… should be mandatory in every school curricula (PDF link). (via Boing Boing)

An infographic about grade inflation, a pretty universal reality in Western universities as insititutions — despite an ambiguous rhetoric of ‘excellence’ — create pressures for higher grades.

Short of putting direct pressure on professors (as it happens in the countries where class averages are taken into account in performance evaluations), sometimes the curricula are designed in a way that encourages low standards; and the system is designed to make it hard to fail students (giving the students lots of second opportunities not to, having the professor go through a bureaucracy to fail a student, etc). That said, while not being fanatical about it, I know the bell curve tends to be a fact of life, so I’m almost always going to give out a lot more ‘B’s and ‘C’s. ‘A’s should really be exceptional.

Proper 3D modelling is, like Russian, welding or fencing, the kind of thing I would like to learn in my next life, because I just can’t feel the definite tug of motivation in the current one. But should I suddently feel up to it now, this looks like a good starting point for learning Blender.

Lots and lots of documentaries and lectures.