intodimensions.com

I’m still missing exam questions from all three courses. By not sending them to me you are depriving your fellow students the chance of studying for the exam.

Tage Danielsson, one of Sweden’s most famous and best-loved comedians and performers, performed a monologue in 1979 called “Probability” (Swedish version). It was a scathing attack on the then-ruling political party and their stance on nuclear power in light of what had happened at Harrisburg, where the Three-Mile Island nuclear power plant came close to a melt-down. Ever since hearing Tage reciting “Probability” for the first time, I’ve loved the piece, and today I brought my limited talents to translating it into English. I confess I Googled intensely for a translation but couldn’t find one, so here it is… I certainly make no claims that this is a particularly good translation, but I’ve tried to stay true to what I believe is Tage’s intent and meaning. So take it for what it is, folks.

“Probability, you know, means something that is like the truth. But quite as true as the truth, it’s not, if it is probable. Apparently, we cannot afford real truth anymore, so we have to settle for probability-calculations. That’s a pity, because they are of lesser quality than truths. They are not as reliable. For example, they turn out to be very different before and after. I mean, before Harrisburg it was very improbable that what happened in Harrisburg would happen, but as soon as it had happened the probability shot up to nothing less than 100% so it was almost as if it had actually happened. But just almost as if it had actually happened. In reality, it was as if the whole Social-democratic party waited for over six months to find out if what happened in Harrisburg actually happened or not, before they could make up their minds whether they would think that nuclear power is as dangerous as it would be if what happened in Harrisburg actually happened. Finally, they’ve made up their minds, and apparently concluded that what happened in Harrisburg didn’t actually happen, but that we nonetheless have to get much better security arrangements so that it doesn’t happen here as well. And you can understand that they are a bit hesitant since that kind of accident doesn’t happen, according to probability calculations, more than once every couple of thousand years. And then, it’s at least not probable that it already happened but it’s more probable that it will happen at a later date. And that puts the whole thing in a different light. Because we cannot judge now. Then… Or… Another thing is that if what happened in Harrisburg actually did happen, the probability for it happening again is so ridiculously small that in some ways you can almost say that it was good that what happened in Harrisburg did happen, if it actually did. Because, I mean, then you could almost with certainty say that it’s not going to happen again. At least not in Harrisburg. And almost certainly not at the same time as last time. The risk of repetition is so small that it’s negligible. That means that the risk doesn’t exist, but just a little bit. Now, this is so complicated for the average Joe, that it’s really no point in having a referendum about this. General folks think of course in their rough-cut manner that what happened in Harrisburg actually happened. They take it as a truth. They don’t understand that something that is not even probable cannot be true. They haven’t kept up with developments. They were taught by their parents that always tell the truth. ‘Always tell the truth, kids,’ our parents always told us. We cannot tell our children that anymore. Instead, we have to tell them to always tell the probability. To say the probability, the whole probability, and nothing but the probability, so that they realize that what happened in Harrisburg cannot happen here, since it didn’t even happen there, which would have been much more probable, since that was actually where it happened”.

GeekZone:

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately US$3.4 billion.

The companies plan to meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

“Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications — from documents and images to audio and video,” said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe. “By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software — along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash — Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform.”

It might be good for shareholders, but is it good for customers (developers)? I’m not so sure. This creates, in-effect, a sort of Microsoft-style-monopoly in the arena of graphics and multimedia, which I personally don’t think is good. Photoshop is a good application but it’s growing increasingly too inclusive and complex. Same is true for DreamWeaver, I think. Focus is on more functions, at the expense of more complexity and less performance. Are we now going to get a PhotoWeaver, or DreamShop?

Update 9:10am: Some have suggested this was a belated April-fools joke but it’s on both company’s web sites: Adobe and Macromedia.

Desktoplinux.com:

In this tutorial-style article, Michael C. Barnes outlines a strategy to avoid costly upgrades from Windows 98 to Windows XP — in terms of both hardware and software — by upgrading to Linux, instead. Barnes reviews the typical requirements of computers used for relatively generic purposes, and shows how to give a new lease on life to aging laptops and PCs by replacing obsolete OSes such as Windows 98 with a combination of Linux, free open source applications, and inexpensive commercial software.

ZDNet:

Debian has got the nod from the city of Munich for its trail-blazing migration from Windows to Linux on the desktop

The City of Munich has chosen to migrate its 14,000 desktops to a free Linux distribution, rather than a commercial version of the open source operating system.

The City’s administration said on Thursday that it will use the Debian distribution, which will be customised to meet the needs of the city administration. It has awarded a contract to two German consultancies, Gonicus and Softcon, to help with the migration.

We made a presentation at the Horry County First Steps/SCAEYC conference in Myrtle Beach today. The presentation [PDF] had the title “Free and open-source software in education”. We gave a handout with some sites on it, here are the sites:

http://www.earlychildhood.com/: A great website where you can find many free resources and articles. You can also receive the site’s free magazine.

http://www.drjean.org: Dr. Jean gives ideas for activities; you can find all of her neat cd’s and other things.

http://www.rif.org/: A cool website for ideas and games for reading. This website also has a neat coloring book section.

http://www.abcteach.com/: A website with a lot of templates and activities for the teacher. All free…

http://www.teach-nology.com/: A website just for teachers. They have over 23,000 lesson plans and ideas. All free…

http://www.familyeducation.com/: This website is geared toward families and students of all ages.

http://www.dltk-teach.com/: Great website for templates. This website also has a favorite character page where you can print coloring pages of the students’ favorite storybook characters, make birthday cards, or just play games with their favorite character.

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/: A website for teaching ideas in many areas. They also have ideas on special needs activities. This is a UK website.

http://www.ncrel.org/: Literacy activities for Kindergarten.

http://www.ed.gov/: A government website for teachers, parents, & students.

http://www.tlsbooks.com/: A website that is trying to sell you things, but it does have free “printables” (as they call it).

http://www.reviewcorner.com/: This website reviews educational products, including computer software, books, music, videos/DVDs, and games. You can find out what other people think of something, before you buy it for your classroom.

http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/: An article called “Helping children learn about reading” by NAEYC.

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/: Many ideas at this website for reading and reading activities.

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/: Ideas for kindergarten classrooms.

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/: This site is for teachers and directors of centers. The website has ideas for classrooms to have to get grants for your program.

http://www.kidscom.com/: A wonderful website that students can use themselves.

http://www.child.net/: National Children’s Coalition website that has a lot of links to other website for students.

http://www.telenaut.com/: Show and Tell website that shows children’s artwork from around the world.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/: Students can check out the White House and other neat things at this website.

http://www.ed.gov/: Ideas for learning science.

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/: Checkout the nine planets at this website. It will show you the planets and all the info on the planets.

http://www.worldvillage.com/: Another good site for free-ideas and templates for teachers.

http://kidshealth.org/: A good website that promotes good health for students.

http://www.monarchwatch.org/: Great for a science unit.

http://www.fi.edu/: Another great website for science where teachers and students can go explore.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/: Picture Dictionary for English and with English names and other Languages.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/l: Maps of the World.

http://www.sass.ca/: Games and Activities about staying safe for children.

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/: Web site about space, with different activities for children.

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/: Web site about rainbows, and all the questions that come from seeing a rainbow.

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/: A website for children, that is filled with fun activities for them.

http://www.funschool.com/: A fun website for children

http://richmond.k12.va.us/: Free activities and lesson plans for teachers.

There’s a new version of Firefox.

DIAJ..org:

Welcome to the Directory of Open Access Journals. This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 1530 journals in the directory. Currently 385 journals are searchable at article level. As of today 71908 articles are included in the DOAJ service.

CNN.com:

LexisNexis, which compiles and sells personal and financial data on U.S. consumers, said Tuesday that personal information on 310,000 people nationwide may have been stolen.

That number is nearly 10 times higher than the figure LexisNexis disclosed last month when it first reported that its databases had been breached.

LexisNexis said in March that 32,000 people had been potentially affected by the breaches.

I can only hope that you are not one of the LexisNexis customer that has had their personal information stolen.

StarTribune:

Minneapolis is about to become an unwired city, creating a universal wireless Internet access network available to every citizen, visitor, business and municipal facility within city limits.

On Wednesday, the city will unveil a request for a proposal for a privately owned, $15 million to $20 million citywide wireless and fiber-optic network. It is likely to use the Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology that has created several hundred Internet access “hot spots” for laptop computer users in metro coffee shops, bookstores, airports and hotels.

A contract for the wireless and fiber network should be signed later this year, with initial service likely to begin 12 months later and citywide service six to 12 months after that, Minneapolis officials said.