May 13 2008
Why yes, I would like to read a blog just about bookshelves
Here it is then: Books At Home. It would appear that the blogger in question has also started a blog recently on Books in New York. Via Johndan.
May 13 2008
Here it is then: Books At Home. It would appear that the blogger in question has also started a blog recently on Books in New York. Via Johndan.
Apr 12 2008
It’s that time of the semester, and I’m trying to slap together a presentation for the conference I’m going to next week. So here’s a bunch of links that I had meant to write more about earlier but I’m just going to mention now. Some of this might be handy for teaching at some point:
For most people, reading is a taken for granted skill. The purpose of Proust and the Squid is to reveal the magic and mystery of reading and its pathologies. This everyday activity is not natural, and is a recent development from an evolutionary perspective. There is no ‘reading center’ in the brain, but something a lot more enigmatic, an acquired way of using existing structures and connections. New imaging technology shows startling differences between dyslexics and others, differences that illuminate the journey to literacy as never before. It is only 6000 years since humans trained their brains to read, and during that time they have improved on the process to such a staggering degree that the modern child takes 2000 days to achieve a degree of literacy that took 2000 years to develop. The dark cloud on the horizon is another human invention of staggering genius: digitalization. This most economic of information systems was made possible by the very thing it now threatens: the ability to read.
Apr 08 2008
For reasons not worth going into, I spent some time playing around with Google analytics tonight and I learned a couple of fun facts.
Thank God I offer my thoughts on the state of academia for all to read.
Apr 06 2008
From the NYT, “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.” Basically, some of these professional bloggers are working to a point where they are hurting themselves:
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
Well, I think you can substitute “blogging” with occupations/pursuits/situations like “graduate school” or “working in a chicken processing plant” or “being homeless” or the like. It isn’t hard to think of things more dangerous than professional blogging. Still, it is a reason why it seems to me that it is better to be an amateur blogger.
I might be able to use this in the Writing for the World Wide Web class this spring….
Apr 05 2008
No, instead, I’ll point to this post on “Confessions of a Community College Dean,” where I left a long comment (I’m “Steve” in the comments, number 4 I believe). All of this in response to DD, Dr. Crazy, and this article in the CHE.
Apr 04 2008
A handy and recent article from The New Yorker that might be good for English 444 this spring, “The News Business: Out of Print.”
Apr 02 2008
Well, since I’m not in NOLA and up to Lord only knows what Steve B. and Bill HD. and my other typical conference partners in crime are up to right now, I thought I’d post a whole bunch of links from my Google Reader feed:
Mar 17 2008
The UK’s Guardian/Observer has a list I came across via waiterrant (he’s #44) of “The world’s 50 most powerful blogs,” and once again, yours truly is not included. Figures.
Actually, it’s an interesting list and will serve as fodder for blogs to invite to my survey, though I haven’t had a lot of luck in getting “big time” bloggers to participate as of yet. And it’s a list to take with a grain of salt. It’s kind of UK-centric, and it doesn’t include a bunch of different blogs you think it would include– the Daily KOS, for example.
Mar 12 2008
Cory Doctorow, who is one of the brain trusts behind one of the 5 or so most popular blogs out there, has a piece in Information Week called “17 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Write About You.” Much of it is common sense and/or about links. Incidentally, the IW site has some of the most annoying ad pop-up gimmicks I’ve seen in a while. I got some weird one just by hitting the back arrow.
Mar 06 2008
I don’t know how much anthem writing I’m doing exactly, but via a comment on another post (which I just decided to make into a new post in itself) comes this piece from MiLife MiTimes, “Local Bloggers Write Ypsi’s Kick-Ass Anthem.” This here site is mentioned, along with EMUTalk.org and many fine and local Ypsi-Arbor blogs.