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Julia Barenboim - My Blog
Google Earth- The Rest of Our Planet
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Google Earth, Google’s virtual globe used by millions worldwide, is expanding. In this first major upgrade this relatively new software has faced, Google Ocean now lets you explore the other 75% of our planet. Users can now dive beneath a shifting water surface to explore the sea floor. According to BBC News, the map also includes 20 content layers presenting information from the world's leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers. Al Gore, attending the launch event in San Fransisco, said that the update would make Google Earth a "magical experience”. Our oceans contain nearly 80% of all life on the planet and protection organizations hope the tool will improve awareness of issues facing undersea life. Sylvia Earle, the National Geographic Society's explorer in residence, said, "I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new ocean in Google Earth. For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes,"
There are also updates on the terrestrial side, including GPS tracking, virtual time travel (where users can observe changes in satellite images, such as the 2006 World Cup stadium or the desertification of Africa's Lake Chad) and narrated tours of imagery and content in Google Earth. There are also updates to the Mars 3D section, so if users have had enough of the blue planet, they can always look at the red one.
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| February 22, 2009 | 5:02 AM |
Edmund Spenser, Marry Me Now!
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I love medieval literature almost as much as RandomLogic loves Disney (okay, I love Disney too). Edmund Spenser, best known for "The Faerie Queene" (also an awesome book of poetry), also wrote "The Amoretti" to celebrate the courtship of his second wife. My favorite is Sonnet 75.
This is for all the romantics, and for those that believe that love lasts.
Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so" (quoth I), "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew."
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| February 19, 2009 | 10:02 AM |
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Good Old Disney
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 I love my Disney! I always have. Even now, in high school, my friends and I have Disney movie-a-thons. They have sweet worlds where dreams come true so then, why won't a lot of the parents that I know let their kids watch some of the Disney movies?
This girl I know's mother is a professor of Native American studies at the college near me. She wouldn't let her daughter watch Pocahontas because she believes it is too racist. Now, I realize that it is racist. Most of the Disney movies are, but do we really take them seriously? I always just watched them for fun. Maybe we're too hard on Disney. But then I looked back on them. No matter what message Disney may be trying to put across, there is another message that comes across too.
I did some looking and found several articles that other people had written with their opinions. I think that many times people forget what's good about Disney and instead criticize the bad. But I agree with a lot of what was written.
Let's take Beauty and the Beast. She goes to live with the Beast (who is actually a prince under  an enchantment until he finds someone who will love him as he is) so that her father may go free. Of course Disney is showing us not to judge people based on looks. It's showing us to treat people how you want to be treated. The musical at my school this year is Beauty and the Beast so we have all been cynically judging the true motives in this movie. It used to be quite a feminist movie back when it was in French with actual actors. Now, though, underneath the nice coating, what is it telling us? At my school and in some of the article I read, people think that Disney is telling us that even if some one is abusive, it doesn't matter because under it all they are a good person who loves you. If you just put up with it, everything will work out.
Or take most of the Disney princess's. They just wait around for people to hand them things and fall in love with the first guy to save them. I remember my sister's stage when she wanted to be a princess. She wore a dress every where and insisted on being treated like royalty. Why do people think that it's bad for someone to pretend this for a few weeks? It made her think she could do anything she wanted and she did grow out of it.
I know that no matter what people might say, I'm going to go on being a Disney geek but what about you? Do you think that Disney is putting down the little girls, making them think they have to marry the first prince that comes along and saves them? Or are we too hard on Disney?
Ps. I wrote this while watching the recording of Rent on Broadway which is so amazing and you should all watch. But because of that I might have had some senseless mistakes with my spelling and grammar. Still it's an awesome show.
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| February 19, 2009 | 9:02 AM |
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the economy (and you)
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I just finished editing a story for my school's television station/public access channel, and it made me wonder...how is the current economic situation affecting all of you? It's really hard to understand some of the mumbo jumbo being spewed by the politicians and economists, although there are a few (more understandable) alternatives...thanks, Hank and John. (I'm also partial to this video of Hank's, but that's a whole different blog post waiting to happen.) But what is a far cry easier to grasp is the jobs being lost and the people being put out on the street, not to mention the budget cuts being made in school districts across the country. Regardless of your individual situation, as girls with interests spanning from the performing arts to math and science to sports and everything in between, we're all likely to see a change in what is available to us over the next few years.So, I'm curious. What changes have you seen personally, in your life and those of people around you? What do you anticipate?
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| February 16, 2009 | 5:02 AM |
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"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
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(This is basically a continuation of the topic discussed by RandomLogic in this post.)"It is a miracle..." Albert Einstein said those words and when I first read them a few months ago, I was startled by how much they rang true to me. As a public school student for nearly ten years at this point, the number of times I've heard words like these is really unfathomable: "On the test..." "Next year..." "In middle school/high school/college..."Everything we do in school seems geared toward preparation for one thing: tests. Whether these are tests that will be given next week,  or tests that will be given by the state at the end of the year, or tests that will be given in the next level of education, we are constantly preparing for them. We are always looking to what's coming next. In fifth grade, we had to write everything in cursive, since "In Middle School" (these things are said so much that they really should be capitalized that way) we would have to write everything in cursive. Throughout middle school math classes, we were chastised every time we forgot a pencil because "In High School" it would count against us as not being prepared for class. Now we need to do our research, format our essays, take notes, do everything in certain ways because that's how we'll need to do it "In College." But it's all centered around moving up and getting good grades. What will keep us moving along this education track we're expected to follow? How can we get good grades that reflect well on the school and get us into college?In elementary, middle, even high school, that's fine. Just keep moving along and doing what you're told -- the most important choice I've had to make in the past month or so was probably whether to take comp sci or Shakespeare for my elective next year. And of course, I considered several things. a) Which will I enjoy more? b) Which will allow me to be exposed to more new things I've never learned before? c) Which will I be able to get a higher grade in?...One of these is not like the others. Because for the past six years or so, grades have been increasingly important, and they will probably continue to grow even more important for another six-ish. But last year I realized something:In life, there are no grades.Basically, our education system is geared toward making us the best students it can. We're taught how to write perfectly structured essays, recite poetry and spell words, memorize dates and names of important events and people, and factor lots and lots of quadratics - essentially, how to get good grades. The goal, then, seems to be that by the time we finish first high school and ultimately (if we so choose) college, we will be perfect students. Unfortunately, at that point, it won't matter anymore.So my question for you is this: Do you think school is preparing you for life, and in what ways?(If you know what you want to do when you finish school, do you believe that you are learning skills and gaining knowledge that will help you achieve this goal? If not, do you think your classes and experiences are helping you reach a point where you will know what you are going to do?)(Photo from UW-Madison website.)
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| February 15, 2009 | 3:02 AM |
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