American Chess Magazine Releases Their List of the Top 1 Shows of 2020.
“ACM loves giving recommendations — like, where to put a knight or a pawn. Sometimes they recommend where to put a bishop or a rook; hell, even a queen. It’s wild. But a TV show to watch? I have no idea what they’re going to select,” reported Michelle Falls, an amateur chess player.
What will they possibly pick?
(via Marginal Revolution)
I’m surprised how big the QAnon conspiracy thing has gotten. It’s gotten to the point that I personally know at least one person that has fallen for this 8chan LARPing BS and it boggles my mind.
In fact, I’m surprised that anybody believes any of the big conspiracy theories out there right now. Just today I was chatting with a coworker who said he heard that the coronavirus started in a lab in Wuhan China. I explained that I’ve heard those rumours too but from everything I’ve read they are just rumours and propoganda. I did a quick search this morning and found this article in New York Magazine:
Back in December I created a papercraft project for my grade 5 students. It’s a cute Christmas scene that I had the students cut out and paint and then glue onto cardstock. I based the Santa design on another papercraft that I found a link for on Pinterest but the original was gone so I whipped up my own version in Adobe Illustrator.
Here’s my version in case you’d like to make one yourself, modify it, or use it as a class project (next holiday season, obviously): holiday scene papercraft.pdf. (430KB)
Over the last few years when Andrea I have found a new song on Apple Music we’ll ask Siri to add it to the “[this year’s]” playlist. There isn’t, as far as I know, an easy way to export these lists to other music providers, but nonetheless here is our list from 2020.
Update: It turns out, there is a service that can export music playlists from one music streaming service to another at https://www.tunemymusic.com. It even lets you export to .txt or .csv. Here’s the same 2020 playlist.
Secret Hitler is a fun hidden identity social deduction party game for 5-10 players about finding and stopping the Secret Hitler.
Players are secretly divided into two teams: the liberals, who have a majority, and the fascists, who are hidden to everyone but each other. If the liberals can learn to trust each other, they have enough votes to control the elections and save the day. But the fascists will say whatever it takes to get elected, advance their agenda, and win the game.
A couple of years ago I found that the creators of the game released a black and white Creative Commons copy for printing. I later found a colour version and made a few changes as well added my own printable box template to go with it. I sent it out to the local printshop to get it printed on large card-stock and decided to share in case you’d like to print your own:
If printing and cutting aren’t your thing, you can find purchasing options at https://www.secrethitler.com.
Update: Reddit user NarrowMountain2276 improved the design of the box so check out their Print and Play.1
Yesterday I completed my One Second Everyday project for 2020. It turned into the Nesslin and Ian show given that this year I was working from home for a lot of the year. One can really see them growing up over the last 12 months in this video.
I also got a bit of help from Andrea because on the few days that I missed getting a one second clip I was able to borrow any live photos or videos that she happened to take.
It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s really tough to get a clip every single day. The worst is on days when you think about getting a clip and you know it will literally just take a second but then you think oh I better try and get something more original or interesting or oh, I’m going to see friends today so I’ll get a clip with them in it and in the end you just forget to do it. The worst.
(Music from Mixtape v2)
Valiant in the Faith – Gardner and Sarah Snow and Their Family by Archibald F. Bennett and Ella M. Bennett is a book of genealogy and stories about descendants of the Gardner Snow family of which I am one.
I’ve learned a few interesting things about the book. The author, Ella M. Bennett, it turns out, is actually my dad’s aunt. The other author, her husband Archibald Bennett, is a semi-famous genealogist. He happens to have worked as a school teacher at a couple of the same schools as me (Taber and Barnwell). My dad tells me they never finished the book while they were alive and it was their kids that did a lot of work completing it.
An interesting story shared in the book is that my Great Great Grandmother, Sarah Jane Snow, was born on the day of the Haun’s Mill massacre.
As an art teacher myself, I often think about the art teachers I’ve had over the years so I felt great disappointment this morning when I learned that Allan Jensen, my former jr. high and high school art teacher, died this week. No further details were given.
Along with being a great art teacher, I remember him most fondly for organizing and chaperoning a school trip to Japan in 1993.
He’s the one pictured on the far right. That trip was a once in a lifetime influence on me. I will always appreciate the art lessons and the inspiration.
This has been a tough year. He’s the forth person I knew personally that has died in 2020.
Update: Here is his obituary.
Allan Jensen
1941 – 2020
It is with great sadness that we, the family, announce the passing of Allan Christian John Jensen in Medicine Hat on Saturday, December 26, 2020, at the age of 79 years. He is survived by his half sister, Evelyn Schafer as well as four nephews and their families. He was predeceased by his mother and father; two half brothers, Alvin and Gordon Pfiefer as well as his close friend and brother-in-law, Richard Schafer. Allan was born on September 18, 1941, in Drumheller, Alberta. He was the youngest of four children to Ella and Peter Jensen. Allan began his teaching career in Munson, Alberta where he was the principal. He furthered his career at Crescent Heights High School in Medicine Hat as an art teacher, where he retired. Allan loved to travel and led tours around the world. He was heavily involved in the art and cultural community in Medicine Hat which was his greatest passion. A Celebration of Allan’s life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Allan’s name may be made directly to the Hat Art Club, 399 College Avenue S.E., Medicine Hat, T1A 3Y6 or to the charity of one’s choice.
When I was wandering the streets of Salt Lake back in ’99 I came across a fellow by the name of Greg Breedlove1 who was part of the Spirit of America team. He told me about how he had helped on the second version of the jet car and how his dad was the driver that set many land speed records on the Salt Flats near the Great Salt Lake. He offered to send me some photos of the car if I gave him my address which I happily provided.2 I’ve often thought about what it would be like to drive a car that fast.
Driving the Spirit of America might be the impossible dream, but today I came across an ad for a different jet powered car on Craigslist — this one is a Jet Powered VW and though it might not set world records, it’s definitely faster than I would want to go.
The car has two engines: the production gasoline engine in the front, driving the front wheels, and the jet engine in the back. The idea is that you drive around legally on the gasoline engine then, when you want to have some fun, spin up the jet and get on the burner (you can start the jet while driving along on the gasoline engine). I built the car because I wanted the wildest street-legal ride possible. I was able to use some stuff I learned while getting my fancy engineering degree with this project (I have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University). It was great to design this street-legal jet car without distractions from other people’s projects, solely because no one has done it before. I have no idea how fast the car will go, and probably never will. I built the car in order to thrill me, not kill me. That said, I do enjoy the occasional blast down the highway.
He’s asking $550,000 USD.
1. At least I think his name was Greg, it could’ve been Craig. I have it on a note somewhere but I don’t know where it is.
2. Promises made, promises broken. I never heard from him, but photos are a lot easier to come by nowadays, so it’s no big deal.