This journal, with the exception of some occasional entries, is entirely friends only.

Holy Crap!

Dr. Horrible has been reposted to Hulu with closed captioning! That's just too many levels of awesome.

This is it, folks. Finally, we have a decent bill introduced in Congress to update the accessibility of new and digital media.

The Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008 was introduced about a month ago, and it aims to get media providers off their collective asses when it comes to internet videos, digital devices and other new fangled things and make them accessible to the deaf and blind.

This includes requiring the movie and tv studios that put their programming on the internet to provide captioning, and to provide captioning for their content that is on the net but older, but previously had captioning for television, etc. This is also goes for video descriptions for the blind. And the providers will have to do with within 18 months of the bill's pasage. Also: ever been at a strange tv and tried in vain to turn on the captions? (well, I have) The bill would require remotes to have a "closed captioning" button and tv's to have the captioning option in the top of the menu, rather than buried in the obscure settings.

So, what you do is write your representative and tell them to support this bill and vote for it. Also write your senators and ask that they introduce this bill in the Senate.

I'm too tired right now, but tomorrow I'll post the text of what I'm writing.

Some damn fool (me) has decided to start a blog that focuses on astronomy education research:

Teaching Astronomy Blog

I looked around and could not find another blog that discussed astronomy and physics education in way that I would like to see it. Most astronomy blogs (even ones that claim to be about education) are mainly current events and pictures. So I thought I might take a stab at it.

The blog will also give me the chance to cull together the resources that I have been collecting, and the resources/activities that I have been developing. I'm hoping that the blog can get enough visibility that people will use it.

I already have constructed what I think is a pretty good links sidebar, with a lot of good web resources.

Check out the new blog and tell your teacher friends to visit it :-)

For you LJ'ers, I made a syndication of the blog: teachingastro

Oh, and I'm not abandoning LJ. I just found Blogger to be more friendly for designing a public blog.

Amber's NPO, Global Deaf Connection, is having a fundraiser next Thursday (May 24th). If you live in Minneapolis/St. Paul, consider going to Ten Thousand Villages and buying something between the hours of 5PM and 8PM. 20% of everything sold will be donated to GDC. Ten Thousand Villages is a cool little store with fair trade knick knacks from all over.

Information on GDC: Global Deaf Connection

Store Info: Ten Thousand Villages. Only in-store sales will count, and only from 5-8PM next Thursday!

For those interested in Astronomy (and science in general) Education, here's an article that I find myself reading and rereading. It's a few years old, but shouldn't fail to stir even my non-astronomer friends:

Astronomy Education in the United States - by Andrew Fraknoi