Resources for Everything

A few months ago, a friend played me some remarkable recordings made by scientists at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, who had captured and made audible the "sound" of stars. I just discovered that these are available, with lots more information about how the recordings were made, on a recent edition of the observatory's JodCast:

http://www.jodcast.net/archive/200808Extra/

Particularly mesmerising is the sound of material falling into a black hole (just after 23 minutes in on the podcast), which someone described as "God playing the bongos"!

Just came across this great online community for people learning or looking to learn guitar. It's run by Jason Shadrick of US-based National Guitar Workshop, and is powered by Ning.

When I signed up to take a look round (I'm always interested in communities of people teaching and learning) the founder friended me immediately (and not as an automatic response either. And he messaged me back too!

So if you're after a friendly online guitar community, go check it out.

http://guitarworkshopcommunity.com

I've been blogging for a while now, and I now have four blogs:
http://sociablism.blogspot.com
http://sociability.org.uk
http://mindapples.org
http://schoolofeverything.com

So between that and Twitter I'm pretty busy online, and the prospect of posting lots of content here on my School of Everything Scrapbook felt a little daunting at first.

I've been looking for a new yoga teacher in the Brixton or Streatham area for a while. None of the yoga classes I'd found were quite right - too far away, too early in the evening, or not quite the right style. So I was dead chuffed when Anja Lange posted a new vinyasa yoga flow class just up the road from my house. I used to be an ashtanga yoga addict, but have let my practice slide in the last year as I've been working so hard; vinyasa flow yoga, is a bit different but really enjoyable - and it's nice to vary my practice from the strict ashtanga yoga sequence for a change.

Free Guitar Videos blog has a lovely video of some chaps using a tractor engine as a drum machine for their jam.

http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/blog/2008/10/how-many-mpg-does-your-drummer-get.html

Just spotted Black Cab Sessions, a site where sometimes quite famous musicians play a song while riding around in the back of a taxi.

What else could be simplified by happening in the back of a taxi? Siestas, meetings, more?

http://www.blackcabsessions.com/

I was talking to my friend's piano teacher Roland Perrin (http://www.rolandperrin.com/) recently about how to play jazz piano, and one of the things he said was that jazz piano rhythms are basically two conventional rhythms layered on top of each other.

And I've also been following Shawn Cheek's "Easy Piano Lessons" on YouTube, and he says a similar thing about jazz chords, that he hears jazz chords as two chords layered on top of each other. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXYdD7rDhc, about 1:30 in)

I've recently started re-reading a book I've had for many years now and I'm enjoying it just as much the second time around.

It's called "The Code Book" by Simon Singh:

http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Code_Book.html

It's about the history of cryptography and it's very readable. It is written at just the right level in my opinion, not too basic, so it keeps your interest, but not full of mathematics that might be frustrating.

I was on a panel chaired by Matt Locke of Channel 4 a couple of weeks ago, talking about the impact of social technologies on education and the classroom.

Here's me introducing School of Everything and explaining the ideas behind the project and what we're trying to achieve by connecting people online:

(Photo: mollycakes via Flickr)

Inspired by some of the fantastic beading teachers on School of Everything, I've been looking around for great beading resources online. Here are my five picks for great beading websites, including beading supplies, projects, patterns and discussion.

Five Great Beading Websites

I am hoping to finish my beginners Spanish book before my trip to Madrid.
I've never learned Spanish before although my French is reasonable.
The thing is I don't like going abroad and being clueless about the language if I can help it, so even if I can just get the basics I'll be pleased.

It's interesting that some things in Spanish are very familiar if you know French:

By foot - à pied (French) - a pie (Spanish)
Bread - pain (French) - pan (Spanish)
Wednesday - mercredi (French) - miércoles (Spanish)

but then at times Spanish is very different:

I've been learning French for many years now and one of the problems I have had is that there tend to be lots of resources available for beginners and conversely, if you are at an advanced level, you can watch French television online or buy French novels etc.

But if you are at an intermediate level like me then it can be a little tricky. The beginner stuff you already know, but you're not quite ready for the advanced stuff.

Great to get back into some Hungarian after about 15 years!

I've been having a go at Italian, great fun making it up from Catalan, Latin and Spanish.

Here's a little (educational) Friday video fun for you all.

They Might Be Giants, one of my favourite bands from my teenage years, doing a cover of the 50s educational song "Why does the sun shine?". Because who says learning can't be fun?

We don't really have a clue, but so far, it looks like it might be ok.

Bumped into my friend Sarah last week and was talking about work, in the slightly manic way that running School of Everything and a mental health campaign (http://mindapples.org) gives you.

When I mentioned that my mental health campaign was going really well, she replied: "which one, yours, or the one for other people?"

Nice line, and point taken. What were my 5-a-day again?

About a month ago, I wrote about the WI-Icon competition on this blog - a contest to find the ultimate Women's Institute member. School of Everything teacher Valerie Wood-Gaiger was up for the prize, and it was my hope that our community could help her win it by voting Valerie.

She's just emailed School of Everything to say that she's co-winner of the prize. She says:

Good thoughtful advice on how to hire staff and grow a start-up team, from the increasingly successful guys at www.huddle.net.