Tonight I attended a regional CPC meeting that included members of four different area CPC’s. It went very well and I’m hopeful that it will produce benefit for our respective towns, our region, and thereby the state of Massachusetts.

CPA Backstory
The Community Preservation Act is a state law that may be voluntarily adopted by cities and towns. If adopted, a small surcharge on property taxes goes into a local CPA fund. That fund is matched at some level by the state and can only be spent on certain things: Preservation of open space and historic assets as well as the creation of recreational assets and community housing.

The fund is manged by a local CPC – Community Preservation Committee to review funding applications and recommend projects for the legislative body to vote on.

I am a member of Middleboro’s CPC and before we adopted CPA I was a vocal advocate of it. After being appointed to the CPC, I attended meetings of the Bridgewater CPC and Plympton CPC. These committes and their chairmen – Marilee Kenney Hunt(Bridgewater) and Mark Russo(Plympton) were really supportive and really made me feel welcome at their meetings. I started a dialog with Marilee that led to the idea of a meeting of regional CPC’s. We agreed that meeting in person would allow the groups to network, develop relationships, share expertise, help avoid pitfalls, and perhaps to collaborate on regional projects. Marilee is the real deal and is the sort of person that can talk the talk but more importantly can walk the walk.

Regional meeting notes
The meeting took place at the Bridgewater Senior Center and included members from four different CPC’s – Bridgewater, Middleboro, Plympton, West Bridgewater. Special thanks to my associates from the Middleboro CPC who took time out of their lives to attend. Bridgewater CPA planner Jennifer Goldson had a loose agenda and facilitated the meeting. We started off with a brief statement from Marilee about the goals. Each attendee introduced themselves and talked a little about CPA in their own towns. Each CPC chose a representative to talk about the projects they had done or had planned. After that we talked about any ideas for regional projects. After that we had a general “was this worth it and do you want to do it again” discussion. There was wide agreement to continue meeting at roughly 4 month intervals.

A river runs through it
When the time came to talk about regional projects, I brought up the idea of building a pedestrian bridge over the Taunton River at Auburn street to connect the conservation land on the Bridgewater side with the conservation land on the Middleboro side. The response was very enthusiastic – not just about this project but also about the river as a binding thread that runs through several communities. Ted Eayres – who is also a member of the Middleboro CPC – raised the very germane point that preservation projects done on one side of the river, or other town border for that matter, might very well require action on the other side. As far as a theoretical Auburn Street pedestrian bridge – at least one person there who seemed to be familiar with this sort of project didn’t think it would be overly difficult to do from a regulatory perspective. Connecting the Great River Preserve(Bridgewater) with the Taunton River Wildlife Management Area(Middleboro) would be a very unique recreational asset and might bring visibility to the preservation needed on the Taunton and Nemasket rivers. Will it ever happen? I have no idea. If it ever happens it won’t be me running it. The important thing is *not* this particular project – but rather the idea of people from area towns working together and sharing their strengths to do good for the region generally.

After the meeting
So after the official meeting ended, people milled around and talked. “Milling” and “talking” might not sound like a big deal – but to me it is the whole point: Meeting, creating relationships, talking, learning, sharing information. I see these meetings not really as something that is going to change the world by themselves, but rather as a way to get to know other people who are working on the same thing. I spoke at length to a guy that had vast expertise in looking up deeds. I don’t have any need for that today – but maybe someday I will. There were people who had done all sorts of projects that required all sorts of expertise and involved all sorts of pitfalls. This is valuable stuff.

The idea a regional CPC is really nothing new – many professional groups routinely have conferencew where people network and share expertise.

It was great.

Job Fair, ELKS on High St, 10-2 Wednesday, May 22, 2013. Midd on Move and Plymouth Career Center. Please, let your world know. over 50 companies with over 50 jobs. People should bring plenty of resumes and plan to do some networking even if the job they are looking for is not there.

PSA – Middleboro Mess Movers – 9AM 5/18/2013 – Middleboro Town Hall

Apologies be not posting much recently. There have been a number of things demanding my time. Thanks for sticking with me.

This week’s column

My column in this week’s Middleboro Gazette is titled “MG&E election travesty”. The title says it all – it discusses the flagrant voter incompetence that resulted in Mike Solimini not being re-elected to the Middleboro Gas and Electric Commission.

Last column

Speaking of columns, two weeks ago I wrote about the epic stupidity of people who keep loaded unsecured guns at home so that they can get to the trigger quicker in the event of a home invasion or zombie apocalypse. If you still have last week’s Gazette, there is a great letter from a reader titled “Shame on the Gazette” or somesuch taking me to task for using terms like “stupid”, “knuckledragger”, and other endearments that were used to describe the complete shit4brain halfwits that keep loaded guns in the house where any kid can grab them. I will ask the gentle reader to give me a pass for thinking that people who don’t secure their weapons are the turds floating in the gene pool. Based on the numbers, it is very likely that my kids are visiting homes with unsecured weapons. And that makes me have slips in my famously genteel ways. I’ll remind you of some very recent events:

• May 1, 2013 – Five-year-old shoots and kills his two-year-old sister with his f*cking starter rifle
• May 7, 2013 – Five-year-old shoots his seven-year-old brother
• May 9, 2013 – Two-year-old fatally shoots himself
• May 8, 2013 – Three-year-old fatally shoots himself
• May 13, 2013 – Six-year-old accidentally shoots himself(non fatal)
• May 13, 2013 – Eight-year-old shoots and kills five-year-old
• May 14, 2013 – Four year old shoots and kills 6 year old playmate

‘Nuff said.

MCCAM

A year ago or so, Middleboro took over the local PEG access broadcasts. In English: We are running our own local cable broadcasts instead of Comcast. The group that controls it is called MCCAM

I’ve been bugging these folks for years to get the programming on the web so I could be watch it at my convenience. We are parially there now and I have to say that this is a big improvement and way convenient.

Videos are posted on the MCAM Facebook page. For the time being, they are being posted on this Youtube channel

Some of you may know that I ditched cable quite a while ago. Using my Roku box and Plex channel, I am able to easily watch these videos on my TV …. or any other video on YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites.

The Middleborough Mess Movers are picking up trash this Saturday, May 18th. Mark your calendars to meet us at 9:00 at the town hall parking lot. Let’s get some of this trash off the road and I hope we have more than the 3 of us from last month! Thanks for caring. Those that can’t show up, maybe clean up your neighborhood instead. -Melissa Guimont

I have to ask the people who did not vote for Mike Solimini:

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Mike single-handedly turned a completely corrupt, secretive, and dysfunctional G&E Commission into a transparent accessible group AND set in motion the things that caused a major reduction in our rates.

No particular offense to the other candidates – but at least one of them was willfully ignorant of what was going on around him and the other should have been your NUMBER TWO vote AFTER Mike Solimini.

Normally I don’t get too worked up about elections – but this one showed inexplicable dumbassery from voters.

Reading into the election results it is apparent that the voters of Middleboro want more secrecy, blatant violations of open meeting law, and higher gas/electric rates.

Voters of Middleboro: You really effed up.

I am completely and utterly shocked by the embezzlement allegations against former Middleboro PTA president you know who. If someone had suggested to me that SE was involved in something like this I would have told them that they were crazy and to shut the hell up before I punched them in the face. I do not know the treasurer who is also implicated in the alleged theft of $30k.

I have loads of respect for SE and will be withholding judgement until all the facts are known. SE’s facebook presence has disappeared along with her blog. I’m not going to contribute to the permanent google-ization of her name regardless of the outcome – and PARTICULARLY until the full story is known.

Today (Apr 30) is the day to vote in local Middleboro elections and the Senate primary.

There are contested races for the Board of Selectman, the MG&E Commission, and I think the Housing Authority.

Where are the Polling Locations for Elections?:

TOWN OF MIDDLEBOROUGH POLLING LOCATIONS

PRECINCT 1 – OAK POINT CLUB HOUSE, 202 OAK POINT DRIVE

PRECINCTS 2, 4, 6 – MIDDLEBORO HIGH SCHOOL GYMNASIUM, 71 EAST GR0VE STREET (RTE 28)

PRECINCT 3 – SOUTH MIDDLEBOROUGH FIRE STATION, 566 WAREHAM STREET (RTE 28)

PRECINCT 5 – MIDDLEBOROUGH COUNCIL ON AGING, 558 PLYMOUTH STREET

Cross posted from Sixteen Shillings

We got a last minute gig this Thursday April 25th at the Boston Tavern in Middleboro. We’ll start at 8:30 PM.

This place is beautiful – wide open, airy, and has a great atmosphere. We might even be the first band to play there. It was formerly the Riverside, Tuscan House, and Chianti’s.

Check out the Facebook event page. If you have any interest, “join/accept” the event and then invite your friends.

Hope to see you there.

The Boston Tavern is on Rt 28 in Middleboro – 58 E Grove St, Middleboro, MA 02346.

View Larger Map

Last July, I wrote a couple of articles about flip teaching. One was a general introduction to the concept and the other was a specific example of flip teaching using Khan Academy. A couple of months ago I contacted Nichols Middle School Principal Geoghegan about the idea.

Unknown to me, and probably unrelated to my columns/discussions with the school, one of the Middleboro High School math teachers has been expermenting with flip teaching after hearing about it in a seminar last summer. Here are some select quotes from the article:

“This past summer I took a professional development course and one of the facilitators of this course talked about the flipped classroom and it really appealed to me the way she described it and I thought ‘gee I want to look into this and maybe in the fall I can try this with my honors geometry class,” said Ms. Miles. “So I tried it in the fall and basically in a traditional class students typically learn new things in school and they practice the concepts at home. In the flipped class what they do is they learn the concepts at home and they practice them at school the next day.”

….
….
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For instance tonight my students are reading 2 sections from the textbook that I have not taught them yet. They’ll complete a few lesson practice problems and I always have optional assignments for students who wish to dig in a little bit deeper”¦,” Ms. Miles said. “In class tomorrow I will check in with students individually to make sure they felt okay about the homework. I’ll assign each problem solving group in my class “¦ a problem to present and while they are presented I am insuring that the most important content was understood and I do that through questioning techniques and discourse. Then I activate the lesson by maybe a piece of technology, maybe a brief video, maybe by just holding up an object. Then I demonstrate some problems myself because students have made it clear that they do want to watch me solve some problems and then groups will explore the content through hands-on learning and then we’ll pose some more challenging problems that they have support to solve and at the end of class they’ll demonstrate that they’ve learned the content through exit slips and “¦ assessments.”
…
…
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School committee members along with Superintendent Dr. Roseli Weiss praised Ms. Miles’ efforts and willingness to try something new in her class.

“I’ve read about this and heard about it but just reading and hearing about it you really don’t get it,” said school committee member Brian Giovanoni. “(Angela), you’re learning something more and you carried it to another classroom, self-quizzing yourself in biology. That’s fantastic and it’s a new way of learning “¦ and when you’re getting out of high school and going to college you’re doing it anyway so I think it’s a great program and I’d like to see more of this.”
…
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“As a superintendent of schools, what you’re doing with the flipped classroom is marvelous,” said Superintendent Dr. Weiss. “You’re giving them the online experience but you also have the other part which is facilitator and I agree with our students that when you learn on your own and pace yourself you understand who you are as learners so when you go into the classroom the teacher as a facilitator has a much stronger student in front of them. You are also talking about data and assessment and that is just what we want to hear”¦”

Ms. Miles informed the committee that next year will bring the flipped classroom model to more of her classes as this year was a test-run only on honors geometry sections.

“The boarded up windows, The empty street, While my brother’s down on his knees, My city of Ruins”, Bruce Springsteen wrote these lyrics to the song My City of Ruins in 2000 for a show he did for a benefit for Asbury Park. After he performed the song at the Tribute to Heroes concert in the aftermath of 9/11, the song took a whole new meaning. Bruce is and probably always will be my go to music selection when I need a quick fix to any mood I am in at the moment. I loved the song, but after yesterday, it resonates in a far different way than I had ever wanted to imagine.

Boston has always been my city. Growing up on the South Shore, Boston gleamed in the distance like the Land of OZ. It was the place where everything magical happened and wonder occurred. There were no professional baseball teams in smaller cities, concerts were not held in the suburbs, you wanted to do anything “fun” as a teenager growing up, you needed to go to Boston. I do remember my first recollection of going to the city with my parents. I was little and it was shortly after the famous stabbing death of a Harvard football player in the Combat Zone. I remember hearing about it on the news. I also recall my dad parking on Washington Street and pointing out that the Combat Zone was down the street. I remember this because I thought I was going to see tanks and soldiers in that part of the city. I had no idea that the Combat Zone had any other meaning.

As I grew, my parents allowed me to travel into Boston to explore the city and make it my own. We were fortunate that if we couldn’t get our parents to give us a ride, we had our choice; we could ride the T to Braintree or take the BAT bus to Ashmont. The ride on the bus was always filled with excitement to go to Boston. It was there I learned how to score a baseball game, how hot the Garden got during the summertime, that there was no cooler place on earth than Newbury Comics and that the greatest art museum is the Gardner. I witnessed my own British Invasion in the form of the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Halloween was never the same after experiencing Rocky Horror Picture at the Exeter.

As I got older, I would go to Boston every weekend to meet my now wife at Boston College. Together and with family and friends, we enjoyed the night like every college kid should. We went to clubs, to bars, to dives, enjoyed cold tea in Chinatown and continued to enjoy the city to the fullest. As we got older, the city has always been a time away. Boston is a place to bring the kids and let them have fun in ways possible nowhere else. The Swan boats, duck boats, JFK Library, Museum of Science, the Children’s Museum milk bottle and Fenway Park can’t be found just anywhere.

I started working full time in the city in the early 1990’s and have enjoyed every minute of it. I love just leaving the office and wandering over to Fenway, calling friends to say that I have tickets last minute to an event or meeting people for a beer after work. I freely admit that I hate the commute at times but the overall fun of working in the city has always outweighed the one drawback.

One other important point! Whenever I am away and am asked where I am from, I always answer Boston. Not to disrespect Middleboro or where I grew up but nobody knows the names of those towns. Everyone knows Boston. When you tell someone you are from Boston, one of two things happen. They will tell you that they have been there and name a place that they loved or they tell you they want to go and why. It never fails. Even with the most ardent of Yankee Fans!

That said; yesterday hit me in a way I never expected. I work at a Hotline that deals with the most horrible experience one can imagine. I have been parts of teams that have prepared and trained for events like this for quite some time. What hit me hard was the realization that my son and some other kids I know were afraid of Boston. That pierced me like a dagger through my heart. As I left for the office this morning, hearing him tell me to be safe bothered me in ways unimaginable yesterday morning. I want every kid to understand that Boston is magical and opens doors that we can never see in small towns. In my mind, it was my own version of Disneyland.

I will work my ass off to make sure those kids understand that we all lose if we are afraid! Not short term fear, we all understand that but we must live our lives to the fullest to crush whoever these cowardly bastards are. I REFUSE TO LET THEM TAKE MY CITY AWAY!

Two quick things to show all of you;

In my job, I have had the great opportunity of my life to work with first responders. I admire and respect them. I also work a lot with the Boston Police Department. They did an outstanding job yesterday and made us all proud.

Secondly, I am still very much angry and filled with rage. I apologize for the profanity but this sums us how I feel perfectly!

Even though this song isn’t really about running it’s the best I can do on the day after the Boston Marathon bombing. It also fits in nicely with my column for this week and the idea that normalcy and volunteerism are good remedies for insanities like the bombing. Here is the direct link in case you can’t view the embbed video for some reason.

This is from the first gig Rob and I played together. Enjoy.

Have a normal day.

There is no doubt that the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is about to open Region C to commercial bidding. Once there is a large casino in the area, there is no economic incentive to build anything else. No backer with deep pockets will risk their capital to build in a saturated market. In the end, financial decisions are usually based on financial reality – particularly by non-governments.

The tribe knows this. Their hapless leadership have run up millions of dollars in debt for a project that was always a real longshot. As the end nears, tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell has become ever more shrill, threatening, and desperate as this video shows. It is video Hail Mary pass shot in a pseudo-news style that is rather hilarious when you know the back story.

The video is included in a last ditch plea for people to contact the gaming commission to shill for a tribal casino. The page advises supporters to

Send an email today to mgccomments@state.ma.us with “Region C” in the subject line. Comments must be received no later than Tuesday, April 16, at 5:00 pm.

I would urge any of you who have an interest in this to send your own email with “Open up Region C to commercial bidding” in the subject line.

Handy mgccomments@state.ma.us link

I’m taking a few minutes during my lunch break for a quick post. I’m finding myself very busy these days and have been neglecting my blog lately. There is a lot going on and I hope to have some interesting (at least to me) news about CPA soon.

I’m still following LENR – a technology that claims to produce large amounts of energy cheaply with no greenhouse gases or waste of any kind – a totally clean technology. This energy could be used to heat houses, create electricity, power spaceships – anything.

Just a couple of problems:

• No one has yet demonstrated a commercially viable device that has undergone irrefutable 3rd party verification. Not that there hasn’t been verification – just not bullet proof validation that would satisfy skeptics.
• The physics that explain it are not well understood or universally accepted by physicists. A simple device *is* used by MIT Professor Hagelstein for a class he teaches on cold fusion. Most high energy physicists claim that LENR is impossible. It should be noted that these same people stand to lose millions or even billions in funding for high-energy fusion reactors that so far have not created enough excess energy to power a TV remote.

I believe this technology is real and that full proof and validation is imminent – possibly within days, weeks, months, or a year. Call me a hopeful believer who won’t spend a penny on on this technology until there is a proven product.

There are a number of companies that claim to have LENR products in the pipeline. One of them is Defkalion – who have been very quiet for the last year or so. They claim to have a nickel-hydrogen technology similar to Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat. Rossi it seems has made his advances by trial, error, and experimentation. Defkalion claims that they have full understanding of the physics and so are able to exert much greater control over their device. This post on PESN is very intriguing if you have interest. The post teaser says:

Defkalion is tackling around 20 major applications of their LENR reactor through contracts with several licensees, including some major players. Price point expected to be around 1/10 of what we presently pay for power. First product expected by second quarter 2014. Public reactor demo expected for NI Week in August.

I hope so.

Since the Mashpee Wampanoag came to Middleboro in 2007, many of us have continued to follow the story. Some friends of mine have become essentially experts in indian law. They found some documents that prove that the Mashpee were never under federal jurisdiction and so are bound to the Supreme Court decision barring them from getting land taken into trust(sovereign indian land) by the Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Pacheco etal – please read this carefully. Failure to do so will cause you to continue to shortchange the people of region C even more than your epic inability to listen already has.

Short history lesson: The Mashpee Wampanoag came to Middleboro and signed a deal to build a casino. Pacheco – Patrick – you guys were total no-shows and left us hanging while my town tore itself apart needlessly. Shortly after, chairman Glenn Marshall resigned in disgrace. The next chairman Shawn Hendricks didn’t last long. In February of 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that tribes recognized after 1934 could not have land taken into trust by the Secretary of the Interior. Land into trust means sovereign indian land that gives the tribes special rights to gambling. The tribe was taken over by Cedric Cromwell – a person who, according to Reelwamps, is driving the tribe into financial ruin by borrowing heavily from foreign investors who are apparently stupid. The Mashpee Wampanoag abandoned their agreement with Middleboro and went reservation/casino shopping and finally settled in East Taunton. For almost the last year they have had a woefully incomplete land into trust application in with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This ridiculous application is the punchline to the joke that is the idea of a Mashpee Wampanoag casino.

Meanwhile, Cromwell keeps telling everybody that their casino is inevitable and that it is proceeding according to plan – a plan that has shovels in the ground in a year. In Middleboro we’re still waiting for the shovels that were supposed to break ground more than 5 years ago. Us veterans of the the Mashpee’s proposed Middleboro casino have been telling everyone since early 2009 that the Mashpee could not get land into trust and therefore could not get a casino. Meanwhile people like Marc Pacheco, Deval Patrick, and most of the media dutifully regurgitated the total bullshit fed to them by the tribe and their lobbyists going so far as to write a completely needless preference for the Mashpee Wampanoag into the legislation that legalized casino gambling in Massachusetts.

Throughout the years all this has been going on, these political geniuses have been told numerous times and by numerous people that they are wasting time screwing around with the Mashpee Wampanoag because … repeat after me Mr. Pacheco: THE TRIBE CAN’T GET LAND INTO TRUST AND THEREFORE … PAY ATTENTION NOW … THEY CAN’T BUILD A TRIBAL CASINO. Now please – Mr. Patrick, Mr. Pacheco, Massachusetts Gambling Commission – carefully reread the last couple of paragraphs until you understand what I’m saying. Now Marc .. the first step is admitting that you’ve been totally wrong on this issue. That’s what you have to do … because …. you’ve been totally wrong on this issue. Not just wrong – but epically wrong. Consistently wrong. Stubbornly and steadfastly wrong. The sort of wrong that other wrong things aspire to …. in admiration of your wrongness.

Now here comes the real important part:

I get that you don’t believe what me and others have been telling you for years. Boy do I get it. Cromwell and his buddies have been telling you not to worry about that pesky Carcier v. Salazar decision. Cromwell and his paid lobbyists are telling you that the tribe was under federal jurisdiction.

Here comes the bombshell.

Please take a look at this letter that was submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs asking them to reject the Mashpee’s application for trust land in East Taunton – or anywhere else for that matter. It references their own letters, several of them in fact, that state emphatically, clearly, unequivocally … and repeatedly that the Mashpee Wampanoag were NOT UNDER FEDERAL JURISDICTION prior to 1934. Were not. Understand that I am not just giving my interpretation – this evidence actually uses the words “not under federal jurisdiction”. Snap. Slam. Dunk. Done.

Please forgive me if I repeat all this so much that even a moron could understand it …. history has shown me that morons apparently cannot understand this.

• The Mashpee Wampanoag were NOT under federal jurisdiction prior to 1934.
• Carcier v Salazar states that the SOI CANNOT take land into trust for tribes who were not under federal jurisdiction in 1934
• There is ZERO … again ZERO appetite in Congress for the Carcieri fix. If a fix comes it will likely be more restrictive and totally eliminate the sort of reservation shopping the tribe is lamely attempting to engage in.
• Even if a Carcieri fix comes – there is a fundamental problem that cannot be overcome. Other case(Hawaii) law suggests that the federal government cannot take over land that is currently ceded to the state. Since there is no federal land in the original 13 colonies – there is no way to create sovereign indian land.
• You are totally wasting time and effort by holding up the Region C license in the hope that the Mashpee are going to get trust land.

This is not new information – sure these documents that my awesome and informed friends have uncovered are new – but they are just the hardcopy proof of everything that we’ve been telling you for years.

IT IS TIME TO LISTEN. I can hook you up with some amazing people who – unlike you – have spent YEARS studying this issue. And here is the real shocker: The tribe and paid lobbyists who stand to benefit from a Mashpee Wampanoag casino have been feeding you bad information to keep their chances alive. I know that sounds unbelievable but it’s true.

Now please do me the favor of waking the f*** up – even if it is six years too late.

I would ask you to excuse my harsh language and understand that me and my friends have gone through living hell for almost six years while you numbskulls in the state house couldn’t bother your a**** to learn anything – or even read the information that was chewed up and regurgitated for easy digestion.

Regards.

Rob and I – aka Sixteen Shillings will be playing at the New World Tavern in downtown Plymouth from 6-9. Address is 56 Main Street, Plymouth, 508-927-4250

This place has a great pub atmosphere and (I think) over 100 beers on the menu.

Checkin at the Facebook Event Page.

In addition to the regular important work they do – the Middleboro Finance Committee will be meeting FinCom Agenda 3-19-2013.

With a proposed price tag of $13M, the new police station should be of interest to all.

Bumpkin Jr’s team won the championship in the Middleboro church league last week. Mrs. Bumpkin sponsored the team – Mary Barry Massage Therapy.

I forget the final score – something like 54 to 4something – not sure. All the kids and Coach Dave Ward did a great job and had a fun season.

I’ve posted videos of the game to YouTube

1st half
2nd half

Enjoy

At the last two Middleboro Board of Selectman’s meeting – the town clerk presented the BOS with the option to combine the spring town election and the special primary election that is being held this April to fill the seat vacated by Senator Kerry when he accepted the job of Secretary of State.

Here are the applicable videos

• 2012-02-25 BOS meeting excerpt
• 2012-02-25 full BOS meeting
• 2012-02-11 full BOS meeting

Simply put – the way I see it, we have Republicans pushing their agenda on the town. At 57 minutes into the meeting, Selectman Rullo calls out the lame objections for what they are – partisan nonsense.

That’s what I see. What do you see?

Google recently released their own branded laptop running their ChromeOS – the Google Chromebook Pixel. It is running around $1300 to $1450 – or in other words – a crapload. It has possibly the highest resolution laptop display on the market. It has impeccable design and top notch hardware. That said, on its face, the Pixel doesn’t make sense.

I love Chrome OS – for certain devices like small/cheap laptops and I think it makes a lot more sense than a tablet in many situations. My ChromeBook cost $299. It is light, fast, and has a keyboard. It’s a great device. But would I want to part with $1400 for the Cadillac version …. Nope.

ChromeOS is almost totally dependent on being connected to the Internet to run cloud-based applications – basically anything you can run in a web browser. Unlike previous Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung, it has a touch screen — for an operating system that is not particularly designed for touch. For the cost, one would be hard-pressed to justify a ChromeBook compared to another high-end laptop running a more general purpose operating system such as Linux, MacOS, or even Windows.

So what is Google thinking?

There is only one thing that makes sense to me: That the rumors of a merging of ChromeOS and Android are true and coming within a year. That makes the Pixel an expensive touch gadget that will certainly be bought in significant quantity by cash-enabled geeks and early adopters. That will give Google a chance to put the hardware through it’s paces in the real world, find the weak spots, and then roll out the big merge. ChromeDroid – my name for this theoretical merging – now makes sense on the Pixel. It has a universe of touch-enabled applications that can be used offline. Overnight Google has a mature and stable OS that has some feature parity with the big three (Windows, MacOS, Linux). It can be scaled up or down to run on small devices like phones, medium devices like tablets, or big honking desktops and high-end laptops.

We shall see.

The ChromeBooks that one can buy for much less than $500 make a lot of sense. I see them being a major player in schools due to their almost zero admin overhead and centralized management abilities. You turn them on, they update themselves if needed, and they work. No muss, no fuss, no viruses, and no pain.

I just picked up a new router – the networking kind …. not the woodworking kind.

I’ve been using the venerable LinkSys WRT54G and it worked just fine for many a year. In the last few weeks the wireless network speeds have been spotty – often requiring a power cycle of the router. I figured it was time.

My first thought was that I should be able to get a decent router for $50 or $60 bucks … and I suppose you can. After looking at reviews I decided I needed a relatively good router – not just something decent. Most of our television viewing is coming via the Internet. The kids do a lot of gaming. We have the usual assortment of wireless gadgets – laptops and such. In pretty short order I selected the Asus RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router. I have to tell you I’m really pleased with it.

My old LinkSys was an 802.11 b/g router. For whatever reason, I seemed to get about 4 or 5 Mbps on my wireless laptop. I’m getting a solid 35 Mbps with my new router. It has 10/100/1000 ethernet – which is pretty standard stuff these days. It also has 2 USB connectors that allow you to hook certain printers and USB drives to it. The USB drives can be shared via SMB(windows) or FTP. It has a builtin DLNA server – which means you could share the digital content on your drives with other devices. Typically “digital content” means photos, videos, and music. The Asus has a ton more features including a VPN server. But most of all it’s fast. The interface is very intuitive – much better than the fairly clumsy yet functional interface on the WRTG.

I’m still on day one with the new router – but I really like what I see so far.

Someone suggested a column with this top:

MA meal breaks. MGL 149 requires employees to get a lunch break if they work more than 6 hours per day. Pretty simple right?

However, many employees violate this law, by requiring an employee to perform part of their job responsibilities during their lunch. This law states “if unpaid, this time is the employees free time”. If the employee is required to do any part of their job during lunch, this would not be an unpaid lunch. If the employee is restricted from leaving the property by the employer this would need to be a paid lunch.

I’ve been working since I was 15 years old (not counting paper routes and cutting grass). In those 35 years I’ve only worked at four different companies. Of those four I’ve been working at one of them for almost 29 years. Yes 29.

Back when I was a bundle boy at Capital Supermarket, the manager would occasionally give you guff about taking a break if you had a short shift or if it was really busy. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, he told me once that I couldn’t take a break and I took one anyway which led to some hot water for me. Other than those minor incidents, I’ve never had an employer pressure me to skip lunch or breaks and/or expect me to work during breaks.

I’d be interested in your experiences and whether or not you think this problem is pervasive in the workplace.

Looks like we have four people running for two seats on the Middleboro Board of Selectman:

Ms. Dalpe and Ms. Stewart will be running with political newcomer Donald Jonah of Shaw Street and EMS Committee member John Knowlton for two open seats on the Board of Selectmen. Neither Chairman of Selectmen Al Rullo nor Selectman Steven Spataro plan to seek reelection this year.

I’ll be sorry to see Mr. Rullo go. Although I didn’t always agree with him, I think he did a fine job and was very fair, thoughtful, and evenhanded.

Any candidate who asks can have a post on this site – perhaps to introduce themselves to the voters, or to discuss their positions.

In addition to the big race, there are seats open for on the School Committee, Board of Assessors, Housing Authority, Parks Commission, G&E Commission.

School Committee member Sara Cederholm is circulating nomination papers, as is Maureen Franco, a newcomer to elected office who serves on the Community Preservation Committee. School Committee member Michael Pilla Jr.’s term also expires this year.

Assessor Anthony Freitas, Park Commissioner William Ferdinand and Housing Authority member Buddy Chilcot have also taken out nomination papers.

Both incumbents on the Gas and Electric Commission whose terms expire this year, Thomas Murphy and Michael Solimini, have indicated they will seek reelection.

Planning Board member David Maddigan’s term also expires in April.

I wrote two columns in the Middleboro Gazette last year about flip teaching. The first column was a general discussion of the concept of having students learn the material at home, and use classroom time for homework and getting help with the parts they didn’t understand. Column two talked specifically about Khan Academy and how some schools are using it for flip teaching.

Flip “learning” in USA Today .. today
I read an article today about flip teaching in USA Today. The article referred to it as “flip learning” – same difference. The article highlighted various teachers who were creating their own videos and posting them on YouTube for students to view at home. While I like the idea of flip teaching in general, I don’t like the idea of every teacher – good and bad – doing their own instructional videos. It would seem to be more efficient to have videos that were created by just a couple of teachers – or better yet – created by the same people who wrote the text books as companion material.

Flip learning is NOT about videos
There is a growing number of sites and information about flip teaching. Many of them are getting it wrong – trying to make flip teaching dependent on the Internet and videos. Wrong. Flip teaching doesn’t have to be all high tech and require an iPad. Before I ever heard the term … long long long before … I stumbled upon this style of learning when I returned to college more than a decade after getting my Associates degree. All the college courses I took had a detailed syllabus. Using the syllabus, you know that tomorrow’s math class is going to cover Section X in Textbook Y and have problems Z for homework. In flip teaching, you would read Section X tonight and take notes on it. Taking notes is essential because it reinforces the learning process far more than simply reading – for reasons I can’t quantify, prove, or explain. During tomorrow’s class, you do the homework assignment and ask any questions you have about the material. This style of learning really really works. You do NOT need a computer, a video camera, or YouTube. You need a textbook, a pencil, a notebook, and a good syllabus.

When I invented The Internet flip teaching
I’m sure flip teaching existed before I ever “discovered” it. The reason I adopted this style was simple fear. I was petrified about returning to college after such a long absence. I was so afraid about being unable to handle the material that I started studying the stuff before I got into class … I was just panicked that I would be hopelessly lost during the lecture and fall behind. What I quickly found out was that I was learning the material on my own and the lecture was redundant. I started using that lecture time to do the homework and start studying the material for the next lecture. There were plenty of times when there was some fine point or concept I didn’t really understand. When the teacher got to that point in the lecture, I was able to ask very specific questions to figure it out. Ultimately I found that this style required less time and yielded much better results. Yes less time. When you are presented with material for the first time in a lecture, it is impossible to understand it all – particularly for complex stuff. When you sit down later that evening to do homework, you end up flipping through the book to figure out how to do the work. It goes like this

Tradition learning

• Attend lecture – 60 mins
• Review material at home – 20 mins
• Homework/Notes – 40 mins
• Total – 120 minutes

Flip learning

• Review material and taking notes at home – 30 mins
• Attend lecture – 60 mins
• Homework – 0 mins(concurrent with “Attend lecture”)
• Total – 90 minutes

  Naturally I’m making those numbers up – but that is my memory of the way it went.

ZDnet is reporting on a leaked document that purports to show that HP is on the verge of releasing its own Chromebook:

Detailed in the leaked document [PDF] is a Chromebook-branded under the company’s Pavilion label. With a 14-inch display—1366 x 768 pixels—it features a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB RAM, Intel HD graphics, and a 16GB solid-state drive. It also features a front-facing webcam, and a full complement of connectivity options, including USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and HDMI ports.

This story dovetails nicely with my recent posts about the future of the desktop. If the rumor is true HP joins Acer and Samsung as manufacturers of consumer Chromebooks. Lenovo will soon release a Chromebook that is targeted for the educational market.

I’ve had a ChromeBook for just over a year and find it to be a very handy device for web-centric activities. It is light, small, fast, cheap, and has a built-in keyboard. The form factor is essentially a small laptop/ultra book.

I just bought this wireless keyboard with built-in trackpad. Mostly … make that almost totally … I got it to use with my Chromebook when it’s plugged into the TV to watch something that is only available on the Interwebs. We used it recently to watch Obama’s inauguration speech and I’m using it right now to write this post while listening/watching a cool show on YouTube.

All I can say is … cool.

The keyboard is well made with a nice feel to the keys. It’s a bit smaller than a full sized keyboard – big enough to type comfortably on but small enough to sit on your lap and kick around near the couch without getting in the way. The trackpad gives you full mouse functionality.

I ditched my cable TV some time ago and mostly get my TV from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime – not to mention broadcast HD TV. The keyboard makes it very easy to plug your laptop into your TV and operate it comfortably from the couch. We use a Roku settop box for our streaming and surprisingly there is no general web browsery thingy to just view an arbitrary site.

It’s great using the computer on the big-screen TV and opens up a world of possibilities.