A. suggested I organize these by topic because the page is getting too
long. Hopefully this is the first step in doing that. Meanwhile, here
are just the newest items.
If you need anything from the old listing, go here.
miscellaneous
- Powermylearning seems to have education games across all subjects but I can't review it yet because it does not seem to like Linux. Will update when I can access it
European geography
- I like this Euro flag quiz because it gives immediate feedback.
- Here is the Sheppard Software Europe page. For most continents, Sheppard is unbeatable -- but for Europe, I think the Toporopa page is better (see below).
- If you would like to see some games about the Euro that are so bad they are funny go to the EU "kids' korner." Warning: the descriptions are a lot funnier than the actual games. I can't believe that somebody's tax money went to fund this! The EU is doomed! Mwahahahahaha!
- For learning the names of European capitals (though not states, sadly), my favorite by far is European capitals darts. Bonus: you get to learn some German words, like "weiter" and "spiel ende..." That's sure to come in handy, right? (Right?)
- This is a great site: Toporopa. Skip their flags quiz, because it is just pexeso/concentration/memory, and you could spend all day gleefully matching flags without ever learning which country they are from. You can also skip the battles and the "Regions of Europe." The countries quiz is ok but the capitals quiz is really bad (for those, go Sheppard or do the dart game). What I like at this site are the rivers, mountains, seas, islands, lakes, volcanoes, straits, peninsulas and ports, etc, etc. Slightly annoying interface on about half of them, where you have to "drop" the names in *just the right spot*, but still better than most of the games out there, and this is good info we need to learn this month.
Special
- Looks like the old land bridge theory is finally being challenged (NY Times)
- Here is a really bizarre story about the nuclear reactor which Kodak, for many years, operated in a basement in Rochester, NY (gizmodo)
- Disney lets you make your own R2D2 action figure (boingboing)
- Here is way more than you ever wanted to know about Animaniacs (mental_floss)
- Billion-year-old, sludge-dwelling, lone-wolf, four-flagellaed, algae-munching eukarote is neither animal, plant, fungus, alga nor protist, but could be grandfather of them all (MSNBC)
- If a safety agency or a space agency or
even a military agency had done, it, I would understand it. But
when the Discovery Channel has the money to
crash a Boeing 727 in the Sonoran Desert
just to see what happens, I think they have too much time
and money on their hands. (LA Times) Discovery Channel president says it is
'brave
and fearless,' but it reminds me of the
19th century habit of crashing trains into each
other for fun (like the "Crash at Crush")... Poor Sonoran jaguars!
- Also creepy: the British government is thinking about placing surface-to-air missiles on residential flats in London's East End during the upcoming Olympics
(BBC)
- In computer news, Google has apparently messed up its search algorithm (The Register)
- And Moore's Law is finally running out of steam -- I guess there are only so many grains of rice that one can fit on a chessboard no matter how small you make them. (also The Register)
- I missed this story last year (it is in the news again, but the original is more interesting, the stories today are just about bail hearings and similar): there is a violent Amish feud in which members of an Amish community in Ohio (many of whom are related to each other) are forcibly cutting people's hair and beards. It might be funny if it weren't so awful (for perspective on how bad it is, remember how important beards were to Old Believers in Russia...)
- here is a nice writeup of the Icelandic Isle of Surtsey. Best line: "An improperly handled human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root which was also destroyed." (Wikipedia)
- A minivan-sized meteorite caused a huge fireball over the California-Nevada border (Associated Press). A few meteorites have been found, but most of the MINIVAN-sized meteorite was VAPORIZED. Amazing! =)
- How bad has standardized testing gotten? Now souped-up scantrons are grading essays (New York Times). The testing people think students are too stupid to understand test-prep that is this "sophisticated" ... I like Mr. Perelman's essay about greedy teaching assistants very much, though.
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