e-wot?

SPOILERS>>>>>>>>>>

1 18.25 ounce package chocolate cake mix.
1 can prepared coconut pecan frosting.
3/4 cup vegetable oil.
4 large eggs.
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.
3/4 cups butter or margarine.
1&2/3 cups granulated sugar.
2 cups all purpose flour.
Don't forget garnishes such as:
Fish shaped crackers.
Fish shaped candies.
Fish shaped solid waste,
Fish shaped dirt.
Fish shaped ethyl benzene.
Pull and peel licorice..
Fish shaped volatile organic compounds
and sediment shaped sediment.
Candy coated peanut butter pieces, Shaped like fish.
1 cup lemon juice.
Alpha resins.
Unsaturated polyester resin.
Fiberglass surface resins.
And volatile malted milk impoundments.
9 large egg yolks.
12 medium geosynthetic membranes.
1 cup granulated sugar.
An entry called 'how to kill someone with your bare hands'.
2 cups rhubarb, sliced.
2/3 cups granulated rhubarb.
1 tablespoon all-purpose rhubarb.
1 teaspoon grated orange rhubarb.
3 tablespoons rhubarb, on fire.
1 large rhubarb.
1 cross borehole electro-magnetic imaging rhubarb.
2 tablespoons rhubarb juice.
Adjustable aluminum head positioner.
Slaughter electric needle injector.
Cordless electric needle injector.
Injector needle driver.
Injector needle gun.
Cranial caps.
And it contains proven preservatives, deep penetration agents, and gas and odor
control chemicals. That will deodorize and preserve putrid tissue.

source

Here’s the full recipe video:

and another:

Here’s one that you could eat (not tried it myself, but it looks good and doesn’t contain the cranial caps and cross borehole electo-magnetic imaging rhubarb) click for edible Portal Cake recipe.

‘The Cake is a lie’ meme explained

Portal is still my favourite game. I <3 GLaDos

I love World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing since Oct 2005. But I can’t play it anymore. It’s grown too big for me. It’s grown beyond my ability, and, more importantly, my desire to explore. It’s become too complicated for me. So here’s my, equally complicated, sonnet to WoW.

I loved the music, places, gameplay, friends
I’ve made. I even got the wife to play.
I also built it into my MA.
But hey. All good things must but come to ends.
And even though my Shockadin defends
The flag, the node, the healer – pvp;
My Shadow Priest, her racial stole away;
My mage’s macros Blizzard thought offends
The balance of this bloody game. Enough.
Before this game I had a better cause.
This quiet rest now gives me time to spare.
Design, compose, and make creative stuff,
Is what I should be doing without pause.
I now have time. If only I could dare.

Damn. I used to be able to knock up a half-decent sonnet in 30 minutes. This rubbish Petrarchan sonnet took over two hours. Damned iambic pentametre and fiddly rhymes. Perhaps I should have stuck to the English sonnet structure. Perhaps I should have stuck to playing WoW.

Here’s a list of online apps (games, chat, forums, social networks, blogs) with the age restrictions as seen in the sites’ terms of service/use. I made this list because I needed a list to show some teachers what they could/could not use with their students depending on age. This list is by no means complete, just a few online apps I’ve heard about.

This is purely informational. I haven’t tried them all, so I can’t say how well they safeguard minors. It’s best to be thorough and try them out properly yourself. YMMV

Ones I’ve tried and I think are good, though not with age restrictions in mind: Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, Ning, Club Penguin, FreeRealms, Writeboard, 21Classes, PBwiki & Delicious.

RPG = Role Playing Game

Must be at least 16

• Friendster social network

Must be at least 13 and in high school

• Facebook social network

Must be over 13

• Bebo social network
• Blogger weblog publishing tool
• Chamber of Chat Harry Potter multiplayer RPG (no private chat, moderators)
• Gaia Online community with games, message boards etc…
• Hi 5 social networking site
• IMVU chat with friends in 3D
• Jaiku microblogging
• MySpace social network
• Ning social network created around an area of interest (can be open or private)
• Runescape multiplayer game
• Tokbox video chat (works with Twitter & others)
• Twitter microblogging Twitter is now for over-18s. See comments to this post.
• Vox weblog publishing tool
• Weebly website creation tool (includes blogs, forums)
• Wetoku video interview tool (requires parents’ approval)
• Wordpress.com weblog publishing tool
• Writeboard single wiki pages for writing activities
• Xanga weblog community
• 12Seconds video microblogging
• 43 Things microblogging site based around personal goals

Download & install application required

• There virtual world
• Teen Second Life virtual world (13-17 yo)
• vSide virtual world

No Age minimum specified, but require parental approval

• Awol chat, games, diary, friends, & cribs
• Boom Bang chat, make friends and explore a virtual world (moderated)
• Club Penguin virtual world for kids populated by penguins (moderated, ’safe’ chat)
• Endless Online multiplayer RPG
• Graal Online multiplayer RPG
• Marapets virtual pet site with games and chat community
• Neopets Virtual world for pets
• Millsberry Home building community (pre-scripted chat, monitored)
• Sanriotown Hello Kitty games, blogs and forums
• Shining Stars Chatting, naming stars, star worlds (’safe’ pre-constructed chat)
• Typepad weblog publishing tool
• Webkinz virtual pet community (’safe’ chat)

Download & install application required

• Dofus multiplayer RPG
• Eternal Lands multiplayer RPG
• Furcadia multiplayer RPG
• FreeRealms multiplayer RPG (restricted chat, moderated)

I couldn’t find anything definitive about age restrictions on Wikispaces, EduBlogs or 21Classes, but considering that they’re aimed at teachers and learners, I’m guessing that they must be OK for all ages?? I couldn’t find anything in PBworks’ (PBwiki), or Delicious‘ Terms of Service mentioning age either.

As a rule of thumb, when checking out an online tool that you might want to use with younger learners, check the Terms of Service (sometimes called Terms of Use) and their privacy policy. This should be somewhere on the homepage (usually at the bottom). Then do an inline search (hit Ctrl+F) for ‘years’ or ‘guardian’ or ‘13′ or something like that to jump to the bit about age restrictions, and then read the small print.

By the way, blogging tool tumblr. requires subscribers to be over 18.

And thanks to Denis for helping me with the list.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a good article on the dangers of email. Click for ‘Email becomes a dangerous distraction’smh.com.au

The article reports:

Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email

This adds up: we can waste as much as 8 1/2 hours a week if we answer our email as soon as we get it.

I like the reason they offer for why people might feel compelled to check their email every five minutes:

Tom Stafford, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, England, and co-author of the book Mind Hacks, believes that the same fundamental learning mechanisms that drive gambling addicts are also at work in email users. “Both slot machines and email follow something called a ‘variable interval reinforcement schedule’ which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits,”

Well, it made me giggle.

Now I don’t get any pleasure from email at all. In fact, I avoid it as much as possible. But then maybe I’m just a Misanthrope.

This whole ‘dangers of email’ thing got me thinking about Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero idea: 43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero

Here’s his video (hour long Google talk about Inbox Zero)

Via Slashdot Slashdot | Why Email Has Become Dangerous

Derek Roberston showed us what can be done with existing game console and handheld technologies in a learning context. He talked about affecting positive change in the classroom through using games.

The most striking thing about what Derek is doing is it’s relevance. He’s using simple technology that kids are already familiar with, but in a learning context. It has currency. He showed lots of video clips. The one that really hit me was of a young lad totally absorbed in a timed game on the Nintendo DS. He was doing sums. Doing them faster than I could. He was clearly engaged, clearly achieving, clearly aware that he was doing well. Apparently up to that point he had been considered a ‘problem child’.

He also showed some impressive statistics, anecdotal accounts and testimonials to show the effectiveness of games on speed and accuracy in test results using brain gym. Learners also felt better about themselves: improved confidence and self esteem. Read More…

I’m biased, I know, but Angeline Khoo from NIE gave a great presentation on World of Warcraft and it’s relevance to learning. It was a shame we couldn’t read her slides, but she more than made up for it with her passion for the game and its educational value. And the live in-game conversations and action in World of Warcraft was very helpful in clarifying what gaming involves and how it might have practical value for learning.

She started by citing many examples of learning events from young kids who learnt to read, to social and cultural learning, to maths and economics… etc…

Then she logged into WoW to chat with some of her guild members. All this in front of an audience of 1200 conference attendees – very brave of her. She engaged her guildies in a conversation about Thanksgiving. She asked, “What are you giving thanks for?” and got a variety of answers, religious, social, historical – showing how the game can help to engage people in cultural conversations, adding “You see we don’t play the game to fight all the time. We have interesting chats.” Read More…

Interesting site:

Games for Change (G4C) — home

 A contentious point.

Video games rob reading, homework time: U.S. study | Technology | Reuters
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine

actual paper http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/161/7/684