| sneedle flipsock |
25 june 2004: looking
for love, |
flipsockgrrl @ gmail .com |
This week:
ScienceIris recognition systems will be introduced at five British airports next year. The Home Office says 'selected foreign nationals' from outside the European Union will be invited to sign up for the voluntary scheme. The new system is part of an 'e-borders' program plan to strengthen immigration controls through biometric technology, machine-readable travel documents and passenger checks. Rain has revealed three new frog species in South Australia. 25 June 2004 | top of page .edu.auA University of Melbourne study has found educational outcomes of indigenous students in the Goulburn Valley are well below average. A team of University of Queensland law students beat more than 500 teams to win a world championship in moot court argument. Universities are likely to resist more regulation of their overseas operations, despite growing pressure on the government to guarantee the quality of course offerings. Sydney's dean of nursing was not consulted when the university decided to close its undergraduate nursing course and transfer the HECS places to other institutions. Is this the sound of a Clayton's sacking? Surely it's significant when a senior manager, such as a dean, is left out of decision-making about her own department. ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb says he's the "lonely little petunia in the onion patch" when it comes to HECS fees. "For a country in Australia's position, where we keep talking about wealth creation through application, and then to charge the young people the cost of the whip to give us economic prosperity... to keep us well in our old age is, I think, pretty poor." Chubb's contract has been renewed until 2009. Charles Sturt University is now officially the largest regional university in Australia and the fourth largest university in NSW by student enrolments. 25 June 2004 | top of page .edu.elsewhereApplications to universities and colleges in Finland have shot up this year. The sharpest rise in applications was for the University of Lapland, which promises every new student exclusive use of a personal computer. English students studying in Scotland will have their tuition fees increased by around £700 a year from 2006. World Bank director Dr Ruth Kagia has called for proper planning and expansion of facilities in Kenya's secondary schools and tertiary institutions. She said the number of Form Four candidates likely to miss university places would triple by 2014 if tangible measures were not put in place. Singapore's Nanyang Technological University will return to being a comprehensive university from 2005, with the introduction of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. NTU's Centre for Chinese Language and Culture celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, "brimming with staff and alumni who embody the pool of bicultural elite the Government is trying to develop." Says president Su Guaning, "By this [multicultural elite] I mean people who are anchored in Singapore, who can engage China on equal terms, but also understand the concerns of the region." Call to tailor Chinese teaching to suit learners. More than 80,000 students went to China for studies in 2002, compared with just 20,000 in 1991. In France, the number of people learning Chinese has soared by 40 per cent annually, while the growth rate of other foreign languages is about 2-4 per cent, or even negative. A typographic collage of cut-out words by a student at the Lebanese American University sums up the predicaments that graphic designers face: "The hardest thing to see is in front of your eyes." The University of Auckland Business School has raised NZ$25 million in donations for its teaching programs and a new building. Nine students at the University of Ibadan (Nigeria) died in violent clashes between rival cult groups last weekend. Police have arrested 20 suspects. Commissioner of Police Mr Moses Anegbode "disclosed that the police were on the trail of the masterminds of the clashes. He vowed that they would be fished out of their hideouts." Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong says Muslim Singaporeans keen on pursuing degrees in Islamic studies should look to universities that will prepare them for life in the modern world, rather than heading for brand-name schools in the Middle East renowned for their teachings of Islam and Arabic. The University of Botswana chemistry lab has been a second home to 27-year-old Harriet Okatch-Nkala for the past eight years. Research for her PhD has kept her away from her husband and daughter for most of her academic life but it has all paid off: in October she will become the first Motswana to be awarded a PhD by the University of Botswana. Precious Ramotswe would be delighted. 25 June 2004 | top of page Looking for love, echidna-style24 June 2004 | top of page Quote of the week
24 June 2004 | top of page The need to knowAll you need to know about noble gases. More than you ever wanted to know about Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire". I reckon it was the web wot dunit: Australian newspaper and magazine publishers have finally given in to demands for better data on circulation and readership. Could it be their printed publications are losing advertisers to their online classifieds and other web publications? You don't have to spend weeks on usability research or thousands of dollars to get it done by other people. For quality feedback, try quick, low-cost, informal café testing. I Love Jack Daniels offers articles, tutorials, code snippets and resources for web design, web development, search engine optimisation and other web-related topics. The English House of Commons Modernisation Select Committee wants a "radical overhaul" of the UK Parliament web site to address "widespread dissatisfaction" among users. More people access parliamentary material online than through printed publications. "Getting the web site right is therefore probably the single most important thing that Parliament needs to do in this area", the committee said. 23 June 2004 | top of page Which bank do you surf?A worldwide survey of almost 300 IT managers finds spending on IT is going up. "Small, medium and large companies, as well as those in North America, all strategized to make IT purchases that would increase their competitiveness in the market, while Asian companies gave equal precedence to upgrading their infrastructure, and European organizations hoped to cut costs." Nielsen Net Ratings compares Australian and British Internet usage during May 2004:
In the USA another Nielsen Net Ratings study found that, while there were far fewer at-work users than there were at home, the working Internet population spent more time online and surfing. Three case studies demonstrate how using web standards can save you money and time. 23 June 2004 | top of page On manouevres in Africa"There's an eery familiarity to the military maneuvering in and around Congo, a giant nation in the heart of Africa. Some observers worry that the region is slipping into a second African 'world war' - a repeat of the 1998-2003 conflict that involved troops from six nations and left 3 million dead." [For the record: the spelling in the preceding paragraph belongs to the authors, not to Sneedle Flipsock.] War, you ask, what war? [more] 23 June 2004 | top of page It just went off in my handsTim Ireland is taking a break from political activism via his Bloggerheads site. Before he goes away completely, he's aimed a few parting shots at Bush, Blair, Howard and the coalition of the willing-to-do-anything-to-stay-in-power, aka the international conga line of suckholes. (Requires Shockwave and sound) Note to designer: When designing a new national flag for Iraq, leave room for additional sponsors' logos. While we're talking about things inflammatory, how's this for deathless versifying? Chickens
are neat, Another gem from the same web site concludes:
Comments Flipsock friend Paul, "You really need to read the poem on the actual web page to get the full effect the poet intended." For more Vogon-worthy words, visit poetrypoem.com/search.htm and search for emotive words like 'despair', or 'death'. Paul again: "I can see hours of amusement (it's what the web was invented for)... Ok, I feel kind of bad for pointing out and making fun of these poems knowing nothing at all about the poets, but they can't all be 16 year olds or people who sustained head injuries as babies." thanks to Andrew, Paul and Warren | 23 June 2004 | top of page VersatilityUNIX is a versatile operating system that can be applied to fire extinguishers, shelving, glue, clotheslines, fungicide, a TV aerial, nappies and a range of other material goods. thanks to Paul Edwards via flite disucssion list | 23 June 2004 | top of page The sound of spammersThink looking at spam is annyoing or offensive? Try listening to it. The Onion reviews another DVD Commentary Track of the Damned: Starship Troopers 2. 23 June 2004 | top of page Geddit?The neurology of humor: the part of your brain that 'gets' a joke is not the same as the region that deems it funny or not. "If some people don't find The Simpsons funny, it's premature to say that they have a defective frontal lobe." It's a popular and well-known fact that scientists have a sense of humor: why else would they make up silly names for molecules like Curious Chloride, Gossypol, Traumatic Acid, Windopane, Commic Acid, Penguinone, Furfuryl Furfurate and of course Draculin (which is the anti-coagulant agent in vampire bats' blood). 23 June 2004 | top of page Full-on robot chubbyCory Doctorow on Isaac Asimov: "His work is a kind of proto-fiction, stuff caught in the Burgess Shale of the genre, from a time before the field shed its gills and developed lungs, feet, and believable characters. What makes Asimov's robots stand out, even today, is the resiliency of his imagination. Despite the complete failure of anything like a thinking robot to appear on the scene, the vision endures." 23 June 2004 | top of page
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2004 flipsocks:17 Dec: the
sock has flipped
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