To start, The Sharing Depot will loan camping equipment, board games and sports equipment, house party supplies and even kids toys so that you can experience life without the price tag or the clutter. Rather than dropping hundreds of dollars at the shopping mall, you can now save your wallets and closets from buying and storing the things you use just a few times a year.
Crowdfunding to build Canada's first Library of Things
Located in Toronto, The Sharing Depot will be a community hub where members have access to a wide range of things without owning or storing them. The Sharing Depot will be the first of its kind in Canada and the largest of its kind in the world.
It is always interesting when there is a new cover on an old book. I judged this book by its cover and was inspired to pick it up, and I’m glad I did! This copy of Symbola heroica m. Clavdii Paradini et d. Gabrielis Symeonis, published in 1600, has some crazy illustrations!
This piece is part of our 'Rebirth Of The Library' show. Take a look at the rest of our stories here. Libraries seem to be at a precipice. With printed books quickly being replaced by e-readers...
I have a coworker who is regularly worried that libraries are becoming too much like a park district or community center and I think this article addresses it well. Yes, they are working to become a place of collaboration (that is far from silent), but the crux is about learning - now just in more creative ways.
Bicycle bookmobiles pedaled by librarians are popping up all over the country. There seems to be a natural pairing in these two analog methods of exploring and seeing the world.
I don’t often talk about work in great detail online, but suffice it to say that I am employed in a Canadian government department where a lack of facility in both official languages is detrimental to career progression.
Now that I've begun working on my French I thought it might be helpful for me to blog about it from time to time starting with some context on my current level of fluency and the evaluation(s) I am looking forward to.
Background:
As a teenager I abandoned French studies at the earliest opportunity, which was after Grade 9. I wasn’t that bad; however, in hindsight I think I was probably frustrated by two things:
Les bonnes notes venaient assez facilement dans beaucoup de sujets, mais pas dans mon étude de la langue française
...nor in gym glass, come to think of it, which I also dropped as soon as I could). I think it was easy to justify this as optimizing my marks for university entrance purposes rather than dodging more difficult classes that weren't strictly required, but I'm sure it was more than a little of the latter.
Je suis dur d’oreille, mais je ne l'ai pas porter des sonotones que beaucoup plus tard
My hearing loss wasn't diagnosed until 2006 or so, but I’d long had difficulty understanding even moderately accented English. Quickly spoken French in noisy, large-group settings (hello, high school classrooms!) was just exhausting. Eventually I grew accustomed to that same feeling while trying to interpret speech of all kinds in grad school seminars, restaurants, and elsewhere. At the time, I think I attributed it either to a fundamental dislike of the subject matter (was there something about French that I didn't get?) or a disinclination for language learning in general.
Almost twenty years later (wait, what?!), and with an undergraduate degree, a graduate degree, and a college diploma under my student-loan laden belt it’s high time to pick up where I left off. I’ve finished a number of MOOCs recently, so I know I’m still capable of self-directed learning... but how to do this as quickly and inexpensively as possible?
Objective:
My goal at this stage is to achieve “B/B/B” competency according to the Public Service Commission of Canada’s Second Language Evaluation (SLE) Qualification Standards in Relation to Official Languages. There are three competency categories, with three possible levels in each one:
C (highest)
B
A (lowest)
There’s also “X” (i.e., failing the test and receiving no competency score) and “E” (which means achieving such a strong “C”-level result that your test results never expire).
In general terms, then, I'm aiming for an intermediate lever of written comprehension (reading ability), written expression (writing ability), and oral proficiency (conversation ability).
Starting point:
How good is my French now? With little time to prepare, I had an opportunity to formally take the standardized tests for written comprehension and written expression this week. I managed to score a strong B (just a few points shy of a C!) in written comprehension and a relatively weak A in written expression.
Because I didn’t achieve a B in written expression I can’t progress to the oral expression evaluation.
Next steps:
Now I know what to expect in terms of the testing format, and these results align well with my most optimistic expectations going in considering I have read fair bit of French day-to-day in the workplace over the past five years or so but have only been composing French text on my own for about eight months - and even then, I am relying heavily on reference tools for guidance.
Frankly, I’m glad I that I won’t be taking the oral test yet. Because of my poor hearing I’m sure the first time will be an anxiety-inducing train-wreck regardless, and I know I need time to prepare before I can perform with confidence. Speaking of which, I’ll be taking part in weekly French classes through December complemented by a healthy dose of online self-study... stay tuned for more about that later.
The curator for the McKinley presidential library told TPM on Monday that she's not upset President Obama has stripped his predecessor's name from North America's tallest mountain. Instead, she's just glad people are finally talking about the library's namesake.
“We’re really excited that people are talking about McKinley on a national scale because that doesn’t happen too often anymore,“ she said. "He’s been gone over 100 years.”
McKinley, an Ohio native who was assassinated six months into his second-term, is often forgotten because of President Teddy Roosevelt’s “larger-than-life” presidency, which followed McKinley’s.
When elementary school teacher Mathew Portell discovered that one of his students didn't have anything to read at home, he began asking fellow cyclists to donate books. Seven years later, his Nashville-based nonprofit, Ride for Reading, has distributed more than 250,000 books—by bike—in 16 states. Here Portell shares tips on handling a loaded bike, the secret to getting more people cycling, and what it's like to finish a ride in front of crowds of screaming fans.
Books are one smart reason to weigh down your bike, Bicycling, 3 August 2015
This American Life episode #555 (”The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind”) included a stunning - to students of public opinion research - piece about a canvassing program that was actually able to alter respondents’ attitudes toward social issues in a way that persisted over time.
Well, as is so often the case: if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. The data was fake, and the article upon which TAL based the story has been retracted by Science via “editorial expression of concern” at the request of one of its authors.
Frequently Asked question (FAQ) about the Canadian National Alert Aggregation & Dissemination System (NAAD System)
What is the NAAD System, [and] what exactly does it do?
Pelmorex Communication Inc.’s (“Pelmorex”) National Alert Aggregation & Dissemination (NAAD) System provides Authorized Government Agencies across Canada with a simple, easily accessible means by which they can issue public safety messages.
The idea that the revenue firms generate can be broken up into discrete chunks, which can then be attributed to individual actors, is largely bogus. In truth, that revenue is basically one big pot of money that's generated by the cooperative interaction of the firm as a whole. Employers may want to add another worker to that cooperative whole, and that worker may want to be added. But what cut of the pot both are willing to accept to make that happen is heavily dependent on a whole host of internal and structural factors — from social relationships to status to worker bargaining power — and just where that equilibrium winds up can vary enormously across circumstances and times.
Jeff Spross, Why workaholics are faking longer hours - and what that says about American business, The Week, 14 May 2015.
Tech art installation by FIELD for Nike creates a real-time kinetic portrait of your treadmill running into a whirlwind of particles:
An interactive running installation that transforms your portrait into a Force of Nature.
Using Kinect interaction and a treadmill fitted with custom sensors, the installation takes the runner through a journey of immersive visual effects that amplify the feeling of getting into the flow of running.
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