Thursday, December 23
The Graphing Calculator Story: " view the events as an experiment in subverting power structures. I had none of the traditional power over others that is inherent to the structure of corporations and bureaucracies. I had neither budget nor headcount. I answered to no one, and no one had to do anything I asked. Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work."
Friday, December 17
All my neighbors have trampolines
When I first moved to the desert subdivisions of Utah, I noticed that
almost everyone who had children had a trampoline in their yard. Some of
them were used more than others.
So today I bought a used trampoline for $75 from a coworker. So much for
agency.
almost everyone who had children had a trampoline in their yard. Some of
them were used more than others.
So today I bought a used trampoline for $75 from a coworker. So much for
agency.
Thursday, December 9
rodcorp: How we work: Neil Gaiman, author: "'One reason I like writing by hand is it slows me down a little, but it also forces me to keep going: I'm never going to spend half a day noodling with a sentence to try and get it just right, if I'm using a pen. I'll do all that when I start typing.
"
"
rodcorp: How we work: James Ellroy, author
On what to write: "Don’t follow that bullshit of 'Write what you know.' Write what you like to read. Write what you want to read but no one else is writing."
On what to write: "Don’t follow that bullshit of 'Write what you know.' Write what you like to read. Write what you want to read but no one else is writing."
Wednesday, December 8
I need the following from everyone today or when your final project is due, 12/10/04 at noon in the box outside my office.
Please write a brief memo detailing the following:
- a description of your role(s) in your group project
- a description of how you did or did not fulfill that role
- an estimate of your total contribution to the project, expressed as a percentage
- A description of how you revised or changed your writing based on feedback from the class, the book, or any other source
- Tell me what you would do differently in terms of group work or the project as a whole
- What was the most useful thing you learned about technical communication?
Please write a brief memo detailing the following:
- a description of your role(s) in your group project
- a description of how you did or did not fulfill that role
- an estimate of your total contribution to the project, expressed as a percentage
- A description of how you revised or changed your writing based on feedback from the class, the book, or any other source
- Tell me what you would do differently in terms of group work or the project as a whole
- What was the most useful thing you learned about technical communication?
Your portfolio is due Friday, December 10th at noon. Please place it in the box outside my office (LA 109h).
It should be in a folder or *narrow* three ring binder. You should include your best three drafts of our assignment, and a letter of introduction. The letter of introduction should not exceed two pages (unless you absolutely *have* to write more) and address the following:
1. What is your favorite paper, and why?
2. How did you initially write your papers?
3. How did you revise them, and why?
4. Anything else I should know about your writing in this class.
Thanks!
It should be in a folder or *narrow* three ring binder. You should include your best three drafts of our assignment, and a letter of introduction. The letter of introduction should not exceed two pages (unless you absolutely *have* to write more) and address the following:
1. What is your favorite paper, and why?
2. How did you initially write your papers?
3. How did you revise them, and why?
4. Anything else I should know about your writing in this class.
Thanks!
KAYA
Speaking of images, KAYA is a completely computer-generated person. It's quite creepy--check it out. Now, instead of airbrushing real people, which we have discussed before, "they" can generate completely artificial people that seem completely real. Almost. What do you think of that?
Speaking of images, KAYA is a completely computer-generated person. It's quite creepy--check it out. Now, instead of airbrushing real people, which we have discussed before, "they" can generate completely artificial people that seem completely real. Almost. What do you think of that?
Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "'I'm filled with existential dread at the fact that your gramdmother withered so horribly with Alzheimer's that she could no longer recognize her own child, and am sorry for the howling abyss of grief you're going through, compounded by your impending divorce' may have been more factually honest in my case a few years ago, but I don't think you can truly fault anyone for the fact that they don't exactly make greeting cards with that sentiment."
Tuesday, December 7
From the New York Times of December 7th:
December 7, 2004
What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence
By SAM DILLON
LOOMINGTON, Ill. - R. Craig Hogan, a former university professor who heads an online school for business writing here, received an anguished e-mail message recently from a prospective student.
"i need help," said the message, which was devoid of punctuation. "i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you".
Hundreds of inquiries from managers and executives seeking to improve their own or their workers' writing pop into Dr. Hogan's computer in-basket each month, he says, describing a number that has surged as e-mail has replaced the phone for much workplace communication. Millions of employees must write more frequently on the job than previously. And many are making a hash of it.
"E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies tearing their hair out."
A recent survey of 120 American corporations reached a similar conclusion. The study, by the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that a third of employees in the nation's blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.
The problem shows up not only in e-mail but also in reports and other texts, the commission said.
"It's not that companies want to hire Tolstoy," said Susan Traiman, a director at the Business Roundtable, an association of leading chief executives whose corporations were surveyed in the study. "But they need people who can write clearly, and many employees and applicants fall short of that standard."
Millions of inscrutable e-mail messages are clogging corporate computers by setting off requests for clarification, and many of the requests, in turn, are also chaotically written, resulting in whole cycles of confusion.
Here is one from a systems analyst to her supervisor at a high-tech corporation based in Palo Alto, Calif.: "I updated the Status report for the four discrepancies Lennie forward us via e-mail (they in Barry file).. to make sure my logic was correct It seems we provide Murray with incorrect information ... However after verifying controls on JBL - JBL has the indicator as B ???? - I wanted to make sure with the recent changes - I processed today - before Murray make the changes again on the mainframe to 'C'."
The incoherence of that message persuaded the analyst's employers that she needed remedial training.
"The more electronic and global we get, the less important the spoken word has become, and in e-mail clarity is critical," said Sean Phillips, recruitment director at another Silicon Valley corporation, Applera, a supplier of equipment for life science research, where most employees have advanced degrees. "Considering how highly educated our people are, many can't write clearly in their day-to-day work."
Some $2.9 billion of the $3.1 billion the National Commission on Writing estimates that corporations spend each year on remedial training goes to help current employees, with the rest spent on new hires. The corporations surveyed were in the mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, finance, insurance, real estate and service industries, but not in wholesale, retail, agriculture, forestry or fishing, the commission said. Nor did the estimate include spending by government agencies to improve the writing of public servants.
An entire educational industry has developed to offer remedial writing instruction to adults, with hundreds of public and private universities, for-profit schools and freelance teachers offering evening classes as well as workshops, video and online courses in business and technical writing.
Kathy Keenan, a onetime legal proofreader who teaches business writing at the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, said she sought to dissuade students from sending business messages in the crude shorthand they learned to tap out on their pagers as teenagers.
"hI KATHY i am sending u the assignmnet again," one student wrote to her recently. "i had sent you the assignment earlier but i didnt get a respond. If u get this assgnment could u please respond . thanking u for ur cooperation."
Most of her students are midcareer professionals in high-tech industries, Ms. Keenan said.
The Sharonview Federal Credit Union in Charlotte, N.C., asked about 15 employees to take a remedial writing course. Angela Tate, a mortgage processor, said the course eventually bolstered her confidence in composing e-mail, which has replaced much work she previously did by phone, but it was a daunting experience, since she had been out of school for years. "It was a challenge all the way through," Ms. Tate said.
Even C.E.O.'s need writing help, said Roger S. Peterson, a freelance writer in Rocklin, Calif., who frequently coaches executives. "Many of these guys write in inflated language that desperately needs a laxative," Mr. Peterson said, and not a few are defensive. "They're in denial, and who's going to argue with the boss?"
But some realize their shortcomings and pay Mr. Peterson to help them improve. Don Morrison, a onetime auditor at Deloitte & Touche who has built a successful consulting business, is among them.
"I was too wordy," Mr. Morrison said. "I liked long, convoluted passages rather than simple four-word sentences. And I had a predilection for underlining words and throwing in multiple exclamation points. Finally Roger threatened to rip the exclamation key off my keyboard."
Exclamation points were an issue when Linda Landis Andrews, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, led a workshop in May for midcareer executives at an automotive corporation based in the Midwest. Their exasperated supervisor had insisted that the men improve their writing.
"I get a memo from them and cannot figure out what they're trying to say," the supervisor wrote Ms. Andrews.
When at her request the executives produced letters they had written to a supplier who had failed to deliver parts on time, she was horrified to see that tone-deaf writing had turned a minor business snarl into a corporate confrontation moving toward litigation.
"They had allowed a hostile tone to creep into the letters," she said. "They didn't seem to understand that those letters were just toxic."
"People think that throwing multiple exclamation points into a business letter will make their point forcefully," Ms. Andrews said. "I tell them they're allowed two exclamation points in their whole life."
Not everyone agrees. Kaitlin Duck Sherwood of San Francisco, author of a popular how-to manual on effective e-mail, argued in an interview that exclamation points could help convey intonation, thereby avoiding confusion in some e-mail.
"If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points," Ms. Sherwood advises in her guide, available at www.webfoot.com, where she offers a vivid example:
">Should I boost the power on the thrombo?
"NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!"
Dr. Hogan, who founded his online Business Writing Center a decade ago after years of teaching composition at Illinois State University here, says that the use of multiple exclamation points and other nonstandard punctuation like the :-) symbol, are fine for personal e-mail but that companies have erred by allowing experimental writing devices to flood into business writing.
He scrolled through his computer, calling up examples of incoherent correspondence sent to him by prospective students.
"E-mails - that are received from Jim and I are not either getting open or not being responded to," the purchasing manager at a construction company in Virginia wrote in one memorandum that Dr. Hogan called to his screen. "I wanted to let everyone know that when Jim and I are sending out e-mails (example- who is to be picking up parcels) I am wanting for who ever the e-mail goes to to respond back to the e-mail. Its important that Jim and I knows that the person, intended, had read the e-mail. This gives an acknowledgment that the task is being completed. I am asking for a simple little 2 sec. Note that says "ok", "I got it", or Alright."
The construction company's human resources director forwarded the memorandum to Dr. Hogan while enrolling the purchasing manager in a writing course.
"E-mail has just erupted like a weed, and instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies at their wits' end."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
December 7, 2004
What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence
By SAM DILLON
LOOMINGTON, Ill. - R. Craig Hogan, a former university professor who heads an online school for business writing here, received an anguished e-mail message recently from a prospective student.
"i need help," said the message, which was devoid of punctuation. "i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you".
Hundreds of inquiries from managers and executives seeking to improve their own or their workers' writing pop into Dr. Hogan's computer in-basket each month, he says, describing a number that has surged as e-mail has replaced the phone for much workplace communication. Millions of employees must write more frequently on the job than previously. And many are making a hash of it.
"E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies tearing their hair out."
A recent survey of 120 American corporations reached a similar conclusion. The study, by the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that a third of employees in the nation's blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.
The problem shows up not only in e-mail but also in reports and other texts, the commission said.
"It's not that companies want to hire Tolstoy," said Susan Traiman, a director at the Business Roundtable, an association of leading chief executives whose corporations were surveyed in the study. "But they need people who can write clearly, and many employees and applicants fall short of that standard."
Millions of inscrutable e-mail messages are clogging corporate computers by setting off requests for clarification, and many of the requests, in turn, are also chaotically written, resulting in whole cycles of confusion.
Here is one from a systems analyst to her supervisor at a high-tech corporation based in Palo Alto, Calif.: "I updated the Status report for the four discrepancies Lennie forward us via e-mail (they in Barry file).. to make sure my logic was correct It seems we provide Murray with incorrect information ... However after verifying controls on JBL - JBL has the indicator as B ???? - I wanted to make sure with the recent changes - I processed today - before Murray make the changes again on the mainframe to 'C'."
The incoherence of that message persuaded the analyst's employers that she needed remedial training.
"The more electronic and global we get, the less important the spoken word has become, and in e-mail clarity is critical," said Sean Phillips, recruitment director at another Silicon Valley corporation, Applera, a supplier of equipment for life science research, where most employees have advanced degrees. "Considering how highly educated our people are, many can't write clearly in their day-to-day work."
Some $2.9 billion of the $3.1 billion the National Commission on Writing estimates that corporations spend each year on remedial training goes to help current employees, with the rest spent on new hires. The corporations surveyed were in the mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, finance, insurance, real estate and service industries, but not in wholesale, retail, agriculture, forestry or fishing, the commission said. Nor did the estimate include spending by government agencies to improve the writing of public servants.
An entire educational industry has developed to offer remedial writing instruction to adults, with hundreds of public and private universities, for-profit schools and freelance teachers offering evening classes as well as workshops, video and online courses in business and technical writing.
Kathy Keenan, a onetime legal proofreader who teaches business writing at the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, said she sought to dissuade students from sending business messages in the crude shorthand they learned to tap out on their pagers as teenagers.
"hI KATHY i am sending u the assignmnet again," one student wrote to her recently. "i had sent you the assignment earlier but i didnt get a respond. If u get this assgnment could u please respond . thanking u for ur cooperation."
Most of her students are midcareer professionals in high-tech industries, Ms. Keenan said.
The Sharonview Federal Credit Union in Charlotte, N.C., asked about 15 employees to take a remedial writing course. Angela Tate, a mortgage processor, said the course eventually bolstered her confidence in composing e-mail, which has replaced much work she previously did by phone, but it was a daunting experience, since she had been out of school for years. "It was a challenge all the way through," Ms. Tate said.
Even C.E.O.'s need writing help, said Roger S. Peterson, a freelance writer in Rocklin, Calif., who frequently coaches executives. "Many of these guys write in inflated language that desperately needs a laxative," Mr. Peterson said, and not a few are defensive. "They're in denial, and who's going to argue with the boss?"
But some realize their shortcomings and pay Mr. Peterson to help them improve. Don Morrison, a onetime auditor at Deloitte & Touche who has built a successful consulting business, is among them.
"I was too wordy," Mr. Morrison said. "I liked long, convoluted passages rather than simple four-word sentences. And I had a predilection for underlining words and throwing in multiple exclamation points. Finally Roger threatened to rip the exclamation key off my keyboard."
Exclamation points were an issue when Linda Landis Andrews, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, led a workshop in May for midcareer executives at an automotive corporation based in the Midwest. Their exasperated supervisor had insisted that the men improve their writing.
"I get a memo from them and cannot figure out what they're trying to say," the supervisor wrote Ms. Andrews.
When at her request the executives produced letters they had written to a supplier who had failed to deliver parts on time, she was horrified to see that tone-deaf writing had turned a minor business snarl into a corporate confrontation moving toward litigation.
"They had allowed a hostile tone to creep into the letters," she said. "They didn't seem to understand that those letters were just toxic."
"People think that throwing multiple exclamation points into a business letter will make their point forcefully," Ms. Andrews said. "I tell them they're allowed two exclamation points in their whole life."
Not everyone agrees. Kaitlin Duck Sherwood of San Francisco, author of a popular how-to manual on effective e-mail, argued in an interview that exclamation points could help convey intonation, thereby avoiding confusion in some e-mail.
"If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points," Ms. Sherwood advises in her guide, available at www.webfoot.com, where she offers a vivid example:
">Should I boost the power on the thrombo?
"NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!"
Dr. Hogan, who founded his online Business Writing Center a decade ago after years of teaching composition at Illinois State University here, says that the use of multiple exclamation points and other nonstandard punctuation like the :-) symbol, are fine for personal e-mail but that companies have erred by allowing experimental writing devices to flood into business writing.
He scrolled through his computer, calling up examples of incoherent correspondence sent to him by prospective students.
"E-mails - that are received from Jim and I are not either getting open or not being responded to," the purchasing manager at a construction company in Virginia wrote in one memorandum that Dr. Hogan called to his screen. "I wanted to let everyone know that when Jim and I are sending out e-mails (example- who is to be picking up parcels) I am wanting for who ever the e-mail goes to to respond back to the e-mail. Its important that Jim and I knows that the person, intended, had read the e-mail. This gives an acknowledgment that the task is being completed. I am asking for a simple little 2 sec. Note that says "ok", "I got it", or Alright."
The construction company's human resources director forwarded the memorandum to Dr. Hogan while enrolling the purchasing manager in a writing course.
"E-mail has just erupted like a weed, and instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies at their wits' end."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Monday, December 6
The Age of the Essay: "No Defense
The other big difference between a real essay and the things they make you write in school is that a real essay doesn't take a position and then defend it. That principle, like the idea that we ought to be writing about literature, turns out to be another intellectual hangover of long forgotten origins."
The other big difference between a real essay and the things they make you write in school is that a real essay doesn't take a position and then defend it. That principle, like the idea that we ought to be writing about literature, turns out to be another intellectual hangover of long forgotten origins."
Download :: Portable Firefox 1.0 (USB Drive-Friendly) :: Mozilla Stuff :: JohnHaller.com
Nice if you want to use firefox in a lab setting.
Nice if you want to use firefox in a lab setting.
The Age of the Essay: "One of the keys to coolness is to avoid situations where inexperience may make you look foolish. If you want to find surprises you should do the opposite. Study lots of different things, because some of the most interesting surprises are unexpected connections between different fields. For example, jam, bacon, pickles, and cheese, which are among the most pleasing of foods, were all originally intended as methods of preservation. And so were books and paintings."
Sunday, December 5
The Age of the Essay: "September 2004
Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in Moby Dick was a Christ-like figure.
Oy. So I'm going to try to give the other side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one. Or at least, how I write one.
"
Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in Moby Dick was a Christ-like figure.
Oy. So I'm going to try to give the other side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one. Or at least, how I write one.
"
Saturday, December 4
Microsoft Word Tips and Tutorials: "Microsoft Word Tips and Tutorials
Tech support, tips, and tutorials for Microsoft Word software especially instructions for doing fancy or complex layouts and desktop publishing with Word."
Tech support, tips, and tutorials for Microsoft Word software especially instructions for doing fancy or complex layouts and desktop publishing with Word."
Friday, December 3
Thursday, December 2
Wednesday, December 1
Barking in Dogs: "I took ten adult dogs of six different breeds and recorded barking in three different test situations-a disturbance situation where a stranger rang the doorbell, an isolation situation where the dog was locked outside isolated from its owner, and a play situation where either two dogs or human and dog played together. "
Monday, November 29
English 1010
Image analysis
The majority of advertisements have most things in common, for example very seldom will you find an ad where ugly people are representing the product being sold. The four companies that I have selected to look at are the epitome of misrepresentation. From what I already know about the three and the types of people that purchase their products the four companies that are being looked at are Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Eddie Bauer.
Gap- The advertisement that I decided on is an image of a woman dressed in winter clothing and wearing a rather large hat with two men, one in front and one in back. The man in back is black and the man upfront is white. The woman is sitting in the middle and it appears as though the she is in a wind tunnel, her hair is blowing and she has to hold her hat on. The men on the other hand seem to be rather unaffected by the wind storm that is blowing through. The woman also has her mouth open and seems to be falling backwards. The man in back is the only person looking into the camera while like I said the woman is falling backward so she is looking at the ceiling and I get the impression that the gentleman in front is in deep thought about something. The color in this image is very dull and mostly white and grey.
What I perceived from this image is that the woman in the middle is in her own little world and she does not seem to notice what is going on around her even though there are two very attractive men sitting around her she is in charge of the situation and she has some sort of strange power over these two men. I am guessing that the two men in the picture are probably gay but that is my opinion. Gap targets a huge variety of people, I would be willing to say that over 70 percent of Americans own or have bought something from Gap. This image tells me that yes it is possible to be good attractive no matter what color or sexual preference you may be. I do know that this clothing is some what affordable and fits all sizes, which is why they get such a wide variety of costumers.
Old Navy- Image, this is a picture of a young girl wearing winter clothing she has her hair done in two long pony tails like Pippy Long Stocking. She is jumping in the air with her legs kicked back behind her and her arms are thrown straight out from her body. It looks as if this young lady is extremely happy to be doing what she is doing, smiling the way she is. The colors in this image are remarkable. Very bright, brilliant and vivid she has a dazzling white smile and her boots are even pink.
One might get the impression that these cloths not only provide you with protection from the elements but freedom from the world. They seem show that one can wear their personality on the outside and show off to everyone that I am a cheerful person. I also get the impression that these cloths might make me young again that these cloths will some how turn back the hands of time and I will be a child again. Old navy is very bold in their advertising and clothing, everything is so brightly colored that I would be embarrassed to walk down the street in one of their sweaters for fear that someone might mistake me for some kind of exotic bird. The product targeting for old navy is more for the average middle class mother who thinks she is buying her children something nice but in reality she is buying them a free ticket to get beat up at school.
Banana Republic- Picture this, a young Asian woman of about 25 years who seems to be strutting down the street. She is wearing high heeled black leather boots that go up to about her knee. A long white coat flows behind her as she strides her glossy dark hair is streams off her head. Her clothing is casual yet professional, the coloration is especially noticeable. the look on her face shows that she can be sexy and still in charge.
When I see this picture it reminds me of all those girls in high school who knew they were good looking and would use it to their advantage. When I hear the name Banana Republic for some reason I think BYU I do not know why this is maybe it is because BYU is all about competition everyone has to be better than everyone else. The type of ads this company puts out are defiantly directed toward people who are looking for the more casual yet sophisticated look. There is one catch though this clothing is pretty pricy.
Eddie Bauer- The weather is cold and you need a coat to wear that will keep you all warm and cozy. The image on the front cover of the Eddie Bauer catalog is of a woman standing outside in the cold buttoning up her down coat and holding a pair of gloves in her hand. She is staring directly into the camera with her big blue eyes. Her coat is a faded whit color that contrasts with the surrounding snow.
What this image says to me is that not only that this coat will keep me warm but it also offers a sense of protection and security. The woman in the picture is not young she is a middle aged woman still very beautiful but more mature than the other models. I can see why people would want to buy clothing from this company; it is a more stylish grown up look. Eddie Bauer is more than just a line of clothing it is an entire image, the type of people that are targeted in the majority of their ads are upper middle class middle aged people. The clothing itself is not flashy it does not stand out as something different, the fact that you are wearing the name Eddie Bauer offers all the comfort you will need. When you have on a pear of Eddie Bauer jeans you can walk down the street feeling much better about yourself. Style is all in the name.
Image analysis
The majority of advertisements have most things in common, for example very seldom will you find an ad where ugly people are representing the product being sold. The four companies that I have selected to look at are the epitome of misrepresentation. From what I already know about the three and the types of people that purchase their products the four companies that are being looked at are Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Eddie Bauer.
Gap- The advertisement that I decided on is an image of a woman dressed in winter clothing and wearing a rather large hat with two men, one in front and one in back. The man in back is black and the man upfront is white. The woman is sitting in the middle and it appears as though the she is in a wind tunnel, her hair is blowing and she has to hold her hat on. The men on the other hand seem to be rather unaffected by the wind storm that is blowing through. The woman also has her mouth open and seems to be falling backwards. The man in back is the only person looking into the camera while like I said the woman is falling backward so she is looking at the ceiling and I get the impression that the gentleman in front is in deep thought about something. The color in this image is very dull and mostly white and grey.
What I perceived from this image is that the woman in the middle is in her own little world and she does not seem to notice what is going on around her even though there are two very attractive men sitting around her she is in charge of the situation and she has some sort of strange power over these two men. I am guessing that the two men in the picture are probably gay but that is my opinion. Gap targets a huge variety of people, I would be willing to say that over 70 percent of Americans own or have bought something from Gap. This image tells me that yes it is possible to be good attractive no matter what color or sexual preference you may be. I do know that this clothing is some what affordable and fits all sizes, which is why they get such a wide variety of costumers.
Old Navy- Image, this is a picture of a young girl wearing winter clothing she has her hair done in two long pony tails like Pippy Long Stocking. She is jumping in the air with her legs kicked back behind her and her arms are thrown straight out from her body. It looks as if this young lady is extremely happy to be doing what she is doing, smiling the way she is. The colors in this image are remarkable. Very bright, brilliant and vivid she has a dazzling white smile and her boots are even pink.
One might get the impression that these cloths not only provide you with protection from the elements but freedom from the world. They seem show that one can wear their personality on the outside and show off to everyone that I am a cheerful person. I also get the impression that these cloths might make me young again that these cloths will some how turn back the hands of time and I will be a child again. Old navy is very bold in their advertising and clothing, everything is so brightly colored that I would be embarrassed to walk down the street in one of their sweaters for fear that someone might mistake me for some kind of exotic bird. The product targeting for old navy is more for the average middle class mother who thinks she is buying her children something nice but in reality she is buying them a free ticket to get beat up at school.
Banana Republic- Picture this, a young Asian woman of about 25 years who seems to be strutting down the street. She is wearing high heeled black leather boots that go up to about her knee. A long white coat flows behind her as she strides her glossy dark hair is streams off her head. Her clothing is casual yet professional, the coloration is especially noticeable. the look on her face shows that she can be sexy and still in charge.
When I see this picture it reminds me of all those girls in high school who knew they were good looking and would use it to their advantage. When I hear the name Banana Republic for some reason I think BYU I do not know why this is maybe it is because BYU is all about competition everyone has to be better than everyone else. The type of ads this company puts out are defiantly directed toward people who are looking for the more casual yet sophisticated look. There is one catch though this clothing is pretty pricy.
Eddie Bauer- The weather is cold and you need a coat to wear that will keep you all warm and cozy. The image on the front cover of the Eddie Bauer catalog is of a woman standing outside in the cold buttoning up her down coat and holding a pair of gloves in her hand. She is staring directly into the camera with her big blue eyes. Her coat is a faded whit color that contrasts with the surrounding snow.
What this image says to me is that not only that this coat will keep me warm but it also offers a sense of protection and security. The woman in the picture is not young she is a middle aged woman still very beautiful but more mature than the other models. I can see why people would want to buy clothing from this company; it is a more stylish grown up look. Eddie Bauer is more than just a line of clothing it is an entire image, the type of people that are targeted in the majority of their ads are upper middle class middle aged people. The clothing itself is not flashy it does not stand out as something different, the fact that you are wearing the name Eddie Bauer offers all the comfort you will need. When you have on a pear of Eddie Bauer jeans you can walk down the street feeling much better about yourself. Style is all in the name.
Sunday, November 28
Coping with a life full of pain / Plaintiff uses medical marijuana every 2 hours, but doesn't get high: "Partially paralyzed, in constant pain from multiple disorders and desperate for help after trying nearly three dozen doctor-prescribed medications, the 30-year-old woman, a product of a conservative upbringing that made her recoil from illegal drugs, decided pot 'might be my last shot.''
It worked. Raich regained her appetite, felt less pain, got out of her wheelchair 18 months later and embarked on a career of advocacy for herself and other patients that has led her to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, the court will hear the case of Ashcroft vs. Raich, a clash of federal and state powers that could determine the future of medical marijuana in the United States. "
It worked. Raich regained her appetite, felt less pain, got out of her wheelchair 18 months later and embarked on a career of advocacy for herself and other patients that has led her to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, the court will hear the case of Ashcroft vs. Raich, a clash of federal and state powers that could determine the future of medical marijuana in the United States. "
Monday, November 22
Thursday, November 18
This is really a great article on plagiarism and art. Please read it for class on Monday.
The New Yorker
Not long after I learned about “Frozen,” I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine seventies pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham!, followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud, kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain”—Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter—“was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?”—here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.”’ But it was different—it was urgent and brilliant and new.”
He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the nineteen-seventies. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook—the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a d.j. at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard."
The New Yorker
Not long after I learned about “Frozen,” I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine seventies pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham!, followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud, kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain”—Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter—“was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?”—here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.”’ But it was different—it was urgent and brilliant and new.”
He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the nineteen-seventies. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook—the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a d.j. at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard."
Wednesday, November 17
Design as Communication: "Later, as I thought back about that morning shower, I realized I had been communicating with the designers. 'Grab here,' the bar was telling me. 'Put the soap on me,' the wire rack soap dish screamed. 'Here are your towels,' said the horizontal bars at the rear wall, at the end of the tub, conveniently stocked with towels. 'Thank you, yes, and no, not for the soap,' I was replying. I even spoke some of these comments aloud. To whom was I speaking?"
Tuesday, November 16
Monday, November 15
Friday, November 12
Thursday, November 11
Harvard Gazette: Freedom squelches terrorist violence: "A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.
Associate Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks.
Abadie, whose work was published in the Kennedy School's Faculty Research Working Paper Series, included both acts of international and domestic terrorism in his analysis.
Though after the 9/11 attacks most of the work in this area has focused on international terrorism, Abadie said terrorism originating within the country where the attacks occur actually makes up the bulk of terrorist acts each year. According to statistics from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base for 2003, which Abadie cites in his analysis, there were 1,536 reports of domestic terrorism worldwide, compared with just 240 incidents of international terrorism."
Associate Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks.
Abadie, whose work was published in the Kennedy School's Faculty Research Working Paper Series, included both acts of international and domestic terrorism in his analysis.
Though after the 9/11 attacks most of the work in this area has focused on international terrorism, Abadie said terrorism originating within the country where the attacks occur actually makes up the bulk of terrorist acts each year. According to statistics from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base for 2003, which Abadie cites in his analysis, there were 1,536 reports of domestic terrorism worldwide, compared with just 240 incidents of international terrorism."
frontline: the persuaders: neuromarketing | PBS: "Getting an update on research is one thing; for decades, marketers have relied on behavioral studies for guidance. But some companies are taking the practice several steps further, commissioning their own fMRI studies � la Montague's test. In a study of men's reactions to cars, Daimler-Chrysler has found that sportier models activate the brain's reward centers -- the same areas that light up in response to alcohol and drugs -- as well as activating the area in the brain that recognizes faces, which may explain people's tendency to anthropomorphize their cars. Steven Quartz, a scientist at Stanford University, is currently conducting similar research on movie trailers. And in the age of poll-taking and smear campaigns, political advertising is also getting in on the game. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have found that Republicans and Democrats react differently to campaign ads showing images of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks. Those ads cause the part of the brain associated with fear to light up more vividly in Democrats than in Republicans."
Wednesday, November 10
onfocus.com | the persuaders: "Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commerical interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly."
Tuesday, November 9
gladwell dot com: Tipping Point - Why do we love tall men?: "On a conscious level, I'm sure that all of us don't think that we treat tall people any differently from short people. But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that height--particularly in men--does trigger a certain set of very positive, unconscious associations. I polled about half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list--the largest corporations in the United States--asking each company questions about its CEOs. The heads of big companies are, as I'm sure comes as no surprise to anyone, overwhelmingly white men, which undoubtedly reflects some kind of implicit bias. But they are also virtually all tall: In my sample, I found that on average CEOs were just a shade under six feet. Given that the average American male is 5'9 that means that CEOs, as a group, have about three inches on the rest of their sex."
gladwell dot com: Tipping Point - The Mysteries of Mind-Reading: "Much of our understanding of mind-reading from two remarkable scientists, a teacher and his pupil: Silvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman. Tomkins was the teacher. He was born in Philadelphia, at the turn of the last century, the son of a dentist from Russia. He was short, and thick around the middle, with a wild mane of white hair and huge black plastic-rimmed glasses. He taught psychology at Princeton and Rutgers, and was the author of 'Affect, Imagery, Consciousness,' a four-volume work so dense that its readers were evenly divided between those who understood it and thought it was brilliant and those who did not understand it and thought it was brilliant."
gladwell dot com: Blink: "Where did you get the idea for 'Blink'?
Believe it or not, it's because I decided, a few years ago, to grow my hair long. If you look at the author photo on my last book, 'The Tipping Point,' you'll see that it used to be cut very short and conservatively. But, on a whim, I let it grow wild, as it had been when I was teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets all the time--and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along 14th Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. "
Believe it or not, it's because I decided, a few years ago, to grow my hair long. If you look at the author photo on my last book, 'The Tipping Point,' you'll see that it used to be cut very short and conservatively. But, on a whim, I let it grow wild, as it had been when I was teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets all the time--and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along 14th Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. "
Sunday, November 7
Google Job Opportunities: Technical Writing: "Associate Technical Writer
Position available in Mountain View, CA.
Bring your editing/writing and organizational skills to Google and help us revolutionize search technology! Working in Software Engineering, you will edit Google's internal documentation efforts and assist with documentation processes and organization. "
Position available in Mountain View, CA.
Bring your editing/writing and organizational skills to Google and help us revolutionize search technology! Working in Software Engineering, you will edit Google's internal documentation efforts and assist with documentation processes and organization. "
Friday, November 5
English 1010
Visual Assignment
Rough draft due: Friday, Nov. 11
Final draft due: Wednesday Nov. 16
Purpose: the purpose of this assignment is to look at images critically, and to practice writing about abstract concepts.
Overview: Your primary task is to compare related images, describing them in detail, and then providing us with a conclusion that creates a synthesis of your observations.
Here are some possible applications:
- Compare images used by different parties of a particular campaign
- Analyze album covers for a specific band, over time
- Analyze the use of images in advertising. Specifically:
How are ads targeted towards different audiences?
How do the advertisements in a particular magazine reflect their target demographic?
How is the same product presented in different magazines?
You may also analyze a website, using the same methods. For example, you could look at a website for a corporation and try to determine who their imagined audience is, based on the images used on their site.
Another possibility: Look at ads for a particular product, then create your own advertisement that breaks with conventions.
Page 226 has a checklist for analyzing images. You may also find the discussion of marketing segments on page 228 useful.
Please put all of your notes, images and drafts on your weblog as you work on this paper.
Visual Assignment
Rough draft due: Friday, Nov. 11
Final draft due: Wednesday Nov. 16
Purpose: the purpose of this assignment is to look at images critically, and to practice writing about abstract concepts.
Overview: Your primary task is to compare related images, describing them in detail, and then providing us with a conclusion that creates a synthesis of your observations.
Here are some possible applications:
- Compare images used by different parties of a particular campaign
- Analyze album covers for a specific band, over time
- Analyze the use of images in advertising. Specifically:
How are ads targeted towards different audiences?
How do the advertisements in a particular magazine reflect their target demographic?
How is the same product presented in different magazines?
You may also analyze a website, using the same methods. For example, you could look at a website for a corporation and try to determine who their imagined audience is, based on the images used on their site.
Another possibility: Look at ads for a particular product, then create your own advertisement that breaks with conventions.
Page 226 has a checklist for analyzing images. You may also find the discussion of marketing segments on page 228 useful.
Please put all of your notes, images and drafts on your weblog as you work on this paper.
news @ nature.com - Electric currents boost brain powerbreaking science news headlines: "Connecting a battery across the front of the head can boost verbal skills, says a team from the US National Institutes of Health.
A current of two thousandths of an ampere (a fraction of that needed to power a digital watch) applied for 20 minutes is enough to produce a significant improvement, according to data presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, held in San Diego. And apart from an itchy sensation around the scalp electrode, subjects in the trials reported no side-effects.
Meenakshi Iyer of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, ran the current through 103 initially nervous volunteers. 'I had to explain it in detail to the first one or two subjects,' she says. But once she had convinced them that the current was harmless, Iyer says, recruitment was not a problem.
"
frontline: coming soon: the persuaders | PBS: "FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar 'persuasion industries' of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public. In this documentary essay, correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (correspondent for FRONTLINE's 'The Merchants of Cool') also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions, and stay in power."
Thursday, November 4
Tuesday, November 2
plasticbag.org | weblog | Five years of plasticbag.org: The Visualisations: "You may well ask what it was that caused my post-length to go up and my post frequency to drop so dramatically? Well it turns out, looking at my archives, that this happens at precisely the same time as I switched to using Movable Type instead of Blogger - which just goes to show how much the tool helps dictate the form of your writing online."
Monday, November 1
How to think about prescription drugs. | Metafilter: "Malcolm Gladwell's latest piece in The New Yorker
The emphasis of the prescription-drug debate is all wrong. We've been focussed on the drug manufacturers. But decisions about prevalence, therapeutic mix, and intensity aren't made by the producers of drugs. They’re made by the consumers of drugs.
"
The emphasis of the prescription-drug debate is all wrong. We've been focussed on the drug manufacturers. But decisions about prevalence, therapeutic mix, and intensity aren't made by the producers of drugs. They’re made by the consumers of drugs.
"
Thursday, October 28
Stuck? Change Context, by Michael Knowles: "I know writers who panic when they become stuck. But I know a secret they don't know: There's no such thing as writer's block. There's only digging the same hole, or choosing to dig new ones. You CAN choose a different path. Successful writers do just that. How? By understanding what stuckness really is, and being ready to honor it."
List Your Way Out Of Stuckness: "You're stuck. You can't go forward. You refuse to go forward. You're procrastinating like crazy.
Here's a list method you can use to avoid stuckness of the kind described above"
Here's a list method you can use to avoid stuckness of the kind described above"
Wednesday, October 27
Monday, October 25
foe romeo: A creative generation: "Even more interestingly, the study found that 17% of young people have sent pictures or stories to a website and 'online creativity can be encouraged through the very experience of using the internet.' That is, the more time kids spend online, the more likely they are to produce their own content. And interaction breeds interaction. Does that mean we can safely assume that as internet usage increases its media timeshare, more and more people will become creative producers as well as consumers?
"
"
Accelerate Your Macintosh! News Story - Tweaked Canon Digital Rebel/300D Firmware Unlocks some 10D Features: "Tweaked Canon Digital Rebel/300D Firmware Unlocks some 10D Features"
We're only in class Monday and Wednesday!
On Monday we are going to talk about sentence tone and style. I can sense your eager anticipation of this discussion.
For Wednesday, you [++ MUST ++] read Chapter 10, analyzing images. Be prepared for surprise quiz as well!!!
(But wait, if he tells us about it, it's not a surprise...)
On Monday we are going to talk about sentence tone and style. I can sense your eager anticipation of this discussion.
For Wednesday, you [++ MUST ++] read Chapter 10, analyzing images. Be prepared for surprise quiz as well!!!
(But wait, if he tells us about it, it's not a surprise...)
Friday, October 22
Tuesday, October 19
Salt Lake Tribune - Business: " Hazelbaker said the Escalade EXT has a standard anti-theft ignition immobilizer, which prevents the vehicle from being started without the right key, but it may not be as effective as newer systems. General Motors Corp. spokeswoman Kelly Wysocki confirmed that the Pass-lock system, which is on all current Escalades as well as 2005 models, is aging and said
Advertisement
GM is considering a change soon."
Advertisement
GM is considering a change soon."
Monday, October 18
TechComm - Main.Schedule4310
I've put our weekly schedule and topics on the wiki. There are still some details left to fill in, but it should give you an idea of where we're headed.
I've put our weekly schedule and topics on the wiki. There are still some details left to fill in, but it should give you an idea of where we're headed.
Sunday, October 17
I am stressed right now as I try to finish chapter four of my dissertation before a looming deadline. It is a snarled mess, but there is some good stuff in there. As I try not to think of it this weekend, I find myself obsessing over weird things.
- tuning my crosman air pistol obsessively
- planning on building a full fairing for my recumbent, to replace my car
- installing all sorts of weird little scripts and consolidation a lot of my data
- learning radical, invasive new productivity methods that I don't have time to learn right now
- withdrawing from real contact with spouse and family
- Guilt, guilt, guilt!
- renting too many movies
- drinking milk again (the equivalent of taking up smoking for me)
Wednesday, October 13
IrfanView - one of the most popular viewers worldwide
This program will let you easily resize and crop images.
This program will let you easily resize and crop images.
Ambiguous: "Unfortunately, if a person who already has a human flu virus swimming around in them gets the bird flu as well, they could easily swap a few genes and start doing something Ebola will almost certainly never do; hang around on kitchen counters and doorknobs and in hugs and kisses. Then we have a problem . The SARS experience taught us that our current medical system is less protection than we thought it was, in fact it doesn't matter if you are going to Asia or staying home, we're all pretty much screwed at that point. To put more perspective on this potential danger the flu we're looking at could, with a few lucky mutations , start acting more like the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed 20 million people and sickened 1 billion. According to my handy dandy 8th grade percentage figuring technique, that's over 60 million dead and 4 billion sickened within the space of about 10 months. Stats like that don't fit comfortably in the mind, especially in the modern world, where able bodied people are needed to baby sit electrical grids and nuclear weapon that didn't exist in 1918. But surely our modern medical can protect us better than the bloodletting barbers of the 1918? Well, maybe. I'd have a lot more confidence in it if we hadn't just canceled half of our nation's flu shots. "
Boing Boing: Bird Flu risk extremely low
Mankato, MN Home Page
The beautiful city of Mankato.
ACC: shuttle tile risk analysis
Mankato, MN Home Page
The beautiful city of Mankato.
ACC: shuttle tile risk analysis
Monday, October 11
Saturday, October 9
Jeffrey Veen: On Writing Short: "Yesterday at the conference table with a new client, we talked about their frustration with a classic problem. 'Users just won't read the instructions on our forms,' they complained. 'It really couldn't be simpler if they would just read the three sentences at the top!'
But of course we don't read instructions. It's a matter of context. When trying to get through an interaction, we're not in 'reading mode' ... we're in 'doing mode.' "
But of course we don't read instructions. It's a matter of context. When trying to get through an interaction, we're not in 'reading mode' ... we're in 'doing mode.' "
Friday, October 8
Peter Shor: "Peter Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American theoretical computer scientist most famous for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm for factoring while working at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1994. He was the recipient of the Nevanlinna Prize in 1998, a MacArthur Fellowship in 1999, and a G�del prize in 1999 among other prizes. Currently, he is a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, and he is affiliated with CSAIL.
He received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978. He then earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1985. His doctoral advisor was Tom Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms. After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. Shor began his current MIT position in 2003. "
He received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978. He then earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1985. His doctoral advisor was Tom Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms. After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. Shor began his current MIT position in 2003. "
Thursday, October 7
For class on Friday and Monday (depending on how much ground we cover)
1. Read chapters 7,8,9 (we've already discussed #7, but will revisit it briefly).
I asked you to do two other things: attach your current files to your wiki page, and discuss your research strategy on your wiki page, but we'll do these in class on Friday.
And, realisitically, we may not get to chapter nine until Monday.
1. Read chapters 7,8,9 (we've already discussed #7, but will revisit it briefly).
I asked you to do two other things: attach your current files to your wiki page, and discuss your research strategy on your wiki page, but we'll do these in class on Friday.
And, realisitically, we may not get to chapter nine until Monday.
Register to vote before 10/13!!! That's the Utah deadline.
click here for more information and to be entered in a drawing for $100,000. This is not a drill.
click here for more information and to be entered in a drawing for $100,000. This is not a drill.
Wednesday, October 6
Tuesday, October 5
Monday, October 4
Don't forget to register to vote!. You have until October 13th. If you register to vote, prove to me that you have, and write up a paragraph or two about the voting process, you'll get extra credit.
Don't forget to register to vote!. You have until October 13th. If you register to vote, prove to me that you have, and write up a paragraph or two about the voting process, you'll get extra credit.
Don't forget to register to vote!. You have until October 13th. If you register to vote, prove to me that you have, and write up a paragraph or two about the voting process, you'll get extra credit.
Friday, October 1
cfarivar.org: What if half of the adult male population were charged with sexual assault?: "'Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.'"
What's on my mind lately:
The possibility of Bush winning
Job opportunities in Switzerland
Air pistol modifications
Modding the Crosman .357
David Allen's "Getting Things Done"
A ton of committee work
Putting together a PBA for my 1:30 meeting
Relationship with spouse--improving
What's going on with Ezra?
The Wexler IQ test
Home Schooling
Ritalin--it's not just for breakfast anymore
Why do all of my students write papers that would do well in 2010, in the first two weeks of 1010? Is there any real progression taking place or are they just tricking us?
How to make 1010 more of an intellectually rewarding experience
Would it be possible to attach a liquid food IV to myself so I would never have to eat again? Would my teeth eventuall fall out?
How do I consolidate all of my personal data in a useful way?
What are some examples of people who have radically transformed themselves after age 40? (in a good way)
Is it to late for me to become a world class athlete, even if it's just curling?
How many of my students are on the verge of a complete mental breakdown but are hiding it?
Why bother learning to write?
How to get 1010-ers intrinsically motivated to want to write.
How can I mod the C-357 so it will shoot 550 fps with a 14" barrel and a biathlon stock?
What is motivating my desire to purchase weapons used by Robot Assassins from the Future? Is this a midlife crisis thing?
The possibility of Bush winning
Job opportunities in Switzerland
Air pistol modifications
Modding the Crosman .357
David Allen's "Getting Things Done"
A ton of committee work
Putting together a PBA for my 1:30 meeting
Relationship with spouse--improving
What's going on with Ezra?
The Wexler IQ test
Home Schooling
Ritalin--it's not just for breakfast anymore
Why do all of my students write papers that would do well in 2010, in the first two weeks of 1010? Is there any real progression taking place or are they just tricking us?
How to make 1010 more of an intellectually rewarding experience
Would it be possible to attach a liquid food IV to myself so I would never have to eat again? Would my teeth eventuall fall out?
How do I consolidate all of my personal data in a useful way?
What are some examples of people who have radically transformed themselves after age 40? (in a good way)
Is it to late for me to become a world class athlete, even if it's just curling?
How many of my students are on the verge of a complete mental breakdown but are hiding it?
Why bother learning to write?
How to get 1010-ers intrinsically motivated to want to write.
How can I mod the C-357 so it will shoot 550 fps with a 14" barrel and a biathlon stock?
What is motivating my desire to purchase weapons used by Robot Assassins from the Future? Is this a midlife crisis thing?
Monday, September 27
Sunday, September 26
Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "I have a self-modded xbox too. I have a 130GB hard drive in it and used the exact steps that shepd described above to mod mine. With the exception of actually installing the mod chip, he left that part out and it wasn't easy.
I would never have anything else. For a little under $300.00 I can play new games I can never play on my PC now. A decent sound card and vid card would be way more. I have all of the older game emulators and ROMs I could ever want including MAME and the kids have their new stuff. Add to that a region-free DVD player and the ability to stream media from my network... I'm sorry I ever said a bad word about the xbox. But, like most M$ products, it's not so great until you tweak it the way you want it."
I would never have anything else. For a little under $300.00 I can play new games I can never play on my PC now. A decent sound card and vid card would be way more. I have all of the older game emulators and ROMs I could ever want including MAME and the kids have their new stuff. Add to that a region-free DVD player and the ability to stream media from my network... I'm sorry I ever said a bad word about the xbox. But, like most M$ products, it's not so great until you tweak it the way you want it."
Friday, September 24
Monday, September 20
Microsoft Office Assistance: Create a Gantt chart in Excel: "here are many ways to create a Gantt chart. For example, Microsoft Project, a task-planning program, makes it easy to track and chart project timelines with a built-in Gantt chart view. Another option is to use Excel. Excel does not contain a built-in Gantt chart format; however, you can create a Gantt chart in Excel by customizing the stacked bar chart type.
This article shows you how to create a Gantt chart like the following example."
This article shows you how to create a Gantt chart like the following example."
Friday, September 17
Mind Tools - Critical Path Analysis and PERT: "Drawing a Critical Path Analysis Chart
Use the following steps to draw a CPA Chart:
1. List all activities in the plan
For each activity, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stage they depend on."
Use the following steps to draw a CPA Chart:
1. List all activities in the plan
For each activity, show the earliest start date, estimated length of time it will take, and whether it is parallel or sequential. If tasks are sequential, show which stage they depend on."
Wednesday, September 15
The Economically Efficient NBA Team | HOOPSWORLD.com | NBA News and Information: "In theory, above-max players and players on rookie contracts are the only players in the league that should be underpaid. Everyone else should be bid up to market in free agency. Quite obviously, that's not realistic. Players are overpaid or underpaid for any number of reasons. Injuries are a huge one. Not developing the way they were expected to, whether breaking out, busting, aging early, or displaying surprising longevity. Sometimes the market -- or one team, since that's all that is necessary to create market value -- is just wrong. "
College Student Journal: Religiosity and depression in intercollegiate athletes: "The present study examined the relationship between organizational, non-organizational, and intrinsic religiosity, and symptoms of depression in intercollegiate athletes. The Duke Religion Index and the Depression subscale of the Personality Assessment Inventory were completed by 105 athletes. Results showed that only intrinsic religiosity was negatively associated with affective symptoms of depression. Implications of these findings on the potential protective effects of religiosity against affective symptoms of depression are discussed."
An Integrative Approach to Depression: Part 2--Assessment and Treatment -- Zuess 8 (2): 99 -- Complementary Health Practice Review: "McCullough, M. E., & Larson, D. (1999). Religion and depression: A review of the literature. Twin Research, 2(2), 126-136.[Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve] "
Latter-day Saint Demographics/LDS Statistics/ Mormon statistics: "In 2000 Self magazine ranked Provo, Utah as the number 1 healthiest city in the country for women. The article said that the Mormon influence is the reason women in Provo experience such low incidents of cancer, smoking, drinking, violence, depression, etc. [Source: MSNBC] "
: "JULIE CART, Times Staff Writer
SALT LAKE CITY -- Doctors here have for years talked about the widespread use of antidepressants in the state. But there was no hard evidence until a national study that tracked drug prescriptions came to an unexpected conclusion:
Antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average. "
SALT LAKE CITY -- Doctors here have for years talked about the widespread use of antidepressants in the state. But there was no hard evidence until a national study that tracked drug prescriptions came to an unexpected conclusion:
Antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average. "
USATODAY.com - Expert: Mormon women less depressed: "SALT LAKE CITY (AP) � A Brigham Young University sociologist says data from national surveys show Mormon women are less likely to be depressed than American women in general and show no major differences in overall life satisfaction compared to women nationwide but do score lower on measures of self-esteem"
The Economically Efficient NBA Team | HOOPSWORLD.com | NBA News and Information: "Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, points out that in 2002, when Zito won the American League's Cy Young Award, the A's paid him just $295,000 -- less than the NBA's minimum salary at any point since the start of the 21st century. Zito didn't pick the wrong sport, as he'll be making up for lost salary time when he hits the free-agent market in a couple of years, but, for the time being, his loss is the A's gain. "
Monday, September 13
ATF Online: Dallas Field Division - Man Sentenced: "Keller, Texas, Resident Sentenced to Federal Prison For Possessing Grenade Launchers"
Saturday, September 11
Friday, September 10
CBS and Internet Fisking | Metafilter: "i'd live a life of sin without fear if i knew karl rove was going to organize and run the campaign to get me into heaven."
Friday, September 3
Wednesday, September 1
Revise this memo for extra credit. Post your response in the comments below:
Hi,
I currently administer two networked classrooms for the English
department, located in LA 27 and LA 29. It was brought to my
attention that at some point these rooms were mistakenly classified as
"open labs" which led to the decision to not install touchpads to
control the already installed audiovisual equipment. Unfortunately,
these rooms are used for almost 12 hours a day to teach writing
courses, but the instructors can't use the equipment because the rooms
were left incomplete. In essence, they are broken.
I'm writing to determine if there is a mechanism in place to have
these classrooms institutionally defined as classrooms, and if there
is a source of funding available to repair these rooms.
thanks for your suggestions,
Monday, August 30
For class on Wednesday:
Using google or another search methodology of your choosing, locate an example of a memo that was supposed to have been secret, but was revealed to the public. Place a link to this memo on your web page. Extra points for those of you that find a secret memo online somewhere that has not yet been shared with the world.
Using google or another search methodology of your choosing, locate an example of a memo that was supposed to have been secret, but was revealed to the public. Place a link to this memo on your web page. Extra points for those of you that find a secret memo online somewhere that has not yet been shared with the world.
The New York Times > Opinion > EDITORIAL: Grokster and the Information Exchange: "the broader issue is the distribution of information. Software like Grokster creates a network of independent Internet users who can access one another's computer files without going through a central server. (Napster maintained a central server, which made it legally liable in very different ways.) Grokster can certainly be used to swap music illegally. But it can also be used to exchange electronic copies of books already in the public domain, transcripts of Congressional hearings or any number of other legitimate types of information. Much like a VCR that does not distinguish between a pirated tape and one legally acquired, the technology does not care what is shared. It is impossible to strike down software like Grokster for its use in illegal file-sharing without also destroying its capacity for legal and socially beneficial activities."
Friday, August 27
Hello!
For Monday's class, I would like you to read pages 1-22 in our text, and then complete one of the exercises (memo writing) on page 22-23. You can select 1, 2, or 3. We'll work on the exercises in class on Monday.
Please post your memo to your weblog
We'll review your work on Monday. Thanks, and please email me if you have questions or concerns.
craniac@gmail.com
p.s. you can post comments at the end of this message as well and they will be emailed to me.
For Monday's class, I would like you to read pages 1-22 in our text, and then complete one of the exercises (memo writing) on page 22-23. You can select 1, 2, or 3. We'll work on the exercises in class on Monday.
Please post your memo to your weblog
We'll review your work on Monday. Thanks, and please email me if you have questions or concerns.
craniac@gmail.com
p.s. you can post comments at the end of this message as well and they will be emailed to me.
Friday, August 13
Scrubs guy has a weblog.
The guy from Scrubs, who just made the movie "Garden State" has a
weblog, and its pretty funny at times:
http://gardenstate.typepad.com/
We took the kids rafting down the Jordan river at 7pm Wednesday.
Christine waited for us by the bridge. By the time I rowed all the
way to the bridge, it was just starting to get dark and Christine had
called the police. Joey was screaming, "I want to park the boat and
get in the white van RIGHT NOW." Other than that it was pretty cool.
We saw dozens of fish in groups of 4-5, swimming with their backs just
out of the water. When our little inflatable raft would approach they
would dive with a huge splash. I may get an electronic trolling
motor. 2 mph is much faster than I can row. Too bad they don't make
Kayaks that seat five.
weblog, and its pretty funny at times:
http://gardenstate.typepad.com/
We took the kids rafting down the Jordan river at 7pm Wednesday.
Christine waited for us by the bridge. By the time I rowed all the
way to the bridge, it was just starting to get dark and Christine had
called the police. Joey was screaming, "I want to park the boat and
get in the white van RIGHT NOW." Other than that it was pretty cool.
We saw dozens of fish in groups of 4-5, swimming with their backs just
out of the water. When our little inflatable raft would approach they
would dive with a huge splash. I may get an electronic trolling
motor. 2 mph is much faster than I can row. Too bad they don't make
Kayaks that seat five.
Wednesday, August 4
Thursday, July 29
Google Search: jordan river utah : "Anyway, the thread on unique river hazards made me think of the time some friends and I tried to paddle the
Jordan River from its source in Utah Lake to the first major obstacle in the Jordan River Narrows in the south
end of the Salt Lake valley. I know the Jordan used to be a beautiful little stream, tree lined, home to
birds and fish and all sorts of nice clean critters. I know 'cause I'm an archivist and see photographs and
read accounts of what it used to be like. Well now its source, Utah Lake, is full of heavy metals from fifty
years of steel production and 100 years of agricultural chemicals and 150 years of sewage from Ovum, I mean
Orem, and Provo, Utah. The river as it goes through the Salt Lake valley has been a dumping ground for a
century and a half, and now instead of trees it has bridge abutments and old rebar, instead of nice fish it
has big greasy mutated carp that feed on offal from the meat packing plant, dead animals that people throw in
it, and the occasional poor transient who drinks too much thunderbird, falls in the river and dies. Ah, parts
of it are still pretty, but just when you think it's pretty nice you come around a corner and face a rapid
made entirely of shopping carts that hooligans have thrown in the river, or a bunch of kids giving you gang
signs and holding cans of spray paint. Just glad it wasn't guns."
Jordan River from its source in Utah Lake to the first major obstacle in the Jordan River Narrows in the south
end of the Salt Lake valley. I know the Jordan used to be a beautiful little stream, tree lined, home to
birds and fish and all sorts of nice clean critters. I know 'cause I'm an archivist and see photographs and
read accounts of what it used to be like. Well now its source, Utah Lake, is full of heavy metals from fifty
years of steel production and 100 years of agricultural chemicals and 150 years of sewage from Ovum, I mean
Orem, and Provo, Utah. The river as it goes through the Salt Lake valley has been a dumping ground for a
century and a half, and now instead of trees it has bridge abutments and old rebar, instead of nice fish it
has big greasy mutated carp that feed on offal from the meat packing plant, dead animals that people throw in
it, and the occasional poor transient who drinks too much thunderbird, falls in the river and dies. Ah, parts
of it are still pretty, but just when you think it's pretty nice you come around a corner and face a rapid
made entirely of shopping carts that hooligans have thrown in the river, or a bunch of kids giving you gang
signs and holding cans of spray paint. Just glad it wasn't guns."
Wednesday, July 28
Tuesday, July 27
I'm working in the Library in Lehi today. If I can finish up my current diss chapter, I get to play my new guitar, which has languished untouched for over a month. I'll also go see "The Bourne Supremacy". Childish, to be sure, but hopefully effective. Turning in this section will also release enough stress from my life that I'll be able to ride my recumbent in the morning before work.
Monday, July 26
For your third assignment: Angle of Vision
It's based on chapter five, so re-read that chapter in Allyn and Bacon's Guide to Writing if you need a refresher. Specifically, your assignment is to
(1) locate a research site with people in it: work, school, library, car wash, meeting, club, church, health club, and
(2) observe that site for at least a solid hour. You can break that down into several visits of 20 minutes each, or one single visit of 60+ minutes. You need to then
(3) take detailed, descriptive notes of everything you see. It's not uncommon to get 3-5 pages of notes from a single observation. Next, you should
(4) Expand those notes with even more descriptive detail, then
(5) write an essay in which you describe the scenario you witnessed, first with a negative angle of vision, then with a positive angle of vision. Again, refer to chapter five for numerous examples of this. Each description should be at least 250 words long. Finally,
(6) write a conclusion of 400 words or so, describing what you learned from writing from these two perspectives.
PLEASE BRING YOUR OBSERVATION NOTES TO CLASS
It's based on chapter five, so re-read that chapter in Allyn and Bacon's Guide to Writing if you need a refresher. Specifically, your assignment is to
(1) locate a research site with people in it: work, school, library, car wash, meeting, club, church, health club, and
(2) observe that site for at least a solid hour. You can break that down into several visits of 20 minutes each, or one single visit of 60+ minutes. You need to then
(3) take detailed, descriptive notes of everything you see. It's not uncommon to get 3-5 pages of notes from a single observation. Next, you should
(4) Expand those notes with even more descriptive detail, then
(5) write an essay in which you describe the scenario you witnessed, first with a negative angle of vision, then with a positive angle of vision. Again, refer to chapter five for numerous examples of this. Each description should be at least 250 words long. Finally,
(6) write a conclusion of 400 words or so, describing what you learned from writing from these two perspectives.
PLEASE BRING YOUR OBSERVATION NOTES TO CLASS
Sunday, July 25
Collin vs. Blog: The Network Fallacy?: "the argument, more than implicit in Taylor's pages and in the pages of many other theorists of our condition, makes what I would call the 'system' or 'network' mistake -- the mistake of thinking that because something is embedded in a network that sustains that thing and gives it both value and shape, it is incoherent to speak of its properties, or of the boundaries that separate and distinguish it from other nodal points in the network. Since identity is network-dependent, the reasoning goes, nothing can be spoken of and examined as if it were free standing and discrete.
The trouble with that reasoning is that it operates at a level of generality so high that you can't see the trees for the forest.
Well, yes and no. This is not a new 'mistake'--it's been around at least since the heyday of poststructuralism (and it would be easy to trace back through Burke and IA Richards as well). There, it was used as a reductio ad absurdum with which to point out the problem with deconstruction and the like--if it's all 'free play of signifiers,' then nothing means anything, and we might as well give up, blah, blah, blah. Basically, it involves ignoring one half of KB's 'paradox of substance.' "
The trouble with that reasoning is that it operates at a level of generality so high that you can't see the trees for the forest.
Well, yes and no. This is not a new 'mistake'--it's been around at least since the heyday of poststructuralism (and it would be easy to trace back through Burke and IA Richards as well). There, it was used as a reductio ad absurdum with which to point out the problem with deconstruction and the like--if it's all 'free play of signifiers,' then nothing means anything, and we might as well give up, blah, blah, blah. Basically, it involves ignoring one half of KB's 'paradox of substance.' "
Thursday, July 22
Tour de France - Daily Scoop (Stage 17): "Armstrong said today he is not the new Cannibal--a reference to Eddy Merckx, who rarely gave gifts to anyone and seemed to relish personally torturing his rivals by doing things like chasing down their stage win attempts or attacking while already in yellow.
Today's win, and Armstrong's stance, are an interesting contrast to the idea, first reported here, that Armstrong would not seek a seventh Tour win, but instead leave the Tour open to other challengers. Would that be a gift? Or is Armstrong simply ready to leave for other goals--the Giro, the Vuelta or the Hour Record? Likely as not, not even the man himself knows. Gifts, after all, are usually a surprise until they're unwrapped.
"
Today's win, and Armstrong's stance, are an interesting contrast to the idea, first reported here, that Armstrong would not seek a seventh Tour win, but instead leave the Tour open to other challengers. Would that be a gift? Or is Armstrong simply ready to leave for other goals--the Giro, the Vuelta or the Hour Record? Likely as not, not even the man himself knows. Gifts, after all, are usually a surprise until they're unwrapped.
"
Movies that "cleanfilms" won't edit:
25th Hour
8 Mile
Addicted To Love
American History X
American Pie
American Pie 2
American Wedding
Auto Focus
Bad Boys II
Blair Witch Project, The
Boat Trip
Cabin Fever
Dark Blue
Dirty Pretty Things
Empire
Far From Heaven
Fear dot com
Femme Fatale
Final Destination 2
Formula 51
Frida
Friday After Next
Gigli
Good Girl, The
Guru, The
Honey
Hot Chick, The
Hours, The
Jackass: The Movie
Life of David Gale, The
Mambo Italiano
My Boss's Daughter
Narc
Old School
Paid in Full
Possession
Real Cancun, The
Red Dragon
Resident Evil
Rules of Attraction
Scary Movie
Secretary
Silence of the lambs and sequels
Swept Away
Talk to Her
There's Something About Mary
Undercover Brother
Wrong Turn
25th Hour
8 Mile
Addicted To Love
American History X
American Pie
American Pie 2
American Wedding
Auto Focus
Bad Boys II
Blair Witch Project, The
Boat Trip
Cabin Fever
Dark Blue
Dirty Pretty Things
Empire
Far From Heaven
Fear dot com
Femme Fatale
Final Destination 2
Formula 51
Frida
Friday After Next
Gigli
Good Girl, The
Guru, The
Honey
Hot Chick, The
Hours, The
Jackass: The Movie
Life of David Gale, The
Mambo Italiano
My Boss's Daughter
Narc
Old School
Paid in Full
Possession
Real Cancun, The
Red Dragon
Resident Evil
Rules of Attraction
Scary Movie
Secretary
Silence of the lambs and sequels
Swept Away
Talk to Her
There's Something About Mary
Undercover Brother
Wrong Turn
Wednesday, July 21
Technology Review: MIT's Magazine of Innovation: "he address cranema@complicity.uvsc.edu will be removed from the Technology Review marketing database. Please note that it may take a few weeks before you stop receiving messages."
What a bunch of boneheads. "a few weeks" to unsub someone from a list? Time to add them to my Google spam filter.
What a bunch of boneheads. "a few weeks" to unsub someone from a list? Time to add them to my Google spam filter.
responses to first paper
If your paper isn't in here, please contact me to set up an appointment to look at it together.
If your paper isn't in here, please contact me to set up an appointment to look at it together.
Tuesday, July 20
Please read this before Friday, thanks
gladwell dot com / The Coolhunt:
"Baysie Wightman met DeeDee Gordon, appropriately enough, on a coolhunt. It was 1992. Baysie was a big shot for Converse, and DeeDee, who was barely twenty-one, was running a very cool boutique called Placid Planet, on Newbury Street in Boston. Baysie came in with a camera crew-one she often used when she was coolhunting-and said, 'I've been watching your store, I've seen you, I've heard you know what's up,' because it was Baysie's job at Converse to find people who knew what was up and she thought DeeDee was one of those people. DeeDee says that she responded with reserve-that 'I was like, 'Whatever' '-but Baysie said that if DeeDee ever wanted to come and work at Converse she should just call, and nine months later DeeDee called. This was about the time the cool kids had decided they didn't want the hundred-and-twenty- five-dollar basketball sneaker with seventeen different kinds of high-technology materials and colors and air-cushioned heels anymore. They wanted simplicity and authenticity, and Baysie picked up on that. "
gladwell dot com / The Coolhunt:
"Baysie Wightman met DeeDee Gordon, appropriately enough, on a coolhunt. It was 1992. Baysie was a big shot for Converse, and DeeDee, who was barely twenty-one, was running a very cool boutique called Placid Planet, on Newbury Street in Boston. Baysie came in with a camera crew-one she often used when she was coolhunting-and said, 'I've been watching your store, I've seen you, I've heard you know what's up,' because it was Baysie's job at Converse to find people who knew what was up and she thought DeeDee was one of those people. DeeDee says that she responded with reserve-that 'I was like, 'Whatever' '-but Baysie said that if DeeDee ever wanted to come and work at Converse she should just call, and nine months later DeeDee called. This was about the time the cool kids had decided they didn't want the hundred-and-twenty- five-dollar basketball sneaker with seventeen different kinds of high-technology materials and colors and air-cushioned heels anymore. They wanted simplicity and authenticity, and Baysie picked up on that. "
Friday, July 16
Just a reminder if you missed class on Wednesday. Please do the following:
1. post your second paper rough draft to your weblog. If your weblog is not listed on the right side of this page, post the address in the comments below.
2. respond to the rough draft that is directly below yours in the list using the extended prompts on page 107 of allyn and bacon. Keep in mind how useful it is to get good feedback, and that feedback is 20% of your grade.
Please contact me with any questions!
1. post your second paper rough draft to your weblog. If your weblog is not listed on the right side of this page, post the address in the comments below.
2. respond to the rough draft that is directly below yours in the list using the extended prompts on page 107 of allyn and bacon. Keep in mind how useful it is to get good feedback, and that feedback is 20% of your grade.
Please contact me with any questions!
Thursday, July 15
Gmail - [techrhet] thanks and best wishes to tari: "At SCSU, our Intensive English Center has existed in part on Connections,
and there Strider made a space where students visiting or recently moved to
the U.S. could construct something that was not so totally American that
they were aliens. In one class, two inimical students built bots to scream
at each other and kick each other to pieces, and they had to collaborate on
the cues for the bots so that they would work the way they wanted them to.
And Strider's spaces are filled with things he created for students to write
on -- refrigerators, baseballs, walls, bombs, pumpkins, tombstones, Elien
Golzalez, whatever -- and they did, the students wrote all over the place."
and there Strider made a space where students visiting or recently moved to
the U.S. could construct something that was not so totally American that
they were aliens. In one class, two inimical students built bots to scream
at each other and kick each other to pieces, and they had to collaborate on
the cues for the bots so that they would work the way they wanted them to.
And Strider's spaces are filled with things he created for students to write
on -- refrigerators, baseballs, walls, bombs, pumpkins, tombstones, Elien
Golzalez, whatever -- and they did, the students wrote all over the place."
Monday, July 12
gladwell dot com / Big and Bad: "Over the past decade, a number of major automakers in America have relied on the services of a French-born cultural anthropologist, G. Clotaire Rapaille, whose speciality is getting beyond the rational--what he calls 'cortex'--impressions of consumers and tapping into their deeper, 'reptilian' responses. And what Rapaille concluded from countless, intensive sessions with car buyers was that when S.U.V. buyers thought about safety they were thinking about something that reached into their deepest unconscious. 'The No. 1 feeling is that everything surrounding you should be round and soft, and should give,' Rapaille told me. 'There should be air bags everywhere. Then there's this notion that you need to be up high. That's a contradiction, because the people who buy these S.U.V.s know at the cortex level that if you are high there is more chance of a rollover. But at the reptilian level they think that if I am bigger and taller I'm safer. You feel secure because you are higher and dominate and look down. That you can look down is psychologically a very powerful notion. And what was the key element of safety when you were a child? It was that your mother fed you, and there was warm liquid. That's why cupholders are absolutely crucial for safety. If there is a car that has no cupholder, it is not safe."
One more reading!
Please have this essay read by class on Wednesday, July 14th.
gladwell dot com / Big and Bad: "Ford had planned to sell the Expedition for thirty-six thousand dollars, and its best estimate was that it could build one for twenty-four thousand--which, in the automotive industry, is a terrifically high profit margin. Sales, the company predicted, weren't going to be huge. After all, how many Americans could reasonably be expected to pay a twelve-thousand-dollar premium for what was essentially a dressed-up truck? But Ford executives decided that the Expedition would be a highly profitable niche product. They were half right. The 'highly profitable' part turned out to be true. Yet, almost from the moment Ford's big new S.U.V.s rolled off the assembly line in Wayne, there was nothing 'niche' about the Expedition.
Ford had intended to split the assembly line at the Michigan Truck Plant between the Expedition and the Ford F-150 pickup. But, when the first flood of orders started coming in for the Expedition, the factory was entirely given over to S.U.V.s. The orders kept mounting."
Please have this essay read by class on Wednesday, July 14th.
gladwell dot com / Big and Bad: "Ford had planned to sell the Expedition for thirty-six thousand dollars, and its best estimate was that it could build one for twenty-four thousand--which, in the automotive industry, is a terrifically high profit margin. Sales, the company predicted, weren't going to be huge. After all, how many Americans could reasonably be expected to pay a twelve-thousand-dollar premium for what was essentially a dressed-up truck? But Ford executives decided that the Expedition would be a highly profitable niche product. They were half right. The 'highly profitable' part turned out to be true. Yet, almost from the moment Ford's big new S.U.V.s rolled off the assembly line in Wayne, there was nothing 'niche' about the Expedition.
Ford had intended to split the assembly line at the Michigan Truck Plant between the Expedition and the Ford F-150 pickup. But, when the first flood of orders started coming in for the Expedition, the factory was entirely given over to S.U.V.s. The orders kept mounting."
For class on Wednesday, July 14:
1. Be sure to have read chapters 19 and 20, and answer the questions that I'll post on this blog.
2. Be sure to email me a copy of your rough draft of your second paper before class. Use the secret code phrase, "cheese whiz" in your email subject so I can easily sort your papers out from my other correspondence
Unrelated to class (so far) but interesting: 3hive.com, free, legal mp3s.
1. Be sure to have read chapters 19 and 20, and answer the questions that I'll post on this blog.
2. Be sure to email me a copy of your rough draft of your second paper before class. Use the secret code phrase, "cheese whiz" in your email subject so I can easily sort your papers out from my other correspondence
Unrelated to class (so far) but interesting: 3hive.com, free, legal mp3s.
Hi,
Forgot about chapter three discussion questions, just make sure you've read it and can answer a pop quiz if necessary.
Regarding chapter four: Take a look at pages 72-73. There are three sample essays. Answer the following questions in the "comments" link below (make sure you are logged into blogger, or if you post anonymously and want credit, put your name somewhere)
1. How would you describe differences in the length and complexity of sentences, in the level of vocabulary, and in the degree of complexity of each sample essay?
2. Based on differences in style, who is the intended audience for each piece?
3. Which of these samples seems most convincing or authoritative to you, and why?
Please respond to this entry before class on Wednesday.
Forgot about chapter three discussion questions, just make sure you've read it and can answer a pop quiz if necessary.
Regarding chapter four: Take a look at pages 72-73. There are three sample essays. Answer the following questions in the "comments" link below (make sure you are logged into blogger, or if you post anonymously and want credit, put your name somewhere)
1. How would you describe differences in the length and complexity of sentences, in the level of vocabulary, and in the degree of complexity of each sample essay?
2. Based on differences in style, who is the intended audience for each piece?
3. Which of these samples seems most convincing or authoritative to you, and why?
Please respond to this entry before class on Wednesday.
Friday, July 9
Here are some additional notes for your second assignment:
1. Rough draft due Wednesday (I will put up a link for you to submit it)
2. It should have the following components:
a. A personal narrative, with description
b. An argument, from multiple perspectives, about a local issue
c. 3-5 pages
d. a good conclusion that summarizes your discussion
Please contact me with questions. You should also have read chapters 3-4 by now. Discussion questions coming soon.
1. Rough draft due Wednesday (I will put up a link for you to submit it)
2. It should have the following components:
a. A personal narrative, with description
b. An argument, from multiple perspectives, about a local issue
c. 3-5 pages
d. a good conclusion that summarizes your discussion
Please contact me with questions. You should also have read chapters 3-4 by now. Discussion questions coming soon.
Friday, July 2
For today:
Please do all the other things that I asked for in previous postings:
1. Make sure your believing/doubting freewrite from page 37 is posted to your weblog
2. Submit your first paper as soon as possible to webct.
3. Email me if you have any questions or are having problems with anything.
4. Post the address of your weblog at the end of this message so I can get them on the homepage here.
We essentially have three spaces we will be using as we work online.
1. this weblog, http://tenmoreminutes.blogspot.com
2. Our email list, which has a page at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uvscwrite/
3. Webct, where we will submit final drafts: http://courseinfo.uvsc.edu
Everything that gets posted to the weblog will also be sent to the class email list. Please learn how to filter your email if you are worried about the traffic.
Please do all the other things that I asked for in previous postings:
1. Make sure your believing/doubting freewrite from page 37 is posted to your weblog
2. Submit your first paper as soon as possible to webct.
3. Email me if you have any questions or are having problems with anything.
4. Post the address of your weblog at the end of this message so I can get them on the homepage here.
We essentially have three spaces we will be using as we work online.
1. this weblog, http://tenmoreminutes.blogspot.com
2. Our email list, which has a page at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uvscwrite/
3. Webct, where we will submit final drafts: http://courseinfo.uvsc.edu
Everything that gets posted to the weblog will also be sent to the class email list. Please learn how to filter your email if you are worried about the traffic.
Wednesday, June 30
Notes from the Walter J. Ong Archives: "For instance, Ong was quite adimate about the fact that not only does primary orality not exist anymore, we, as literate people, are unable to accurately comprehend a primary orality consciousness. This doesn't mean that primary orality is primitive, it's just different. It's like anything else. Once you've had a cognitive shift, once you've obtained a new perspective, or learned a new bit of information, you can't unshift or return to the pre-changed understanding of an issue. For instance, at some point when studying Ezra Pound, one will learn that he had become an anti-Semite and a supporter of Mussolini. Upon learning this, one can choose to reject Pound as a subject of study, one can use this information to better understand Pound's work, or one can ignore it. What one can't do is unlearn this information or return to a time when they didn't know this about Pound. Because literacy permeates our society, literacy permeates our consciousness and we can't unlearn this cognitive shift. What Ong isn't addressing here is individual literacy."
Monday, June 28
Sometime between now and Friday, go to page 37 and complete the "believing/doubting" assignment. Post the results to your weblog. You should spend 15 minutes writing for and against the statement of your choosing. If you don't like the ones provided, come up with your own. Contact me or post a comment if you have questions about this. And remember, I am in 126g--swing by and say hi, or to ask for help, etc.
For class on Wednesday: Be sure and read the first two chapters of Allyn and Bacon's Guide to Writing. We'll be doing some in-class activities, and life will get boring in a hurry if you haven't done the reading.
Also, please paste the address of your weblog into the comments at the end of this post. If you just arrived today, then go to blogger.com (links all over this page) and create a weblog. Then come back here and tell me the address. Yes, I know you wrote down your addresses in class, but it's easier for me to steal the code from the comments in order to put them here on the web page.
Also, please paste the address of your weblog into the comments at the end of this post. If you just arrived today, then go to blogger.com (links all over this page) and create a weblog. Then come back here and tell me the address. Yes, I know you wrote down your addresses in class, but it's easier for me to steal the code from the comments in order to put them here on the web page.
Yahoo! Groups : uvscwrite
The above link connects to our class email list. Please subscribe if you have not done so.
The above link connects to our class email list. Please subscribe if you have not done so.
Friday, June 25
Please try downloading and installing this piece of software on your respective machines:
Firefox.
After you've downloaded it to the desktop, double-click to install. Really, it's a good thing.
Firefox.
After you've downloaded it to the desktop, double-click to install. Really, it's a good thing.
Wednesday, June 23
The New Yorker: The Critics: Books: "One of the most mysterious of writing�s immaterial properties is what people call �voice.� Editors sometimes refer to it, in a phrase that underscores the paradox at the heart of the idea, as �the voice on the page.� Prose can show many virtues, including originality, without having a voice. It may avoid clich�, radiate conviction, be grammatically so clean that your grandmother could eat off it. But none of this has anything to do with this elusive entity the �voice.� There are probably all kinds of literary sins that prevent a piece of writing from having a voice, but there seems to be no guaranteed technique for creating one. Grammatical correctness doesn�t insure it. Calculated incorrectness doesn�t, either. Ingenuity, wit, sarcasm, euphony, frequent outbreaks of the first-person singular�any of these can enliven prose without giving it a voice. You can set the stage as elaborately as you like, but either the phantom appears or it doesn�t."
Tuesday, June 22
Danny O'Brien explores the latest, cheapest, flash drive combo units.
Oblomovka: I'm still in the middle of deciding. But I've learnt three lessons: one, the folk who make the sensible engineering choices are probably the smarter and cheaper manufacturers too. Two: you always do your best consumer research in the two hours after you bought the goods. Three: no matter how long you stay out of the gadget rat race, there's always one more object of desire."
Oblomovka: I'm still in the middle of deciding. But I've learnt three lessons: one, the folk who make the sensible engineering choices are probably the smarter and cheaper manufacturers too. Two: you always do your best consumer research in the two hours after you bought the goods. Three: no matter how long you stay out of the gadget rat race, there's always one more object of desire."
Monday, June 21
The Chronicle: 6/6/2003: Scholars Who Blog: "To a remarkable degree, blogs also appear to bring full professors, adjuncts, and students onto a level field. With no evident condescension, senior faculty bloggers routinely link to the political-affairs blog maintained by Matthew Yglesias, a senior at Harvard University. 'Nobody knew my name when we started this,' says Josh Chafetz, a current Rhodes scholar whose OxBlog, written with two fellow Americans at Oxford, has made him a well-known figure among academic bloggers. 'In many ways it really is almost a pure marketplace of ideas. You can build up a readership. You just have to write things that people like.'
'You do see some of the barriers of rank and hierarchy break down,' says the woman who blogs pseudonymously as the Invisible Adjunct. (She granted an interview on the condition that her identity not be revealed.) 'An undergraduate and an adjunct can speak to someone with tenure on a more or less equal footing.'"
'You do see some of the barriers of rank and hierarchy break down,' says the woman who blogs pseudonymously as the Invisible Adjunct. (She granted an interview on the condition that her identity not be revealed.) 'An undergraduate and an adjunct can speak to someone with tenure on a more or less equal footing.'"
: "Actor-network theory (ANT) is concerned with the processes by which scientific disputes become closed, ideas accepted, tools and methods adopted - that is, with how decisions are made about what is known. These decisions are often - usually - temporary, but closing the black box, in Latour's terms, of disputes allows people to take the work of others as a resource and move on, rather than continually reproducing and questioning it. According to their model, the work of science consists of the enrollment and juxtaposition of heterogeneous elements - rats, test tubes, colleagues, journal articles, funders, grants, papers at scientific conferences, and so on - which need continual management. They conclude that scientists' work is 'the simultaneous reconstruction of social contexts of which they form a part - labs simultaneously rebuild and link the social and natural contexts upon which they act.'
from Ole Hanseth
ANT was born out of ongoing efforts within the field called social studies of science and technology. The field of social studies of technology in general and ANT in particular are evolving rapidly. When going about doing your business -- driving your car or writing a document using a word-processor -- there are a lot of things that influence how you do it. For instance, when driving a car, you are influenced by traffic regulations, prior driving experience and the car's manoeuvring abilities, the use of a word-processor is influenced by earlier experience using it, the functionality of the word-processor and so forth. All of these factors are related or connected to how you act. You do not go about doing your business in a total vacuum but rather under the influence of a wide range of surrounding factors. The act you are carrying out and all of these influencing factors should be considered together. This is exactly what th"
from Ole Hanseth
ANT was born out of ongoing efforts within the field called social studies of science and technology. The field of social studies of technology in general and ANT in particular are evolving rapidly. When going about doing your business -- driving your car or writing a document using a word-processor -- there are a lot of things that influence how you do it. For instance, when driving a car, you are influenced by traffic regulations, prior driving experience and the car's manoeuvring abilities, the use of a word-processor is influenced by earlier experience using it, the functionality of the word-processor and so forth. All of these factors are related or connected to how you act. You do not go about doing your business in a total vacuum but rather under the influence of a wide range of surrounding factors. The act you are carrying out and all of these influencing factors should be considered together. This is exactly what th"
Gmail - [techrhet] world's largest wi-fi zone
Polywogs and blogs: we should all in the end be astonished at the vast changes wrought by the gimmicks themselves. What will work will work, but it's the pace of change that I would like to hasten, and I've learned that the biggest problem there is not functionality but the psychology of our administrators. Good programs and good teachers will continue to be ploughed under because their cool technology was not rhetorically situated. Jeff may criticize "conformity," but there are advantages to framing what we do in terms that powerful people understand.
Polywogs and blogs: we should all in the end be astonished at the vast changes wrought by the gimmicks themselves. What will work will work, but it's the pace of change that I would like to hasten, and I've learned that the biggest problem there is not functionality but the psychology of our administrators. Good programs and good teachers will continue to be ploughed under because their cool technology was not rhetorically situated. Jeff may criticize "conformity," but there are advantages to framing what we do in terms that powerful people understand.
Southpinellas: SPC tech professor gives his textbooks for free: "Basham views the price of learning Cisco as a manifestation of class and status. Information shouldn't be accessible only to the well-off, he said.
The folks at lulu.com understand.
'It's the open source philosophy,' said Stephen Fraser, spokesperson for lulu.com. 'Open source is sort of a computer geek thing, but a lot of academics share this conviction that hoarding knowledge does nobody any good. The best way to leverage knowledge is to share it.'
"
The folks at lulu.com understand.
'It's the open source philosophy,' said Stephen Fraser, spokesperson for lulu.com. 'Open source is sort of a computer geek thing, but a lot of academics share this conviction that hoarding knowledge does nobody any good. The best way to leverage knowledge is to share it.'
"
Things I am going to do differently next term:
1. give more credit in class for peer feedback--make it a bigger part of the course
2. spend more time on sentence construction and organization
3. continue readings/discussions through the end of course
4. require 1-page blog entries every single darn day
5. get my responses returned more quickly
6. start an email list for the class
7. quit using webct, perhaps.
1. give more credit in class for peer feedback--make it a bigger part of the course
2. spend more time on sentence construction and organization
3. continue readings/discussions through the end of course
4. require 1-page blog entries every single darn day
5. get my responses returned more quickly
6. start an email list for the class
7. quit using webct, perhaps.
Friday, June 18
Jack Feeny reviews: Deep Purple: "Given the length of time Deep Purple have been together it has become common practice to divide the band into three different, distinct entities. The three ages of Deep Purple, if you will. There was Deep Purple mk I, a somewhat unsuccessful sixties hippy band; Deep Purple mk II, an innovative and influential hard rock band; and Deep Purple mk III, a derivative and wholly uninteresting hard rock band. I'll give you four guesses to work out which era I've concentrated on. Yep, Deep Purple mk II, but then you knew that anyway, didn't you?"
Jack Feeny reviews: Deep Purple: "Given the length of time Deep Purple have been together it has become common practice to divide the band into three different, distinct entities. The three ages of Deep Purple, if you will. There was Deep Purple mk I, a somewhat unsuccessful sixties hippy band; Deep Purple mk II, an innovative and influential hard rock band; and Deep Purple mk III, a derivative and wholly uninteresting hard rock band. I'll give you four guesses to work out which era I've concentrated on. Yep, Deep Purple mk II, but then you knew that anyway, didn't you?"
Getfitnow.com Fitness and Health Forums: Is it really safe to do shoulders on days 2&5?:
"I'm doing the 14-day workout 2. When doing chest, triceps, biceps etc. on days 1&4 there is always going to be an amount of load on the shoulders, eg. when doing the bench press. I'm afraid my shoulders aren't getting any rest, as there is shoulder involvement 4 days a week. I know it's possible to partly isolate the chest muscle when doing the bench press, but I believe there is still some involvement of the shoulders"
"I'm doing the 14-day workout 2. When doing chest, triceps, biceps etc. on days 1&4 there is always going to be an amount of load on the shoulders, eg. when doing the bench press. I'm afraid my shoulders aren't getting any rest, as there is shoulder involvement 4 days a week. I know it's possible to partly isolate the chest muscle when doing the bench press, but I believe there is still some involvement of the shoulders"
The weird thing I saw in the past week:
In Hawaii, they have these little scooter cars with one rear wheel and two front wheels. They're red, and egg shaped, and have a little black rollbar. As I was waiting for the airport shuttle outside my hotel I saw one of these come whining up the street with two really big, sunburned American tourists hanging out of it. I wept because I didn't get a picture.
The other weird but cool thing was seeing 60+ surfers with long, graying hair, heading down to the beach, walking through the waves of tourists, carrying their boards.
In Hawaii, they have these little scooter cars with one rear wheel and two front wheels. They're red, and egg shaped, and have a little black rollbar. As I was waiting for the airport shuttle outside my hotel I saw one of these come whining up the street with two really big, sunburned American tourists hanging out of it. I wept because I didn't get a picture.
The other weird but cool thing was seeing 60+ surfers with long, graying hair, heading down to the beach, walking through the waves of tourists, carrying their boards.
Thursday, June 17
How Websites Learn | Acts of Volition: "A look at how Stuart Brand’s classic work of social and architectural criticism, How Buildings Learn, applies to web design and development."
Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog
An interesting thread on grammar vs. editing. You may find it useful.
An interesting thread on grammar vs. editing. You may find it useful.
Clay Spinuzzi's Reading List: "What really struck me about the book, though, was that the author seems so preoccupied with authenticity. He talks in great detail about how artificial scents and smells are formulated, about how kids in Colorado Springs no longer wear cowboy hats as the 'real' Coloradans did, about how chains actually got started compared to what is said in their literature. Maybe it's because I'm GenX, but I really don't have the preoccupation with authenticity that Schlosser does. Of course these restaurants are selling a brand, a mood, an experience. So do universities and churches, often with the same level of conscious cultivation. "
jrice: "Why does this need to be online? Is there a difference between the assignment (blog a reaction, follow these questions for guidance as you shape your reaction) and what you would find in a print-textbook? No, of course not. Here is a very good example of what I always draw attention to regarding blogging. This assignment really has nothing to with using the weblog for pedagogical purposes. Take away the blog, have students do the work on paper, and the result is the same."
Wednesday, June 16
gladwell dot com / The Coolhunt: "One day last month, Baysie took me on a coolhunt to the Bronx and Harlem, lugging a big black canvas bag with twenty-four different shoes that Reebok is about to bring out, and as we drove down Fordham Road, she had her head out the window like a little kid, checking out what everyone on the street was wearing. We went to Dr. Jay's, which is the cool place to buy sneakers in the Bronx, and Baysie crouched down on the floor and started pulling the shoes out of her bag one by one, soliciting opinions from customers who gathered around and asking one question after another, in rapid sequence. One guy she listened closely to was maybe eighteen or nineteen, with a diamond stud in his ear and a thin beard. He was wearing a Polo baseball cap, a brown leather jacket, and the big, oversized leather boots that are everywhere uptown right now. Baysie would hand him a shoe and he would hold it, look at the top, and move it up and down and flip it over. The first one he didn't like: 'Oh-kay.' The second one he hated: he made a growling sound in his throat even before Baysie could give it to him, as if to say, 'Put it back in the bag-now!' But when she handed him a new DMX RXT-a low-cut run/walk shoe in white and blue and mesh with a translucent 'ice' sole, which retails for a hundred and ten dollars-he looked at it long and hard and shook his head in pure admiration and just said two words, dragging each of them out: 'No doubt.'"
gladwell dot com / The Coolhunt: "One day last month, Baysie took me on a coolhunt to the Bronx and Harlem, lugging a big black canvas bag with twenty-four different shoes that Reebok is about to bring out, and as we drove down Fordham Road, she had her head out the window like a little kid, checking out what everyone on the street was wearing. We went to Dr. Jay's, which is the cool place to buy sneakers in the Bronx, and Baysie crouched down on the floor and started pulling the shoes out of her bag one by one, soliciting opinions from customers who gathered around and asking one question after another, in rapid sequence. One guy she listened closely to was maybe eighteen or nineteen, with a diamond stud in his ear and a thin beard. He was wearing a Polo baseball cap, a brown leather jacket, and the big, oversized leather boots that are everywhere uptown right now. Baysie would hand him a shoe and he would hold it, look at the top, and move it up and down and flip it over. The first one he didn't like: 'Oh-kay.' The second one he hated: he made a growling sound in his throat even before Baysie could give it to him, as if to say, 'Put it back in the bag-now!' But when she handed him a new DMX RXT-a low-cut run/walk shoe in white and blue and mesh with a translucent 'ice' sole, which retails for a hundred and ten dollars-he looked at it long and hard and shook his head in pure admiration and just said two words, dragging each of them out: 'No doubt.'"
If you'd like a little extra credit, read the above article and write a few paragraphs in response on your website.
If you'd like a little extra credit, read the above article and write a few paragraphs in response on your website.
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