Stemwinder

Moving the Works...

2011-06-09T12:37:00.001-04:00

I'm going to try WordPress, and a new blog name.

Find me here:

http://preoccupedia.wordpress.com/

NYT Fails to Explain the Adjunct Problem

2010-01-01T20:54:00.001-05:00

Strategy - Faculty - The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor - NYTimes.com

Just by aping the advice that students who dislike their adjuncts can go to the department chair and ask for a different prof, this article's author betrays how little she's thought about the problem of adjuncts in academe. The chair hired the adjunct, often, so this is just saying, "Hey, if you don't like your prof, complain and get a new one!" No matter if the prof has tenure-line status. Chairs will love that, no doubt. As for adjuncts, they can savor the way this piece suggests that their job makes them unreliable and suspect. And they can love how every student who goes to the chair to ask for a tenured prof instead of them is reducing their chances of being re-hired for the next year. (Because the message there is not "hire more tenure-line profs." It's "fire this adjunct.")

Yup, there are big problems in the adjunct system. Nope, this article won't do much to help you understand them.

Try again, please.

Lost Chaplin on ebay.

2009-11-07T13:49:00.001-05:00

Lost Charlie Chaplin film bought on eBay for $5 - Telegraph
Why are my eBay purchases so lame?

A Ha Breaks Up

2009-10-17T02:47:00.001-04:00

Here's an MTV.com link to the video for "Take On Me," a perfect piece of 80s pop. A perfect piece of anytime pop, really. And one of the defining videos of the early MTV era.

Of course, I know that hearing A Ha makes you want to hear this:

Or maybe it was this:

A Triumph of Regulation over Humanity

2009-10-13T17:00:00.001-04:00

The interesting thing about this story, addressing the expulsion of an elementary kid from school, is the way it veers away from the ridiculousness of the boy's punishment (45 days in reform school for bringing a Cub Scout mess kit utensil to school). You can't make a rule that covers every situation the same. You have to hire teachers and administrators who *can* make smart decisions and then *let* them make those decisions. This is *less safe* than going nuclear on every kid who wields a pointy stick like a sword. But it is also more human, and more prone to create an environment where kids learn human values and wisdom. Maybe public schools need these kinds of rules to avoid liability, but that suggests deep, deep trouble in public school land.

Watch the story veer into the suggestion that a teacher needs law enforcement training in order to begin addressing a situation like Zachary Christie's:

It’s a Fork, It’s a Spoon, It’s a ... Weapon? - NYTimes.com

“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.

Really? Really really?

We're Shooting the Moon

2009-10-09T12:09:00.001-04:00

The Associated Press: NASA to moon: Get ready, here we come

Two NASA spacecraft are barreling toward the moon at twice the speed of a bullet, about to crash Friday into a lunar crater...

So Crazy He Broke the Translator. Yikes.

2009-09-26T18:48:00.001-04:00

Translator collapsed during Khadafy's rambling diatribe

That is all.

One Heckler Disrupting Staged Political Drama

2009-09-11T02:29:00.001-04:00

YouTube - Toledo Mayoral Candidate Ben Konop Heckled at Press Conference

Man, people make me laugh. People make me laugh, man.

Counting Crows Comes Up wth a Brilliant Way to Tour

2009-09-01T01:30:00.001-04:00

Traveling Circus and Medicine Show - Counting Crows, Michael Franti and Spearhead, and Augustana Official Tour Page

Why Can't R2D2 Talk?

2009-08-21T19:28:00.001-04:00

For some reason I imagine that George Lucas has layers of staff people whose job it is to keep him from seeing "commentary" of this kind of Star Wars.

AMC - Blogs - SciFi Scanner - John Scalzi's Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design

Laser swords are still awesome, though.

Reasons to Like Bob Dylan

2009-08-16T00:54:00.001-04:00

Bob Dylan was picked up by the police last month in New Jersey. This version from ABC has more detail, but Dylan fans will especially enjoy the first and last lines of this shorter version.

For Fans of Kludges and Impending Disasters

2009-08-15T12:32:00.001-04:00

There, I Fixed It: Epic Kludges + Jury Rigs

Department of Overthinking It

2009-08-15T00:29:00.001-04:00

The linked story comes up with a complicated reason why hipster boys have decided beer bellies are cool. I have an easier one. They bought really tight t-shirts that were cool when they were 22. They still buy the same size, from the same stores, because that's what guys do. But they're 27 now, and they haven't worked out in a while, and, even if they did, they'd still have older, different bodies. Like a prof of mine once said to me, "Everything starts to go at 25!" They'll buy new shirts soon. And new cargo shorts.

Noticed - It’s Hip to Be Round - NYTimes.com

Clunkonomics

2009-08-13T00:42:00.001-04:00

So... Cash for Clunkers is kind of a stinker. And it doesn't seem that hard to explain or understand why. C'mon congress. C'mon journalists. Do better.

The Godzilla Solution - Forbes.com

John Hughes

2009-08-10T20:39:00.001-04:00

You may have already seen this, but if not, it's a worthwhile tribute to John Hughes:

We'll Know When We Get There: Sincerely, John Hughes

13-Year-Old and His Ghostwriter Try Out Walkman

2009-06-29T11:39:00.001-04:00

This story about a 13-year-old kid trying out an old Sony Walkman is making the rounds.

It's a funny and smart piece, and I do buy that all these thoughts could have been had by a bright 13-year-old, even if I think some hack journalist or editor may have punched up the prose a bit in places. E.g., Only a small percentage of middle schoolers might come up with this sentence: "Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those?), which added even more bulk." Especially the "remember those" part.

Favorite bit: Where he tries hitting rewind and stopping it randomly to create a kind of shuffle play. This is the way we always use new-to-us tech, right? We try to make it do what our "old' tech does...

Blood-Curdling Tales of Bureaucratic Run-Around: Italian Airport Edition

2009-05-31T02:24:00.001-04:00

Teaser for Michael J. Totten's Blog Post, "The Worst Airline Company in the World"

"After spending several weeks each in Iraq and Lebanon at the end of 2008, I bought a plane ticket to the U.S. from Beirut on December 22 and figured I had plenty of time to get home for Christmas. I had no idea, though, that I had purchased my ticket from the worst airline company in the world – Italy’s national carrier Alitalia – and that a two-hour layover in Rome would turn into an ordeal that lasted longer than a week."

Could raise your blood pressure just reading this. You've been warned.

Napkin Art

2009-05-30T21:05:00.001-04:00

Christoph Niemann explains his relationship to coffee using coffee and napkins.

Movie Review Moments

2009-05-22T11:28:00.001-04:00

A. O. Scott's Terminator: Salvation review contains the awesome made up word of the day:

"A detailed recap of the franchise’s empretzeled chronology will not be possible here."

And Scott's Night at the Museum: Battle of Ben Stiller review gives a nice shout out to Amy Adams, who is funnier than you.

"Ms. Adams, impersonating Earhart as a flame-haired screwball-comedy heroine, is entirely delightful, though whether the pioneering pilot would ever have developed a crush on Ben Stiller is a matter for
scholars to ponder."

That is all.

Sea Worm

2009-03-20T17:15:00.001-04:00

Super Creepy Sea Worm

That is all.

Prawo Jazdy

2009-02-22T11:44:00.001-05:00

AFP: Ireland cracks case of worst Polish driver

Great Live Music: La Blogotheque

2009-02-15T15:41:00.001-05:00

LA BLOGOTHEQUE

If you liked the Black Cab Sessions, you'll like this, too.

Ten tips from Whedon

2009-02-07T19:53:00.001-05:00

Scriptwriting in the UK: Joss Whedon's Top 10 Writing Tips

I enjoyed the mix, here, of realism about process (and discipline) and desire to tell a good, human story.

Black Cab Sessions

2009-01-17T23:05:00.001-05:00

This just makes me happy. These guys are getting great musicians to play one song live while taking a cab ride. It'll make you happy, too, I bet.

BLACK CAB SESSIONS

Picasso Versus Cézanne

2008-12-26T17:26:00.001-05:00

A thought provoking article about art, practice, late blooming, early genius, and related phenomena. Best bits, for my money, touch on exploration, experimentation, research, hard work, and friendship. This one's long, but it'll be worthwhile especially for young creative types.

"Late Bloomers" (by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker)

A Pedagogy Geek "Woohoo" for SlideShare's PowerPoint Plugin

2008-12-16T13:53:00.001-05:00

SlideShare.net has just released a free PowerPoint plugin that allows users to upload presentations to SlideShare from within PowerPoint. Since my new university-supplied tablet PC means I'll be doing more with PowerPoint in the near future (and less with Mac's friendlier Keynote app), I'm excited to try this out. It looks like a quick-and easy way to post those presentations I'd like my students to be able to access after class and to keep those presentations up to date.

Lifehacker on the SlideShare PowerPoint plugin

SlideShare, PowerPoint

NYT Notable Books for 2008

2008-12-13T04:08:00.001-05:00

The list is out. I always like to look at the list.

Holiday Books - 100 Notable Books of 2008 - NYTimes.com

Muncie News

2008-12-07T01:08:00.001-05:00

"Smoke Break" Arrest
Samurai Arrest
Estrada on Patrol

Ware + Ira Glass

2008-11-20T16:56:00.001-05:00

Chris Ware Animation from This American Life.

Ware's visual style, Glass's radio style, Lord of the Flies stuff on an elementary school playground. What more could you ask for?

Mini Nuke Power

2008-11-09T14:03:00.001-05:00

Affordable nuclear power that would fit in your garden shed. And it sounds like it's safe and secure, too. Very interesting.

Fauxtography

2008-10-10T21:35:00.004-04:00

My writing students' homework for Monday and part of an ongoing attempt to help them rethink how they read (and "write") images:

"Re-Imaging History" (Wired, 3.8.07)
"I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop." (NYT, 8.17.08)
"Every Picture Can Tell a Lie." (Wired, 10.29.97)
Glenn Feron's Re-Touching Portfolio (Click on Pics)
Hany Farid: Profile (13 Min. Video)
"Students' Photos Altered..."
"The Passion of the Toys"
"Multi-Use Buildings"
"Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut"
Photoshop Disasters Blog:

Conquering Mars with Beach Balls

2008-09-28T15:33:00.001-04:00

Inflatable Surveillance Balls for Mars | Popular Science

What more can I say?

(Maybe this: Isn't it interesting how very little attention we give to this sort of thing? I wonder if that's good or bad for the progress of space exploration--that the public is totally distracted from it.)

PB Wiki

2008-09-02T20:32:00.001-04:00

I use it, and I like it. They've got a new free-premium-wiki-for-educators program happening that's worth a look.

Cobain Rolls Over in His Grave

2008-08-31T00:03:00.001-04:00

Oh, yikes. Goatees were sort of a grunge rock thing. I can't think of anything less grunge than this:

GoateeSaver ::: Real Men Wear Goatees

Lame and creepy. Creepy and lame. Dude. Your goatee isn't supposed to be that tidy.

via Unclutterer.com

Mr. E Goes Multimodal

2008-08-15T19:41:00.001-04:00

Mr. E has a book coming out, too:

Amazon.com: Things the Grandchildren Should Know: Mark Oliver Everett: Books

Mr. E Seeks His Dad

2008-08-15T19:25:00.001-04:00

Eels: Official Band Website

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives

Award-winning BBC documentary film about EELS leader and his father.

I'm looking forward to seeing this; Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a., Mr. E) has written some of my favorite songs, and I imagine he'll bring his quirky insight to this film, too.

Coraline Film

2008-08-13T16:24:00.001-04:00

Neil Gaiman's Coraline interpreted by Henry Selick (who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas). Could be great:

IGN Video: Coraline Movie Behind the Scenes - Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman Bring Coraline to Life

A Bit of Verve (I Can't Change, I Can't Change)

2008-07-30T02:59:00.001-04:00

The Verve seem to have a new album coming out. Here's their sample song:

It's no "Bittersweet Symphony," but it's okay, eh? For ol' times sake:

Spokane, 20 Things

2008-07-21T20:17:00.001-04:00

1. I am a father.

2. My son is in Indiana with my wife. They'll come here on the train soon.

3. Here is Spokane, which rhymes with "can," not train.

4. I am here.

5. The Jeep's a/c died fully just before Wyoming, which is a hot, windy state to pass through with your windows open in July.

6. My boxes and stuff arrived this morning, in a truck driven by a Polish fella named Raphael.

7. There are lots of boxes. There is lots of stuff. There is a leak in a pipe in the basement, so I must call the plumber.

8. Also, Comcast. I shall have cable Internet after I call Comacast.

9. Comcastic! Bam! (I saw the new Batman. There were no cartoon
punching-sound bubbles. There was suspense and death. It was good,
but was it the kind of good you watch over and over? Who knows?
Zappo!)

10. Right now, there isn't even any Wi-Fi to steal in my neighborhood.

11. This coffee house is pretty good and has library tables and free Wi-Fi. It's called the Rocket.

12. The free Wi-Fi at the Dude Rancher hotel in Billings didn't really
work. But at least it was free. Free nothing. Thanks for nothing for
free, Dude (Rancher).

13. Diamond the dog seems to like to sleep on the landings of staircases when there is too much chaos.

14. It's good to drive 2000 miles with a friend and to get a little sunburn on your arm after the A/C goes out.

15. There are poisonous spiders in Spokane that are different from Indiana spiders. This is a concern.

16. There were prairie dogs in the backyard of Josh's apartment in the
middle of a Denver suburb. Diamond had never seen such messed up
rabbits. "I would like to chase the freak rabbits, please," she said.
"I would like them to not hide in those deep holes, please," she said.

17. Bill Mallonee played here last night, and we saw him play, Todd,
Heidi, and I. Very intimate, very nice. How does he make any money?
I'm glad he still plays; it has cost him, and it has benefited me. I
felt good about paying the cover charge.

18. Sometimes you want to include a lyric that you can't quite
remember, about how you hope people remember the best parts of you even
when they know the worst parts of you. Something like that. Something
sung like Bill would sing it. Something that makes nostalgia hurt.

19. I am scruffy and need to shave.

20. I am here. I am go-getting, and I am sleeping. Say hello with email or Facebook if you can't say hello in person.

Hellboy Review

2008-07-11T09:51:00.001-04:00

Let's take a moment and contemplate the series of events that led to the typing of this sentence:

"'Hellboy 2' is not a great movie — its narrative is at once too busy and too perfunctory — but like that sassy little tumor, it is lovable in its prodigious grotesquery."

That is all.

Chess Boxing

2008-07-08T17:36:00.001-04:00

Hmm. If chess players can do this, why not panelists at academic conferences?

That is all.

I've just sold...

2008-07-06T18:16:00.003-04:00

...my drums.

To the left, what was left after 20 years.

They were my first major purchase, at about age 13. So, yup. I owned them for about 20 years, and I hit them a lot, and they liked it. I think I got my money's worth. (And I think I'll buy new snazzy drums when we get to Spokane. Oh, yes. There will be new drums.)

And how many things grew from that purchase? Playing with small bands, recording music, creating flyers and newsletters with paper, tape, and computers, calling around to find gigs, creative differences and confrontations, etc. and on and on. (As a teacher I think, "Look at all those invitations to communication and composition.")

In honor of the passing of the drums (into other hands), here's a song I recorded with them back in the day. (Spiegel's basement. 1996 or '97.)

PS: Maybe later I'll scan a pic of the set in all its glory, six drums across the top, more cymbals, and 15 year old me behind them. Depends on how much nostalgia energy I have to spare over the next week.

eBookery

2008-06-26T17:24:00.001-04:00

This isn't the e-reader I'm waiting for, but I'm glad to see them trying to create a device in response to what we actually tend to do while reading:

YouTube - the dual-display ebook reader project

New Wolf Parade Track

2008-06-20T10:58:00.001-04:00

Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: Wolf Parade: "Call It a Ritual" [MP3/Stream]

That is all.

UsedCardboardBoxes.com

2008-05-28T09:03:00.001-04:00

We're taking a chance on boxes from these folks for our westward move:

UsedCarboardBoxes.com

I'll report back on whether it's as good as it seems...

Update: They have a UsedCarboardBoxes YouTube channel. And why not?

The Multimedia Future of Creative Writing (And All Writing)

2008-05-28T08:54:00.001-04:00

Information Age - WSJ.com

In "Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age" – published in hardcover last November, and now available for the Kindle – author Jeff Gomez challenges authors and publishers to think creatively about the new medium: "It's not about the page versus the screen in a technological grudge match. It's about the screen doing a dozen things the page can't do." Digitized words should count for more. "What's going to be transformed isn't just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passages with others."

I'm very interested in where this kind of conversation is going to go. Of course, the conversation isn't going to be steered by columnists. It's going to be steered by the actual practices of young artists impatient to compose and distribute their work in multiple media. Why--if you grew up with not only word processors but also video cameras, cheap editing, audio recording, photoshopping, and all the other perks of 21st century computing--would you be content to tell stories in just one way?

Spiral of Resourcefulness?

2008-05-01T08:09:00.001-04:00

For Europe’s Middle-Class, Stagnant Wages Stunt Lifestyle - New York Times

At the end of every month, they blow past their bank account’s $900 overdraft limit, plunging themselves deeper into a spiral of greater resourcefulness and regret.

The story is important in its own ways, but this isn't a post about the story. It's a post about how the NYT editorial staff let "spiral of resourcefulness" appear in the paper. Spiral of . . . what?

Aaaaaaaaaaaa...Mr. T!

2008-04-30T12:16:00.003-04:00

Um. I have no good excuse for posting this.

Technorati Tags: Mr. T

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

2008-04-27T18:44:00.002-04:00

Hey, Graduating People...

I haven't read this. But it looks sorta awesome. (Will report back when I actually do read it.) (That may or may not be soon.)

Johnny Bunko trailer on Vimeo

Technorati Tags: Daniel Pink, Johnny Bunko

Film Noir References in Raines

2008-04-24T00:25:00.002-04:00

I just watched the pilot from Jeff Goldblum's now-cancelled TV series Raines.

It's here, Hulu.com: Raines

It's quirky Goldblum fun, for what it's worth. I enjoyed it. And then I Googled to see if anyone had pointed out all the references it makes to old noir detective films. It seems that no one has, which makes me guess that they didn't quite hook their target demographic--whatever it was--for the show.

Anyway, I haven't watched tons of films noir, but even I caught:

Setting: Victim's apartment -- This was Marlowe's apartment from Altman's The Long Goodbye.
Double Indemnity poster in that apartment. Some other posters I didn't backtrack to examine.
Dead guy in a chair in a room that felt a lot like the room where Marlowe finds Carmen in a similar chair in the Big Sleep. (Maybe a stretch here.)
Maltese Falcon on a private detective's desk. (Easy. No stretch.)

I'm sure there were more...

Not sure the show was great, but it was better than several shows that keep getting renewed.

Technorati Tags: Raines, Jeff Goldblum, film noir, Phillip Marlowe, The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008-04-16T17:28:00.001-04:00

Joss Whedon's new media musical with Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, and Neil Patrick Harris is coming.

Technorati Tags: Joss Whedon, New Media

"An Alternative to Net Neutrality" (WSJ)

2008-04-12T09:07:00.001-04:00

A Wall Street Journal editorial this morning--An Alternative to 'Net Neutrality'--argues that a new agreement between BitTorrent and Comcast shows that private-sector agreements about how to regulate bandwidth usage online can work to everyone's advantage, so long as government is also acting to make sure consumers may choose among competing Internet service providers.

Noisy Fish

2008-04-08T10:57:00.001-04:00

Run Noisy, Run Deep - The New York Times

That is all.

Technorati Tags: fish

Rock Star on Net Neutrality

2008-04-05T10:51:00.001-04:00

Damian Kulash, Jr., of this band, turns in a well-written NYT editorial on Net Neutrality.

But I don't--by the way--think this is an easy, open-and-shut issue. Articles like this one and this one give me pause, because they suggest to me that proposed net neutrality legislation, instead of making sure things stay simple, is perhaps endangering the development of certain new technologies by adding red tape and giving the tape dispensers to government regulators who don't much understand or care about technology innovation. And I think there's still a strong argument that the Internet service provider that provides the the most content at the lowest price will win; that means companies that throttle services like Skype will lose. So from this perspective, net neutrality legislation doesn't protect consumers from service providers who want to censor their content. Instead, it prohibits service providers from providing premium services and developing ways to route and manage super-high-bandwidth stuff like HD video.

Anyway, I'm still skeptical--meaning undecided--on net neutrality stuff.

(Currently the pro-legislation net neutrality people have the best metaphor: They're gonna put toll booths on the Internet! This fits with the "information superhighway" metaphor we're so used to hearing. But what if the Internet isn't exactly like a highway? Or what if it's a highway that needs to handle both local traffic and zippy interstate traffic? What if we're forcing everyone to build 2-lane highways when we need something more like the Dan Ryan in Chicago--fast in some lanes, slowed down for entry and exit in others?)

Technorati Tags: net neutrality

Dinosaurs Rock and/or Roll for Free

2008-03-30T01:31:00.001-04:00

R.E.M.'s new album is up on iLike for f-r-e-e listening. Enjoy:

R.E.M. on iLike™

Photo Bias

2008-03-27T09:20:00.001-04:00

Oh, man. Without accusing the whole NYT of bias, I think there's a clear bias here on the part of whoever picked the photos for this blurb for today's NYT email:

They should do better.

Nerds

2008-01-30T18:21:00.001-05:00

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," by Paul Graham

A very long essay with a lot of interesting ideas about the material causes of certain teenage ills. It tracked with my school experience (both good and bad), and it points to why I think it is so very important that charter schools and private schools experiment with modes of education different than the factory model that is essentially the only game in public ed.

Big Think?

2008-01-08T20:15:00.001-05:00

Well, I just watched the "What is Big Think?" video. I'm skeptical of a site that suggests it's about overcoming sound bite culture using a video full of sound bites. I like the idea of conversational postings, but I'm not sure, in that sense, that this can much improve over what's already happening in blogs and other online opinion outlets. And what I like least is that it looks like it wants to contain all its Big Thinking on the Big Think site. A more powerful idea would be to create a site containing both original commentary and easy to organize and click and peruse links to sites that are also addressing any particular issue. But, then, that's not so hard to do with Blogger, so Big Think needs to work a little harder to impress, or else I'll keep watching TED Talks for my video fix of great big ideas.

It also feels like Big Think is over-hyping its uniqueness, since so far they sound a lot like Current TV, in the end. Here's the Reuters article (which looks to me like a very moderate re-working of a press release from Big Think).

Late Semester Links for My Intro to English Studies Students

2007-12-02T17:18:00.001-05:00

A few things I've either mentioned in class or couldn't quite squeeze into a discussion:

(1) NYT Best Books 2007:

The New York Times annual "Best Books" list is one of the major sets of lists people check to find out "what's good" among any given year's publications. The books on the list don't make up a "canon," exactly, but if you want to know how a book gets a good enough reputation to be respectable, assigned in classes, and all those other things we associate with so-called "canonical" books, this is one of the places to start.

(2) The entire text of Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology, of 1915:

Ezra Pound and co., binding together some of their poems, identifying a shared style, calling it a movement. "Imagism" is one of the many actual -isms that we now talk about under the umbrella of "Modernism," an -ism term that came into common usage after the end of the period it describes.

(3) The whole of Blast: Review of the Great English Vortex, Number 1, online and downloadable as images or as PDFs:

This is form the "Vorticism" group that Ezra Pound and some of his co-conspirators in art started after Pound decided he was done with Imagism. It's a lot of fun to see what they did.

(4) Aerosmith/Run DMC, "Walk This Way," courtesy of YouTube:

Here's a strangely significant cultural moment from the early 80s when Aerosmith, an essentially washed up 70s band, teamed up with Run DMC, doing music called "rap," and suddenly rap was mainstream. (And suddenly Aerosmith had a career again, too.) There are more extreme examples of postmodern mixing, of course, but consider what we have here: two genres people thought of as separate, mashed together. It's not purely rap, it's not purely rock, but it exploits and points out the shared traits of both, breaking down the barriers between genres and forms of expressions in a way we sure might call "playful."

(5) Alanis Morissette Demystifies and Deconstructs "My Humps":

Alanis does Fergie/the BEPs. Where Fergie has constructed a celebration of come-hither-cos-you-want-me sexuality and bling, Alanis does the song in way that points to the materialism, sexual exploitation, aggression, conflict, and reduction to physicality dormant in the pop song. So (if you follow me here), Fergie's song suggests that it is modeling liberation and sexualized fun; Alanis points out that, in some ways, the opposite is true.

The "we're happy <---> they're sad" binary collapses, and Fergie's sexual ideology is demystified somewhat. And, oh yeah, Alanis's song is funny: humor can be "dangerous" to unexamined ideologies, because it points out their weaknesses and shortcomings.

(6) Favela Rising:

This film looks at communities locked into an ideology that suggests being in a "drug army" is the only option for kids; it looks at the ways Anderson Sa and AfroReggae "demystify" that belief, making clear that there are other options. Here's the trailer.

(7) The Beastles mashup:

Unfortunately, it appears DJ BC was threatened into taking down the tracks. Thanks a whole lot, Paul McCartney. (But consider here the way market-based ideas about how intellectual property should be treated can get in the way of artistic expression. Postmodernism--with its emphasis on participation--can make it very difficult to deal with ownership questions.)

(8) Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA)

This is the candy-as-AIDS exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. We talked in class about how the interactivity here--the fact that the art doesn't exist until the whole text-sender-receiver triangle comes into play--is one of the things that makes the exhibit postmodern. Also here.

(9) Free Basin:

This is the skateboarding-as-art-exhibit piece we looked at in class. You should look around at some of the other projects on this site, too.

(10) The Object D'Art Project:

These guys built an art gallery, hooked it up to a Dodge Dart, and drove it all over the country, opening up for business at festivals and Wal Mart parking lots as they went. Another example of art that depends on interaction and is premised on varied audience participation and interpretation. One of the Object D'Art guys also did this piece called "Ikea Product Test," which just sort of cracks me up.

(11) Recreational Vehicle (Water test):

A floating car made of Styrofoam, exhibited all over the place. Again: interaction and reaction are key.

Spring 08 Teaching

2007-11-25T19:41:00.000-05:00

For BSU students who have asked:

My fall courses, if all goes as planned, will be:

Eng 213: English and Technology
Eng 250: American Literature 2

Both are the MWF flavor. Eng 250 is contingent on another course having enough students in it; if it has less than required, there will be some shuffling of course assignments, and I'll be teaching a 104 instead.

It's sort of a fluke that I ended up with 213, but it should be a fun exploration of 21st century literacy--some lit, some rhetoric, some technology studies. Somewhere, I'll work in William Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum."

250 is a free for all whirlwind tour from 1865 to present. Not sure what all will go into it at this point, but we'll get some Realism, some Modernism, some PoMo, some ethnic lit, some poetry, et cetera.

Shoot me an email (or comment on this post at the blog) if you've got questions or suggestions I should hear about these courses.

(My "third" course for spring is my tech/administration duties, which will involve several things, including trying to bring RB's classrooms out of the 80s, so they won't be quite so embarrassed about being next door to the David Letterman Building's swanky new classrooms.)

Virginia Ball Center Trailer, Fall 2007

2007-10-29T17:33:00.000-04:00

Here's the trailer for the documentary being made by the current seminar (led by my dissertation advisor, Kecia McBride) at the Virginia Ball Center. A lot of the footage here, and the editing, can be credited to this guy, one of my former Eng 103 students (who is doing this very good work as a sophomore). Nice. Looking forward to seeing the finished film soon . . .

Broken Plate Submissions

2007-10-21T11:21:00.000-04:00

Ball State students:

Broken Plate submissions are due tomorrow (Monday) at midnight.
Poetry, Short Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Short Screenplays, One-act Plays.

Get 'em in.

Simon Norfolk on his NYT Photography

2007-10-21T09:16:00.001-04:00

Simon Norfolk talks about his photography work for the NYT here. Gorgeous images and some thoughtful commentary on what he was capturing in these photos and why.

Writing Colloquium at the Earlham School of Religion

2007-10-15T08:20:00.001-04:00

For BSU/Muncie folks:

Earlham School of Religion Ministry of Writing Colloqium is coming up, Oct. 26-27, 2007. 25 bucks for students. Quite a bit more for non-students. Haven Kimmel, who holds a BSU degree, is the keynote speaker. Richmond is a fairly short drive from Muncie.

That is all.

Late 19th-Century Chicago Stuff

2007-10-09T19:01:00.001-04:00

Random cool sites from today's work on a Devil in the White City essay/presentation:

Old Chicago History and Architecture in Vintage Postcards.

Illinois Institute of Technology's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 site.

The Neverending Alumni Update Page

2007-10-06T08:53:00.001-04:00

Recent college grad Alice Mathias has an op ed this morning called "The Fakebook Generation," where she insightfully notes that if people could see who was looking at their Facebook accounts, no one would look at their Facebook accounts. True enough, and natural. Imagine if people always got a list of who had looked at or thought about them offline in a given day. We'd walk around with our eyes to the floor.

Mathias can't quite imagine how Facebook has changed college social interaction, though. Even living surrounded by people in college, I would sometimes go weeks without running into some friends and acquaintances. (This is back in those pre-Netscape Navigator days when campus-to-campus email seemed like a miracle. "You add the "@" sign, and then you can do what?!") Would've changed a lot to be able to put up a little beacon where those folks could get a taste of what I was doing and thinking. To be able to announce and invite people to events. There is a difference between the very serious way many adults use Facebook and the sort of free-for-all I sometimes see on student pages. But there is also a sameness in the way even the jokiest Facebook page works to help users maintain personal presence and friendships.

I think Mathias will get this figured out, though, once she's away from campus for a couple of years and sucked up into the busy professional life. It's been extraordinary to use F-book to reconnect with old friends, and to leave a little trail of updates--like a quirky, constantly updated "alumni news" section--so that people I don't have time or funds to see often can catch up with me. Modern life has tended to rip up and scatter the interpersonal networks we form at every passing, fast-moving stage; but social sites like Facebook (and blogs) helps us maintain ties--not as they would be in person, but at least enough so that our friends from the old days are less likely to become strangers.

Technorati Tags: Facebook

Innovation in Engineering Ed

2007-09-30T09:00:00.001-04:00

Reengineering Engineering.

The NYT on the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and its attempt to reconfigure engineering education by making their students flexible problem solvers, collaborators, and creative thinkers.

The project based learning that they're talking about is a lot like what Ball State is doing at the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, where I had the pleasure of working for a couple of years while I was writing my dissertation. (On these sorts of projects.)

One of the things I found very interesting about the article was the way some Olin grads are responding to entering the workforce.

Miller admitted he is concerned that few of the class of 2006 are going on to graduate study in engineering or jobs in the field. Some graduates have told him that they are not happy in their first jobs and feel like cogs in a machine. “I’m hoping to get the message to our kids that a little bit of patience and endurance could pay off in the end,” he said. Still, “this is one of the things that keeps me up now.”
In some companies, he says, the freethinking products of Olin might have trouble fitting in. “Does industry want people like that? I think that’s a very good question, but I think this goes beyond what industry wants,” he said. “This is the right thing to do — this is what industry needs. If the country had more people like this, we’d be in a much better situation.”

I can't say so much about Virginia Ball Center alums after they enter the workforce. But I can say that they tend to feel a little frustrated with the education process when they return to the classroom after a semester of collaboration on one of the VBC's projects. And they tend to talk about feeling like cogs in a machine again. What Richard Miller (Olin's president) says is right--that we need to help our students also have patience and endurance, as well as creativity, when they enter the workforce (or reenter traditional classrooms). This is partly because there are many valuable things that can be learned and reinforced in traditional classrooms; lectures are not all bad, though a ceaseless diet of lecturing and fact memorizing can't be healthy. But we also need to cultivate patience and endurance in our students for the processes of institutional change--its politics and slow steps, its requirement that we sometimes get only part of what we want, the necessary humility involved in entering a system so as to improve it, and so on.

So this is an element of immersive, interactive, project-based education that we need to factor in as we create our innovative educational models: an understanding of institutional culture, creativity in approaching and coping with groups, and so on.

My Firefox Campus Edition

2007-08-28T19:26:00.001-04:00

Firefox Campus Edition has been released. I like the idea of a student-oriented Firefox, with appropriate add-ons already installed. Seems like a good move. I'm note sure about the add-ons they choose. Foxytunes. Okay, makes sense. We're all listening to music while we Web it up. Zotero, for note taking, also makes sense, though I've never felt compelled to adopt Zotero (possibly because I archive articles in DEVONthink). Stumbleupon? Meh. Doesn't fit my model of research.

I know all the Firefox and research savvy folks out there will have their own lists of possible "Campus Edition" extensions, and I'm sure Firefox has to tread carefully as they make decisions about what to include in a package like this, and that they needed to make included items as simple-to-grasp as possible, but I can think of several things that would've been very nice in a campus edition.

Among the picks I would have at least considered putting in there:

Sage RSS reader, the gateway drug of RSS readers
Highlighter, a very cool extension for highlighting and copying Webpage text
ScrapBook, for archiving and annotating web pages
Picnik, for editing images
Del.icio.us, for bookmarking
Google Notebook, for creating annotated sets of links
Blogger Web Comments, for seeing what other people are saying about a site
Scribefire, for blogging
Nuke Anything Enhanced, just 'cause

D'you have other ideas? What's in your "campus edition"?

We'll Need a Luck Dragon, I Think

2007-08-26T18:33:00.001-04:00

Astronomers find a hole in the universe.

Maybe they're at a loss to explain it because they've never seen this.

Bonus Video 1
Bonus Video 2

More Diffusion of Calories

2007-08-21T14:29:00.001-04:00

This is already behind the Times Select firewall, but it's a short article that goes along with my recent "Diffusion of Calories" post. In fact, it quotes Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, whose explanation of social networks and net science was invaluable for my dissertation work.

IDEAS & TRENDS; Your Friends of Friends - New York Times

''In the past few years we have been seeing a network revolution,'' says Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a physics professor at the University of Notre Dame. ''People sensed that networks were out there, but they never had large enough data sets to start understanding them in a quantitative fashion.''

PS: If you're a university student reading this, you should know that signing up for a NYT account using your university email address will get you access to "Times Select" articles. That's handy, eh?

On Darfur and Inflated Death Toll Numbers

2007-08-12T10:38:00.001-04:00

From this AM's New York Times:

An Atrocity That Needs No Exaggeration

Sam Dealy's point in this article--that inflated death toll numbers related to the Darfur crisis are actually creating more problems for the region in a number of ways--is a crucial one for the modern media era. It's why I'm never pleased when the best thing you can say about an activist's work is, "Well, at least it'll make people think." Michael Moore is one of the great offenders in this category, of course, with his films that are not just openly biased (which can be fine) but also loaded with deliberately misleading facts and anecdotes. Sure, they "make people think," and, sure, they "encourage conversation." But conversation (and thinking) based on poor or misleading facts and notions is not likely, except by accident, to be worthwhile. For proof, see the linked article above. It is dangerous, and counterproductive, to treat real crises as if they are marketing campaigns for toothpaste or breakfast cereal. (Which is not to say that crises don't ever need to be addressed with media-savvy salesmanship. But that salesmanship should be savvy and honest. Activists should not be ideological used car salesmen.)

Fake Potter

2007-08-10T09:53:00.001-04:00

Hmmm. I think I will read nothing more awesome than this today:

Memo to the Dept. of Magical Copyright Enforcement - New York Times

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

2007-08-09T23:04:00.001-04:00

Common Craft explains social bookmarking and, once again, makes me feel that all my tutorials are second rate.

Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Second Life Everts

2007-08-06T21:40:00.001-04:00

Via William Gibson (who said this was Cyberspace everting):

YouTube - second life

Getcher Heinous Writing Here

2007-07-31T17:02:00.001-04:00

Winners of the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which "entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels."

2007 Results

Diffusion of Calories

2007-07-26T09:53:00.001-04:00

The NYT reports on a study that shows a link between the obesity of friends.

Find Yourself Packing It On? Blame Friends - New York Times

The article ends with some legit concerns about whether a study like this can be replicated, but what was interesting to me--and rang true--was the way this fits in with other, less politically charged, studies of idea and behavior diffusion. Of course I am more likely to adopt behaviors that lead to obesity if my closest friends--the ones with whom I always tend to synchronize behaviors and attitudes--are adopting those obesity-cultivating habits.

What actually surprised me in the article was the clash of paradigms. What intuitively makes sense in terms of ongoing discussions in psychology and social behavior has the folks who study health and nutrition by-the-numbers flummoxed. (Or at least that's the way the article sold the story. I wonder how controversial this study really is among people whose names aren't in the reporter Rolodex under "obesity controversy.")

UPDATE:

Gail Collins files an editorial response to the study. Unfortunately, it's behind the "Times Select" firewall:

Fat Comes in on Little Cat Feet - New York Times

She makes a few nice points about the potentially negative social effects of popularizing the idea that obesity is catching. And I see what she's saying, even though, at the same time, I think her objections are based on poor framing of the study. It's not that fat is catching like a virus. That's just a metaphor. It's that behaviors spread, and attitudes (about body type, or tobacco, or pot, or hairstyles) spread, from person to person. As with the "obesity epidemic" subtext of the original Times writeup, the girl Collins imagines who shuns an overweight girl because obesity is catching expresses hysteria about obesity, not insight into human behavior.

Internet Crashes

2007-07-21T23:51:00.001-04:00

The Office '07 Switch . . .

2007-07-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

Just posted this Google Notebook page full of help links for faculty switching to Office 2007 this fall. A lot of us have stalled on switching, wishing to avoid the headache of having to relearn parts of one of our everyday tools (Word!), but it's time. Thousands of new students are about to show up on campus, ready to send us crazy ol' .docx files.

Fast, Consistent, Customizable.

2007-07-08T19:01:00.001-04:00

Via Presentation Zen. Guy Kawasaki has posted his "Art of Innovation" presentation at the nifty new presentation site called Zentation, which lets you combine slideware slides and video.

Here's the presentationtion.

Not all of the material there was immediately useful to me (though it was all interesting, if you're looking for a measure of my geek-ness). But one thing I know, right now, I'll be using when I talk about tech development at the Writing Program orientation in August, and that's the idea of having a mantra rather than a mission statement.

And the mantra for English department tech development?

"Fast, Consistent, Customizable."

Update: Or maybe "Fast Familiar, Flexible." I'll have to keep working on it...

"Transmission Error." Is that anything like poor transcription?

2007-07-02T14:48:00.001-04:00

I smiled about this:

Live Free or Die Hard - Movie - Review - New York Times

Correction: June 28, 2007 Because of a transmission error, a film review yesterday about “Live Free or Die Hard” misstated the critic’s description of the plot. It should have been described as “logic-defying,” not “logic-defined.”

"At which point thousands of dead journalism professors turned over in their graves."

2007-07-01T11:22:00.001-04:00

Good NYT article this morning about the state of Wikipedia, particularly as an evolving outlet for summaries of ongoing news stories:

All the News That's Fit to Print Out

Favorite line: the one in the title of this post. (Read the article to find it.)

Least favorite: the headline. Who prints out Wikipedia articles?

I think I'd heard of the Wikipedia vandal Willy on Wheels before, but he made me laugh. On wheels.

But the best part of this article is the way it makes a case for Wikipedia as a viable source for summaries of current news. Not for perspective, not for debate, but for basic information, checked against multiple cited sources and linked out to more complex news and opinion stories.

And as an English prof, I appreciated Jimmy Wales's note on the unique and powerful qualities of text as a collaborative tool:

“The classic question I get at conferences,” Wales said, “is, ‘Do you think Wikipedia will remain text, or will it be more and more video in the future?’ I think it’s pretty hard to beat written words. Especially for collaboration, because words are the most fluid medium for shaping and reshaping and collaboratively negotiating something. It’s kind of hard to do with video, and I don’t think that’s just a technical barrier.”

That is all.

Google Books: Quick Update

2007-06-08T10:29:00.001-04:00

Good news for Google Book Search:

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: Some Publishers Warm to Google Book Search

Mixing Metaphors

2007-06-08T08:05:00.001-04:00

Manohla Dargis (a fine reviewer at the NYT) contributes an extraordinary mix of cliched metaphors at the end of her Oceans Thirteen review.

"Playing inside the box and out, he has learned to go against the grain while also going with the flow."

It's a classroom example of mixing metaphors, and it had to be noted. (Though it's not as good as my current favorite made up example, "Out on a limb without a paddle to stand on.")

That is all.

Livescribe

2007-05-31T17:25:00.001-04:00

I love the idea of this Livescribe digital pen technology (featured in today's Wired Campus email), but when I was watching the li'l video here, I wondered why the girl who took good notes was so enthusiastic about sharing them with her peers who didn't take good notes. It's all happy peer-to-peer sharing until the three mooching friends are berating her for not sending her notes quickly enough and causing them to fail the midterm.

Practical side note: The pen itself is going to cost about $200, apparently, which sounds fairly reasonable. But how much does the special interactive paper it requires cost? Is this gonna be like buying a $30 printer and then going broke to pay for ink?

Links for "Teaching with Laptops" Workshops

2007-05-31T11:37:00.001-04:00

(1) This Google Notebook page is full of links to topics I covered or hoped to cover in the Teaching with Laptops workshop sessions I ran this week for the Writing Program at BSU.

(2) I'll be revamping my "Laptop-Ready" help pages later this summer based on the thinking I did for planning these workshops and the kinds of feedback (both intentional and unintentional) that I got from the participants.

(3) Three workshops this month--these two and the big Technological Ecologies and Sustainability one that I was a small part of at Computers and Writing 2007 in Detroit. All worthwhile, and/but I'm glad they're out of the way. I feel like summertime research, writing, and relaxing (not mutually exclusive things) can really begin now.

Wiki Basics

2007-05-31T11:00:00.001-04:00

Check out CommonCraft's video on wiki basics. I love what they're doing here with these simple, little explanatory videos for hard-to-explain tech concepts/applications. And their lo-fi use of paper and whiteboards makes the hard-to-explain seem even simpler: it's a psychological advantage of the medium they've chosen.

Fall Teaching

2007-05-25T16:41:00.001-04:00

For BSU students:

Teaching 210-2 in the fall (along with a couple of 103s).

Google Bans Paper-Mills (At Least from the Ads Column)

2007-05-23T17:05:00.001-04:00

Google has banned term paper mills from buying ads from them.  Thanks, Big G.

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules

2007-05-23T09:40:00.001-04:00

My first read of the summer was Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty, an excellent semi-hard-boiled break before jumping into my more scholarly / research-oriented summer reading.

Here are Leonard's ten rules for writers, from his official site, originally from the NYT. #10--"Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip"--is great advice for all writers in all forms, and a thing that I've been trying to master in my scholarly writing. (My personal version of the rule is "Don't be exasperating.") (So the goal is this: Scholarly writing that contains no parts that readers tend to skip. Heh. We'll keep on trying.)

The Architecture of Shigeru Ban

2007-05-20T10:20:00.001-04:00

The architecture of Shigeru Ban, profiled at the NYT.

The slideshow/audio version is here.

Ban's homepage, with lots of images.

Google image search for Ban.

Buckets . . .

2007-05-19T10:49:00.001-04:00

o' treasure.  Interesting to see the tension between the academics and the treasure hunters, and I appreciate the problem.  While I can certainly imagine a treasure-hunting company that would respect the history enough to really, truly to the best kind of documentation and archaeological work, it's also awfully easy to imagine these hunters as pirates.

And that makes me wonder if this ship was originally sunk by incompetent pirates, because that would be ironic.

The company site is here.

And here is the AP version of the story (via the Navy Times), for when the NYT link expires.

Quick Thoughts on Slideware

2007-05-19T10:26:00.001-04:00

This article talks about a study which concluded that when the speaker/presenter/teacher using PowerPoint (or any slideware) reads the slide--reciting exactly what is written on the slide--there are negative effects on the audience.  Specifically, listeners asked to process the information aurally and visually at the same time are calling on different parts of their brains and so are neither listening nor reading as well as they would without the double-whammy.

Ed. Prof John Sweller, the mind behind the interesting study, concludes that we need to ditch slideware.  I disagree.  What we need to do is learn to use the tool appropriately.  A slideware presentation where the text onscreen = the content that listeners are supposed to absorb is, in most cases, very dull--and certainly not a very good use of classroom time.  Yup.  What I've been trying to do with slideware this year, though, is explore using visuals to help especially my visual learners with recall.  Consider, for example, my writing process deck (in Quicktime here; let it load), which isn't perfect but models what I'm going for: visuals to grab the mind and connect to the ideas, cues for me as a speaker, no blocks of text. 

(In "Politics and the English Language," Orwell, having just formulated a set of rules for good writing, says "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."  Slideware rules need a similar caveat, don't they?  "Break any of these rules sooner than project anything useless."  Or something like that.)

Sweet and Tender Modest Mouse

2007-03-09T00:34:00.001-05:00

Johnny Marr of the Smiths joins Modest Mouse and we get this. I feel pretty okay about that; looking forward to the album.

Wolfie Etc

2007-03-08T23:58:00.001-05:00

Mostly unrelated blurbs, written on a Border's coffee break while returning from a conference. (It will be clear which conference.)

(1) Let me be the first two say that, since the 20th Century Lit conference at U of Louisville has now been renamed "The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900," it can no longer be abbreviated like this:

20th C Lit

It must now be abbreviated like this:

LCx2>1900

(2) Apparently the Van Halen brothers are doing new music with David Lee Roth. Of course, we hear that now and then, usually announced by Diamond Dave rather than by Eddie, so we must be skeptical. But the real news is that Michael Anthony has been replaced on the bass by Ed's 15 year old son, Wolfie. Somehow that feels like a punchline: veteran Van Halen bassist replaced by talented 15 year old. I guess that if you have to be replaced by a punk kid, it's good to know that the punk kid is, at least, a Van Halen.

(2.5) Google-ing reveals that Van Halen is a ridiculous mess. This is not surprising. (Eddie thinks, by the way, that you can't be in two bands at once. Wrong.)

(3) Chris Cornell has left Audioslave to do solo work. The rest of Audioslave is re-re-forming as Rage Against the Machine with Zach de la Rocha. I've always thought Chris Cornell probably has a couple of great solo albums in him, so I hope that works out. I don't have a good feeling about reunited Rage. I think maybe they've done their bit; I fear we'll hear a lot of adolescent politics and self-plagiarism. But who knows. I may be dead wrong on both counts.

(4) Sherman Alexie. Good speaker. Says the ol' "f" word surprisingly much; works the crowd like a stand up comic. Challenges fundamentalism, left and right. Makes audience appropriate colonialism and captivity narrative jokes. (There are only a few crowds who can really laugh at a joke with Mary Rowlandson as the punch line, innit?) Seeing him was a highlight of the LCx2 2007.

(5) OzzFest will be free next summer, as it will earn its cash from sponsor stuff. Interesting idea, and I hope it works. Could maybe be a crowd fiasco. They'll let *anyone* in these days, Lovie.

(6) This is what happens when you stop and read Rolling Stone at Borders on your way back from a conference . . .

(7) If I was actually subscribing to a music magazine right now, it would be Paste Magazine.

That is all.

Praise Conundrum

2007-02-13T16:31:00.001-05:00

A very interesting article from New York Magazine on how praise does (and doesn't) work with kids. I wouldn't want to see an extreme swing away from the over-praising culture, but I think we could learn a lot from thinking about how too much praise can be paralyzing to people, and how it can breed fear of failure, along with a sense that trying hard is, itself, a for of failure.

And this makes me wonder about the kinds of praise appropriate for students, in teaching and learning situations. I know my academic work, and my teaching, where it's been the best it could be, has been the result of a lot of hard work and, at times, worry about success. And I know that's true of a lot of academics. So the question (apropos of the linked article) is: how do we both encourage our students to work hard and help them to feel that they can have and are having success.

The Writer's Community of Ball State University

2007-02-13T08:46:00.001-05:00

To all you BSU students and creative writers who get these posts via Facebook:

Support this: The Writers' Community of Ball State University

It sounds like a great thing for creative writing at BSU.

Whose Perceptions Will Win the Day?

2007-02-08T13:51:00.001-05:00

So as I was reading this:

Our knowledge consists of interpretations of perceptions, which are in
themselves distinct from any physical reality that may have caused them.

by Stephen Downes, behind me in the food court there was a student saying, "Yeah, but we're not as good of friends as she thinks we are."

It's all connected . . . maybe . . .

Spielberg at the Studio

2007-02-05T12:57:00.001-05:00

An amazing story (heh) From a 1985 Time profile of Steven Spielberg:

"I Dream for a Living" -- Monday, Jul. 15, 1985 -- TIME

"The next day a young man wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase strode past the gate guard, waved and heaved a silent sigh. He had made it! 'It was my father's briefcase,' Spielberg says. 'There was nothing in it but a sandwich and two candy bars. So every day that summer I went in my suit and hung out with directors and writers and editors and dubbers. I found an office that wasn't being used, and became a squatter. I went to a camera store, bought some plastic name titles and put my name in the building directory: Steven Spielberg, Room 23C.'"

Seems like something from a movie.

Technorati Tags: Spielberg, trivia

Hopes and Expectation re: Laptops and Notetaking

2007-02-01T17:12:00.001-05:00

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog: Lecture-Hall Laptops Hurt Students' Grades, Study Says

The problem here, I think, is not laptops but student discipline, isn't it? A responsible student shuts down IM when s/he comes to class A polite student shuts down IM when s/he comes to class.

The message I hope teachers take from this sort of study is that we need to talk with students a lot more about note-taking strategies that work, and computer usage scenarios that hurt. And I also hope that profs use this sort of study not as an excuse for kicking laptops out of class but as a cautionary note for students making use of laptops.

But I expect a continuing stream of stories, in media and in person, of profs banning laptops outright.

I wonder, with the sci-fi corner of my brain, what better sorts of notetaking interfaces we'll have in five years. (Tablet PCs? Something even better and easier?)

Bumptop. Thumbs down.

2007-01-27T23:54:00.001-05:00

You might think I'd like this idea, a graphical user interface based on piles on a desktop. But I think it's terrible. All the stress of a messy desk with none of the convenience. It just seems like the metaphor led their design, not sensible and creative thinking about how people use computers. Yuck. Maybe I'll think differently later, but for now: thumbs down.