Despite the loss (to a walk-off homer, no less), I was happy to have the green and brown fields of baseball back for the Summer. (There's a write-up of the night in the NYTimes.)
March 2008 Archives
Obviously I'm traveling in the wrong circles, since it took Adult Swim, home of the greatest Southern humor since Mark Twain, Squidbillies, to enlighten me to the genius of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.
F-Secure has an excellent write-up of the whole China/Tibet Malware thing.
They also link, in another post, to Alex Dragulescu's Malwarez, which is a visualization project using the frequency, density, and grouping of malware to create 3-D objects. Cool stuff.
And don't forget about Dancho Danchev, whose blog on 'sploits and malware is required reading.
They also link, in another post, to Alex Dragulescu's Malwarez, which is a visualization project using the frequency, density, and grouping of malware to create 3-D objects. Cool stuff.
And don't forget about Dancho Danchev, whose blog on 'sploits and malware is required reading.
Joe Queenan's review of Paris Hilton's The Hottie and the Nottie, which descends into a discussion of the worst movie ever made, actually makes me want to see what Queenan crowns "the worst movie ever made," Heaven's Gate, based on his description of the film:
"This is a movie about Harvard-educated gunslingers who face off against eastern European sodbusters in an epic struggle for the soul of America. This is a movie that stars Isabelle Huppert as a shotgun-toting cowgirl. This is a movie in which Jeff Bridges pukes while mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that has five minutes of uninterrupted fiddle-playing by a fiddler who is also mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that defies belief."It has been moved to the top of my Netflix cue.
WFMU posts on a study about musicogenic epilepsy and a case study involving a woman who's epilepsy was triggered by the music of the group Alabama.
I'd be interested to know which songs, in particular, caused the seizures. Surely not such hits as Mountain Music, If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You've Got Have a Fiddle in the Band), or that ode to the workingman's rat race I'm in a Hurry (And Don't Know Why).
I'd be interested to know which songs, in particular, caused the seizures. Surely not such hits as Mountain Music, If You're Gonna Play in Texas (You've Got Have a Fiddle in the Band), or that ode to the workingman's rat race I'm in a Hurry (And Don't Know Why).
Eddie Campbell posts about his first comics here. (If you haven't read After the Snooter, Campbell's comic about growing up, it's recommended. An affecting portrait, and perhaps my favorite of all time.)
Why hasn't Adobe (or anyone else) done for web design what Polyvore (click on the Try It button) does for clothing layout? I mean, drag and drop websites, with uploads from Flickr, text from Twitter and your blog, all to create something that represents you?
Scoble has a nice write-up on the changing nature of blogging, which links to a couple of must reads:
Techcrunch's piece on blogging, which has one of the best descriptions of the blogging world that I've ever read
Marc Cuban's two-parter on blogging (part 1 here and part 2 here).
As to why I blog, I do because I want to. Not expecting money, fame, or anything else. I enjoy reading blogs and I've enjoyed writing this one.
Techcrunch's piece on blogging, which has one of the best descriptions of the blogging world that I've ever read
("So today, at best, I'd describe the blogosphere as a frontier town with no lawman (I mean, O'Reilly has a badge on, but no gun and no jail). You can do just about anything you want, but the politically savvy folks tend to arm themselves to the teeth and gang together to protect their property. Everyone else is in the middle of chaos, either fighting blindly for attention or politely asking (by linking early and linking often) if they can join the big Gang.")and
Marc Cuban's two-parter on blogging (part 1 here and part 2 here).
As to why I blog, I do because I want to. Not expecting money, fame, or anything else. I enjoy reading blogs and I've enjoyed writing this one.
Via /. is an interview with Google's CIO. Some of the things he mentions remind me of the decentralization model 37Signals uses, which they took from Semco.
There's something more there about decentralization and automation and pragmatism - something applicable to the larger group. Still thinking on it, though.
There's something more there about decentralization and automation and pragmatism - something applicable to the larger group. Still thinking on it, though.
In an attempt to step up my posts here, I've rejected the whole "your posts have to be long and well-thought-out all the time" approach. Maybe there's such a thing as balance - see Kottke, etc.
So, in the inaugural short-post edition, I wanted to link to this post on Coding Horror, which nicely questions and pseudo-debunks the idea that, definitively speaking, more monitors = more productivity. (Of course, NEC sponsored the research.)
So, in the inaugural short-post edition, I wanted to link to this post on Coding Horror, which nicely questions and pseudo-debunks the idea that, definitively speaking, more monitors = more productivity. (Of course, NEC sponsored the research.)
Educational technologies frustrate me, but I don't think it's their fault. In my view, the blame lies on the people, whether administrators or instructors, who make decisions about what technologies are used and how they're used. While the CIO wants support (something that costs money), the faculty want cutting edge (something that fulfills some prediction from Foucault or Derrida, preferably), and the student loses. My frustration has kept me from embracing educational technology,
whether it be content management systems, distance learning, or Second
Life.
At the same time, I've found the mainstream discussions of educational technology to be disappointing. Discussions of iPods in the classroom, whether the Macbook Air will revolutionize student work, or which flavor of LInux to use seem inane to me when there is limited adoption and development of real educational technologies like Alice and Storytelling Alice.
To be clear, I'm not talking about access issues here. I'm talking about learning styles and the time we're living in. One of the things that has stuck with me from Jay David Bolter's book Writing Space, which I just realized is 17 years old, is how he contextualizes our time as "the late age of print," an apt phrase for the chasm we're living in, stuck between the old and the new. For me, it seems like this idea explains the failures of educational technologies, since most people want to have it all.
Although I do sound like a luddite, I'm not. My frustration stems, in part, from the glaring fact that these technologies are not up to the challenges of the late age of print, no matter how much we force them (whether to make more money or to have something to publish). They just aren't there yet (a theme that I can't seem to leave behind), and, until they are, forcing them into the classroom only hurts students.
At the same time, I've found the mainstream discussions of educational technology to be disappointing. Discussions of iPods in the classroom, whether the Macbook Air will revolutionize student work, or which flavor of LInux to use seem inane to me when there is limited adoption and development of real educational technologies like Alice and Storytelling Alice.
To be clear, I'm not talking about access issues here. I'm talking about learning styles and the time we're living in. One of the things that has stuck with me from Jay David Bolter's book Writing Space, which I just realized is 17 years old, is how he contextualizes our time as "the late age of print," an apt phrase for the chasm we're living in, stuck between the old and the new. For me, it seems like this idea explains the failures of educational technologies, since most people want to have it all.
Although I do sound like a luddite, I'm not. My frustration stems, in part, from the glaring fact that these technologies are not up to the challenges of the late age of print, no matter how much we force them (whether to make more money or to have something to publish). They just aren't there yet (a theme that I can't seem to leave behind), and, until they are, forcing them into the classroom only hurts students.
about Gary Gygax dying. Of course, it'd all be weepy and nonsensical, so...
Rudy Rucker has an interesting post about his new novel Postsingular and its disparagement of virtual reality. I think some of Rucker's arguments miss a point, but I also think there's a strong core argument.
I was interested to come upon his thoughts, since I've been wanting to write about Second Life, virtual reality, and realism for the past week, particularly as I've delved deeper into playing with Second Life as an educational space.
I've mentioned before, on the oldest incarnation of this blog, that I'm disappointed with the technology we have today (and not just in a "Where's my flying car?" type way). What I'm disappointed in is the lack of imagination and innovation and the consuming of technology by consumerism.
Case in point: So, I'm in Second Life. What can I do? Buy stuff. Build stuff. Pay someone to build stuff. Fly. Watch a video I could've watched on my monitor (in better resolution). I can look different than I do in real reality. I can defy the laws of physics. Great.
As always, the hope (a loaded word right now) for a technology exceeds its application.
Back to Rucker, who argues that we shouldn't attempt to replace nature with virtual reality (simply creating a simulation of real reality). And I agree. That's one of my problems with Second Life. I don't want to go to a place with endless possibilities and see blades of grass, bookstores modeled on Victorian mansions, and Frank Lloyd Wright houses. As Rucker points out, Second Life, like Las Vegas and Disney World, are poor imitations, reductionist virtual realities.
Rucker argues, though, that we shouldn't bother since we can't compete with the complexity and beauty of real reality. For me, this misses the point. Being a good student of Timothy Leary's thoughts on cyberspace (and that might be my first mistake), I view virtual reality as about being so much more than just a recreational of real reality. As I've said, I want something different than real reality: a place to experience things that I can't experience anywhere else, things like past events, literary spaces, and, yes, flying.
I was interested to come upon his thoughts, since I've been wanting to write about Second Life, virtual reality, and realism for the past week, particularly as I've delved deeper into playing with Second Life as an educational space.
I've mentioned before, on the oldest incarnation of this blog, that I'm disappointed with the technology we have today (and not just in a "Where's my flying car?" type way). What I'm disappointed in is the lack of imagination and innovation and the consuming of technology by consumerism.
Case in point: So, I'm in Second Life. What can I do? Buy stuff. Build stuff. Pay someone to build stuff. Fly. Watch a video I could've watched on my monitor (in better resolution). I can look different than I do in real reality. I can defy the laws of physics. Great.
As always, the hope (a loaded word right now) for a technology exceeds its application.
Back to Rucker, who argues that we shouldn't attempt to replace nature with virtual reality (simply creating a simulation of real reality). And I agree. That's one of my problems with Second Life. I don't want to go to a place with endless possibilities and see blades of grass, bookstores modeled on Victorian mansions, and Frank Lloyd Wright houses. As Rucker points out, Second Life, like Las Vegas and Disney World, are poor imitations, reductionist virtual realities.
Rucker argues, though, that we shouldn't bother since we can't compete with the complexity and beauty of real reality. For me, this misses the point. Being a good student of Timothy Leary's thoughts on cyberspace (and that might be my first mistake), I view virtual reality as about being so much more than just a recreational of real reality. As I've said, I want something different than real reality: a place to experience things that I can't experience anywhere else, things like past events, literary spaces, and, yes, flying.
After some real soul searching (and my host offering MT for cheap), I'm back here for good. Not that anybody's reading this, but just in case.
