Friday, April 30

Today is Friday of Week 14. Yes, it really is Friday again! Here is a link to Week 14 and also to Week 15. If you can finish up the class either today or over the weekend, that will give you time next week to prepare for finals in your other classes. Here's more info about finishing up in this class.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project stack. I made good progress on the stack yesterday, and I should be able to reply to the rest of the Week 13 items today, plus as many of the Week 14 and Week 15 items as I can. Meanwhile, you can check the stack to make sure I got your project.

Making your plan to finish up. I hope everybody has a plan in place for the end-of-week Week 14 items plus any Week 15 items you need  to reach your goal for the end of the semester (410 A, 360 B, 320 C). The class is over a week from today, on Friday, May 7, at noon, so if you normally do most of your work for the class over the weekend, make sure you build that into your plan. This weekend is the last weekend of the semester for this class!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. I thought this was so cool: for reading notes about Gaia and the whole idea of the Earth Goddess, Nhan included this animated gif of the earth in motion! Gaia's Secret.

Twitter stream. Some gorgeous Durga art from India: the goddess versus the water-buffalo demon.

And if you're facing a time-crunch at the end of the semester, here's a fun procrastination flowchart (larger view):

These are some items from the announcements back in Week 5:

A great cartoon from Grant Snider (see a larger view):

And I thought this was hilarious: hypnotic llama!

Plus a video about mythical languages from Crash Course:

And a writing video: Grammar Lessons with Food. Watch out for the man-eating chicken!

With a very cool punctuation infographic; yes, the comma has too much to do, which is why it can be confusing about when to use, or not use, a comma. 

And yet another example of how punctuation saves lives:

April 30: Walpurgis Night. The night of April 30 is celebrated as Walpurgis Night in many countries of northern and central Europe, often with bonfires late into the night. The holiday is associated with magic and witchcraft, and it thus shows up in the Harry Potter books, where the Death-Eaters are referred to as the "Knights of Walpurgis." You can read more at Wikipedia, and here the witches of Wolfshagen im Harz in Germany doing their Walpurgis dance; find out more here: The Witch Dance.

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.