Meiji New Year

One of the highlights (and there were many) of out trip to Japan was getting to the Meiji Shrine at midnight of new year.  And here's the pic to prove it!

It was a big crowd, but friendly, and it was one of those all too rare unforgettable experiences.  Having read that three million people go through the shrine in the first three days of the new year meant we didn't expect to be among the first to actually go through the Tori Gates soon after midnight, but we were.

James

There & Back Again

It's been quiet here.

But we're back.  I noticed on our return that the crisp all-too-bushfire ready grass made the same crunchy noise at +35 degrees as the snow in Canada did at -2 degrees*.

We'll get a few blog posts together of some of the many highlights and fun things we got to see and do on our Christmas and New Year extravaganza over the next few days and weeks, so check back and please let us know you're stopping by!

James

( * For those still stuck using Fahrenheit, that's 'really hot' and 'just below freezing' - or 308.15 and 271.15 Kelvin.)

Sad Snowman

Someone very Christmassy

But he's obviously expecting the thaw already.

Beware the Canadian Lego People

Those of us that have recently purchased an item from the Lego Store in Canada have been greeted with the following image.

I'm presuming that the lumberjack-shirted and beaver-hatted 'Kel'(?) is specific to the Canadian market.  (He also needs a shave.  A kid's toy that needs a shave?)

Horrifying though he and his mademoiselle are, one dreads to think what the Australian or British equivalents might be...

James

Real 'Girl Power'

As ever, xkcd.

Marie Curie
Lise Meitner
Emmy Noether

Without women like these we'd be all the poorer.
James

Exams! With Guns!

But wait, there's more (journalists) piling in on the VCE exam SNAFU seen first here, with a great quote:

Yarra Valley Grammar student Shannon Dowling assumed she had not studied hard enough when she saw the robot. "I went through a thought process something like this, 'What's that thing? It's definitely a robot. But it's on my history exam, so it's not a robot. But it can't be anything else. LOOK AT THOSE GUNS!' I stared at the image long and hard. It was extremely off-putting because you just don't expect there to be a mistake on your exam, especially one like that."

Yes, Shannon.  I'm with, like, let's ask for people who can set the exam to the standard they mark it to, eh?  (Obviously after the 'look at those guns!' thought, of course.)  But don't worry:

New guidelines governing the use of internet-sourced material in exams will also be issued after an altered version of the artwork Storming the Winter Palace by Nikolai Kochergin appeared in the VCE History: Revolutions exam.

Or "That was embarrassing.  Can we not do that again next year?  There's bound to be journalists on us if we manage a third year running foul-up"...

James

Enhanced History Exam

Quite rightly, we all like to be able to laugh at the exam compilers whenever the rare chance eventuates.  Today we can share a particularly enjoyable example of an exam-board failure, thanks to The Age.

 This is not the correct image, grabbed by a VCAA drone off the interwebz rather than sourced properly.

"THE VCE exam body has been left red faced after a doctored artwork depicting a huge robot helping socialist revolutionaries during the Russian Revolution was accidentally included in this year’s year 12 history exam taken by 5700 students.

 This is the correct image.

"Storming the Winter palace on 25th October 1917 by Nikolai Kochergin, which depicts events during the October Revolution, which was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917.
But when students opened their exam this morning they found an altered version of the work with what appear to be a large "BattleTech Marauder" robot aiding the rising revolutionaries in the background.
...
"A spokesman for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) said the image was 'sourced and acknowledged by the VCAA as coming from the Internet'.
'The image has been altered but the alteration of the image won’t impact on the students’ capacity to answer the examination question,' he said.
'The VCAA will monitor students' answers to ensure that any student who has been distracted by the image will not be disadvantaged.'

 This is NOT history.  It is 'A BattleTech Marauder' - you know, made up.

"It is the second year running that the  Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has been embarrassed by problems in its end of year exam papers.
Last year popular columnist Helen Razer accused the VCE exam body of plagiarism and breach of copyright after the English exam featured on tattoos by the Melbourne writer without her permission or acknowledging she was the author."

Tut tut tut...  Hey kids, don't lift stuff from random websites for your work, and use 'impact' sparingly.  Just like the VCAA.

James

EDIT:  'But Wait, There's More!'