Writing about Interview From Nicholas Hudgell from Hollyzone

This is what you do:

Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.

• I will respond; I’ll ask you five questions.


• You’ll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.


• You’ll include this explanation.


• You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed
  

1) If you had to choose to be stranded, Tom Hanks style, in an airport for years, where would you get stranded?

Copenhagen. Friendly people, nice airport, lots of hotdog stands, all good :-)

2) If you had to send our beloved vice chancellor a compilation CD with 5 songs on it, which 5 songs and why?

Marvin Gaye – I Heard it through the grapevine. Never seem to find out what’s going on at this place until it’s already happened.
Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall. I’d rather higher ed in this country didn’t become an extension of school.
Notorious BIG – Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems. Well somebody’s got to tell him :-) I wonder if the medium of R&B will get it through?
Prokofiev – Romeo & Juliet. I think it should be the university’s theme song.
Rage Against The Machine – Bullet in tha Head. I think the senior staff should set up a band and cover this. The image has haunted me for some time.

3) Who was the best Beatle?
what a change from the last question. Cheeky scallys, the lot of them. Paul, because he managed to have a career afterwards and didn’t get into that random yoko stuff.

4) Has anything interesting ever happened to you whilst in a car?
Collided with another car, which isn’t particularly interesting. Been told that my parents were going to divorce.

5) Which sport should be banned for the good of the nation?
Football. Just imagine how much more productive everyone would be if they didn’t spend every spare moment talking about it, reading about it, looking up football websites etc.

Writing about web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elearning/showcase/plagiarism/

Result: I have successfully completed the Avoiding Plagiarism activity.

I can identify and avoid blatant plagiarism.
I can avoid too much copying and pasting.
I can quote texts under 20 words long within my text with correct citation.
I can quote longer texts in my text with correct citation.

Referencing¹ things² is³ so⁴ much⁵ easier⁶ in⁷ sciences⁸.

Writing about Voting Systems from The CAP blog

I was going to just comment on Graham’s entry above, but I think I want to separate my views from a discussion about stefan’s enjoyment of gadgets :-)

So what is it that a university degree gives you? If you are trying to get into a job that demands something specific (eg research scientist), then obviously you want the very best knowledge of that subject – the best education methods, the best media etc.
But why is it that so many graduate jobs in this country do not specify what degree you have? Or suggest a wide range (numerate degrees)? My feeling is that having a degree has shown that you’ve learned how to think. The way that HE education has been done typically has meant that it assesses your ability to study independently, push yourself, and work things out, rather than just showing that you’ve attended class and been spoon-fed information.
If we get to a point where HE is just a different set of subjects for FE, this will be a fundamental shift. Then how do you distinguish between graduates? Do PhDs become the standard fare for interesting jobs? Do we get to a point where by removing the differentiation between people with degrees and people without that you have to know the universities by reputation to understand what it is that a candidate has acheived?
If universities cease to be elitist, they have ceased to serve their purpose. I don’t mean elitist as in “what colour is your tie”, I mean elitist as in “are you any good at what you study? Are you driven to study it?

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3631864.stm

The Genesis probe – the one they were going to pick up with helicopters has crashed. I just watched it live on NASA TV!

Writing about web page http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=116628&cid=9881454

A comment on slashdot

Blogs are going to change the world. Example:

OLD, TIRED MEDIA: “The Associated Press reported that Saddam Hussein was captured yesterday by American forces.”

NEW, EXCITING MEDIA: “omg like kos reported that he saw on chris’s blog that john trackbacked to mike’s journal where he read about bob’s girlfriend’s brother’s cousin who was like watching Fox News (fair and balanced my ass! lol) and they said something about saddam i dunno current music: brittney cleary – im me current mood: corpulent”

Notice the synergy of information and the ease by which information propagates throughout the blogosphere.

This is the definitive reference book for anybody who wants to tamper with their bike. The book goes in detail through everything from adjusting v-brakes to things like removing and replacing headsets, or re-aligning dropouts (eeek). The diagrams are simple, and very clear – there are no photographs, but I feel that the diagrams make it easier to see what’s important.

Zinn doesn’t only cover each subject in general terms, but also discusses specifics for different types of each of the components, down to individual products where appropriate, giving detailed instruction as well as hints and tips. For this reason, this book is an excellent reference to have around, as well as a superb introduction to bike maintenance in general.

Writing about Start from Christoph Ungemach’s weblog

A new member of the warwick blogs community just posted for the first time, and got me thinking (again).

A translation of what he says for those who can’t speak german:

Following an information meeting about e-Learning, I have been convinced to start a weblog. For international students especially, this is an opportunity to describe what’s going on; to give friends and family an insight into life here on campus.

Apologies if my german is a little rusty.

But this made me realise how much I take the ability to stay in touch with people all over the world for granted.

• More or less everybody I know uses email, and many of them use some kind of online chat thing.


• Thanks to fierce competition in the international calls marketplace, I can talk by phone to people in most countries for little more than it costs to call within the UK.


• Ryanair¹ and friends have made short trips abroad a real possibility.

And I think about how much harder things must have been, even when I started uni. The internet was yet to explode onto the mainstream, international calls were expensive, and airfare (within europe anyway) cost on average £200, compared to about £50 that I seem to end up paying with Ryanair. And that was when money was still worth something :-)

Several of my friends have done erasmus programmes, both brits travelling abroad and foreigners I’ve met here. All have relied on the internet to stay in touch, and then used cheap calling cards for occasional phone calls.

I guess it’s a gain to be able to stay in touch so easily, but I wonder if it’s harder to fully immerse yourself in a new culture when you are so easily connected to home?

---

¹I hate flying Ryanair, with a passion. Given any alternative, I’d rather fly with a real airline. The Airline Network is particularly good for finding reasonably priced fares on real airlines.

I’m half swedish, but I’ve essentially lived in the UK for my entire life. I don’t speak swedish well, although I am in the process of learning now. I’ve just come back from a holiday travelling around the south, and it strikes me just how much I like the place. Perhaps it’s partly to do with the fact that I’ve always been there on holiday, but I just seem to connect with the country on a lot of levels.

I like the sense of style – mostly very understated and simple, but not plain.
I like the friendliness of the people.
I like the fact that I can leave my bike in a city without being worried about it. I like that I can leave my gear in my tent for a day.
I like the way that cycle lanes are an intrinsic part of city planning.
I like meatballs with lingonberry sauce.
I like deep fried camembert with cloudberry jam (evil, but sooo tasty).
I like being able to sit on an island in the middle of Stockholm, looking over the water towards the tivoli gardens, and it feeling like the middle of nowhere.
I like the way that there are cold winters and warm summers.
I love the light.
I like the sense of space. The population density is far lower than here, but even in the cities there is more thought given to space than you find in the UK.
I love the sound of spoken swedish. (yes, even my family’s country-bumpkin skåne accents (Um geesh de börk börk!) ;-)

I don’t know if I’ll ever end up living there, but I’m not averse to the idea.

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/morals/

Ok, so we’re all rational people, but are we moral? :-)

Your score puts you in the highest category of social reasoning. You will see ethical and moral values as important to the needs of society and will appeal to basic rights or values.

(40/44)

Writing about Big Thoughts from The CAP blog

So I’m a Mastermind. Is anybody suprised? :)

(And the real thing makes me iNTj, Mastermind too :) )