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Welcome to Anna in the Air, Under the Sky, By the Fire, and Around Baltimore, your
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daily podcast briefing of all the goings-ons, ins and rounds, arts and ideas,
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Sudbury School. So today is Wondrous Wednesday. I've just finished recording
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that podcast, so you can find that adjacently to this one. It's about
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evolution and the power of combinatorics in the production from two
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people producing a third. So that was fun. Today we had our first J.C. since we were
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back. We had some cases since Friday, but weather prevented us from being outside.
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It was a very large case, so to get everybody involved, that's what was
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required. We also had school meeting. And that was also the first time since we've
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been back in person, and that was fun. We approved a variety of things. The
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purchase of a $400 inflatable big projection screen so we can have movie
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night whenever we want. We also approved the purchase of a $400 Oculus Quest
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device to hopefully encourage VR kind of experimentation with, you know, people
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still online if they happen to be able to connect. I guess these programs
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often have a computer version, so that can be helpful if they don't have an
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Oculus Quest, but it sounds like Oculus Quest are pretty cool. It is owned by
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Facebook, so that kind of made many of us sad. But other than that, what's
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interesting about the Oculus Quest is that it's a standalone, at least the most
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recent version, it's a standalone device that does not require a PC to be connected
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to, and so that dramatically increases the usability and wonder of it all. Let's
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see, what else? We also implemented, well, created a new rule that should
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hopefully clarify the attendance stuff in this current times. We do have
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unlimited personal days, and so it wasn't really clear to what extent people still
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had to obey the 11 to 3 stuff or, you know, coming in regularly or not. I mean
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obviously not, but we wanted to make it clear that, you know, if you're not
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attending regularly, we still welcome you to come in, but we want to know when you
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are coming in before you come in, just so we know to expect you. Also, if you are
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having a schedule that's different than our core hours of 11 to 3 when here,
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then also to let the attendance clerk know so that we can understand all that.
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We expect people who come in to basically be here until 3 in the very
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least, but again, this year is different and we're cool with that. We
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just want to make sure the attendance clerk knows everything about that. We are
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hoping to be able to entice, well I don't know if entice is the right word, accommodate maybe
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people who are online and want to come in for a bit, maybe a couple hours
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outside, you know, kind of like we had photos, but now for others or any kind of
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other arrangements that make it so it's easier for people to be here because we
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think that's important. Let's see, you know, like there was something else, oh
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yes, we've also decided to go with these big kind of drill in tent stakes
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for re-raising our tent. The rebar in the fall that we put into the ground, it
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worked, but over time it would loosen in the ground, so Phil would have to keep
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checking them in the morning and tighten them up, you know, and so this should
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hopefully be a lot sturdier. We do get some strong winds around here so that's
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good. We don't want any kind of problems with our tents. We're very safety
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conscious. What else? So yeah, that might be all it from school meeting that I can
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remember. We do have a hike on Friday that was announced a few times. There
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isn't much room for transporting students from here to there, so those who
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want to go on the hike should ideally have some way of accommodating that, so
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hopefully we'll see a bunch of people on Friday at the hike. It's always awesome.
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Also a little bit of staff news, we are rapidly getting to the point where, well,
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all five staff have been had the first round vaccination and the second rounds
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are coming up for us, so hopefully in a few weeks we'll all have our second
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vaccination and be done, and then a couple weeks after that of course then
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they say that you're about as good as well vaccinated as you can be, so that's
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exciting. Today we had a lot of slime making. I believe an entire gallon of glue
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got used up. That was quite the mess. The students did a decent job of cleaning up
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a lot of it, but you know it's a big job, and some students definitely got a
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little on the messy side, so hopefully their parents appreciate just how much
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they learn from making huge messes, and we appreciate the parents for taking
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care of, you know, their clothing and so forth. What else? There was some wall
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climbing all over the place, and oh yes, our hallway bathroom sink pulled away
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from the wall yesterday, and so Phil has been repairing that. It looks like we
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might need to get a new sink, one that would be more stable, you know, would have
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a base. The wall is not actually that great well designed for hanging a big
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heavy sink from it, so looking forward to having all that done soon, and I think
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that's pretty much it. Well I hope you all have a great day. I hope I didn't
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forget too much. Oh, tomorrow is Article Club. The article is actually from me. You
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can find it in Discord, but I just want to plug it in case anyone listening to
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this wants to do that. I'm pulling up Discord, and it always seemed to take a
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long time to start up. All right, Article Club says, yes, so the title of the piece
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is "I don't know, Timmy. Being God is a big responsibility." It's about a
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completely BS idea of a quantum computer that can simulate our universe perfectly.
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So the idea can't be done, but certainly the extrapolation of what it would mean
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can be thought through, and that's what this article is about, and I thought was
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pretty cool. So that's what we'll be talking about tomorrow at one o'clock. I
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think we'll be in the library voice channel, but you can find us in Discord
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somewhere. All right, I think that's it for today. Have a good one, and see you
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when I see you. Oh, and there's also some
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chair stuff going on in the field, so that's fun. Bye bye.