Mr. Boulanger, Computer Teacher

Mnemonics is the art of assisting your memory by using artificial aid such as rhymes, songs, or acronyms. In this example, you will learn how to count in French until the number six:

“Un.. deux.. trois.. – cat sank!” (oh cease, please!)
(un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six…)

You can find a lot of other examples of mnemonics technique for math, physics, astronomy, etc. at http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/_mnframe.htm.

I certainly wish they paid more heed to this advice in dushi Curacao!

you don’t want to lose everything at the flick of a switch…

All my students have had a chance to look at this incredible animation of the universe as we know. This is a full blown 3D map of the Universe to scale and with exact coordinates. You will be able to follow your ascent from the Himalayas, through the solar system, pass the Milky Way and beyond the afterglow of the original light from the Big Bang.

From this video, we also talked about:

How to spot the Milky Way – From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

The black hole in the center of the Milky Way: From the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7774287.stm

The Voyager I and II explorations – More information from the NASA website: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/fastfacts.html

Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence as a screen-saver – SETI@Home from University of Berkeley: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Amrit also found a related series of videos which you could be interested in:

The Naked Science series from National Geographic: YouTube channel

This video was taken in one shot from a camera phone and made without using any special effect. Can you figure out how they did it?

If you were wondering where your Christmas decorations went, see them running away with the sheep:

This was submitted for extra-credit. Great find!

You can celebrate Thanksgiving with National Geographic:

• http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/PeoplePlaces/Thanksgiving-traditions

Or with Kaboose:

• http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-games.html

For the boys to dream this weekend:

If  only I could have seen this video before embarking onto my chemistry classes, I would have fared much better! This anthropomorphic video is an hilarious study guide:

Anthropomorphic:  Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena. Here, the elements are represented by humans at a party. This representation is anthropomorphic. Etymology — From the Greek anthropos “human being” and morphe “form”.

Ever had any hesitation about apostrophes? Here is the conclusion of a great lesson by The Oatmeal:

Visit the whole website for a beautifully illustrated revision of the life of the apostrophe

If you are interested in the world of small, and I mean very small things, check out this mesmerizing animation from the University of Utah about the size and scale of cells:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

This smash hit from The Sounds of Science will remind you of all the procedures for lab safety!

Did you know that:

Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.

One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.

The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

These fun facts about computers were discovered by Robbert. There are many more where it comes from at FunFactz.com.

This 4th installment of the video “Did you know” was sent to me by Dimitri. A great way to visualize how interconnectivity between human beings has progressed throughout civilization and had been accelerating in the past few years.

You are this generation.

Watch until the end to see how small the future computers are expected to be!

If you are interested in a future career in game design, a great place to start are the authoring tools that are packaged with some first-person shooter games to develop your own levels. Most of these authoring tools work in a 3D environment so you need to be familiar with CAD (Computer Assisted Design) programs.

In our curriculum we use Google SketchUp to create 3D and now you have the possibility to create maps for Left 4 Dead using SketchUp.

You will need the game of course (it’s available for purchase on Steam), Google SketchUp (free) and the Left 4 Dead plugins for SketchUp (also free).

So if you believe you have a future in as a professional game designer, head over to the Left 4 Dead blog to get started.

Who said you couldn’t bang heads at some a classical performance? Band members and music aficionados will love this one.

Never underestimate the power of collaboration and orchestration. Enjoy Perpetuum Jazzile singing Africa (by Toto).

I think this is the perfect time to turn your head inside out to start grasping the size of the universe around us.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a French photographer who has become very famous for his splendid aerial photography (1) throughout the world. We saw his exhibit in Chicago, and each time he cares to display his work in public places so that everybody has access to his vision for free. The power of his photos comes from a detailed description for each shot in which he explains the world context of the photo.

He has now gone one step further by filming a spectacular movie about our entire planet. As you can imagine, being a photographer, the cinematography (2) of his movie is beautiful from beginning to end. Once again and because he wants as many people as possible to understand the issues at stake, he is releasing his documentary on June 5th (for the UN world environment day 2009) without any copyright. This means you can watch it for free, distribute it to whomever you want, play it wherever you want and even make remixes of it! so please download it from home-2009.com.

Photo © Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Watch the introduction by yann at ted.com.It’s really funny because he has a very strong French accent (you can put the subtitles on).

Watch the entire movie on youtube and share it with facebook.

A quote to remember: “You know the problem: we don’t want to believe what we know”.

(1) Aerial photography: Photography taken from an airplane

(2) Cinematography: The art or technique of movie photography, including both the shooting and development of the film.

Facebook can reach far and deep into our lives and this article illustrates just the point. In Internet Justice, Asylum explores six instances where people who were wronged manage to bring justice using Facebook.

1. A graffiti artist gets caught with his tag
2. A security camera mugshot matches
3. How to retrieve a stolen laptop
4. Fix your truck on facebook
5. Hateful crime is thwarted
6. Police Departments on Facebook

Read the rest of the article here.