iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

I wanted to draw attention to the excellent web site ThingsAreGood.com and especially the article on Honda’s F1 team and their new earth-friendly car.

Based on what everyone seems to be doing with the tools over at www.myheritage.com, I’ve created my celebrity look-alike comparison.

Lindsay and I went to the Toronto Autoshow this weekend.

Not surprisingly Lindsay and I wanted to check out some of the new more economical vehicles, which probably represented most of the new models on display. The increase in gas prices and the strength of the import manufactures has made cheap cars fun again. Lindz and I liked the Honda Fit, and Lindsay’s pictured here on the Honda Jazz.

I was disappointed with Suzuki’s fleet. Suzuki and Chevy would stop selling the Daewoo Kalos as the Suzuki Swift and the Chevy Aveo – Lindsay noticed that it was the same car and a poorly built one (turn stock was broken-off). Suzuki needs to bring the real Suzuki Swift over from Europe and Japan. We know it’s compatible for Canada because the boys over at Top Gear used them to play a giant game of hockey.
The highlights for me was seeing the lines of the new Audi R8 and the Maserati Quattroporte in person, which could just have easily been on display in the AGO.

Flickr Photoset here

Over the last three days I participated in the Graduate Teaching Assistant Instructional Skills Workshop here at Brock University. It was a great way to reflect on my own teaching, build on my existing skills and benefit from the experiences of others.

The workshop involves 10 people, split into groups of 5. In those small groups participants give short 10-minute lessons on anything so that they can demonstrate their teaching and gain feed back.

My three mini-lessons were:

1. How to make a Loon call by blowing through your hands.
   
   The flash version of my presentation is available.
2. How E-Mail is sent across the Internet. I did this one without the benefit of technology.
3. “Drifting” or how to slide a car sideways around a corner.
   
   The flash version of my presentation is available.

The Rick Mercer Report examines Snow, in Toronto (Also known as 2 14):

http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/video_player.html?snow

Brock University has an “Inturuptions of Normal Operations” policy: www.brocku.ca/alumni/policy/ino.php The prcoess is clear, but the interpretation is not. Yesterday’s events have clarified this. Here’s the section that’s important:

On any day when weather or other events could challenge the regular functioning of the University, or when other Niagara institutions are announcing closures, the Executive Director of Facilities Management will consult with the Director of Campus Security who will contact the local school boards, Niagara College, the Niagara Regional Police Service, Environment Canada Weather Services and St. Catharines Transit.

Based on Februray 14th 2007 we now know that this is a five-for-five situation, at least at the inital 6:00AM decision. In yesterday’s case the St. Catharines Transit system was still running while all others were closed. The two local school boards and Niagara College were closed and the Police were asking people not to drive if possbile and Enviroment Canada had both a storm and squal warning out, but to their credit, the St. Catharines Transit system seemed to handeling the weather very well!

I’m not sure what factors lead to the update around 1:00PM that the campus was closed.

So in the future, when you’re trying to predict if you have to come to the Brock Campus the night before a storm look to St. Catharines Transit and yourbus.com.

I made it in to work!

The snow down here in St. Catharines is pretty heavy, but my little car and its appropriate tires did fine this morning. I went through the city because the OPP were asking people to stay off the highway and I would have felt pretty sheepish if I got in an accident on the 406 for sub-ten-kilometre trip.

I was a little late for work, but that was because I stopped to push a women’s car out of a snow bank only to find out that the snow bank was her destination.

I also got stuck in a long line trying to get up Brock/Glenridge hill because a sport-cute kept trying to get up the hill despite making very little forward progress and ultimately turning around with nothing but a long line of cars to show for it. The sport-cute (Saturn Vue, maybe Ford Escape) wasn’t alone because once it was out of the way and myself and a bunch of other cars started up the road the mini-van behind me quickly disappeared from my mirror.

I’ll be sure to get lots of pictures.

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse Adam Crapsi for president of the Brock University Students’ Council. I’m not a student, so I can’t vote, but if I could I would vote for him because:

1. That’s a multi-million dollar leak he wants to fix and, as I’m not a student, I’d love for BUSU to pick up the tab.
2. That is a sweet Ferrari jacket and matching cap!

Apparently my blog has become, between the Smashing Pumpkins and car postings, a bit a of a reference about BlackBoard’s U.S. Patent No. 6,988,138 – their patent of the electronic teaching and learning of human beings.

BlackBoard (Bb) now owns it’s major competition, WebCT, which is the tool that consumes most of my day job.

In previous posts I commented on what I thought of the patent (BlackBoard goes Metallica) and on the uproar that ensued when Matthew Smalls et al. from Bb agreed to be on a panel at Sakai’s (one of the main two open source alternatives) Atlanta conference in December (Bb v. SFLC, Sakai, Moglen, rational thinkers, et al.,Follow up with the Bb team).

Today Bb issued a non-enforcement pledge that seems to have pleased both Sakai and EDUCAUSE who issued a joint statement shortly afterwards, with some reservations.

I’d have to agree with Sakai and EDUCAUSE both in that this removes any threat to open source groups and educational institutions and that this is an appropriate move on Bb’s part. That said, the Software Freedom Law Center’s move to invalidate this overly broad patent should continue.