Writer, Professor, and Everything Else
It looks like I missed it, but yesterday was Yahoo’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate, they were giving away free ice cream cones. Pretty cool.
Alas, the ice cream is gone (March 2 only), but there is a pretty neat retrospective on the last 10 years of the ‘net put together in the format of the 10 X 10 web site.
No, no, not me– Alex Halavais, who teaches communications and informatics at the University of Buffalo (isn’t that the same as SUNY, Buffalo?). I stumbled across his blog today while procrastinating, and read this entry about a course he’s teaching about pornography. A few of the highlights I found both amusing and interesting:
I was undecided about where to link to this, here or on my official blog. I decided on here:
Reading-too-much-into-things-comprehension, a “test” of sorts frm McSweeney’s. Thanks to Collin for the link.
Annette and I watched the Oscars last night, and this morning, I had two thoughts about the whole event. I’m sure neither of these thoughts is particularly original, but here they are anyway:
However, I don’t think we’re the only folks who watched the Oscars this year who felt out of touch with the big nominated films. Chris Rock had a funny bit where he was asking people in the Magic Johnson Theater complex in LA if they had seen any of the nominated movies. None of them had. Then he asked folks to name their favorite movies, and the list included things like Alien vs. Predator and White Chicks.
Now, obviously, this was edited together this way, and it was supposed to be funny: look at all these people who didn’t see one of the movies that “the academy” thought were worthy, and look at the crappy movie these people really went to see. Ha-ha. But the thing is Rock’s bit seemed a little too true to me.
I’m not entirely sure what this all means, other than it seems to me that the Oscar people are walking a pretty thin and specific line in terms of what movies they see as “worthy.” It has to be arty, but not too arty; it has to be Hollywood, but not too Hollywood; ethnicity is nice, but not too ethnic; and for God’s sake, make sure it doesn’t piss anybody off.
Update: As my wife pointed out, “everywhere” is not the same as “to all the states in the US.” I knew that all along, but in the interest of accuracy, I made a title change…
Oh, and as long as we’re “going there,” it seems to me that there ought to be another category in this little meme: states in which one spent at least one night versus states in which one merely passed through.
Something I came across while I should have been doing something else:
bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.
I stumbled into the second half of an interesting show on the PBS show NOW about broadband internet access. Here’s a link to a web site about the show. The part that I watched was about the efforts of different cities (Philadelphia and some really small town in Indiana were the examples) to set up locally owned and operated broadband Internet networks, and the efforts of companies like Comcast, Verizon, SBC, etc. to block it. Interesting stuff.
I think I’ve mentioned this in this blog before, but my hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa has had a municipally owned utility company for years and years. About a dozen years ago, CFU bought out whatever company it was that was providing cable TV, and maybe as many as ten years ago, they started providing broadband internet access. I don’t know how the business model works out, but in terms of Internet access, Cedar Falls is way wired.
I came across this site this morning, The Political Compass. Basically, it’s a long survey which, based on to what extent you agree or disagree with a series of statements, calculates where you are at in the political spectrum. What’s interesting is that it isn’t as simple as “right/left”, “Republican”/”Democrat”, “red state”/”blue state.” Rather, it calculates your location on the political spectrum in quadrants– the “compass,” if you will.
I don’t know who put this thing together, and some of the statements they use to position your politics seem more useful (“The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes”) than others (“Abstract art that doesn’t represent anything shouldn’t be considered art at all”). But it’s still kind of interesting.
By the way, my answers put me in the lower left quadrant of the compass, which is the same place where you’ll find Gandhi, The Dali Lama, and Nelson Mandela. So I got that going for me.
My first Winter Break work activity is sorting through email and, simultaneously, procrastinating/discovering stuff on the web. Here are a couple of links to thinks I want to remember for teaching that involves computers and writing kinds of things (English 516, maybe 328, other classes that have a computers and writing sorta theme, etc.):
Okay. Going through my email and putting these links some place means I get to check something else off my “to do” list.
I’m not remotely religious, but the “Jesus Dress Up!” site is one that even makes me go “ew, that’s bad taste.” But it’s also pretty darn funny.
This coming week is spring winter break around here, though since I don’t teach on Fridays this semester, my break started yesterday. It’s called winter break here at EMU because this semester is not spring but winter semester (spring term runs from the beginning of May to the end of June, and summer term goes from the beginning of July to the end of August), and because it is very much winter in late February in Michigan.
In any event, this winter break is and isn’t a “break” for me. For the first time in several years, we’re not off to visit my in-laws in Florida or anyplace else; we’re just hanging around the house. This has its advantages and disadvantages: going someplace warm in the Michigan winter is always nice, but not having to deal with the hassles of travel and staying in the comfort of our own house is nice too.
This week is a break in that I am not required to go into my office and I won’t be teaching any classes. On the other hand, it isn’t a break because I will probably end up in my office at least once for a variety of different reasons, I have a bit of grading to do, I have a fair amount of prep work for teaching after the break, and I’m certain that I will have some email contact with students.
And it really isn’t a break because of some scholarly projects. I’m woefully behind on a few things and I am determined (required?) to get some significant chunks of things off to various editors no later than a week from now. So it’s probably good that I have time to devote to this work this week, but it also means I am lacking an excuse for not getting this work done.
Jeesh. I guess I’m looking forward to school starting up again!