Video, Images and Sounds – Good Tools #14 — from goodtools.substack.com by Robin Good
Specifically in this issue:
- Free Image Libraries
- Image Search Engines
- Free Illustrations
- Free Icons
- Free Stock Video Footage
- Free Music for Video and Podcasts
Video, Images and Sounds – Good Tools #14 — from goodtools.substack.com by Robin Good
Specifically in this issue:
From DSC:
As a bit of context here…
After the Jewish people had been exiled to various places, the walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins until the fifth century B.C.E.. At that point, a man named Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem as the provincial governor and completed the repairs of the walls. The verses below really stuck out at me in regards to what a leader should behave/look/be like. He was a servant leader, not demanding choice treatment, not squeezing the people for every last drop, and not using his position to treat himself extra right.
I don’t like to get political on this blog, as I already lose a great deal of readership due to including matters of faith. But today’s leaders (throughout all kinds of organizations) need to learn from Nehemiah’s example, regardless of whatever their beliefs/faiths may be.
14 Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year—twelve years—neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. 15 But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels[a] of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. 16 Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we[b] did not acquire any land.
17 Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. 18 Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.
19 Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people.
Resisting the Youth Sports Industrial Complex — from educationnext.org by Jonathan V. Last; via the The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2023 from educationnext.org
Children’s sports are corrupted, but parents don’t have to play along
Excerpt (emphasis by DSC):
That’s the point of Linda Flanagan’s Take Back the Game, a book about the corruption of youth sports. It should be required reading for every parent. It should be handed out in the hospital along with What to Expect the First Year and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.
Flanagan, a journalist and former running coach, has pulled off a rare trick: she diagnoses a societal sickness, traces the roots of the malady, and prescribes a cure.
The problem is that we have a Youth Sports Industrial Complex that forces kids into single-sport specialization before they hit middle school. It demands that children be involved in (expensive) club and travel sports programs starting in elementary school.
Her first dictum is to delay entry into organized sports as long as possible. Don’t sign them up for pee-wee soccer to get a jump on the club scene—send them out into the yard to kick the ball around. Have a catch with them. Shoot baskets. Let them tumble and do cartwheels in the grass. As Flanagan says, “Just let them play.”
…
Another key precept from Flanagan: The family is more important than kids’ sports.
…
Perhaps the most valuable lesson from Take Back the Game is that parents have agency.
From DSC:
I can’t agree more with Stephen and Simon here:
I’ll never stop blogging: it’s an itch I have to scratch – and I don’t care if it’s an outdated format
Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, Dec 26, 2023
I have various blogs for different types of writing, some popular, some deliciously obscure. And there’s no such thing as an outdated format. I write about what I like to write about.
Excerpt of the article by Simon Reynolds:
Even if nobody reads them, I’ll always be drawn to the freedom blogs offer. I can ramble about any subject I choose.
…
I miss the inter-blog chatter of the 2000s, but in truth, connectivity was only ever part of the appeal. I’d do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone.
Two other items from Stephen that caught my eye recently. The first item below is a great little AI tool that lets you input the URL of a video and receive a nice summary of the video.
Summarize.Tech
Summarize, LLC, Dec 23, 2023
Commentary by Stephen Downes
Newspocalypse now
Mike Orren, Nieman Lab, Dec 19, 2023
Commentary by Stephen Downes
.
This is significant because trends in education have pretty reliably followed trends in media by about ten years. Closed access classes and tuition revenue may feel pretty secure right now, but in a decade the bottom will be falling out of the market and higher education will be in the same shambles the news industry is today. “We will learn that the less something looks like what we have now, the better chance it has of being the thing on the other side of death.”