We’ve just returned from a mini-break to Wiltshire and Dorset. We had a bit of pre-historic theme to the holiday, taking in Silbury Hill, Avebury, Stonehenge and Old Sarum, which are all between than 4000 and 5000 years old. Salisbury Cathedral looked modern by comparison!
After that, we went down to Lulworth Cove for my second swim in the Channel of the summer. I only spotted Lulworth while I was exploring the south coast with Google Earth because it looks like someone took a bite out of the coastline. I saw a monument celebrating the fossils that have been uncovered on the Jurassic coast. It talked about the 185 million years of history in the fossils. Stonehenge didn’t seem so old anymore.
I’m enjoying living in London a great deal. I get to see some great places every day. There are also lots of great places to visit not far from here. For example, Cambridge.
I’ve just finished a short contract working for a company based in Battersea. I had a great time there, and every day, as I walked from the station, I was reminded of Pink Floyd when I saw the crumbling power station.
For the last few weeks I have been looking for a job as a programmer. One of the jobs that interests me involves writing VB.net. Many of my friends who are also programmers have howled with anguish at the mere mention of this technology.
In order to get a better idea of how the language works, I’ve written a small program for editing the PATH environment variable on Windows machines:
I find myself editing this variable on various Windows machines pretty regularly. Every time, I also am annoyed by the small text box in the dialog in the Control Panel.
So far I’ve enjoyed the experience of writing with Visual Basic and can’t see what all the fuss is about. Having written PHP for years, I’m used to ignoring the comments of language purists. I’m much more interested in getting something working than any imagined superiority of different languages.
It’s been years since I have been to see an orchestra play, and I was greatly impressed. To have that many highly trained musicians practice and perform for such an occasion must be quite an undertaking.
No matter how many times I visit London, I almost always end up visiting Westminster and getting a shot of the clock tower at some point.
I find that whenever I am in front of a very famous sight, I have trouble believing it is real. Somehow, the impression that I have built up in my mind from seeing a place on TV, in movies and so on of the place overlaps with what my senses are telling me. I have never been to New York city but I imagine that the sensation would be very strange after a lifetime spent watching Woody Allen movies and reruns of Friends.
The article describes “Boskop man”, who (the authors claim) had a much bigger brain than that of modern humans and was correspondingly more intelligent.
Much of the “science” of the article is debunked here:
Obviously, brain size can only tell us so much about intelligence. Otherwise, school examinations would be unnecessary. Instead, we could simply dunk a pupil’s head in a bathtub to measure the volume of water displaced by the skull and, from this, the child’s intelligence.
However, I think that much of the article was intended to be read a speculation rather than fact. It’s quite fun (and possibly not impossible) to think about how someone more intelligent thinks.
What hope for us modern humans, with our puny brains, is there? As a teacher, I am always searching for ways to improve the workings of my own brain and those of my students. A bit of searching on the internet for ways to improve your intelligence quickly brings you to addicting games like this:
Exciting, but cautious, claims are made about this game. There are probably lots of such games that can improve your brain. Unfortunately, I cannot see this game being a great deal of help in a foreign language classroom (my own area). Perhaps such toys will have an important role to play in education.
