Girl Talk Sample Guide Videos

I like Girl Talk. Not the idle chatter of the fairer gender, but the mashup dj. His samples are wide-ranging, but it's that range that makes his stuff really work.

You might be wondering: This isn't Monday, so what's with the music post? Well, this isn't really about the music as much as it is about the video series.

I was looking for a YouTube video of some Girl Talk music to send to a friend, when I found a series of videos called Girl Talk Sample Guides. Wow. Thats' a really nice display of visual information. I think he misses some samples, but the idea is still an interesting one. I'd like to see this for any mashup and for a fair number of rappers.

The Sample Guide made me think back to the Paul's Boutique Samples and References List (which is tremendous accompaniment to one of the Beastie Boys' best albums). Having a list of where all the pieces are coming from is great, but the visuals in the Sample Guide is even better.

Geeking Out With Frink

A friend and former student tweeted a link to Frink, which seems interesting. According to creator Alan Eliasen, Frink is...

... a practical calculating tool and programming language designed to make physical calculations simple, to help ensure that answers come out right, and to make a tool that's really useful in the real world.

So as a math guy, it seems relevant to what I do. I'll check it out, but the fun part is reading the documentation. Check out the Sample Calculations section of the documentation. Feel free to ignore the math. It's all about the narrative he wraps around it. Really amusing stuff. Here is a very small sampling of Alan's comments/quips.

Superman:

Sure, he's a great guy, and, sure, he's the Defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, but can't he find a better use for his super-powers than schlepping some shiksa into the stratosphere? Shovel my walk, he could, in 3 seconds--and me with the sciatica.

Flatulence:

Fart jokes. Sheesh. If Frink isn't a huge success, it's not because I didn't pander to the Lowest Common Denominator.

The ramifications of the most famous of Einstein's equations:

Unbelievable. The energy in a teaspoon of water, if we could extract it, is equal to burning more than 3 million gallons of gasoline.

The amount of heat emmited by a human body in a day:

... your average power and/or heat output is slightly less than a 100-watt bulb. (Note that your heat is radiated over a much larger area so the temperature is much lower.) Many days I could be replaced entirely with a 100-watt bulb and have no discernible effect on the universe.

Anyway, check out the documentation. It's fun stuff and did a great job of getting me interested in using the tool for exploring quantities all around me.

Music Monday: More From The Sixty One

I listen to The Sixty One when I want to hear new stuff (which is pretty often), so here is another volume of stuff to check out:

Paul Bailey Ensemble: Retrace Our Steps, Act 2

Interesting stuff. The instrumentation and operatic sound work for me. Seems to be influenced by Philip Glass (which is a good thing in my world).

How I became the Bomb: Killing Machine

This song feels good. Nice groove. Simple. There is something about the bass line and use of the high hat that work for me.

The Upstairs Room: I Am Oz

This might be where my taste goes a bit wonky, but I gotta love the Renegade sample. First Girl Talk, now this. Maybe Styx is poised for a big comeback!

Hood Internet: Single Foxes (Put a Wood on It Beyonce Vs. Fleet Foxes)

Gotta love a good mash-up.

Now to see if I can develop a system for pumping out regular updates.

Web Stuff Friday: Teacher Blogs Worth Reading

I have found a group of math teachers online who have made a really strong online community. Together, they are questioning, innovating, and making positive change happen and then sharing through blogs and tweets. It's incredibly inspiring. Anyone who is a new math or science teacher should read these blogs and follow these folks on Twitter. Get into the discussion.

Honestly, this is the best use of blogs and Twitter I have seen yet. These folks rock the house.

That said, here is a list of some of my favorite math teacher bloggers/twitterers:

Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer)

Blog: dy/dan

Dan has been featured on TED, so lots of people know who he is.

Kate Nowak (@k8nowak)

Blog: f(t)

Hers is the best subtitle out there. I will make you click the link to read it. Go ahead. I'll wait....

Sam Shah (@samjshah)

Blog: Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere

Sam's post on the Blogotwitterversphere is great, and attaining mention on his Favorite Tweets page is a goal for every math teacher tweeter.

Matt Townsley (@mctownsley)

Blog: MeTa Musings and With Students in Mind

Like me, Matt is a former HS math teacher turned curriculum dude. His focus on assessment is a good thing.

Jason Buell (@jybuell)

Blog: Always Formative

Jason's ideas about assessment are important (and by "important" I mean that he and I agree on some key points).

BTW: To get plugged in to the flow of the conversation, check out the mathteachers list maintained by Jackie Ballarini. Great, diverse list of folks.

Note that I have left a ton of people off this list. Check out the blogs and the teacher twitter list and start roaming to find more.

My Favorite High School Teachers, Part 2

Here is the liberal arts part of my stroll down memory lane.

My mother was a math teacher at my high school. In August before my Junior year, my mother looked at the master schedule and decided that she thought I'd have a problem learning from one of the American Civilization (AC was an interdisciplinary English and History class) teachers. As a result, she wanted me to switch to a different course. All my friends were taking AC and it was supposed to be a great course, so this was a tough sell. I agreed to the switch, but only on the condition that I could have Tim Isaacs for English and Dave Roush for History.

My interest in history can be traced directly back to Dave Roush. He was funny and smart and inspired my interest in history enough that I took almost enough history in college for a minor.

When I was in college, writing was never a big problem for me, and now I earn a living writing and reviewing. Still, the dominant legacies Tim Isaacs left me with are 1) my penchant for reading existentialists such as Sartre, Kirkegaard, Camus, etc. and 2) my memory of such minutia as the meanings of litotes and consonance.

Thanks Dave and Tim. You two rocked and the influences of your teaching have stayed with me to this day.

My Favorite High School Teachers, Part 1

I meant to post this on Ada Lovelace Day, which I learned about from a colleague who sent me to Finding Ada. I pledged to blog about a woman I admire in the fields of technology or science. Because I am incredibly lame and this Spring got away from me, this post is months late.

Mrs. Rowe was my Algebra II/Trig teacher. My mom was a math teacher, but it was Mrs. Rowe who turned me into some semblance of a mathematician. I still vividly remember the first day of trig when she drew the unit circle on the board. I used that same basic lecture when I taught the course years later. Mrs. Brown (Algebra 1) saved me from mathematical oblivion. Mr. Berry (Geometry and Computer Science) helped me see that learning and teaching math could be fun, but Mrs. Rowe drove it home. She batted cleanup and hit a triple. After her, Mrs. Penkunas (pre-calc and calc) had the easier job of tightening everything up. She did hard work, but all of it would have been for naught if it weren't for the sweet woman with the southern drawl who was affectionately known as "The Crusher."

Of all the courses I ever took (at any level and in any discipline), the one from which I remember the highest percentage is AP Biology. Mrs. Breznick (now Casio) taught me that course and it is thanks to her that I remember such things as rough endoplasmic reticulum (it's the ribosomes that make it rough) and the difference between xylem and phloem. It's really ridiculous. Why is it that I can still remember the cellular respiration handout she gave us that describes how we get ATP from glycolysis and the Krebs cycle? Why do I still remember the roles of FSH and LH? All credit goes to Mrs. Casio.

A heartfelt thanks to all my high school math and science teachers for training me up and (more importantly) for fostering my love of learning and sharing. I was really, really lucky to have you all as teachers.

This was supposed to be just about women in the fields of science and math, but then again, this was supposed to come out months ago. Still, I'll stop here and post tomorrow about the non-math/science teachers (both men) who influenced me the most.

TwitTalk: Who Do I Follow?

I have been doing the Twitter thing. The folks I follow fall into a few main categories.

Math teachers: This crowd will get a post to themselves, but suffice it to say that there are a bunch of innovative math teachers out there and they are blogging and tweeting and it is a very good thing.

Comedians: Some comedians write good movies, some are best with short stories, and some are good at standup. I have found several for whom 140 characters is plenty.

Sports guys: I have been disappointed by most athletes on twitter, but some columnists are pretty good.

Friends: I also follow a handful of friends & colleagues. They are fun, but their tweeting frequency isn't as high as the masses of others I follow.

George Lazenby: Yeah, he gets his own category. When reading this guy's tweets, I generally feel as dumb as a box of rocks. Still, I follow because every once in a while he recommends a great book or makes some comment/reference I actually get.

To check out all these tweeps, go to  my twitter page: @RestonKid