very little capacity for beauty there. So when I take…
Episode 82: Band Camp
Show Notes: 2 Nerd 1 Podcast youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ComicFiction Patty Marvel’s 1st ever open mic (NSFW) Reddstone in Lakewood : http://youtu.be/LUiMDmKIMTk Graphing the history of philosophy: http://drunks-and-lampposts.com/2012/06/13/graphing-the-history-of-philosophy/ Nerdtitans: http://nerdtitan.com/ Opening theme: Night on Bald Mountain Closing theme: Fight Song Segue Sung, Louie Louie Performed by the URI Ram Marching Band under the direction of Brain Cardany. Web Extra: My good friend Patty Marvel did her first stand up set!! It is a solid performance for a first time person! She is adorable and has a great deal of…
This is why non-gamers think gamers are terrible people.
I hit a link directing me to a new GTAV gameplay trailer earlier tonight and ended up on this imgur thread. Read the first few items on it. This is why Jack Thompsons and the like exist. When you see those kinds of comments — which are not infrequent in the gaming community, and anyone who says otherwise is either willfully ignorant or just happily so — it’s easy to understand why America would be so eager to tramp all over the First Amendment to restrict access to these kinds of games.…
How Could Microsoft Have Set Expectations Better for the Xbox One?
I work with a lot of students. And they love video games. Most of them are Xbox owners, or play Xbox at friends’ houses. Not one is excited for the Xbox One. It’s taken some digging to figure out why. They’re pretty savvy. They’ve either watched the reveal or talked with friends who have, and they’re pissed that there wasn’t much time devoted to games. I have an explanation for that — they wanted to get the platform and TV and services stuff out of the way so that they…