Nerd Pride Day (Día del Orgullo Friki)

Rocco Stanzione:

How did I not know about this holiday? I'm gonna write a nerd poem for my wife...

Señor Buebo, organizador del Día del Friki. (Foto: Antonio Heredia)

Roses are red, violets are blue
All my base are belong to you

Marilyn Olowe:

LOL, Rocco. How about this:

Roses are #FF0000
Violets are #0000FF
All my base
Are belong to you ♥

Tracing back from that, I found this by Erin Rose O'Brien:

While rummaging across the internet for wacky holidays, I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd_Pride_Day

Apparently, it originated in Spain. You go Spanish nerds. In addition, it falls on the anniversary of the original Star Wars film.

In 2008, Geek Pride Day came to America and in 2009, Canada. So let's rock our nerdiness. Let's get a large number of people to party it up with us.

Irreverent Haiku

Meanwhile, for the past several days, other nerds have been writing other poems, on a Facebook page created by Jeff Sabo. As those who don't have a part-time home on facebook won't be able to see it, I've brought some of my own, and the promise that there are many more and better there.

People are playing with long words. This is my 5-7-5:

Procrastination's
counterintuitively
inspirational.

And before that,

Why do we think it?
That big thoughts will not fit in
Small words of one sound.

and what started me with the five-syllable situation:

In Beowulf's age
Haiku all angled to be
Alliterative

One of my favorite geek-poetry things of all is the error message haiku which have been going around for years. There's no one definitive set, I don't think, as they're passed around as office humor, but here's one site with a collection:
http://www.strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/haiku.html

testing, dancing, Muybridge, physicality

http://sandradodd.com/physicality

Edith Cavell, long division and other trivia

Because of watching this: As Time Goes By...

...I read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell. There was just a passing mention of Edith Cavell, in the sixth episode of the third season, and I wanted to understand the joke.

And so I learned a fair amount about WWI that I hadn't known, and how people were being recruited with a story that turned out to have much exaggeration and some denial. But still it was heroism, and had I know this before I was in Norfolk last summer I would have wanted to see this monument. I might have passed right by it, but didn't know the story.



There are roads, schools, hospitals, buildings, people, a pub, a mountain, a bridge, a rose, a radio station, a YWCA camp, and a hill or something on Jupiter named after Edith Cavell, in the U.K., Belgium, France, Portugal, South Africa, Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia. And Jupiter. Okay, well not all those named things are in all those places. One in each, at least.

If considering the difference between knowledge and trivia, consider this, by Ronnie Maier.

Wrapping the point in silk
Each of us is born with a crazy passion to learn.
Each of us craves knowledge of our world and our place within it.
We learn because we want to learn, because it’s important to us, because it’s natural,
and because it’s impossible to live in the world and not learn.
Then along comes school to mess up a beautiful thing.
~ Peggy Pirro, 101 Reasons Why I'm An Unschooler

MJ helped one of my nieces with her long division homework the other day. Hearing that she had done this got me thinking again about what a waste of time and brain cells it is to learn long division.

#1 - As Pam Sorooshian pointed out in her math talk at Good Vibrations last year, the precision of long division is just not what we need out in the real world. Think about when you use division in real life: calculating the best value at the grocery store, figuring gas mileage, seeing how many of something you can use in a given time period or distribute to each person, and so on. And how do you do it? In your head, using estimates. "258 miles on 7.8 gallons, um, that's a little better than 30 mph." Done. Typically, we don't need to know that it was 33.07692 mph. And if we do...

#2 -Most of us carry calculators with us all day every day. We have calculators on our computers, in our phones, in our PDAs, in our watches, magnetized to our dashboards, clipped to our grocery carts, whatever. With a little practice, we can use these faster than we can estimate in our heads.

So, why are they still teaching long division in schools???? It is but one example of how schools have failed to adapt.

Once upon a time, it was vital for a certain group of people to know that wearing a silk shirt under armor might save your life, since the silk makes it easier to remove an arrow if you get shot. Somebody figured this out, and the word spread, and it became part of the standard warrior curriculum. Back then, knowing this technique was a matter of life and death. Nowadays, it's a quaint little factoid.

I'd rather have my kids learning about that than long division. Long division is a dead end, an exercise in tedium, a compelling bit of evidence that "math is hard" (not to mention unpleasant), or worse, that "I am stupid."

That little silk tidbit, though... Now that's interesting. I don't remember where I learned it—probably in a romance novel—but I looked it up on the Internet. It led me to Mongols and absorbency and sutures and animal rights for worms. And it led me to wonder: Who figured this out and how? Can you imagine the circumstances...? Chloe and I laughed together as we talked about it.

In other words, that little tidbit is fun. It opens doors. It engages my brain and reminds me that the world is full of things to discover.

That is what learning should be. I wonder why our schools haven't figured that out.

When little kids aren't afraid of Shakespeare

And Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them
Shakespeare Through an Unschooling Lens
by Karen Ridd

This is from Life Learning Magazine, March/April 2010. I don't know whether you'll be able to read it without subscribing, but you might want to subscribe, perhaps. Next month there will be an article by me.

A quote from Karen Ridd's article:

There’s a lot of giggling going on in the back seat of the car. We’re on our way home from the prestigious Golden Boy indoor soccer tournament. My eleven-year-old son Daniel has a gold medal around his neck after a hard-played final. He also has a book in his hand – not exactly standard “Grade Six” reading fare. It’s Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare – and he and his eight-year-old brother are quizzing each other on the lines that they are memorizing. And giggling.… They are giggling at how funny these lines are. I, on the other hand, have tears in my eyes, a smile that reaches to Pittsburgh, and a heart overflowing with gratitude that we are able to learn without school.

This year they'll both be in a production of Twelfth Night. Last year Ben, the younger, was in The Tempest, but I don't want to give away the good parts of the story.

---

The image is a reminder for Sam Rockwell fans (and everyone else!) to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream and was lifted from an older post on this blog.



Sam Rockwell and Kevin Klein as Pyramus and Thisbe (Bill Irwin as "Wall," who is also Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street)

On my own pages there are Tales from Unschooling Lives Involving Shakespeare:
http://sandradodd.com/strew/shakespeare
http://sandradodd.com/shakespeare/

Pam Larrichia wrote "Shakespeare is fun!"
http://livingjoyfully.blogspot.com/2005/03/shakespeare-is-fun.html

Songs about singing, Art about art, and mirrors

This was a Lyrics Game entry in 2007, for the word "mirror," and I wanted to bring it here as it's being retired there.

I've made a songlist for Songs about Singing.

Here are two other links people here might like: Polyphony and Horses, or Art about Art

---

After that date, I started a page called Reflections on Mirrors.

Anniversary of the death of the first Queen Elizabeth

Mar 24, 1603 Queen Elizabeth I died. She as nearly 70, and had been queen of England since she was 25.

From the Death of Queen Elizabeth I:

In March 1603 Queen Elizabeth was clearly unwell and seemed depressed. She retired to one of her favourite homes - Richmond Palace. Stubborn as ever she refused to allow her doctors to examine her. She also refused to rest in bed - she stood for hours on end, occasionally just sitting in a chair. Her condition became worse and her ladies-in-waiting spread cushions across the floor. Queen Elizabeth eventually lay down on the cushions. She lay on the floor for nearly four days - mostly in complete silence. She eventually grew so weak that when her servants insisted on making her more comfortable in her bed she was unable to argue with them. The end was clearly near for the great old Queen. Her Councillors gathered around her. Soft music was played to soothe her. She had still not named James as her successor but she made a sign to Robert Cecil and it was interpreted that this was her wish.

(More details)

The funeral wasn't until April 28. The body was in a lead coffin, which I guess can keep Superman safe from kryptonite, and England safe from a month-old body.

In the middle of the site linked above are advertisements for wrongful death claims (just in case anyone wants to sue, about Elizabeth's death, I guess. As she was childless, though, and others benefitted from the death, I don't guess there needs to be a claim.

If she WAS childless, that is...
There are hints and suggestions that she had a son, and a very bright one, too. Sir Francis Bacon.

There's a recent book out (2001-recent), not so much serious history, claiming that the plays of Shakespeare were written by a son of Elizabeth, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. That he wrote the plays, and William Shakespeare was used as a cover, kind of the opposite of ghost writing. A scholar wrote of the believers of that theory: “Oxfordians are the sub-literary equivalent of the sub-religious Scientologists. You don’t want to argue with them, as they are dogmatic and abusive.”

But women aren't having children as they're dying, though they might be thinking of their children. If they had any.


The images above and many others, including the funeral procession, effigy and tomb (though those weren't until 407 years and some weeks later) are here: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/queen_elizabeth_gallery.htm

So what's the big connection?

Besides just everything in the 16th and early 17th century? Shakespeare? (Even way apart from the odd theory that the they might be related indirectly by contract.) Francis Bacon? (Even if they weren't related, they did correspond in a very intimate tone, and he was some kind of genius.) Exploration of the New World and victory over the Spanish Armada?

Elizabeth I reigned for 44 years 4 months and 5 days. Five other monarchs have ruled longer. Henry III in the 13th century, Edward III in the fourteenth (and so she died with the third longest reign) and since then, George III (160-1820), Victoria in the 19th Century, and Queen Elizabeth II, 1952 to still-counting. If Elizabeth II passes George III and Queen Victoria, she will be #1, but Elizabeth I will be #6 in any case.

[Elizabeth II] will have to reign until 2012 to reign longer than George III, 59 years from 1760-1820, and until 9th Sept 2015 when she will be 89 years old to better Victoria's record and become the longest reigning monarch.

History found in playing cards

A brief look at the symbolism behind a deck of playing cards by 16th C. German artist Jost Amman.



Posted to the medieval trivia list at yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MedievalTrivia/)

I recently found an interesting article about the symbolism on early
German playing cards, so I put together a little video about a deck we
have by the German artist Jost Amman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBUygN8fOk

Chas
--
MacGregor Historic Games
http://historicgames.com

The "card spots" common in one place might not be the same as in another! In the U.S. I grew up with spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. In Spain their club is an actual wooden club, and they have gold, cups and swords. Their playing card art can look like our tarot card art.

I don't know which kind they use in Mexico; anyone know?

The illustration of the Spanish cards from wikipedia: