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Holiday Special: Stinky Tofu

 

So this holiday I decided to try a traditional Taiwanese recipe- the Stinky tofu!

Material:

Shrimp sauce

Crushed garlic

Clam Sauce

(You can purchase all these materials at the Yu Yu grocery store)

To make:

1. Marinate the tofu with the shrimp sauce for two nights.

2. Deep fry the marinated tofu until it turns golden brown,

3.Mixed the clam suace with some water, sugar and crushed garlic.

Then, enjoy!

 

Educational iPad Apps

While I surfing the web the other day for online technology websites, I found a large amount of iPad apps that can be used for educational use.  I was surprised to find how many there are!  This prompted me to make a spreadsheet of them and categorize them according to the discipline in which they would work best, i.e. biology, astronomy, etc.  Some of them could be very useful for students, especially those who are taking science classes online.  Whereas they may have found it hard to visualize the various parts of a cell or muscular structure, they can now explore 3-D images on their iPad; some apps are even available on an iPhone or iPod.  I am excited to see all of the different educational apps I can find, not to mention various app tools that we could adapt to any class for online education.

How to Download Photographs of You and Your Friends on the A&S Website!

Have you found an image on our website that you love, and must have a copy of?

Here is how you can download and print that photograph and then charish it for the rest of your life!

 

 

1. Go to Univerity of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences website home page at: http://www.as.uky.edu/

2. If you haven't already taken a look at our recent photographs, take a look by choosing the Photos option on our homepage.

3. After you have made a decision on any photographs that you would like to have, return to the A&S homepage to find the FLICKR button. This link will bring you to our photostream on flickr, called UK College of Arts & Sciences. Below is an image of where the flickr button is on our A&S website homepage.

 

4. When you have successfully surfed to our flickr website account, UK College of Arts & Sciences, find your desired image by searching through the photostream, or more efficiently by clicking on the sets link shown here...

 

 

End of the Semester Awards: Congrats to Our Outstanding A&S Faculty and Students

As the semester comes to a close, I want to take a moment to recognize several faculty members and students who were recently honored for their outstanding accomplishments.

Six UK professors have been recognized for their excellence in the classroom with the UK Alumni Association 2012 Great Teacher Awards. Beginning in 1961, the Great Teacher Award is the oldest continuous award that recognizes teaching at UK – the nominations are made by students. A&S faculty include Arne Bathke, director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Statistics and director of the Applied Statistics Laboratory; Eric Christianson, associate professor in the Department of History; and Ana Rueda, chairwoman and professor of Peninsular Spanish Literature in the Department of Hispanic Studies. The recipients will be honored at the UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award Recognition Dinner on Jan. 17, 2012. They are scheduled for further honors at Rupp Arena during the Arkansas vs. Kentucky men’s basketball game later that evening.

Off Model

Animators refer to a deviation from a cartoon character's model sheet or original design as "off model." I've adopted the term to speak about brand and identity guidelines with students. The hilarious website, Cake Wrecks has provided this perfect, local example of "off model" content in the wild.

Off Model

While jarring - surely, you can admit there's something whimsical and charming about this. It'd never pass snuff as a promotional image for the university (for good reason) but it has a certain je ne sais quoi.

Compare it to the following. This is also off model but probably gets a little more respect (via Gannadene at Deviant Art):

UK Logo by Gannedene

Sounds That Have Disappeared

While catching up with Robert Krulwich's blog, I was struck by the entry about sounds. The sounds of things that are no longer ubiquitous; though I remember rotary phones and watched film strips as a young kid, these were displaced by more modern technologies, which have been displaced yet again!

This entry, "What I Still Hear: Sounds That Have Disappeared" features lots of recordings of old bits of technology doing their stuff, and then some more contemporary versions of similar technologies (or at least, similar in intent or effect). As a podcaster, I know that ambient sounds can make or break a recording... or add some unexpected sound effects. (Does anyone recall the Janis Joplin song with the typewriter in it? The Moldy Peaches song with the phone ringing? Ah, the joys of field recording...)

Some sounds that have stayed the same in my lifetime: planes overhead, freight trains outside, and emergency vehicle sirens. I suppose when we get flying cars, bullet trains and travel internationally by teleportation machine, these sounds will change along with the technology.

The End of the Semester, and My First Year

Well, very soon winter break will be upon us, and with it comes the anniversary of A&S hiring me.

When I first started here a year ago, almost everything was new.  I'd made and edited videos before, but nothing like what I had to do when I started working.  It was like going from swimming in the kiddie pool to be dropped somewhere in the Pacific and having to swim just as well.  I had to ask around for help with nearly all my early projects.  It's amazing that the senior employees didn't get sick of me and chuck me out the window after a point.

My early videos were...less than stellar, to say the least.  Small errors that completely escaped me, but were obvious to anyone else who'd been working here longer than me.  Many edits were involved, if editing could salvage the wrecks I'd made.  It was panic-inducing to not be sure that my work was on par with what we expected to produce, as far as quality and timeliness goes.  Many nights, I went to sleep believing that I was completely in over my head.

Designing online education programs

Toyota Unveils High-tech Car Ahead of Show by associatedpress I was waiting at the help desk and in order to answer my questions, the receptionist was requesting information through the computer. The lady behind the desk was frustrated and said, “common, wake up computer!” Feeling frustrated towards our computers may not be too uncommon and some researchers, like Surakka and Vanhala, suggested that our frustrated respond to a computer is similar to how we would response to another human being. They asserted that humans are born to interact with others and this inclination of social interaction causes humans to respond to inanimate objects in an emotional way. Toyota recently had a press conference in which they talked about their idea of future cars and the CEO said, “ a car must appeal to the emotion of its owner.” In other words, it is important for the car designer to design cars that can respond to its owner’s emotions.