Zamzar - Free online file conversion

Zamzar Here is a somewhat awkward service to really really help out occasionally. When your programs don't open up other peoples files, here's a solution. Visit zamar, browse to the file, choose the format you want, they email you a link, you download the converted file, and voila you can see the video, read the document or whatever. It's free. An amazing number of conversions are available.

TWikis & Electric Sheep

Now here's a strange one. We find computer game coding morphing into virtual worlds and these becoming significant social networks - then these virtual worlds being sized up by educators as a high viability learning environment and needing a means of evaluation and participation - and these choosing a novel and new forum in a new experimental collaboration system called "TWiki" based on the wikipedia model where anyone can speak, publish and share - and this hosted by one of the oldest, largest and most sophisticated peace information networks formed in 1946 from the nuclear scientists that invented the atomic bomb. And the project's startup white paper, they cite "electric sheep" as an element in this complicated dance - and electric sheep turn out to be a means of developing highly complex graphical elements for this virtuality - and this is done by joining up thousands of private computers around the world to do the humungous calculations required for this when they are not otherwise busy. By golly I expected "quantum entanglement" to turn up there somewhere. And what I was looking for was Iranian nuclear reports! But all this strange stuff is the future rapidly coming to us. So if education and training are your interest, check this stuff out.
Here's the links:
Federation of American Scientists - the best source for military stats. The FAS Virtual Worlds Project. The whitepaper "Building virtual worlds for education and training". The electric sheep tour.

Google Tech Talk - Dr. Christopher Helland, Dalhousie

Turning Cyberspace into Sacred Space Helland's excellent 54 min lecture reviews the ways the religious traditions around the world used at the beginning and are using the internet now to communicate and share their story. From cameras in Hindu temples to neo-pagan rituals, he informs us of a not-so-visible community.

BIBBY'S BLOG

Dr. Reginald Bibby Bibby is a sociologist teaching at the University of Lethbridge. His blog is an interesting place of "research, reflections and rants", and quite lively. Here is a lighter side of the scholar than his excellent books on Canadian demographics. Restless Gods - Restless ChurchesNotes Notes on two recent books on the Canadian church statistics.

Alan Watts - Work as Play

Work as Play Google video has a nice bunch of the old zen lectures of Alan Watts. Enjoy.

Town of Cochrane Mural Mosaic

WOW This community project is a beautiful mixing of large and small. Artists were given tiles to paint, each a part of the larger theme.