Interesting Books and Various Experimental Links

Village Science by Alan Dick. Alaska Native Knowledge Network. 1997. ISBN #1-877962-35-X

• A fascinating book that ties together practical knowledge that is useful for life in bush Alaska, as well as life in general, with science principles and the Alaska State Standards.
• Just a quick glance through taught me why a Jon boat slows down when it hits smooth water and why hitting rocks with your ax is bad news, beyond the obvious ding in the blade.

Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska - by Michael D'Orso

High school basketball in Fort Yukon, Alaska

The Big Switch - Rewiring the World, from Edicon to Google - by Nicholas Carr

The first fraction of the book spent significant time comparing the the change of computer resources from the individual desktop computer to that of servers on the network. While I agree with his premise, my first impression was that he was not critical enough. He made it sound like this was a wonderful opportunity. In the second third, he spend time explaining how this was causing society to fail i a number of ways. (eg. jobs disappearing)

The final part

Instructions for Potential Bear Encounters (Prairie Home Companion, July 29, 2006) (This downloads from the npr site and requires RealPlayer to be installed - which is a free download)