A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

Here are two paragraphs from a practice sheet that gave to my students this week. Summaries are much harder to make than would first appear!

Using Skimming Effectively

Because skimming involves skipping large portions of the material, you should not expect to retain the less important facts and details. You can expect a comprehension level of about 50 percent when skimming. Use skimming only when your purpose for reading allows you to read for general concepts rather than specific information.

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Many effective readers alternate between skimming and more careful reading. In a given article, for example, you many skim several sections until you come to a section that is of particular interest or that fulfills your purpose for reading. At that point, you may read completely rather than skim, and then continue skimming later sections. At other times, it may be necessary to read completely when you feel confused or when you encounter difficult or unfamiliar ideas.

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Labels: BCIT

This is the fifth and final week of our class. We met on Mondays through Thursdays. This is an intensive, 84-hour course, so we need to meet on one Friday. That is today and it's the final examination!

Labels: students

I recently bought another houseplant at Walmart for $1.69.

I don't know why I like green things growing in the house. Maybe, I developed a desire for indoor green when living in the Middle East. Or could it be genetics? When I was small my mother made a big deal by inviting relatives to the house and loading up the Kodak Instamatic when she managed to cajole a night-blooming cereus to flower. Jay, however, grew up in a jungle and is not terribly impressed by my efforts.


I don't think I'd call it a special gift, but it does take me many months
to kill most plants. For example, the large one in this photo was a
house-warming present from guest, Don Richardson. He bought it during
his visit to Canada which was more than five years ago!

Labels: Don, flora and fauna, Walmart

Submitted by: Silver
Browser Info: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

silverhuang.blogspot.com (abandoned link)

Arrived How?: From a web or blog link.
Location: Australia / Pacific Islands
Comment: Hi Dennis!

It's me, Silver again! =) How are you? I read your message on my TagBoard and I was like, hmmm... that's true, though I may *think* I don't feel like writing anything, THAT shouldn't stop me! =D So I've blogged successfully for 5 days now... heh... considering my past record, I feel quite good! It's a sort of mini-accomplishment... Thanks to a few words from you! *grins*

See ya!

I looked like a baby in yesterday's photo! My glasses had lenses as large as the windshields on two Volkswagons.

Strangely, all three members of the gameroom gang are now on the other side of the continent. Athough we live less than 200 miles from each other, we unfortunately seldom get together. Here's a comparison image between our college years and the current millennium:

More of the Gameroom Gang.

Labels: glasses

A person could read any blog from the beginning. However, if there happens to be any logical development in the topic, then it occurs in reverse chronological order. For example, here's a recap of the last few days:

Last Friday, I mentioned that I had brought my camera to BCIT.

So, on Saturday, I showed a picture taken in the computer lab.

On Sunday, that led me to consider the music at the beginning of the PC era.

Yesterday, I spent some time discussing the movie, TRON, from that time period.

Now here's the current connection: The movie, TRON, contained arcade games as an important aspect of the plot. This has led me look around for a picture of the gang who brought Pacman to the Harbor at Sunapee, New Hampshire. Look at the friends in the picture who began The Harbor Gameroom. Thanks to Bret Wirta's endless business acumen, Joel Thomas's engineering aptitude, and the good fortune of the arcade boom, we created a summer business during my college years.

Although the building no longer exists, our business is kept alive in memory. Our large roof sign now sits in the Sunapee Historical Society.


"Come Play With Me .... at the Harbor Gameroom". That's what
the t-shirts used to say and it was accurate for the hundreds of local
and visiting patrons. I'm in the back. In the first row, Joel Thomas
is on the left. Bret Wirta appears in the middle and his brother, Mark
Wirta is on the right.

Labels: Bret, camera, games, Joel, New Hampshire, Sunapee, The Harbor Gameroom

The entry yesterday made me think of things from that era. Kind thoughts of the early 80's might be due to my age. I mean hair was big if not awesome, wasn't it? More importantly, I consider it as the beginning of a paradigm shift in society's relationship with electronic communications.

In order to capture that feeling of a time when personal computers were new, I went to the video store and rented Tron (1982). Before that movie, I don't think I had ever seen cyberspace represented on the silver screen. Even on the re-mastered, 20th-anniversary DVD edition, the effects were interesting. The dialog was extremely awkward, silly, and stilted. Though it must be pointed out that most audiences wouldn't have had a clue about the vocabulary references in the year of its release. For example, you'd have had to know a little about binary theory to appreciate the orphaned, floating bit which could only respond by saying, "Yes," or "No."

Even though the words might not inspire, in 2004, the audio still rocks thanks to a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Labels: movies, sci-fi

My first job after college was in Kuwait and I recall buying this cassette that year. Kraftwerk was composed of some German guys, drum sets, synthesizers, and tape decks. Had the term technopop been coined yet? They'd been creating music throughout the 1970's; however, this album was born at a special point in time. A confluence of technology was starting to enable the dawn of a new information age.

.
Remember, this music was released the
same year that the IBM PC rolled out. Just as in
Windows XP today, you were not able to set
those system clocks prior to 1980!

Labels: Mediaplayer, music, Windows

Here's some interesting information on technopop from the National Public Radio site:

The Secret History of Technology and Pop Music - Sept. 2002

Labels: music