Warning: squirrels.

Cake or coal?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bad day for school administrators

Sunday, December 16, was a bad day to be a school administrator.  First, a student at Big Springs [Pennsylvania] High School reported that he had received two hours of detention for using Mozilla Firefox instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The student even posted an image of his detention slip complete with the school's telephone number, address, and the names of the school's administrators [click the image to enlarge]:

The story made it to the front pages of Digg and Slashdot ... and the high school's email servers and switchboard quickly experienced the wrath of many angry netizens. [See "Slashdot effect."]  There was only one problem: the story was a hoax.  In response to the deluge of angry messages, the high school's principal announced that

The uploaded letter was an altered version of a detention letter sent to a student. ... The Big Spring School District does have confirmation that the discipline letter was altered. ... The reports, blogs and other sources on the Internet indicating that a Big Spring student was assigned detention for using the Firefox internet browser instead of Internet Explorer are untrue and were based on the fake letter. Detention is assigned in our schools after appropriate warnings are given. If students continue to engage in non-academic activities or fail to follow a teacher’s directive during class time, discipline can and will be assigned.

You can read the principal's full press release at http://www.bigspring.k12.pa.us/news.php?action=view_article&article_id=2130

Later that night, another administrator a little further up the road was also visited by the ghost of bad publicity.  On the finale of the CBS television show Survivor China, contestant Denise Martin announced that her school district demoted her from lunch lady to janitor following her return from China. Survivor producer Mark Burnett was so moved by Martin's story that he offered Martin $50,000 to "help get her life back."

What Martin neglected to mention is that, prior to leaving to tape the show in China, she had sought and received a promotion from cafeteria employee to full-time custodian.  According to a statement from the superintendent of schools,

This promotion came with additional benefits and a higher salary. Following her leave, she then returned to this same position. ... Regretfully, the Douglas Public School District was inaccurately portrayed as failing to be accommodating to an employee during what the District viewed as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. This is far from the case. On the contrary, we granted all requests made by Mrs. Martin so that she could participate in the “Survivor” series. Since Mrs. Martin was on an approved leave, her position was held open for her, and she returned to this same position upon her return from China.

You can read the complete press release or, better still, check out the CBS News video in which Martin answers to Nancy Lane, the superintendent of Douglas Public Schools [Massachusetts].

I don't know if I want to live in a world where you cannot trust a high school student or lunch lady/janitor.

The coolest picture of the year

Click to enlage.  Look closely to see why this picture is so cool.

[Update 12/18 -- the black camels aren't camels, they're the camels' shadows.]

Image source: National Geographic

Gilels plays Rachmaninoff Op. 3 No. 2 In C Sharp Minor

I, for one, welcome our new spider overlords

And so it begins. According to BoingBoing, "A giant spider recently attacked the space shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad."  Click the image below for the tragic video footage.

BioShock redux

Well, I finished BioShock yesterday. Hands-down this was the best Xbox 360 game I've played since Oblivion. And it looks like the reviewers agree: Spike TV just awarded BioShock game of the year.

In fact, I think I am going to play BioShock one more time from the beginning ... only this time I'm going to harvest the Little Sisters instead of saving them. >:)

Holiday shopping dos and don'ts

On Wednesday, November 28, Steve & Johnnie and the Website Wednesday Night Cybersquad [of which I am a founding member] talked about some dos and don'ts you need to keep in mind when doing your holiday shopping online.  If you have Real Player [or an alternative audio player like Jet Audio or Real Alternative that can handle .rm files], you can listen to our recommendations online.

GaETC 2007 Podcasts

About three weeks ago I had the honor of being a featured speaker at the 20th annual Georgia Educational Technology Conference. As in years past, the folks at the conference recorded two of my sessions and turned them into podcasts:

Keeping Up With the Googlebots: What’s New at Google (as of November 2007)

• Podcast
• PowerPoint presentation [zipped]
• Flash presentation

What’s New and What’s Different in Microsoft Office 2007

• Podcast
• PowerPoint presentation [zipped]
• Flash presentation

Podcasts for presentations of many of the conference's other featured speakers--including David Pogue, Leslie Fisher, Gail Lovely, Curtis Bonk, Doug Johnson, Annette Lamb, and many others--can be found on the GaETC Podcast page.

Enjoy!

Okay by me in America

So, Captain America is dead.  He was killed back in March.

But Marvel is coming out with a new Captain America in January.  No, the new Captain America is not Steve Rogers. He's still dead. From what I can tell, the new Captain America is a member of the Sharks.

Don't believe me? Here is the cover art from January's issue of Captain America:

And here is the flag of Puerto Rico:

Hmmm.

Special thanks to Brian Cronin for catching this.

BioShock

Now that I no longer have to read any journal articles or write any research papers--at least until classes start up again in late January--I am free to catch up on my video game-playing. The first game on my to-do list is one of the three best-reviewed Xbox 360 games of the year: BioShock.  Our friends at GameTrailers offer the most in-depth review of the game, although it should be noted that because BioShock is rated "M" [which is kind of like a movie rating of "R" for violence], you may be asked to prove you are old enough to watch the review.

While GameTrailers' review is certainly in-depth, it is no where near as entertaining as the one Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw posted back in September. Since Croshaw uses some foul language in his brilliantly hilarious review--imagine combining Dennis Miller with a sedated Louis Black--I'll let you hunt down Croshaw's review on your own.