Piano Choir

I've always found mellotrons a fascinating idea (mainly because whoever thought them up must have been clinically insane) and have just wanted one to play with (even though I wouldn't have a clue how to play it).

However, I've changed my mind, I want one of these instead...

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Not sure where I'd find space in the flat to keep a choir though.

(via bagrec)

There's storytelling and there's storytelling and then there's upsetting the applecart

Note to self: What miriammoules means by the term "storytelling" is not quite the same as what hmmm_tea means. Well, ok, the telling bit is the same, they just differ in the type of story. (hmmm_tea puts on his dunce hat and goes to sit in the corner for not seeing this a mile off).

Once I got over the surprise of what it actually was, I quite enjoyed applecart. After all, if you can get past the religious connotations, they are actually quite good stories even to a non-believer. C.S. Lewis managed to prove that one quite well.

Applecart was done in a refreshing unevangelical way, so you could just sit back and treat it as a story and was quite innovative in their use of song and video. I was particularly impressed when one of the actors addressed the UN security council and they had a pre-recording of someone translating him playing at the same time. I imagine getting the timing for that must have taken a bit of practice.

So, in conclusion, Applecart's quite fun, regardless of what you believe and hmmm_tea should pay more attention to what he's saying he'll go to before agreeing to things.

Imagine You're a Lamb and the Sheppard puts the TV on for you...

Following a conversation between mrdavidault and 67thtigers at lunch yesterday, a poll:

[Poll #1394547]

So dreamwidth, what's that all about then?

So, my flist, seems full of people offering codes for dreamwidth accounts.

I had a quick look using open ID, and as you'd expect, it appears to be a lj clone with a few tweaks. The main one seems to be how it deals with friends, separating them into subscription and access to friends locked posts. OK, these are different things, but as you can already limit which of your flist can see locked posts using filters, I can't see the point of this, surely it's just overcomplicating things? The things I really like about the lj friends system is that is really really simple, why take this away?

Other than that, the other major difference seems that there's no ads (which having a paid account I don't see and I'm not actually averse to lj funding themselves through ads, most other sites do, if people object to seeing them they can just get a paid account).

In short, unless there's a mass exodus of my flist, I can't see why I'd want to use it. It doesn't offer anything over lj I want, I don't need 2 ljs, I already have a permanent account here and that leaves very little incentive to overcome the inertia of staying put.

I guess I just don't get it...

Opening Minds

This is impressive:

(The RSA Opening Minds project)

One of the things I feel quite strongly about in terms of education, is that it should be more skills-based rather than fact-based and that children should be given more responsibility for their own learning.

I was quite impressed to hear about this therefore, especially where it's used in breaking down the traditional subject divides and, at least according to the RSA's own reports, seems to be being fairly successful in terms of motivating students.

I would be fascinated to see how the huge team-taught lessons at Bemrose (seen towards the end of the film) work. I wonder what they have been able to teach that way.

Tate Modern Extension

So this is what they're doing around the back of Tate Modern



oooo, shiney!

Was worried for a few minutes when I saw the photo in the local paper that they were building it on the front, but apparently it's around the back :-)