Thomas Wagner Nielsen . com

A list of awesome applications to install on top of the standard Ubuntu installation:

OCR

• easy-ocr

GTD

• Getting Things Gnome!

Word processing

• TextRoom

Sound

• Audacity

Internet

• BlogBridge
• gFTP
• Transmission BitTorrent client
• Skype

Video

• VLC media player

CAD

• Eagle

Drawing

• Freemind

Scanning

• Simple Scan

This website deserves a back-link:

Impossibility.org

It’s absolutely spitting out awesome unregistered domains – John Forsythe, you rock!

I wish this tool was available years ago, with all the stupid domain names I’ve come up with through the years…

… stupidfew.com … stupidmaybe.com … stupidspam.com … stupidbuildings.com … stupidtalking … (this is even more time-consuming that Facebook )

… anythingfacebook.com … (I can’t stop! )

From http://www.b.dk/nationalt/danskerne-klar-til-eliteklasser.

By Bodil Jessen, July 18th 2011.

Translated into Danish by Thomas Wagner Nielsen, July 18th 2011.

“Danes ready for elite classes

One class for the talented soccer kids. Another for the talented mathematicians and a third for the illustrators. A majority of Danes are ready to have elite classes in public schools.

There have to be elite classes not only for talented sports children but also for children who are skilled in math, language and the physical sciences. Minister of Education Troels Lund Poulsen (V) [Liberal party] now declares himself open to more elite classes in public schools.

The government is working on an education talent strategy, where talent counselors must be introduced in schools and talent policy in municipalities, among other things. The Minister of Education has also granted exemption for 19 public schools with elite sports classes, but so far elite classes for academically talented students have been flatly rejected.

“I am open to the suggestion that elite classes should not only be for the children who are good at sports. It is a necessary discussion we must have. We must do something more for the talents, and therefore we also wish that all municipalities must have a talent policy. I have not currently taken stock whether elite classes must be something that municipalities must offer or can offer. I will talk to the municipalities about that,” Troels Lund Poulsen says.

He would like to see that more municipalities do as Esbjerg, where Blåbjerggårdskolen in recent years has had the “Da Vinci program”, which is targeted at students needing academic challenges in the 7th-9th grade. He does not immediately believe though, that there will be a need for introducing an outright admission test for elite classes for academically talented children.

Among the population there is also support of elite classes. 56 percent of Danes think that it would be a good idea to set up elite classes for pupils who are particularly skilled at sports, academic subjects or artistic subjects. A survey that TNS Gallup has conducted for Berlingske shows that. SF voters [Socialist People’s Party] are the most skeptical of elite classes, but even in SF voters there are more in favor than against elite classes.

Good for intelligent children

Within the association Gifted Children, for the children who are among the five percent most gifted, spokesman Peter Grubert immediately welcomed the creation of elite classes. Last week, the association hosted a summer camp for the children to provide them with specific challenges and enable them to meet like-minded, and elite classes will also provide the children with challenges in everyday life, Peter Grubert says.

“It is certainly good for our children that the school system becomes as flexible as possible. Our children will more easily be able to get more challenges within their subjects in an elite class. But it is important that it does not become a standard solution since elite classes are not the panacea for our children. They also need to spend time with children with other foundations. The most important thing is that the teachers in general are upgraded to become better at mixed ability teaching,” Peter Grubert says.

Benefits from diversity

The president of the Headmasters Association [Skolelederforeningen], Anders Balle, warns against elite classes though, whether it is for sports or academic subjects.

“There must be offers available to the talented children, but all studies show that both the less talented and the talented students will lose something if you divide the students by ability. The talented children also need skills so they can associate with children who are different from themselves,” Anders Balle says.

The Gallup survey also shows that a strong majority of Danes would like to see that it is possible for public schools to divide students for a whole year at a time so that the academically strong and academically weak attend their separate teams. 58 percent agree or mostly agree with this, while 32 percent disagree or mostly disagree.

“I am a little more open to that and would like that we experimented with that. It must be flexible teams, but if the teachers find it reasonable, one might divide the classes for three-quarters of the year or for the whole year,” Anders Balle says.