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

Mr. Walker's Classroom Blog

  • A timelapse of Planet Earth from Electro-L, a geostationary satellite orbiting 40000km above the Earth. The satellite creates a 121 megapixel image every 30 minutes with four visible and infrared light wavelengths. The infrared light appears orange in these images, and shows vegetation. The images were obtained beginning on May 14th, 2011 and end on May 20th. The images are the largest whole disk images of our planet, the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. The images are "masked" by a circular barrier that blocks out the light of the Sun and other stars. This is to prevent damage to the camera by exposure to direct sunlight. The images have been interpolated (blended) to create a smooth animation.

    Find more images and a full GigaPAN Megapixel Image at http://planet–earth.ca/

  • This was in the NYTimes

    One Day, Nick Bergus came across a link to an odd product on Amazon.com.

    He found it irresistibly funny and, as one does in this age of instant sharing, he posted the link on Facebook.

    Within days, friends of Mr. Bergus’s started seeing his post among the ads on Facebook pages, with his name and smiling mug shot. Facebook – or rather, one of its algorithms – had seen his post as an endorsement and transformed it into an advertisement, paid for by Amazon, reports Somini Sengupta of The New York Times.

    Companies pay Facebook to generate automated ads, called sponsored stories, when a user clicks to "like" their brands or references them in some other way. Facebook users agree to participate in the ads halfway through the site’s 4,000-word terms of service, which they consent to when they sign up.

    With heightened pressure to step up profits and live up to the promise of its gigantic public offering, Facebook is increasingly banking on this approach to generate more ad revenue. The company said it did not break down how much revenue comes from such ads. Its early stock market performance – down 22 percent from its offering price – is likely to increase the urgency.

    But this new twist on advertising has already proved to be tricky. Users do not always realize that the links and "likes" they post on Facebook can be deployed for marketing purposes. And Facebook has already agreed in principle to settle a class-action lawsuit over the practice in California.

    The Times’s technology reporters and editors asked several of their Facebook friends who showed up in such ads what they thought of the practice. The responses have been compiled in a blog post , where readers can also discuss their own feelings on being featured in sponsored stories.

  • As mobile devices become more and more popular the demand for easy access to wi-fi increases as well. It is already pretty easy to access wi-fi in most places including coffee shops, restaurants, the mechanics, etc. Access to wifi will only become wider spread and easier to access especially when it is predicted 1 in 4 users will have more than one connected device by 2016. Not only is the user base for connected devices growing but traffic is as well, growing 133% in 2011 and predicted to grow another 110% by the end of this year.

    While free wi-fi is great it does not necessarily protect you the same way a secure network may. Today’s infographic Free Wi-fi, Friend or Foe? gives us some examples of ways hackers can hijack your accounts and how to ensure your safety when browsing on an open network. One easy way to ensure your security when loggin on to a free public network is to know the exact name of the network. You don’t want to log onto a network someone nearby the coffee shop created giving them total access to personal files. A lot of computers have shared folders that can be accessed by other users on wifi, these sharing features are something that can be turned off to increase security. Make sure and read through today’s infographic, it’s a good one. [via] [via Daily Infographic]

    wi-fi-friend-or-foe-veracode-640x3320

  • Hugh Pickens did not write about this when he wrote “A scenic mountain village in Austria called Hallstatt has been copied, down to the statues”, and this has also been missed in all of the major news papers, almost as if it never happened.

    "A scenic high school in Gresham, Oregon, USA called Gresham High School has been copied down to the statues, by a Chinese developer. Residents of the original Gresham High School did not attend Saturday’s opening in China for the high-end residential student project, but were still miffed about how the company did it. ‘They should have asked the teachers and students of the high school and the other staff if we agree with the idea to rebuild Gresham High School in China, and they did not,’ says teacher John Walker. People in Gresham High School first learned a year ago of the plan when a Chinese exchange student at Mr. Walker’s classroom who was involved with the project inadvertently spilled the beans. Minmetals staff had been taking photos and gathering data while mingling with teachers, raising suspicions among students. The original high school is a century-old school of 1900 and a Gresham heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a $940 million high school that thrives on China’s new rich. In a country famous for pirated products, the replica Gresham High School sets a new standard. ‘The moment I stepped into here, I felt I was in Gresham,’ says 22-year-old Zhu Bin, a Huizhou resident. ‘The security guards wear nice costumes. All the classrooms are built in Oregon style.’ This isn’t the first time a Chinese firm has used a Oregon place as inspiration. Look around the Internet for additional items copied from Oregon.