Hands on the Wii | CNET News.com
YUMMY YUMMY I WANT WII IN MY TUMMY!!!
I’m ordering a classset!
Category: Education/Undervisning
Topics related to education (danish:undervisning), edutainment etc.
Birds of a feather flock together;
and so will pigs and swine.
Rats and mice will have their choice;
and so will I have mine.
Så er der ikke ret længe til jeg “står” for Linuxforum 2006 BoF sessionen om åbne standarder, og du kan være med til at skabe, altså co-create, den.
Mit oplæg er primært dette:
‘Format Wars’: Computerworld – Politikere fristede af OpenDocument
Og især at vi får samarbejdet om denne liste:
- Der må ikke anvendes indlejrede dokumenter og/eller grafik, alt skal være henvisninger
- Det skal sikres at henvisninger ikke bliver brudt gennem en PURL (persistent URL) system
- Alt skal kunne nås gennem URLer og kunne vises i en standard browser uden behov for ekstra programmer (der skal altid findes en XHTML version af et dokument)
- Programmering (læs Excel udvikling) skal “godkendes†af en central IT funktion, så man undgår “ad-hocerietâ€
- Der skal laves et centralt erfarings udvekslings fællesskab, så løsninger kan deles, dette for at undgå at den centrale godkendelse af “programmering†bliver for stiv
- Så lidt layout som muligt
- Dokumenter skal være struktureret ensartet, stærk brug af “outline†og “levelsâ€
Men også forslag til standard software, og lister over anbefalede åbne standarder, jeg nominerer:
Software
- MediaWiki
- Drupal
- WordPress
- OpenOffice.org
- Gimp
- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Mozilla Sunbird
- Apple iCal server
Standarder (ikke nødvendigvis åbne)
- Open Document Format (ODF)
- XHTML
- JPG
- PNG
- SVG
- Portable Document Format (PDF)
- OIO AWS (Address Web Service)
De-facto standarder der er “stemt hjem”:
- Microsoft Office <= 2004
Kommende (ikke nødvendigvis åbne) standarder der er interessante:
- Microsoft Office Open XML
I’ve just realised one of the many reasons I love Marmorkirken is:
It was sort of co-created – a work of the collective, and a great example of co-creation in Denmark, at least in “recent time”, that didn’t involve the labour movement, before that I think it was the Viking occupation of Britain! LOL!
Now you can co-create the next phase of the Marmorkirke by suggesting candidates for a female statue outside the Church!
I nominate:
Anne Palle
Maren Spliids
Agnes Bach
More inspiration (not too Danish nor “Christian”).
Kim Bach کیم پاک:
gr8!
en anden:
23.39
hva’
Kim Bach کیم پاک:
23.40
great prøv at udtale gr8 på engelsk!
en anden:
23.40
ok
42:29
er det også opensource
43:09
=?
Kim Bach کیم پاک:
23.47
nej det er et ord
47:41
LOL priceless
en anden:
23.47
ord=
47:44
`
Yesterday I went to see the movie The Science of Sleep, directed and written by Michel Gondry, the fantastic French director, and my expectations were quite elevated!
For those who’ve never heard of Michel Gondry, just dig in your memory for the GREATEST music videos EVER made, and the top 10 will be dominated by his works.
He is best know for his works with Björk, Chemical Brothers, Foo Fighters, Kylie Minouge(!) and of course: The White Stripes.
Just one comment to the movie: “MICHEL GONDRY VOUS ETES GENIAL”. This is the greatest movie of creative vision since Brazil, I simply love it. It’s such a tribute to the creative mind and life in general – and I ended up with a tear in my eye because of the beautiful ending, that was a dream or was it?
I will go see it again and again and can’t wait until it is released on DVD.
It also made me realise how much I miss Paris, the scene where they’re dumping a TV in Canal St. Martin, my favorite spot on the planet, is priceless, and I also miss the love of my life (so far)! Now the tears are turning into a river! Quote: Once a woman has decided to dump you, she CAN’T change her mind! Unquote. I NEED TO GET OVER HER, and HER as well! Isis where are you?
10 stars out of 6 possible!
BTW! I’m in love – should I go seek out my love consultant, or maybe hire a new one (I already know who that should be!)?
Dansk Flygtningehjælp (The Danish Refugee Council) – Frivilligbladet (The Volunteer Post)
Dansk Flygtningehjælp (The Danish Refugee Council), has just published the latest issue of Frivilligbladet (The Volunteer Post). This time they have a piece on our trip to Ringkøbing in the western part of Denmark, and I’m very proud to be featured in it.
Besides the fact that the article basically is an interview with yours truly, it’s also accompanied by pictures taken by me. I’m really, really proud and humbled by this.
Since the article is in Danish, I’m hereby publishing an English language translation.
FROM MJØLNERPARKEN TO WESTERN JUTLAND
Frivilligbladet Volume 3, 2006, written by Bente Bækgaard
It’s a long distance from Mjølnerparken in Copenhagen to Western Jutland (the main peninsula of Denmark). Despite that fact a group of volunteers from Mjølnerparken had success going on a trip with 21 children to Hee near Ringkøbing. The trip became a success, in part because it was planned in close co-operation with the volunteer group in Ringkøbing as well as local partners.
Sea, sun and blue skies. 42 brown legs from Mjølnerparken are streaking across the sandy dunes and into the roaring North Sea. In the background is a group of volunteers. They’re also from Mjølnerparken. They’re the organisers of the vacation trip to Western Jutland, aided by two consultants, the volunteers from Ringkøbing and local partners from Mjølnerparken.
Co-operation
“The idea behind the trip surfaced after the yearly assembly in April, where our volunteer consultant had talked to the volunteers in Ringkøbing about the possibility of arranging a vacation trip. We felt that that was a great idea, that we wanted to help realising.” says Kim Bach, who has acted as the co-ordinator of the trip.
Shortly after the yearly assembly of the volunteers in April, he and seven other volunteers from the group in Mjølnerparken contacted the group in Ringkøbing. And the planning of the vacation trip had started.
Aid from the group in Ringkøbing
The alliance with the group of volunteers from Ringkøbing turned out to be a huge asset for the volunteers from Mjølnerparken. The volunteers didn’t have much previous knowledge of the possibilities in the western part of Jutland, so at that point the local partner came to the rescue: “It was a great help having some locals to co-operate with. They have much more knowledge of the area than we do, and besides that, they also know our target group. This means that they quickly can point us in a direction that is interesting for us”, says Kim Bach.
The volunteers from Ringkøbing helped us locate a place to stay, and to find activities for the children. To top this, the volunteers from western Jutland arranged that the children from Mjølnerparken, got access to the control tower in the harbour in Hvide Sande, and they saw how the sluice that give boats access to the harbour is controlled. The local contacts seems to be able to open sluice gates as well.
Klub 36
One thing that the volunteers were aware of, after deciding to go through with the project: it will become a challenge to get the children to sign up for the trip.
In order to avoid the classical horror of volunteer work: that no one shows up, the volunteers chose to co-operate with Klub 36, a local club in Mjølnerparken: “We chose to work with Klub 36, because they have a strong network in Mjølnerparken and a good contact with the parents of the children, there’s no doubt that the many sign-ups also can be attributed to the fact that two workers from Klub 36 took part in the trip, and that the invitations were circulated in their network”, says Kim Bach. He adds that the group of volunteers also leveraged another offer from the group, the volunteers that offer private tutoring in the private homes of the children, “hjemmelektiehjælpen”. “The benefit of our private tutoring offer is that the volunteers have a close relationship with the parents of the children, and the parents are much more inclined to permit their children to take part, if they know the people behind”, Kim Bach adds.
The strategy of the volunteers paid off. The sign-ups poured in, and the volunteers had to create a waiting-list. The only drawback of the strategy was, according to Kim Bach, that the group of children weren’t as mixed as we originally had envisioned: “We would have like to have more children of Danish ethnicity to take part in the trip, but we didn’t succeed,†Kim Bach says and adds, that the volunteers next year will do more to gather a more ethnically mixed group.
Volunteer work in rural areas
It turned out that the trip to Western Jutland did more than open the eyes of the children. The volunteers that took part in the trip, also discovered how the volunteers in rural areas work: “Through the co-operation with the group of volunteers in Ringkøbing, we discovered the great differences between volunteer integration work in different parts of Denmark. It’s my impression that the volunteers in Ringkøbing spends a lot of time doing volunteer work. “Our” volunteers don’t have that much time. On top of that the volunteers in rural areas has a much closer co-operation with the local authorities. While we were in the Western Jutland, a number of Burmese refugees arrived, to be settled in Ringkøbing. It was interesting to hear, how the authorities involve the volunteers in that task. “We don’t do things like that at all†says Kim Bach.
The child from last week was back, once again with challenging assignments…
This time she had to talk about “problems in society”, she had written cue-cards about pollution, and how bad it is that we’re polluting the oceans, but the empty cue-card had the headline “Religion” written on it.
“Do you think I know something about that subject” I asked? She nodded “Yes”.
She started out by acknowledging that there are more similarities than differences between Christianity and Islam, and once again the number one issue Muslims have with Christianity surfaced, the fact the Jesus, alav ha-shalom, is claimed to be the “son of God”, well since God or Allah, is “one”, this is blasphemy. My point was once again that we’re all children, and that our relationship with the Creator is much akin to the relationship we have with our parents, and that I believe that that was what Jesus meant (I feel that that is expressed by one of the names of God: Al-Wadud (الودود) The Loving, the Kind One).
We’ll after touching the subject of the prophet Muhammad “Salla Allahu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam†cartoons, she ended up with two cue-cards, focusing on tolerance and understanding as ways to avoid problems due to religion. The “Nudansk Ordbog” actually lists “Understanding other cultures” as a way to create tolerance.
Part of the assignment was to describe an ideal party – the “happy” party. I should get the 10 misson statements she listed, but here’s some important ones I remember:
- Everybody should have a job
- People shouldn’t annoy each other
- It should not be allowed to beat children
- The Police shouldn’t beat on people
I think the “happy” party will get my vote.
Finally she had a Math problem, and it included triangulation: You know the length of one side, and the three angles, now the job was to determine the middle normal! I believe that it’s quite simple to calculate – even without knowledge of trigonometry, I just couldn’t remember the formula, so after some attempts at analysis, I decided to do a simple calculation of the fractions, by measuring the drawing in the textbook.
One side of the triangle was 12 meters, I measured it to be 2,7 centimetres, so the unit is 4,44 meters/centimetre. I then measured the middle normal and got 5,2 centimetres yielding 23,11 meters.
We do need Internet access in the “classroom”, Wikipedia has the solution, but it seems that you do need knowledge of trigonometry, which she doesn’t have as far as I know. It might be that my approach was the correct one!
UPDATED 12-Sep-2006@23:14.
My mother got a laptop for her 70th, unfortunately not a Mac [-) – I really didn’t want to take that conflict with my brother and father
Instead I’m trying to install some “trojans”, to make Windows feel more like a Mac. Here’s what I came up with:
Installed:
- iTunes (the “ultimate” trojan)
- Picasa (very iPhoto like, actually better in some respects)
- Open Office (2.0.3 simply rocks under Windows)
- Gimp
- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
Additional:
• Google Toolbar
• Google Earth
To install:
- Konfabulator
Considering:
- Mac theme – nah?
Need suggestions:
- “GarageBand clone”
More suggestions are welcome!
15 minutes to go…5 years since Mohammad Atta shouted Allah Akhbar and slammed into the WTC, focused on Jannah and the waiting virgins, and the Church doesn’t have Wi-Fi.
A selection of today’s headlines:
- The Internet is evil because the terrorists are using it to co-create terrorism manuals.
- The problems of the Middle East are bigger than ever, but who cares about the people of Lebanon.
- Danish forces are engaged in Afghanistan and Irak, we’re good at killing people
- Anders Fogh thinks that Denmark is weak when it comes to foreign policy…We need to do more! OMG!!! Denmark is the 51st State!
- Documents with lab results from the police investigation regarding the terrorism case from Odense has been found laying around in the open!
- RFID tags, great Big Brother is watching!
- Oh it’s so sad for the poor New Yorkers that lost their business! Well others lost their lifes! As far as I could tell when I was in New York in 2004, the New Yorkers aren’t exactly suffering.
Who do you believe? Our media? Their media? Your media!
It’s time to take back what’s rightfully ours, our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.
Forgive me I have to pray, pray for humanity, the jury is still out, but are we going to make it? Only if we wake up!
WAKE UP!!!
And my keyboard switched to Arabic!
Amen!
SLAM!!!!!!
And because the Church doesn’t have WiFi, I can’t access the Sacred Texts Library, to meditate on Surat 2.112, I’ll have to write it down in my own words:
“He who worships his Lord and is a doer of good shall fear nothing!”
Alahu Akhbar…SLAM!!!!
Hey my cell-phone and Google to the rescue…Surat 2.112 al quran…Yielded this page:
It started out with quotes from Al-Quran most of them hinting a violent side of Islam, with quotes like this:
Surat 9, Al Taouba, “Repentance; The Immunity-Dispensation,” verse 29:
[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
This means that Islam must conquer Jews and Christians, and if after being conquered they do not convert to Islam, then they must pay a tribute (head tax). You would either have to convert, or pay an “infidel tax.”
I was quite sceptical, what was the point? But I actually found the correct Surat 2.112 (my all time favorite quote from Al-Quran):
[2.112] Yes! whoever submits himself entirely to Allah and he is the doer of good (to others) he has his reward from his Lord, and there is no fear for him nor shall he grieve. â€Ø¨ÙŽÙ„َىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهÙÛ¥ Ù„Ùلَّه٠وَهÙÙˆÙŽ Ù…ÙØْسÙÙ†ÙŒÛ ÙÙŽÙ„ÙŽÙ‡ÙÛ¥Ù“ أَجْرÙÙ‡ÙÛ¥ عÙندَ رَبّÙÙ‡ÙÛ¦ وَلَا خَوْÙÙŒ عَلَيْهÙمْ وَلَا Ù‡Ùمْ ÙŠÙŽØْزَنÙونَ ‎
balay’ man ‘Ê”aslama wajhahuw lil:ahi wahuwa muḥsinunm falahuwÊ” ‘Ê”ajruhuw Ê•inda rab:ihiy wala’ xawfun Ê•alayhim wala’ hum yaḥzanuwna (I hope this was correct, I’m not proficient in Arabic).
Surat 2.112 is as far from fundamentalism as you can possible get.
Then the text suddenly become much more interesting, and turns into a rather full historical account of the “Birth of Islam”. Very interesting indeed sitting in a Danish Church reading this historical account of the “Birth of Islam” on the 5th anniversary of 911 on a cell-phone using Google, including sentences rendered perfectly in Arabic script. This was not possible to do 5 years ago, there’s still hope for humanity.
BTW the bible quote of the day was from the Letter to the Galatians. Paulus basically says “remember: the ‘books’ aren’t written by men!”…Hmm…I don’t agree – the ‘books’ are inspired, spiritual and ‘eternal’, but they are indeed written by men.
I lit all the candles in the “globe” in the Church and prayed some more for humanity. Too bad that the “bowl” with Bible quotes for contemplation were nowhere to be seen! But I welcome that this tradition has reached Denmark, I saw it in Lund 2 years ago, and actually I prayed for it to be adopted in Denmark. My prayers were heard it seems.
Yesterday was one of the most rewarding days in Lektiehjælpen i Mjølnerparken, and that is saying a lot, since it’s the highlight of the week when I’m tutoring children in Mjølnerparken 36.
One of the children had to do an assignment on “Janteloven” (the “10 Commandments of Jante”), she’s attending a private school, and I’m not sure they’re using the same materials in public school.
She was asked to put the “Commandments” into a personal context, and also to formulate a list that is the opposite of the “Commandments”.
Like I wrote in a previous post (Missed the Alicia Keys concert), the “Commandments” are deeply rooted in Danish culture, and they’ve had a tremendous impact on my life. Basically “Jante” is stating that you’re “worthless” as an individual. It’s an extremely negative way of thinking.
The most impressive was that the child answered that she’d never personally experienced the Commandment #9: “You shall not believe that anyone cares about you!”. I told her, that if that’s true, please, please teach us! We can learn so much from You then. On the other hand: it was a bit “scary” that she actually had personal experiences with most of the commandments.
We also agreed that we could teach each other a lot. She taught me some Arabic, and told me that my Arabic sounded Egyptian, true true, I’m using “Dr. Pimsleurs: Egyptian Arabic” language lessons to learn Arabic. Shokoron anise.
BTW she started out by asking “do you know who formulated the “commandments” of Jante”. My comment was that everybody knows that, it’s common knowledge…Well obviously not, my co-tutor, she’s in her late 30ies, didn’t!
But I’m impressed by the quality of the teaching this child is receiving, makes my heart jump with joy. I’m, however, once again not impressed by the quality of some of the educational materials used in the lower grades in public school, some of the children had to do “iconic” cross-words, and some of the pictures were of such a low quality that even I couldn’t make out what it was. And some of the pictures are of things no one hardly uses anymore, like suspenders!
But what a rewarding day!