Month: July 2003

Who do you trust more?

A recently conducted survey has found that a majority of Americans believe Eminem is more truthful than President Bush.

Questions relating to trust were posed to 1,016 Americans, and 53 per cent of those found the rapper’s rhymes more credible and believable than Bush’s speeches.

Somehow it doesn’t surprise me. His lyrics are socially concious and on the mark, and his tracks have some pretty good beats. I find his voice to be annoying though and have trouble listening to his work for any extended length of time. The first hiphop album that I bought was Enter the 36 Chambers, so to me, hiphop will always sound like a bunch of angry black guys. That album is raw and classic, Eminem just doesn’t do it for me.

Super Balls

I found this crazy explanation of the activity I did with the kids this afternoon. Basically, we made bouncy balls with sodium silicate and ethanol; didnt go into that much background. That article has some choice instructions though:

Step 10: Wearing plastic gloves, place the polymer between the palms of your hands and gently rotate until a spherical ball that no longer crumbles is formed. BE PATIENT – discover a technique. Moisten the ball occasionally by holding it in a small stream of water from the faucet.

Step 11: Bounce your ball (squeeze it, stretch it, step on it – find out about it!). Observe and compare the properties of your ball to the properties of ethyl alcohol and sodium silicate.

Step 12: Compare your ball with those of the other members of the class. How many properties can you compare? (size, height of bounce, etc)

I’m either too immature to me teaching or spending a lot of time with high school kids has affected me. Forget that, somebody had to have had a sense of humour when they wrote that thing. I spent two or three hours making those bloody balls.