stevendkrause.com

… all from this entry at kottke.org. My favorite is the first one, “Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle,” though there are many others.

Alex Halavais and Derek Lackaff have an article out that seems relevant in light of recent comments and recent teaching: “An Analysis of Topical Coverage in Wikipedia.” Here’s the abstract:

Many have questioned the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia. Here a different issue, but one closely related: how broad is the coverage of Wikipedia? Differences in the interests and attention of Wikipedia’s editors mean that some areas, in the traditional sciences, for example, are better covered than others. Two approaches to measuring this coverage are presented. The first maps the distribution of topics on Wikipedia to the distribution of books published. The second compares the distribution of topics in three established, field-specific academic encyclopedias to the articles found in Wikipedia. Unlike the top-down construction of traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia’s topical coverage is driven by the interests of its users, and as a result, the reliability and completeness of Wikipedia is likely to be different depending on the subject-area of the article.

This sounds pretty good albeit not that surprising.

“Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up: Annoyed with the ad deluge on social networks, many users are spending less time on the sites” from BusinessWeek.

I thought this was a pretty cool video– via boing-boing.

Loyal readers of my official blog will recall that I was on what I referred to as “Sabbatical Lite” last term, an arrangement in which I was taking one semester sabbatical and splitting it up over two semesters. It had its ups and downs in the winter term, it was beginning to feel like it was slipping away from me this term, and my conclusion was that doing this was basically a bad idea.

But I’m starting to rethink this, at least a bit. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it might not have been a bad idea, either.

For example, I am starting to get into a routine this term where I am able to devote much more time to research stuff for four or five days of the week (including weekends, of course). Not that I’ve been incredibly productive as of late, but I’m still probably doing more on the BAWS project than I would have been able to do under normal teaching load circumstances.

Example #2: roadtrip.

Since I am teaching but one class online and since the administrative stuff has kind of settled down for the time-being, Will and I are embarking an epic journey to see my parents, who stay this time of year on the gulf coast of Alabama. The way I figure it, I will have pretty robust Internet access the whole time, meaning I can still teach and do most of my administrative duties. And as far as the canceled office hours go: well, that’s part of the release I get for being on sabbatical lite.

Annette, since she is not enjoying the pleasures of sabbatical lite, is staying home. She’ll have to work obviously, but I’m sure she’ll get her own “vacation” of sorts from Will and I.

Expect some photos and videos from the road, btw.

It figures that I learn about this podcast, “To Read or Not Read,” right in the midst of the week of English 516 where we’re talking about this very issue. Because it came now, I’m not sure how many of my students will get a chance to listen to it; I’ll probably try to download it tomorrow and listen to it at some point on my trip south this week (more details on that later).

What I do find reassuring and kind of interesting though is that my students, who are a mixture of high school teachers, college teachers, tech writers, MA students, etc., etc., don’t have a lot of faith in the NEA report that (I presume) is part of what is fueling this discussion. I’m not entirely sure I understand why this is the case, but it seems that the scare tactics of the end of reading as we know it isn’t working, perhaps precisely because ours is a class that is exploring different ideas of literacy and “reading.”

Oh, if they knew then what they know now: As kos points out, had Michigan and Florida not violated (admittedly stupid) rules of the Democratic party about holding their primary too early, had they held their primaries when they were supposed to (this week or so, I think), then these states would have obviously been hugely important. I guess it just goes to show you there’s been a lot of unexpected stuff this year.

Jack “the funny-voiced political commentator on Michigan Public Radio” Lessenberry wants to have a do-over. Wishful thinking, but maybe not a bad idea.

From the NYT, “With a Surge, Obama Makes His Case.” Here’s a quote:

The sheer consistency of Mr. Obama’s victories over the last few days certainly suggests that many Democratic voters have gotten past whatever reservations they might have had about his electability or his qualifications to be president.

Even before his latest victories, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, had whittled away at the advantages amassed last year by Mrs. Clinton.

He now enjoys a big financial advantage. Her big lead in national polls is gone. By most counts, Mr. Obama can now claim more delegates pledged to him. He has won far more states than Mrs. Clinton, although she won some of the big prizes, like California and New Jersey.

Just think about this for a second: three or so months ago, Barack had a fork in ‘em and Hilary was measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.

Of course, as the rest of this article makes clear, there’s a long way to go before we figure out who is the Democrat’s nominee. Still, it’s pretty exciting to see my dude still in it. Go Obama!

Via Anne Z., “Two Days with Drupal,” about her experiences with starting to work with Drupal. I don’t know if I’m going to use Drupal or not this spring for my online teaching, but with some of the weird glitches I’ve had with emuonline as of late, I think I need to figure out some kind of alternative to that.

Also via boing-boing this morning: Here’s a clip of the voice actors from Spongebob Squarepants doing voice-overs of scenes from Cassablanca, Singin’ in the Rain, and The Godfather. More than just a little funny…

Update #1: Doh! Removed by user! I must find this video again….

Update #2: Yeah! It’s back at a different place– check out the link here.