This is a brilliant talk by Ken Robinson about the nature of intelligence, creativity, and what our educational system is doing to kill it. Do schools kill creativity? Only if you go to class.
Filed under: Creativity | Education | Humor | Science | Video
This heartwrenching (in light of current events) National Geographic article from October of 2004 was stunningly prescient in it’s description of a — at the time, still fictional — hurricane hit on the coast of Louisiana. The recent protestations from FEMA, DHS, and the White House ring hollow when it’s so obvious that many people know if the dangers, and were quite vocal about what needed to be done to prepare.
Such high stakes compelled a host of unlikely bedfellows—scientists, environmental groups, business leaders, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—to forge a radical plan to protect what’s left. Drafted by the Corps a year ago, the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) project was initially estimated to cost up to 14 billion dollars over 30 years, almost twice as much as current efforts to save the Everglades. But the Bush Administration balked at the price tag, supporting instead a plan to spend up to two billion dollars over the next ten years to fund the most promising projects. Either way, Congress must authorize the money before work can begin.
“The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours—coming from the worst direction,” says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast. Suhayda is sitting in a lakefront restaurant on an actual August afternoon sipping lemonade and talking about the chinks in the city’s hurricane armor. “I don’t think people realize how precarious we are,”
Suhayda says, watching sailboats glide by. “Our technology is great when it works. But when it fails, it’s going to make things much worse.”
(Emphasis mine.)
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
This is a really amazing video that shows the destructive force of a wall of water simulated in a laboratory.
Something about the thought of an experimental spacecraft - with delicate sails designed to harness an interstellar ‘wind’ of light particles - being lost out there somewhere makes me feel lonely and cold.
CNN also makes me feel lonely and cold. If you’re the same, here’s the same story from BetaNews.
I never heard back from Mike. I’m starting to think that maybe he was on to something. I mean, he seemed to be pretty serious (about the aliens) and then never got back to me.
He just moved to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago from here in Cincinnati and I’m not too sure how screwed on his thinking cap is right now. I just hope he was reading as I was sending my messages to him even though he wasn’t typing back. Maybe he didn’t want to slow me down. Sometimes I get going pretty fast. I was using my computer and those go pretty fast. Even to San Francisco. I like to call it ‘Frisco, but that really makes people who live there mad so I only do it real quiet. And never on the bus. I think they have a thing there called BART. I wouldn’t say it on BART either. Just ’cause it goes real fast doesn’t mean they won’t get mad.
I wonder if he had time to try the garbage disposal, or if he even had batteries in his boombox.
I liked Mike.
But that’s what happens when a kid from Ohio goes to California: More often than not he gets eaten. I know. I’ve been there. I always take my boombox and plenty of spare batteries just in case. You never…ever…know.
Yours,
Tim
Mike: I just had a strange thought. What if you heard a strange noise from outside your window. You moved closer to see what it was as it got louder and louder. You couldn’t put your finger on what it quite was. Then you realized ugly alien beings were invading.
Mike: That would be freaky as shit.
Tim: What would you do?
Tim: They would probably want to mate with you. or experiment or something. Most likely it’s eating you that they’re interested in. Or something worse.
Tim: Maybe they would be nice. But they might not be. Can they run fast? How about climb walls or fly? Breathing our air may be tricky for them so be sure not to get near water if that’s what they breathe in. uunless water kills them or something like in that one movie, in which case get in water. But then there’s breathing problems for you. You will have to come up sometime.
Tim: When you do they will try to take off your head. When they come down to do this (if they are flying) then you can splash them to kill them.
Tim: But if they are not harmed by water this won’t do any good so you will have to try something else. Maybe they are afraid of certain sounds. Try a crying baby first. Lots of people get freaked by this sound. But it might just make them hungry if they eat people, cause if they do then they would probably like babies best and this would be a bad way to try and frighten them.
Tim: Another good sound to try is a garbage disposal. They are hard to carry around and need electricity so you will need a backpack to carry it in and also a battery pack. Or maybe a recording of the sound that you can play on your boombox (you’ll need batteries for this too) would be better.
*** Auto-response from Mike: I am currently away from the computer.
Tim: Maybe it’s a sound that would not be very obvious to you or me. Maybe the sound of a doorbell. Or cruching leaves. If you want, you could put a bunch of these on a tape for the boombox you are carrying in your backpack and try a bunch out to see what works best. On the other hand, if I were an alien I think that sounds would not be too scary so you might want to try something else. And plus, what if they don’t have any ears?
Tim: Did you think of that already?
Tim: You should forward these instructions to lots of other people and let them know in what order you plan on attempting them. Then when the first few don’t work and you get killed by the aliens, others will not waste time trying the same things (you know, water or sounds) that you did and just die needlessly.
Tim: They may not have any way of knowing how far in the process you got exactly but at least they won’t start at the very first one and waste too much time before getting to one that might work.
Tim: So what do we have so far?
Tim: 1. Air
Tim: 2. Water
Tim: 3. Sounds
Tim: a. Baby crying
Tim: b. Garbage disposal
Tim: c. Doorbell
Tim: d. Drunching leaves
Tim: Feel free to add some more and let me know. I’m going to send these on to some friends of mine who know about aliens to see what they think too. Good luck Mike.
Tim: Mike?
*** Auto-response from Mike: I am currently away from the computer.
Tim: OK. Write back when you get a chance.
*** Auto-response from Mike: I am currently away from the computer.