I was just reading a response Tim over at SpyJournal had written to a Herald Sun columnist, Cheryl Critchley about her article on home schooling and the benefits it may or may not have for kids. I realise I’m a little bit late with this, but I’ve been busy and only just read it so I think I have a pretty good excuse.

Now, I realise that Tim is not attacking the regular school systems be it public or private, but as someone who has been at both public and private schools I have some thoughts that I think are worth adding.

I agree with the majority of Tim’s points, however I do have some different opinions on them. There is a paragraph discussing the differences of learning in school to learning in a work-place environment, which I completely agree with, however, at the end of this paragraph he has said, “To the contrary a homeschooled child has learnt to learn from mentors and usually can self learn and look after themselves.” I think this is a bit of an unfair statement to those in school. Sure there can be a pack mentality of people who studied in a school environment, but I self learn far better than I do in a group, and I am quite capable of looking after myself. I moved out of home straight after year 12 while I was still 17 so that I could start uni in Brisbane and thus far have not had any trouble at all. I think that it is not just about the schooling system but about how the parents raise their kids. My parents were teaching me to read before I started school, taught me how to manage money, how to treat others, how to behave in general. My parents taught me as much as my teachers did, just in different area’s. I can see this is one reason why home schooling would be appealing, but I really don’t see it as a necessary way to impart this extra knowledge.

“Most homeschooled children are disciplined at home by their parents in a way a school or teacher never can and as such are usually far better behaved.” Again, this is not something that I think is up to the school to do, but the parents. My parents disciplined me as a child, as Tim says, in ways a school/teacher never could, but my parents didn’t have to home school me to do it.

“What happens to a child who has grown up in the public school system and had everything handed to them on a plate - routines, timetables, courses of study, homework, goal setting? How do they manage a job where they must set their own schedules, work to self imposed deadlines and choose their own further education in order to get ahead? You probably have these same people in your office as I meet in offices around QLD. They cannot self manage, cannot handle a diary, are rarely punctual, and are propped up constantly by their co workers.”

I wouldn’t say you have everything handed to you, in fact, school helped me develop time management. Keeping a diary, keeping track of deadlines, making my own deadlines, organising and doing my own study on top of work and uni study. I will admit that on occasion I am late to casual events, but as far as work and work related meetings go, I am almost always early, and occasionally on time, but never late. Now, yes I agree, there are plenty of people who went through the school system that do have the problems mentioned, but by the same token, I think this is largely due to parents. School provided me with the tools to learn to manage time and deadlines, but it was my parents that enforced the deadlines, pushed me to get work done on time for school and do study outside of school and to read outside of school. For example, by year 3 or 4, I was reading 6 or 7 80-200 page books in a week. I read the Wheel of Time book 4, the biggest book in the series at 1400+ pages in 2 days. I started learning web design when I was 7. School definitely didn’t teach me that. Then there is my regular week day during a uni semester that is planned down to 5 minute intervals, any change in my mentally timetabled day and I have to adjust it on the fly, down to 5 minute intervals, I don’t have any trouble with that at all, this is because school showed me how to timetable things, and my parents made sure I learned it. Now that’s just a couple of examples. So again, I can see how this would be a reason for home schooling to be appealing, but I don’t see it as a problem with a regular school system either. I think it is largely affected by how parents choose to raise their children.

“What happens when a public school child who has learnt safety in numbers, travelled in a pack of kids at school, succumbed to peer pressure in their dress, language attitude and behaviour, learnt that its cool to make snide, cutting, taunting remarks to the “uncool” kids gets exposed to the real world outside. None of that behaviour is tolerated in a workplace.”

Nope, it isn’t tolerated in a workplace, and yes, I agree with this to an extent. However, I again think that this is affected by how a kid is raised by their parents. I didn’t learn those things. I spent all of my high school years either on my own or with 1 or 2 people. Yeah, I do see people maintaining that mentality, but by the end of year 12, the majority of my grade had gotten beyond these sorts of things.

“How many wild and crazy homeschool leaving parties have you heard of that the police had to turn up to? How many homeschoolers do you hear about causing a ruckus at schoolies week? On the contrary homeschooled children are largely polite, well mannered, excellent achievers, motivated to excel and perform, well read and able to hold intelligent conversations with adults. Yes public school children can do this also.”

Just some thoughts on this, I spent schoolies week with a group of friends, we didn’t cause a ruckus, we had no complaints, in fact, the place we stayed at even thanked us for how well behaved we were and for looking after the facilities so well. Nor did we have police called to our school leaving parties. Yes, there are plenty that cause a ruckus and have police called, but the vast majority don’t. Similarly, there are many, many, excellent achievers in the school systems that are well read, can hold intelligent conversations and are motivated to excel and perform. However, I think that much of this drive and success is affected by the parents and how they teach and push their kids outside of school.

“…public schooling is the poor cousin to homeschooling, where the richness of our lives and the interactions we have with other people, families, businesses, government officials, public institutions (like galleries and museums) are shared with our children so they can learn from us…” Again, I think this is vastly up to the parents anyway. As a kid, my parents took my siblings and I to so many different places. We went to the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra, the Royal Australian Mint, the Science Centre in Brisbane, Underwater World on the Sunshine Coast, all of the theme parks at various times, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Kings Park in Perth, the Southern-most tip of the Australian mainland in Western Australia, Freemantle, Lightning Ridge and down in some of the mines, the Botanic Gardens up at Mt. Cootha in Brisbane many times, Bundaberg and the rum distillery, Dubbo Zoo, Toowoomba and the Australian Gospel Music Festival, the oceanic museum at a place on the South NSW coast that I don’t remember the name of, and thats just some of the places we all went as a family, not to mention the hundreds of places we have stayed at.

I learnt heaps from my parents on our many trips all over the place. So while I am sure that there are benefits to both home schooling and the regular schooling system, I think the main difference is how the parents raise their kids and what they do with them. As such, I can see that home schooling would have an advantage there since parents would have more time available to spend with their children and do these sorts of activities with them. However, I don’t think it is a matter of one system being better than the other, but simply how parents choose to raise their kids. I know that many of the people I got along with at school, their parents took them all over the country to various things the same way mine did, and I have no doubt that there are many others who’s parents manage these activities as well.

Anyway, this isn’t an attack on you Tim, or on home schooling (I know you stated at the end that school kids often behave no different to home schooled kids etc), this is just the way I see some of the advantages of home schooling being had along with attending a regular school affected entirely by how the parents choose to spend their time around school with their kids. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a parent, so I have never had to make any of these decisions and I don’t really know what affects the decision making process, but I do know how I was raised and how my parents educated me, and maybe I’m biased, but I think I turned out pretty good.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I have noticed news and rumours popping up, as well as some releases on Apple’s website about the next version of OS X, due out next year, Snow Leopard. Just going off the information directly from Apple, Snow Leopard is sounding like it is going to be a very interesting release and as an unashamed Mac fan, I am eagerly awaiting it’s release.

One of the first things that popped into my head when I saw what it was being called was that surely they could have picked a different cat since they used Leopard for 10.5, but upon thinking about it further, Snow Leopard is actually perfect for it, hopefully when I’m done, you will see why.

Apple says:

“Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality.”

So what’s the big fuss?

Microsoft Exchange Support

Well, one of the biggest things is full Microsoft Exchange support through Apple’s Mail, Address Book and iCal applications. As a user of Microsoft Exchange for my email, calendar and contacts on my desktop and Palm Treo 750, being able to sync my MacBook Pro with my Exchange Server would complete my work communications suite. I imagine there are plenty of other people in the same shoes as myself there, and I have no doubt that it is holding many people back that would otherwise be more interested in the Macintosh platform. Yes, there are other options available that I have talked about previously, such as using Kerio Mail Server instead of Microsoft Exchange Server. However, in a situation where Microsoft Exchange is already installed, this is not really a viable option.

I have noticed that Mail in Os X Leopard has an option to access an Exchange Server, but I have not tried this as of yet.

What else is there?

Open Compute Language

The other thing in Snow Leopard that is quite a big addition is what Apple is calling “OpenCL”, or Open Compute Language. I’m sure by now a lot of tech savvy people have come across the concept of using the processing power of graphics processing unit’s for general purpose processing as well as graphics processing. OpenCL is meant to allow development in this area. From the Apple website (server) (and personal), OpenCL is:

“Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computer Library), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations a second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for use in high-performance computing applications like genomics, video encoding, signal processing, and simulations of physical and financial models.”

Grand Central and 64 Bit

Now, the other things listed on the personal, or client usage OS X site are not necessarily spectacular, such as mentioning 64 bit and multi-core support through Grand Central, seeing as how OS X has been 64 bit and with options running on multiple cores for years, but with all the confusion surrounding Vista and it’s 32 and 64 bit versions, it doesn’t hurt to re-establish that OS X is 64 bit and every computer is now running a multi-core CPU. What is interesting about these things though is the improvements Apple are making in the 64 bit field. With up to 16 terrabytes of RAM supported in Snow Leopard, is this paving the way for a new breed of Mac that could potentially run entirely from RAM rather than the slower hard drives? The MacBook Air has a solid state drive as an option, it would make sense to start offering them in other computers if the capacity can be brought to a sufficient level. With the vast amounts of power available in graphics processors and multi-core CPU’s (currently up to 8 cores and 4 GPU’s in Mac Pro’s), it makes sense that the biggest bottleneck is going to be the 7,200 rpm or 10,000 rpm hard drives.

Grand Central is meant to make the entirety of the operating system “multicore aware”, which I assume means that every part of OS X will be capable of efficient multi-threading, allowing them to run faster. I have seen it indicated and theorised in a few places, that Grand Central will be, or should be, providing a more efficient way of controlling multiple threads. This is particularly important as the more cores and threads you have running, the more overheads there are. So you can only add so many more cores before there is so much overhead that multiple cores simply won’t help. There is a good read about this over on ZDNet by Robin Harris. Providing a solution to this problem that is easily accessible by developers would be an excellent advance, regardless of what your preferred operating system is. If Apple hit it with Snow Leopard, it will have to push Microsoft to come up with a solution as well in time for Windows 7, if they don’t then there needs to be something else that can provide a significant performance boost on similar hardware.

I expect that in Snow Leopard, with the addition of OpenCL, that multi-core functionality on Mac’s will natively include GPU’s as well as CPU’s and processing across the two+ units as well as improving the 64 bit performance to potentially allow RAM to be used in place of hard drives. There are already solutions available that allow you to add RAM to riser cards that can be used as a small boot drive or swap drive, though they are very limited. It makes sense to extend this to allow maximum data access speeds for the processors.

What else is there?

Reduced Footprint

A reduced footprint is meant to be coming along. This is marketed as a reduction in the hard drive space used by the operating system, which grew in Leopard. This is always a nice thing seeing as how I like to have as much hard drive space as I can get my hands on, and I’m sure others will agree. However, the system footprint or a program footprint generally refers to how much RAM it utilises in order to run. Given the hints dropped in the 64 bit section relating to more free RAM, I hope that the reduced footprint will also reduce the amount of RAM used by the operating system, both when idling and under load. Though as it is, the RAM usage is nothing compared to Vista.

Compatibility

Unfortunately for those still using Mac’s based on the old IBM CPU’s, I have seen it mentioned in a few places that Snow Leopard will not be a universal release and the system requirements list an Intel-based Mac.

However, these system requirements are thus far only for the developers preview, so it may yet be available as a universal release.

No doubt there will be more than just what is being marketed at this stage, but thus far this is looking to be a very exciting release. What do you think?

Popularity: 25% [?]

On Thursday last week, I went to see Speed Racer at the cinema. Much to my surprise, the showing at Garden City was virtually empty, considering it was the first day that it was running.

My main impression after leaving the cinema is that this movie was absolutely amazing!

It has a PG rating and is child-friendly, though a lot of the more in depth plot and concepts may be over a child’s head, the more obvious elements should keep a child, especially boys entertained. From my recollection, there is virtually no language (though it does have a language warning on the rating notes), and while there is some violence, the majority of it is either not shown, or is not gruesome or bloody.

Underneath the flashing lights and impossible (but really, really cool) driving, it has fast paced action, excellent digital effects, superb acting, and a brilliant, relevant story. To top it all off, the cinematography is stunning. Lots of bright filming, and effects build the various atmosphere’s excellently. Also added is a combination of comedy and romance, though they play minor roles in the plot, they add so much more to the story.

I’m not going to go into the story line or plot, and I will admit that some fans of the original TV series may not be as eager to praise the movie as I am (though I am also a fan of the TV series), but really, the Wachowski Brothers have done an amazing job of the movie.

As I mentioned earlier, kids may not understand, or even pick up on some parts of the plot, but many of the mystery elements that begin early on in the movie, they will be able to understand and will be guessing at them most of the way through, but they are not so obvious that an adult won’t enjoy figuring it out. Just in case the kids did miss it though, it is explained at the end, but not in a way that makes you feel silly or stupid for not figuring out, it just feels like part of the story.

I can’t really think of any movie’s off-hand that have produced an appearance anything like that of Speed Racer. The closest, cinematography wise, is probably Sin City or Sweeney Todd, except that Speed Racer does not just emphasise certain colours, but every colour (also it is child friendly). The techniques used, while they are based on lots of common techniques, have formed together to produce a very interesting and unusual style.

The average user rating on IMDB at the time of writing this is 6.6/10, which I personally think is much lower than the movie deserves. Of the 11,700 voters, 24% gave it a 10/10, and the drop off from there is understandable, then there is a large 11% that gave it a 1. As I said, I feel this is not a true rating and judging from some of the comments, I think that this is in part due to people expecting something very different from the Wachowski Brothers with movies like the Matrix under their belt. However, I don’t believe that Speed Racer was ever intended to be anything like the Matrix. The film techniques that have been used are far superior to those used in the Matrix, the story line and plot are intended to be suitable and interesting for both children and adults, and, it is working within a PG rating rather than M. In my opinion, it is actually one of the best examples of a PG movie to be released in a while. Many of the more recent PG movies would not that long ago have been closer to an M, whereas Speed Racer is, in my opinion, closer to a G.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. In fact, I want to go see it again. I would give it a 9/10.

Popularity: 26% [?]

As some people would know, I was in Lismore from Monday 26th of May until Wednesday the 4th of June, however, on Sunday the 1st of June, I came back up to Brisbane for the day to go to the Guitar Show at the Brisbane City Hall with my dad and sister.

There were some very interesting and unusual guitars there, particularly in the accoustic section. Of course there were also some very rare and expensive guitars, including a couple that were $90,000 and $100,000. Then of course there are the ugly B.C. Rich and … guitars that all the young kids seem to love. I am of course a bassist though, not a guitarist, so I was more interested in the basses that were lurking around in various corners.

I came across a few interesting ones, such as some LightWave basses, that don’t use traditional magnetic pickups, but optical pickups. I have heard about them a couple of times, but I haven’t seen or heard any of them before. Anyway, the guy showing them wouldn’t let me play one, but gave me the card of a place in Brisbane that sells them and suggested I go have a look there, so I’m thinking I’ll go there and have a look sometime.

The other basses I cam across that were particularly interesting were a brand I haven’t heard of before, Warrior Basses. The Guitar Brothers had 3 of them there, they were all quite expensive basses, starting at $5,000 for one of them, and the other two were $7,200 (though they did offer them to me for $5,000 each if I bought one then). For anyone that knows about me and my white Spector NS5, you would know how much I love it and how much I firmly believe that it is one of the best basses in the world, well, these Warrior basses are getting up there comparatively.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

I had an assignment due on Monday for KKB210: Computational Arts 1, where I had to create 3 computational art works. This has kept me pretty busy over the past week or so, especially since I had another assignment due on Tuesday, just a 1500-1800 word essay fortunately, so it didn’t take up too much time.

For full details on everything I’ve done for this assignment, have a look at my computational arts blog. I’ve learned a lot about various programming environments and languages in relation to computational arts and live-coding. In particular, I’ve found the Processing Development Environment and Quartz Composer quite interesting and fun to work with. Of course, Quartz Composer isn’t a programming environment, but a patching tool.

I have always been particularly interested in fractals and other forms of digital art, so the computational arts subjects at uni were particularly appealing to me, and thus far have been exactly what I was looking for.

I have made a few fractal animations previously, including one for my NSW Higher School Certificate that I synced up with music. On my second fractal animation, I created the music for it myself instead of using an existing piece. Using Quartz Composer and Processing, I am able to make very similar effects, though not fractals, and have them render and animate in real-time. Two of my artworks for KKB210 are actually live rendered animations based on audio input. You can have a look at them here and here. They are both available under feel free to edit them, redistribute them etc, just take note that it is an attribution, non-commercial, share-a-like license (full details are available on http://matthewbrown.net.au), so you do have say where you got it from if you are re-distributing it.

Now, while I am a novice at the whole live-rendered animations to music and the like, I am happy to do some for events where it is appropriate. Let me know at matt at stillaslife dot com.

Popularity: 40% [?]