lifeasdaddy

lifeasdaddy - Making a campus safer. George Mason University's emergency alert system.

The official panel examining the Viginia Tech campus shootings of earlier this year has found that more lives would have been saved if an emergency alert had ben issued earlier.

From today's Washington Post story:

The panel appointed by the governor to investigate the massacre at Virginia Tech is critical of the university's response to the shootings and its treatment of Seung Hui Cho, concluding that some lives could have been saved if officials had issued an alert sooner that a gunman was on campus.

Here's the report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel from the Official site of the Governor of Virginia.

Today I was doing some research about George Mason University, which is also located in Virginia.  In a prominant position right there on the GMU home page is a tab with a link to "MASON ALERT EMERGENCY MESSAGING":

This system is administered by the Safety OfficeWelcome to Mason Alert

Mason Alert is an alert system that allows George Mason University to contact you during an emergency by sending text messages to your: Cell phone E-mail (school, personal, other) Pager BlackBerry/Treo When an emergency occurs, authorized senders will notify you using Mason Alert. Mason Alert is your personal connection to real-time updates, instructions on where to go, what to do, or what not to do, who to contact and other important information. What a fine idea.  Could save lives in the event of an emergency. Now let's check on the Viginia Tech home page and see if they've got something prominant and similar.  Nope.  Nothing like that there.

lifeasdaddy - Recent podcasts I recommend.

I don't really get much time for podcast listening - but here's a roundup of my recent recommendations:

Sound Opinions (Chicago Public Radio) Talks about cover songs.  A couple of very knowledgeable rock music journalists sample and discuss great covers over the past 40 years.  Also has input from phone in listeners.  Includes a lengthy discussion of Isaac Hayes' cover of "By The Time I Get To Pheonix" - which they mention is one of the composer Jimmy Webb's faves.  The Hayes version runs to 19 minutes, and it's briefly sampled on the podcast.

Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writers: Tony Dungy.  Although I do have a long term interest in American sports, I'd never heard of Dungy until I read about his book Quiet Strength on Joe Wikert's blog.  Even just hearing Dungy interviewed here is inspiring - overcoming racism, career setbacks and the death of his son - let alone reading the book.  He does seem quiet.  Not bombastic, not full of himself, although rightly proud of his achievements on and off the gridiron.

HBR Ideacast interview with veteran silicon valley forecaster Paul Saffo.  Saffo talks about his recent Harvard Business Review article about the Six rules for effective forecasting.  He talks plenty of commonsense, which is all too often uncommon in forecasting, and gives some examples of trends and products which seem to the layperson (like me) to have come out of nowhere, but which he indicates were actually quite predictable.  His article is one of the few available free in the current July-August 2007 issue on the HBR website, provided you agree to the normal terms of use.  See here.

HBR Ideacast Preparing for a Pandemic - Interview with Dr. Leonard Marcus and Dr. Barry Dorn.  To paraphrase their findings on preparedness for a Flu Pandemic, the businesses which will be most prepared will be those who recognise their interdependent nature, and who open up the planning to their partners in business.

HBR Ideacast 34 Competing on Analytics - Interview with Tom Davenport and Jeanne Harris.  It's about the numbers.  How to gain a competitive advantage by drilling into the numbers.  Gives some very tasty examples particularly from the insurance industry. 

Times Online: Making globalisation work.  Prof. Joseph Stiglitz talks about globalisation.  Points out the winners, the losers, how it works, where it works well and not, where it is unfair, and his prescription to fix it.  Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel for economics in 2001.

NPR Driveway Moments:  Are computer keyboards dishwasher safe?  Answer seems to be yes, but do not try this at home.

NPR Story Corps: I haven't seen you in 40 years. Ralph Tremonte and Donald Weiss spent their childhoods together in a psychiatric institution.  Here they are reunited 40 years later in New York.  They have a good catch up.  You need to listen closely to capture both sides of the conversation.  Surprisingly uplifting.

There.  That's plenty to listen to.

lifeasdaddy - Cut greenhouse gases even after you are dead.

I declare that the issue of personal responsibility for global warming is reaching a critical mass.  It's reaching into areas of our lives that could not be foreseen, even just 12 months ago. First the was the Crow/toilet paper plan - now a crematorium in Bath wants to reduce carbon emissions by burning more than one body at a time.  This from the Guardian:

You might thing that however much pollution we cause in our lives, it stops when we pop our clogs. Not so: a crematorium in Bath is trying to reduce carbon emissions by burning bodies two at a time instead of singly.  Occasionally this will mean the deceased being stored overnight, before being teamed up with another customer the following day; a procedure that is causing some disquiet among funeral directors in the genteel West Country town.  In a letter to them the local council's "bereavement manager" (n really), Rosemary Tilley, said the new policy would make haycombe crematorium's two burners last longer.

lifeasdaddy - A rainbow in the morning ...

This morning I mentioned to Ed that there was a rainbow in the sky.  He told me it takes water and the Sun to make a rainbow.

lifeasdaddy - Ed on the DVR miniature railway

Yesterday lifeasdaddy was on the road in Melbourne.  Edward wanted to see the Daimond Valley Railway which is a miniature railroad.  It's in Eltham Lower Park in Main Road, Eltham.

It runs almost every Sunday, and you can get the low-down here.

This shows Edward in a carriage being drawn by locomotive S301, painted in the traditional Victorian Railways blue and gold livery.

Other locomotives running yesterday were Milwaukee Road, NSW SRA 81 Class, and an honest to goodness steamie called Tom Thumb. All in miniature of course.

Children under 2 years are free, all other passengers pay $3.

This is a great way to spend an hour.

lifeasdaddy - So, what's happening in New Orleans post-Katrina?

The National Geographic has got a feature in the current issue on post-Katrina reconstruction.

There's a great series of photographs here.

A couple of quotes from the captions:

Last year the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it had restored New Orleans’ levees and floodwalls to pre-Katrina strength. But this spring engineer Bob Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, identified potential weak spots. Built on soft soil, this floodwall is sinking and buckling; repairs with steel pilings may be inadequate.

and this piece of idiocy:

In spite of the disaster, parish officials exempted residents who applied for a building permit by June 4 from a new federal requirement to raise rebuilt houses by at least three feet (one meter) for flood protection. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the owners of all but 6,500 homes applied in time to get an exemption, meaning the majority of structures in St. Bernard Parish will not be elevated for protection against the next storm.

but there is joy:

“What we do in New Orleans you can’t find anyplace else,” says Terry. “The jazz we play comes from the soul.”

[ tip from baby got books ]

lifeasdaddy - Becoming a digital native.

I'm a digital immigrant.

Edward is a digital native.

I picked up a copy of the August 2007 issue of Sydney's Child today.  It's stuffed with advertisements, but usually has some good content between the ad space.

This month's issue has a few good articles, one of the them by Dale Spender, New Sources of Meaning: the latest avenues for learning in the digital age.

If you're in Sydney, pick up a free copy somewhere and have a look.  Ms. Spender's general thesis here is that it's hard for old fogies like us to imagine what is the best way and what for our children to learn to prepare them for the world of work in 2020; but that it's most likely to require an adeptness using all of the digital tools now at mankind's disposal (Ms. Spender would no doubt prefer "person kind" be used here)

This has set me off thinking about what type of educational environment will be best for Edward, and how we can best supplement whatever formal education he receives since I assume that the education system may lag somewhat.

It will be essential that he be familiar and competent in using all of the digital devices and on line resources available, including those not yet invented.  He needs to be a digital native.

I realised that Edward was on the right track when he came home from Kindergarten  and started talking a Ayers Rock.  I asked him how he knew about Ayers Rock, and he told me he had seen it at kindy on Google Earth.  He is three and a half years old.

Some more reading on digital natives can be found here,   here,  here,  here,

lifeasdaddy - Some Fisher-Price toys recalled in Australia, USA and elsewhere due to lead coating

Here's the story about US recall.

Here's the story about Australia recall.:

Mattel Australia recalled 43,000 Fisher-Price toys today after characters including Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street's Ernie and Barney the Dinosaur were found to be coated in dangerous levels of lead.

Here's the Fisher-Price Australia product safety recall page, however the information does not yet include this latest recall - as at 3.45pm August 2, 2007.

IMPORTANT:

Here's the USA product recall site, with some relevant information.

lifeasdaddy - Mount Kosicuszko and Kosciuszko Bridge

Photo blogger Jake put up a photo of the (underside of the) Kosciuszko Bridge   we Australians have Mount Kosciuszko as our tallest mountain

Both are named after Tadeusz Kościuszko   a hero of both the American Revolutionary War, and the Polish uprising against Russia.

Who knows how our mountain was named after this Pole?