Thursday, August 25, 2005

Back Online

I'm not planning on resuming regular updates to this site, but thought I'd put up something today to let folk know that mathdittos2.com is back online. We got caught when an apparently unscrupulous web host pulled the plug without warning (or refunds). It's taken a couple of weeks to find a new, and hopefully reliable, web host. I also added a new photo to the Desktop Photos page.

Connecticut Sues Over NCLB

A story on eSchool News, NCLB backlash expected to grow, tells of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filing suit against the federal government about No Child Left Behind. eSchool News quotes Blumenthal as saying, "Give up your unfunded mandates or give us the money. Live up to the law's promise. Show us flexibility or show us the money. This mindless rigidity harms our taxpayers--but most of all our children, who are robbed of resources in their classrooms."

The column is full of interesting quotes such as, "...the public hasn't turned its back on NCLB but is likely to do so if the law's strategies are not tailored to commonsense approaches," and "There are clear signs of an unprecedented bipartisan revolt afoot against the No Child Left Behind Act," and "The federal government has rejected and even ridiculed requests for full funding or flexibility under No Child Left Behind. It has been rigid and irrational--repeatedly denying any meaningful waiver.

Hubble Celebrates 15th Anniversary with Monster Photos

An article in the September Sky & Telescope, Hubble’s Anniversary Present, tells of two giant mosaics released this month by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages the Hubble mission. The article links to the Hubble Site’s page, Anniversary Images of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and Eagle Nebula. Going a good bit deeper into the Hubble site, you can download enormous images from the site, suitable for printing something on the order of a six foot wide image! It takes a pretty well equipped computer to open the images, but for classroom use, opening the image at say, 10% size, which pretty well fills a screen, gives a fantastic total view of the spiral galaxy M51. Then zooming in reveals incredible detail right up to 100%. The images here are scaled to a 1% (yes, that’s one percent) view of the total image. Cool stuff!

Eagle Nebula images: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/12/image/b

M51 images: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/12/image/a

Very cool!

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