Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou

Mr. Walker's Classroom Blog

  • The folks at Infographic Labs have created a tutorial for How to Create an Infographic in the form of (you guessed it!) and infographic.

    what-is-an-infographic_IGL

  • Published on Oct 26, 2012

    A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. A custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics engine allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player’s own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. These effects, rendered in realtime to vertex accuracy, include the Doppler effect; the searchlight effect; time dilation; Lorentz transformation; and the runtime effect.

    A production of the MIT Game Lab.

    Play now for Mac and PC! http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/

  • Did you know that headphones date back to 1919? According to this infographic from Denon(below), those old battery-powered radio headphones eventually gave way to cardboard versions in 1958, when full-spectrum sound gave the audiofile crowd a richer set of highs and lows to enjoy.

    But what really juiced up the headphone market was a separate gadget — the Walkman (1979). As portable music became the rage, it seemed everyone was on the go with a compact set of cans. Fast forward to 1990, and in-ear buds and wireless options entered the fray, leading to today’s widespread selection of portable listening gear that can fill practically any audio need — whether making calls, hitting the road (or jogger’s path), tuning in or tuning out.

    So the next time you dig out those earbuds or unfold your noise-canceling headset and pop them into your device of choice, take a second to marvel at them. While the package may be small, nearly 100 years of technology went into that compact wonder, just to make sure you could listen to whatever you want, wherever you want.

    evolution-of-headphones

  • Zeitgeist 2012: What piqued your curiosity this year?

    December 12, 2012

    As 2012 comes to a close, it’s time for our 12th annual Year-End Zeitgeist—an in-depth look at the "spirit of the times" as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year.

    On our 2012 Zeitgeist website, you can explore the most popular and hottest trending search terms from around the world. This year’s site is our most global to date, with a total of 838 lists from 55 countries. We’ve also added a number of new features, including an interactive map that shows where and when some of the hottest terms spiked around the world, and a Google Zeitgeist Android app coming out later today (with an iOS version coming soon too).

    For a round-the-globe tour through 2012, take a look at our video:


    So what kinds of things were top of mind this year? While there are perennial themes—“what is love?” topped the list in 10 countries—it’s the unusual and surprising that caught our attention in 2012.

    Global superstar Whitney Houston topped many countries’ lists as well as three of our overall trending lists—her unexpected death surprising fans around the world. From Korea, YouTube sensation PSY’s “Gangnam Style” signature dance took the world by storm, landing him the #1 spot in many countries and making his song the second most trending query of 2012. (PSY’s video became the #1 most watched in YouTube history—stay tuned for YouTube’s Rewind for more.)

    Then there was the superhuman. Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s epic free fall jump made him the #6 globally trending person of the year, while the 2012 Olympicsand its various athletes made it into almost every country’s top trends. And NBA player Jeremy Lin also rose on the charts this year, making him the #1 trending athlete globally.

    People researched a breadth of other topics, too. Web users took a serious interest in threats to the open Internet, with proposals like SOPA and ACTA both finding their way to the top of many countries’ lists. The U.S. elections brought attention to the candidates and issues, not least the presidential campaigns’ most notorious political gaffes. And while it might not be surprising to see that tragic natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy ranked highly (#3 on the global trending list), it is reassuring to find searches like [donate to Sandy] spiking as well.

    We hope you enjoy exploring what people around the world were searching for in 2012. It’s quite a snapshot of what makes us human: a blend of guilty pleasures and higher pursuits.

  • From lotrproject.com

    flowchart