An article on CNET talks about education being the next big growth market. A number of companies that specialize in managing schools or creating curriculum have begun to crop up on the radar screen. In some situations the schools being run are still public schools (the revenue comes from government grants) but the companies try to import concepts from private schools. On the surface I don’t see much of a problem with this. It sounds like schools are being run by people who know something about education.
Archive for May, 2007 Page 2 of 2
I’ve just experienced one of those ‘best day of my life’ days in the areas of: enjoyment, excitement and shear exhilaration. It started with a round of golf along the beach (Wollongong GC, my own Pebble Beach), continued with an afternoon surf beneath a cloudless autumn sky (20C air, 21C water), and was bookended by a sunset jump, from 14,000 feet, out of a perfectly good airplane.
In New Scientist they discuss new findings that prove that parts of Canada experience less gravity than the rest of the world. I suspect this explains why I can hit the golf ball so far at certain courses. In fact they think it is because of the last ice age and the flowing magma under the crust. 3km of ice covered the land and melted very fast. This mass of ice compressed the crust and it is rebounding very slowly. The convection of heat from the magma also seems to play a role.
Cloud seeding is the process of spraying clouds with silver iodide to induce rain. The Australian government is holding a symposium in Melbourne this week to re-examine the science of this technique. Scientists remind that cloud seeding is not the ‘silver bullet’ to end the drought but it could have economical viability if it means the difference between a $600 MM crop or crop failure. The rub with cloud seeding is that it not only require clouds, it requires the right cloud — two things that are hard to come by in drought conditions.
The Australian government is asking nicely for anyone evacuated from the Lebanon to pay their fair share of the costs — about $650 AUD for adults and $500 AUD for children. Have any other countries asked people to pay up?
On the evening news today they said Sydney has set a new 5 day temperature record for the month of May — the highest 5 days in 50 years. We’ve had nothing but blue skies for the past week, with the temperature consistently over 24C. Sadly this has also eliminated any swell in the ocean. With some lows (and rain) coming our way on Wednesday we should see the swell return. Photo: Johanna, Victoria, Australia.
The NY Times is reporting that many schools in America are dropping their one-to-one laptop programs after seeing absolutely no benefit to students. It seems that when the computers are broken the students are crawling the web doing stuff they probably shouldn’t be doing.
A peculiar sign to have posted, as I’d figure by the time you saw this sign it would be to late. Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia.
An exhibit at Wildlife World in Sydney showing off bedbugs. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Despite being on the other side of the world I am still able to get my fill of indie Canadian music. Thank you CBC Radio 3. As with my other recent recommendation I have caught wind of another track thanks to this great podcast. Mark Berube, a Vancouver Singer/Songwriter, lays down some mean blues/indie/rock/folk tracks. You can grab a number of tracks from his new album ‘What The River Gave The Boat’ at his website, but in the meantime check out the track below, and feel it heave with Vancouver. The opening riff reminds me of the Barenaked Ladies live Christmas medley ‘God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings’.
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