Miller showing his age: "AUBURN HILLS -- A 38-year-old man playing a young man's sport looked every bit his age Wednesday night. Though foolhardy to declare Reggie Miller null and void in any playoff series, since few players have produced postseason dramatics with his career-long consistency, the scrutiny exists."



Oh great. I turn 38 in August.

TheFeature :: An Architect in the City of Bits: "What have you learned from the research so far?



Mitchell: The implications of location-awareness are far from obvious. The technology enables you to reconsider things as fundamental as, say, signage in a city. For example, we traditionally think of a stop sign as part of the fixed infrastructure of the city. But if you have a location-aware automobile, you can shift the stop sign to the dashboard so it pops up when you approach an intersection. If you have whole networks of location aware vehicles, the system becomes more elaborate. Perhaps the stop sign only pops up when there's another car coming from the opposite direction. You could even have elaborate intersection priority schemes. "

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > For Some, the Blogging Never Stops: "Sometimes, too, the realization that no one is reading sets in. A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research's estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.



Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers like Mr. Wiggins are having conversations largely with themselves."

Dear writing students,



I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is I forgot to create a place to submit your third assignment until about 10 minutes ago. The good news is you have until noon on Thursday to submit it, and with all that extra time I'm confident that every single paper I get is going to be amazing.



We had grilled chicken for dinner tonight, and it was ok, but I have to tell you--marinating works so much better than just brushing on the lemon and garlic. That is all.

Links to images of class members, so I can place names with faces:



class pics

Dear class:

I am sick today, and my throat feels like I have been gargling Drano (tm). Please forgive my absence. (update: I managed to heroically make it to class) But wait! There are still some things you can do until we meet again on Friday. And here they are:

1. Post your latest draft of our third assignment to your weblog.

2. Go to the class webpage, and respond to the paper of the person whose name is linked with yours below. If there is no paper posted at that site, then go to the next person in line. I've put you in pairs below. You should respond in the comments section of the weblog.

Mandy Melissa	Brigham Aimee	Afton Isaiah	Shaun Lauren
Johnathan John S.	Jon Hunt Ben H.	Michael F. Annie P.	Kirsten O. Jennifer C.	Diego P. Adam B.	Chris T. J. Martin

3. How should you respond to each other's papers? Good question. I would like you to answer the following questions, in mind-numbing detail:

I. Your author has been asked to describe the same scene from both positive and negative angles of vision. Of the two descriptions, which one seems most accurate to you, and why? Include examples from the original text



II. What was the best part of this paper? What part didn't work? Include examples of each, with a justification for your choice.



III. What are the most useful points made in the conclusion? What else could be said in the conclusion that was overlooked?

For Wednesday: Read chapter 7, and be ready for a quiz!



also, bring in your current draft of assignment #3.

English 1010 Class: "I didn't go to sleep last night till 3 in the morning because I went Off Roading with a couple of my friends and we did that till 2 in the morning then when I got home we continued to stay up a watch Zoolander the movie"

1010 Journal: "There is a three year old boy running around my table, his father calls him over. The kid decides he isn't going to listen to his father and he takes off running. The dad takes off to chase him down. The kid needs ridilin. Girl fixes her shirt as she is walking buy, takes a glance in my direction. An overweight couple storm out of the store, there cart seems to be full of junk food. They probably wonder why they are over weight. "

My over conservative VIEWS: "Relating to older kids, there are bullies, but this is the only time I will intervene: A eleven year old tires to throw his weight around and begins to call a younger girl a number of nasty (I don't need to elaborate upon it)names, I tell him if he continues this crap, then I will show him the fastest way to the principals office, or even to the police office. He didn't listen, so a stronger show of force was required. More or less to say, being much larger and older has its values"

first two chapters: "The parking lot is no respector of persons or their rides. There are the tall the short the thin the fat the okd the young the white the black and everthing inbetween.



Some have ridden their bikes to this place. Others have walked. Some come in gym shorts with a powerful walk as though this was their training center.



Most women have their children whith them. Some of the elderly have bbruoght their husbands. Still ather women are in groups of two or thhree. Very few come alone."

English 1010: " When the car stopped the odometer read 112 miles, that is a long time to be on a dirt road going 30 mph"

English 1010: "-cartboy brings a load of carts in from teh parking lot and leaves the carts with out a word to the greeter and turns and leaves, scratching his butt"

English 1010: "-a future Relief Society president enters the building and with the fakest smile i've ever seen

-she laughs after everything she says to the greeter and prances into the store as if on a cloud, no one is that happy"

english1010:

"The two mexicans are still talking but at a new location, the kid with the tractor looks really bored for now he's just sitting there impatiantly looking at the two mexicans. A guy appears to be talking to someone on the level below, but he looks funny with all his hand gestures for I only see him and no one he's talking to."

:: Xinhuanet - English ::: "The Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy in France are trying their best to handle properly the affairs of the Chinese victims, make arrangements for Chinese survivors, and conduct negotiations with the French side on compensation issues, said sources with the Foreign Ministry here Monday"

Mobile Phones Move Beyond Voice: "Currently a cultural phenomenon in the UK, text messaging is catching on with U.S. mobile phone users. More than one-third, or roughly 38 million, of U.S. wireless phone owners use SMS [define], and increased usage will likely spur further adoption. "

USB webcam driver for Mac OS X: "Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can you include support in your driver?

A: Generally, no - not because we don't want to, but usually we don't have such a camera for testing available and we don't have the necessary developer documentation. If you can provide me with both, contact us. "

quote to get us moving: "Sooner or later in life comes a time when it is performance that counts - not promises, no possibilities, not potentialities - but performance...the law of improvement is the law...of participation, of performance.

- Richard L. Evans

so we have to finish our theses... "

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 ON FRIDAY

1. get poster software on laptop

2. write a. about labs

3. record streaming radio (radio paradise) and look for mp3 slicing software.

4. audio hijack

5. two clips for crosman

6. optical sight question.

7. put assignments online, as well as Torino's response

8. download and respond to draft 2.

9. respond to bronwyn's note

10. use google for tasks and addresses, perhaps.

11. grab more dvds for trip. Connections.

12. Mark out good passages for presentation.

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "As the previous owner of used VWs - a Golf, a Jetta, and a Passat, I can answer that question with a hearty 'YES'. Go get a new car. Once a VW starts to go, it just sucks up money like a high-dollar stripper."

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "I'd walk away - I loved my 85 GTI, (and my family has owned an original Beetle, 5 Rabbit/Golfs and 2 Passats) but once it crossed 150K, it was just to expensive to continue the affair. The problem with a car that age (as scarabic has pointed out), even with a relatively young engine, is all the other stuff that doesn't even fail, per se, but just reaches the end of its useful life. Brake discs and rotors, shocks and struts, shift linkage, CV joints, instrument lights (you don't even want to guess the labor charge to pull apart a dashboard and replace a 50-cent bulb, not that it's a critical repair) and on and on.



If I had $6K and a car older than say, 7 or 8 years, I'd rent a Sawz-All, chop the roof off the existing car, drive my new convertible into the ground (we did this with a '79 Rabbit) and put my remaining $5950 down on a new car or something used coming off lease with a manufacturer's warranty. If the payment is still too high, I'd look for something else. $6K will buy you a mid to late '90s Honda Civic, for example."

CarFilter: Pimp out my 88 VW Golf, or put $5k into a newer, more reliable car? [more inside]



I've got an inherited 1988 VW Golf. It seems like every three months I'm dropping $3-500 bucks on a repair--wheel bearings, front end work, o2 sensor dead, etc.



the average repair cost per month for this car is about $85, not counting mileage, tires, oil changes and other consumables. It gets 27 mpg on my 40 minute (one way) commute.



My practical need is to get something that won't require as much maintenance and get my to work reliably and reasonably quietly. I'd like to keep my loan payments to around $100-$150, so maybe a low-mileage Saturn or something will do the trick.



However, I'm 37, we own a minivan, first mortgage, etc. and I'd really like to get something a little more fun to drive, that corners well. Despite its age-related creaks and rattles, and the fact that the steering is getting mushier, I like the feel of the VW steering. Oh, and the VW has about 60k on a transplanted Scirocco engine (8 valve).



So, do I:



1. get the boring commuter car, and satisfy my midlife crisis needs with a good stereo,



2. Get a Geo Metro or Suzuki Swift, something with great mileage, and then tweak it into a snappy little autocross car/commuter



3. Put $5k into the VW, turning it into a reliable, funner car to drive.



4. See a therapist about trying to find fulfillment through consumerism.

I've responded to your first essay and uploaded the responses to webct, with the exception of those who were locked out of webct and had to upload late. Please bring an electronic version of your draft to class Monday.

Here is the next spyware scrubbing utility we'll be using: spybot seek and destroy.



Gotta love those macho titles.

Australian IT - Man fined for downloading music (, MAY 14, 2004): " US federal judge has ordered a Bristol man to pay more than $US4,000 ($5,817) for downloading five songs from the internet.



US District Judge Janet C Hall Wednesday directed William Martinez to pay the minimum statutory damages of $US750 per song for infringing a copyright as well as $US289 for the costs of bringing the lawsuit.

The judge ruled because Martinez failed to answer a civil complaint brought against him or appear in court for the hearing.

Martinez was the second Connecticut resident caught up in the lawsuits filed by the recording industry ordered to pay for illegally downloading music.

Jennifer Brothers of Andover was recently found in default when she also failed to answer the complaint or appear in court. Brothers has been ordered to pay $US6,000. "

The Corner on National Review Online



Loads o' controversy in here.

Kinja, the weblog guide



Here is a great source of links to good topics for the doubting/believing game.

topic: what do you think about the Iraqi prisoner abuses? Who can we blame for this?

topic: are we justified in damaging Iraqi holy sites during the war?

The Australian: Rumsfeld rolls with the punches [May 15, 2004]:



"FRESH from his flying visit to Baghdad, Donald Rumsfeld looks more secure at the Pentagon than he has been in the two weeks since the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal first broke.



The 71-year-old US Defence Secretary apparently has no plans to heed the advice of critics and quit. 'I've stopped reading newspapers - you've got to keep your sanity somehow,' Rumsfeld told the troops. 'I am a survivor.' "

Ad-aware



Please open this link and install AdAware, then run the program. Our technician hasn't been able to get to the labs for the past week.

Hey!



Please make a blog entry today. Your choice of topic.

Today in class we are going to:



1. fine tune blogger

2. sign up for presentation groups

3. discuss chapters three and four

4. do some informal writing

5. read each other's stuff

6. discuss assignment #2: believing and doubting

7. go home



Assignment #2: The Believing and Doubting Game



Your assignment is to choose an interesting engaging, problematic statement, preferably taken from an actual newspaper or editorial, and hopefully connected with a local issue or concern, and play "the believing and doubting game" described in our text in chapter two. In essence, you will write approximately a page stating why you believe the claim and provide supporting evidence. Then you will spend approximately a page (250 words per page) writing as if you don't believe the statement, and arguing against it using clear examples. For the remaining half to full page you will explore the issue at greater length without passing judgement either for or against it. I should not be able to tell what your real opinion is by reading the paper, at least not until I get to the last section. In the last section you can describe if your opinions changed, remained the same, were called into question, etc. You may also wish to answer the question, "How is this issue connected to my identity? How is my identity connected to what I believe?"



This is somewhere between "open" and "closed" writing. Have fun with it. Include pictures if you'd like. Double space the entire thing. Use a legible font.



First draft due: 5/17/04 (Wednesday) by 5pm. Bring an electronic version to class.

If you have any comments about the course, please use the anonymous feedback link on the right------->



There are also comments available after each blog entry. If I can get them working.

Soprano Ukulele - Geared Machines - Mahogany: "A New Ukulele superbly built from the finest woods. Clean workmanship and excellent fret dressing are the first things you'll probably notice. The necks are expertly shaped and finished in a satin lacquer for a professional easy playing feel. The tone is very close to those selling for those 6 times the price.



Satin Matte Mahogany Finish



Inlaid Position Markers



Carrying case included - a $13.95 value



Uke Parts



Compare up to $69.95 retail



But it Now for $18"

The recent revelations about mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by inexperienced guards, anxious to please authority figures (such as interrogators, CIA, etc.) reminds me of the famous prison simulation conducted at Stanford in 1965, by Philip Zombardo and Stanley Milgram. Stanley Milgram strikes me as the Andy Kaufman of Sociology. He's the same guy who got people to electrocute strangers.



(the BBC reenacted the experiment a few years ago.)

In some cultures, freewriting is used as a form of psychological torture. The North Koreans, for example, fully integrated writing as part of their brainwashing process. Right now I'm practicing freewriting along with my class, and frankly, I'm afraid of what horrible crap is going to gurgle out of my subconscious for all to see on this weblog. Driving to work today I listened to Marsha Sinetar's True Wealth. It's somewhat new-age-ish and cheesey, but it made a few great points about money. One of them was that if you feel uncomfortable or guilty about having money, you'll never get any, and that our attitudes about money come from our parents. My parents have the most screwed up relationship to money I can think of. Initially, I thought it was just that we were poor-ish, but upon reflection, everything they say and do about money is completely screwed up. Happy Mother's day, mom!



The computers in our room are completely hosed today, despite having been "deep freezed" and rebooted. This sucks, and gives people even more reason to hate technology, this class, and, of course, me.



This weekend I shaved my head. Why? Because I thought it would feel interesting. It feels almost the exact same as having a crewcut. I feel ripped off, and now I have to walk around looking like a chemo patient.

CourseInfo @ UVSC



This is webct

Please email a copy of your paper to yourself before class on Monday.

sample paper

Today in class:



1. respond, as a class, to a student draft

2. respond to each other's drafts in small groups

3. work on revisions to drafts

4. submit drafts electronically to webct for additional feedback.

I don't know if any of you will read this, but please bring an electronic version of your draft to class on Friday. You can email it to yourself, save it to a floppy, burn it to a cd or stick it on one of those usb-thumb drives. Or post it on the web.

Class weblogs:

Mandy

Melissa

Brigham

Aimee

Afton

Isaiah

Shaun

Lauren

Johnathan

John F.

Jon Hunt

Ben H.

Michael F.

Annie P.

Kirsten O.

Jennifer C.

Diego P.

Adam B.

Chris T.

J. Martin

English 1010

Assignment #1: Literacy Autobiography

Length: 750 words (three pages)

Due: Friday, May 7, in-class.





The purpose of this assignment is for you to reflect upon and analyze your own literacy narrative, the story of your encounters with writing and language up to this point. It is also an opportunity to compare and contrast your experiences with the information found in chapters 1 and 2 of our text, the Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing. You may wish to answer some of the following questions, using specific examples from the text, and the text of your life.

• You may invent one event or example, but it must be plausible, convincing and you must tell us in a footnote at the end of the paper which anecdote you invented.
  
  
  
  
• You should use specific examples of “literacy events,” moments of writing, reading and learning that have somehow affected your literacy practices
  
  
  
  
• You can answer questions such as:
  
  
  
  o What is your relationship with writing?
  
  o What are your earliest memories of the written word
  
  o What are your favorite/least favorite types of writing. Of reading?
  
  o What classes, if any, have influenced your writing methods? How?
  
  o What kinds of informal writing do you employ on a regular basis?
  
  o What are ways in which you avoid writing?
  
  o Who is your ideal reader, and why?
  
  
  
  
• What counts as literacy? What doesn’t? Who decides?
  
  
• Does your experience as a writer correspond with the descriptions of writing in our textbook?
  
  
• You may write in either a closed or open format.
  
  

Discuss the assignment here.

English 1010 Syllabus



Literacy Autobiography Assignment

Stay tuned, your assignment sheet will be up shortly.

datacloud: Why I Hate Blackboard

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "Realizing that every writer is idiosyncratic, I'll tell you what I do while acknowledging that it may, in no way, offer assistance to you.



Like a shark, I keep moving. Two hours at the library. An hour at a coffee shop. An hour in my apartment. Two hours at night, sitting in a cushy chair at Barnes & Noble. And so on and so forth. It's rare that I work six hours straight, or in one single location all day. But at the end of the day, I'll have put 4 to 6 hours into my work. I try not to pressure myself into writing more than a page or two at any of my 'locations'. Stil, 3 to 4 daily pages add up. I find that, by constantly repositioning myself, I'm never anywhere long enough to get bored, distracted, or tempted to reward myself with a '15-minute break' that stretches on and on. Granted, I'm a sitcom writer, so I suppose it helps to approach any project with a bit of ADD, as the perpetuation of ADD is sort of the unintended result of the work upon the viewer, anyway.



Finally, remember to never beat yourself up. There's nothing you write that can't be rewritten tomorrow, so quit agonizing over the perfect phrase or finding just the right sentence. I fall into the camp that a first draft of anything is like a wrinkled shirt, nothing that can't be fixed (and ready to be shown) so long as you're willing to do enough ironing."

I moved this blog to another location for a little while, but now I crave the approbation of google, so it is back.

The Tetex installation has stalled:

rm -f /sw/src/root-tetex-texmf-2.0.2-1/sw/info/dir /sw/src/root-tetex-texmf-2.0.2-1/sw/info/dir.old /sw/src/root-tetex-texmf-2.0.2-1/sw/share/info/dir /sw/src/root-tetex-texmf-2.0.2-1/sw/share/info/dir.old

rm -rf tetex-texmf-2.0.2-1

Writing control file...

Finding prebound objects...

Clunk.

Dang, I haven't posted here for a while. I'm revising two diss chapters and it's taking about four times longer than I thought and my good friend self-loathing is stopping by for an extended stay.



I'm also installing "Tetex" as a precursor for installing a structured postscript document processor called Lyx which is supposed to be an open source replacement for the quickly fading Framemaker.

Crooked Timber: The un(?)intended consequences of courseware : "The un(?)intended consequences of courseware

Posted by Eszter"

Tata Computer-based Functional Literacy Programme: "Making this possible is a remarkable initiative from the Tata Group that has changed the lives of thousands of adults in different parts of India. The 'computer-based functional literacy' (CBFL) programme is a new-age solution to an age-old problem, and one that has the potential to lift our country's literacy rate in record time. Born of the Tata Group's ever-enduring commitment to community causes and bred by its expertise in information technology, this is a project as novel in methodology as it is ambitious in scope"

Computers and Writing 2004: "Conference Theme
Our focus on the currents, waves, and tides of globalization has also been inspired by the advice offered to virtually every newcomer to Hawai'i: never turn your back on the ocean. The waters of the Pacific can be a source of pleasure and excitement, but they can also pose serious dangers. In the tide of globalization, how can we negotiate the currents and ride the waves in ways that are productive for us, our students, and our communities?
"

Kairosnews | A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy: "The company also reported that more than 1,100 of the roughly 6,300 colleges and universities in the United States were using one or more of Blackboard's applications."

Wired News: U.S. Users Give It Up for the Net: "Seeking to confirm the notion that the Internet is a mostly democratic tool, a just-released study says that nearly half of American Internet users have contributed online content in one form or another.


Yet while the report highlights such impressive numbers, it also points out that most people who post content online are highly educated and highly paid, and post infrequently."

My daughter, who is 2 1/2, refuses to sleep in her bed because she says she will turn into a monkey.

I think I will use this space to solve all of the world's problems. Because nobody else has the guts to do it!



1. Problem: SUVS are stinky, loud, and dangerous. Solution: remove tax credit. Begin massive meme infusion showing smart sexy people in smaller hybrids making fun of people in SUVs. Somehow equate truck driving with erectile dysfunction.



2. Problem: many of the people I work with lack basic social skills, and are frighteningly ambitious. Solution: send them spoofed email from assorted academic vice presidents that reads, "I'm watching you, and your social skills really, really suck."



3. Problem: Americans (including myself) are fat and lazy. Solution: hybrid automobiles that allow you to stand up and run in place to make them move. If you want to pass someone, you have to start running. Otherwise they cruise at 49 mph, or whatever the safest minimum speed limit is. Perhaps a good winter bicycle would fulfill this function.



4. Problem: a coworker overheard me saying something obnoxious and thinks I was talking about them (I wasn't). Solution: fill this person's office with polyurethane foam. From floor to ceiling.



5. Problem: cars pollute too much. Solution: massive tax credits for hybrids and hydrogen vehicles. Increased fuel taxes for single passenger/non-commercial vehicles. Take the pentagon budget and use it to build a massive network of light rail. Screw going to mars--let's make the Earth habitable. Note: I commute 25 miles to work each way, so I basically suck. Hybrids get their own lane. Always. And EMP guns that will destroy the electronics of any vehicle that gets in their way.

followup on the icicle incident: I met the guy and he conveniently reshaped the story to make himself look less psycho, something he probably has a lot of experience with.

Player, Attack Thyself - Why Japanese gamers love avenging Pearl Harbor. By Clive Thompson: "This leads to a surprising facet of game psychology: Really hard-core gamers often look past the cultural 'content' of a game. They're mostly worried about a more prosaic concern, which is whether the game is fun. The geopolitics of a game melt away as players, like philosophers musing on their favorite platonic solid, ponder gameplay in the abstract.

We're accustomed to thinking that a piece of entertainment is nothing but its cultural content. A movie or TV show is just what you see on the screen. But a game is also about play, and play is invisible. That's why outsiders are often puzzled by the success of games that would appear to be nothing but screamingly offensive content. They can't see the play. Sure, you've got raw guts flying around�but for the player, part of the joy is in messing with physics (even if that happens to be bullets and shoulder-launched grenades) or with strategy (even if that's figuring out how to starve a village)."

Computers & Writing 2001: "First, that 'except special technical commuications support' thing is a HUGE except, and really, it's the only thing I've *ever* really used computer labs for. I would agree, the need to have 25 or so students meet three times a week in a computer lab so they can MOO each other is kinda over, and in my experience, classes that are assigned in computer labs for every meeting (even my own classes) rarely make use of the computers every day. But I also think that a few labs (including laptop labs) can go a long, long way in terms of training students certain skills (my teaching folks to make web pages, plus it's a hell of a lot easier to teach fy comp students how to critically evaluate their web research or how to work the library's computer set-up in a lab than it is over something like WebCT), to collaborate, to do peer review, to provide some higher-end functions (things like PageMaker or hardware things like CD Burners), and so forth. Anyone who says we don't need labs to do these things has never had the discomfort of having no access to a lab.

But I would agree with Fred that the solution of putting in more labs to 'get them on the Internet' is not much of a solution either. I think we still need campus supported labs, but I think we need them for different functions than we did even five years ago. I doubt computer services people do this, but it would be interesting to survey students at a place like EMU or wherever and try to figure out how students use the big university supported labs we have. I'll bet 5 years ago, 50% of the students in there were doing word processing. Now I'll bet that number is like 25% or less, with the rest of the students doing things like browsing the web, checking their email (the campus labs still have a lot quicker connection than home), *printing* papers, etc."

lewin: "Additionally, Lewin strongly emphasised the complementarity of basic and applied research.

Famous for the saying:

'There is Nothing So Practical as a Good Theory'

'If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.'


The power of Lewin's theorizing lay not in a formal propositional kind of theory but in his ability to build 'models' of processes that drew attention to the right kinds of variables that needed to be conceptualized"

Lewin, Kurt (1951): " Such a goal also guides my future as a communication scholar. It is too bad Kurt Lewin died so unexpectedly (of a reported heart attack in 1947), he could have taken the communication discipline even further. His famous quote, 'There is nothing so practical as a good theory,' remains my credo."

Rebecca Howard on Grammar

Chapter 3: Critical Ethnography: Method and Methodology: "This challenged me to ensure that any research methodology and method that I adopted would potentially raise the political consciousness of the participants, including myself. As well as this I hoped that it would also offer the YCW the possibility of developing emancipatory social action. It was also clear that I had to be honest with the YCW about my intentions and to show that my research methodology was consistent with the role of collaborator and the philosophy of the YCW. It was necessary to show the YCW that my research methodology was grounded in the belief that my reflection did 'not begin with a search for answers but with a search for questions' (Freire, 1972, cited in Street 1992:15). The YCW agreed to my research as it offered them the possibility of drawing on the critical report that would result from the project."

Visual Rhetoric Projects: "John Wittman--'Ethnography Project'


What I want to do for this project is look at the details of ethnographic use in composition and education. My specific intentions, however, keep slipping between two points. Initially I wanted to focus primarily on the role objects and the relationships between objects play a part in the construction of ethnographies. The more I read the more I am inclined to focus my attentions on the difficulties of interpretation, i.e. discuss the difficulties of looking at unfamiliar cultural settings rhetorically. At this point I think I will have to include both to some extent. I want to begin with issues of postcolonialism since ethnography's primary purpose in Europe was to learn about cultural groups in order to colonize their land, enslave them, and/or subjugate them in some way. I'm not quite sure what I am looking for here, but I think I need to explore some foundational problems with ethnography's origins. From here I think I need to make some generalizations about how ethnography has developed and been employed over the last few decades. The bulk of the essay will analyze problems with vision. Two things come to mind here. (1) Covino's claim that no vision can see everything and nothing can alter that, and (2) Barry's claims that our vision is premapped for us by our social/cultural environment and even our genetics. Since ethnography is dealing with the unfamiliar, I need to address issues that discuss how our interpretation of cultures different from our own are always 'colored' by our own pasts. How I plan to resolve these issues, ultimately, is using Geertz's idea of thick description, which I am going to try to relate to Barry's point of gestalt theory, and to propose consciousness on the writers part about how they are coloring texts. I hope to extend current theories of triangulation in vision. The goal is to promote ethnography by working through its shortcomings. Despite its shortcomings, it's one of the only ways we have to understand cultural dynamics to the extent that we can incorporate those into real classroom settings. This is of fundamental importance in post open-admission education.

"

The Harbinger. Web-Based Education: Barreling Down the Tracks on the Online Gravy Express.

University Business: Viewpoint

Digital Culture - Paul LeBlanc: "I have watched too many companies with specialists -- good graphics people, good technical people, high-quality content providers -- unable to effectively develop an Internet strategy because there was no one person who knew enough about all those areas and what it means to have such a strategy. We're training those people.

Your program for educators stresses the development of 'pedagogically sound' applications of the Internet and other new media technologies. Given the radical re-evaluation that the new tools demand, how do you know valid pedagogy when you see it?

Good question. It depends a lot on whom you ask. Accrediting agencies say 'Have more and better outcome assessment.' Some school boards rely on tradition: 'Do more of what you used to do when I was a kid!' The testing industry says, 'Use our tests.' My own feeling is that schools need to develop a set of philosophical guidelines that make sense for their context and community. There is no one definition of good learning or good teaching for every school. We too often ignore the road children travel in our incessant worry about where they end up.
"

Digital Culture - Paul LeBlanc: "Let me begin with the similarities of the two worlds: business and K-12. Small- and medium-sized businesses and schools are still early on in their integration of Internet technologies. Only 25 percent of medium-sized businesses (100 to 1000 employees) and 8 percent of small businesses (fewer than 100 employees) have access to the Net. About 65 percent of schools have a connection, but only about 15 percent of classrooms do. In both cases the task of strategizing, implementing, and more often, evangelizing, is left up to individuals. We want to train those individuals, to position them, really, to effectively and successfully lead the efforts of their organizations. More fundamentally, both programs are predicated on the notion that getting connected can dramatically change how and what one does within an organization, whether it's selling, marketing, and customer support in a business environment or curriculum, assessment, and research in a learning environment. Both programs begin with the question: 'What happens when I get connected?' "

My son, who is seven, and has lived most of his life in Kentucky, took an icicle to the bus stop because it was cool. A neighbor told him to drop it or he would "break it over his head." Then he yelled at my wife over the phone for letting our son bring a "weapon to school, and told her she had better take him seriously or he would "take it to the next level."



Sigh.



It's people like this that make tranquilizer guns filled with liquid prozac seem like a really good idea.

datacloud

In class Friday we'll be working on your project #2 redesign assignment. Please come prepared.

In their presentation, "Researching Digital Literacies: The
Methodological Challenges of Life History, Collaboration,
and Autobiography," Hawisher and Selfe will focus upon the
collaborative methodology they have developed and the
ethical issues they have faced during the past six years
spent researching technological literacy in America from
1978-2003.


In her presentation "Qualitative Research on the Internet:
Considerations for the Ethnographic Surfer," Mountford will
focus on the practical and theoretical issues that arise
when conducting qualitative research through the Internet.
She will examine two kinds of special problems:
safeguarding the privacy of participants whom one studies,
and determining when data posted on the Internet is public
or private.


The rest of the workshop will be organized as a research
roundtable in which researchers will present work-in-
progress for feedback. Veteran researchers will be on hand
to facilitate roundtable discussions. The goal of this
annual workshop is to offer mentoring and support to
qualitative researchers at all levels of experience.


Presenters may focus on specific concerns and/or broader
issues related to qualitative research and we encourage
submissions from those at any stage of the research
process. Each presenter will have twenty minutes for both
presentation and feedback, which will necessitate
presenters to have on hand concise and accessible summaries
of their studies.

: "It is the burden of comprehension---the responsibility we have to understand the contexts, values, and methods of those from whom we borrow--that I will address. The purpose of my discussion is four-fold. First, I want to come to some understanding of how technology has been approached--historically, methodologically, and ideologically--by scholars in disciplines that have for some time interrogated technological artifacts, systems, and the people who use them. Second, I bring this research to technical communication for the purpose of situating the arguments of other-disciplinary technology scholars into our own disciplinary framework. Third, I hope to experience some of the promise of interdisciplinary research that in the best of circumstances leads to what Klein calls 'an inductive openendedness' (93).' that interesting space in the world of research where we end up with more--and even more interesting--questions. Finally, I turn to some of these questions back toward the profession of technical communication for the purpose of rethinking our roles and responsibilities.
I will limit my discussion to the methodologies of several disciplines that have for some time been involved with the study of technology from historical, sociological, and philosophical perspectives. I have chosen disciplines that not only have some precedent in the field, but which also cover a fair stretch of methodological ground appropriate for technical communicators. For instance, I have chosen the history of technology because of its comparative longevity in technology studies; sociology because of its innovative techniques, specifically ethnography and case study, and its interest in feminist studies; philosophy due to its concerns with fundamental issues of human action, most importantly ethics and public decision-making. "

: "Bijker, Wiebe E., Trevor P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1987. "

: "COMPLICATING TECHNOLOGY: INTERDISCIPLINARY METHOD, THE BURDEN OF COMPREHENSION, AND THE ETHICAL SPACE OF THE TECHNICAL COMMUNICATOR "

Currently missing:



Cell phone (again) --but no big deal, because I am letting the service lapse.

Two dissertation books: Cynthia Selfe's, and Literacy and Computers. I just can afford the $100 to replace these right now. Where did they go? Arrrgh.

Cynthia Selfe: "First, I think we need to continue to resist all projects and systems that serve to establish an overly-narrow, official version of literacy practices or skills. Such projects and systems simply serve to reward the literacy practices of dominant groups and punish the practices of others. They serve to reproduce a continuing and oppressive cycle of illiteracy, racism, and poverty in this country and in others.

This means that on every curriculum committee we serve, in every standards document that we contribute to, in every outcomes assessment that we participate in, on every syllabus that we construct-we have to lead the way in insisting on a diverse range of literacy practices and values, rather than one, narrow and official form of literacy. We have made a start at this effort in the standards document of the NCTE, but in the CCCCs we need to go much further in helping both future teachers and those already in classrooms understand why this work is so important and what implications their successes and failures may have."

Cynthia Selfe: "Nowhere are these struggles and debates rendered in more complex terms--and nowhere are they more influential on our own work--than they are in the direct linkage between literacy and computer technology that has been established in increasingly direct ways over the last decade in this country. This potent linkage is sustained and reproduced by a complexly related set of cultural influences: workplaces in which approximately 70% of jobs requiring a bachelors degree or an advanced college degree now require the use computers (Digest of Education Statistics, 1996, p.458); a corporate sector focused on exploiting the 89% of 'teachers and the public' who believe that the Internet adds value to teaching and learning specifically because it 'reduces the costs teachers spend on classroom activities' ('MCI Nationwide Poll,' 1998); schools in which 87% of high school students are now writing on computers by Grade 11 (Coley, Crandler, and Engle, 1997, p. 27); and homes in which 86% of parents are convinced that a computer is the one 'most beneficial and effective product that they can buy to expand their children's opportunities' for education, future success, and economic prosperity (Getting America's Student's Ready, 1996, p. x)."

Cynthia Selfe: "Technological literacy-meaning computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance-has become as fundamental to a person's ability to navigate through society as traditional skills like reading, writing and arithmetic."

The Computer Delusion by Todd Oppenheimer: "There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs%uFFFD-- music, art, physical education%uFFFD-- that enrich children's lives to make room for this dubious nostrum, and the Clinton Administration has embraced the goal of 'computers in every classroom' with credulous and costly enthusiasm
"

Google Toolbar Installed: "the world's best search"

Cynthia Selfe: "Technological literacy-meaning computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance-has become as fundamental to a person's ability to navigate through society as traditional skills like reading, writing and arithmetic."

Cynthia Selfe: "Technology and Literacy:
A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention"

The Journal of Electronic Publishing: "CONTENT MANAGEMENT"

moved to another space.

The Global Advisor Newsletter - Designing Technical Documentation for an International Audience.: "Introduction





You've just been assigned the task of producing a large technical manual for a new product, schedule for release in a few months. Oh, and by the way, this same document needs to be translated in five languages and all are scheduled for simultaneous release.



This scenario is being played out everywhere as US companies set their sights on global marketing."

I have a cold. It felt like such a small, wimpy little cold that I ignored my patented cold-busting regimen. Now I am hacking up golf balls of phlegm.

deseretnews.com | Tech toys: Learning curve is a challenge

Tasks that are occupying my buffer:



1. scheduling courses and instructors

2. Resolve complaint issue with Mr. X

3. Get mysql working. Please, oh please, why in the crap won't mysql ever work for me?

4. Check on status of labs. Install scanners.

5. Write review of blog paper

6. Contact CCCs.

7. Apply for travel funds

8. Build bench

9. Explore ramifications of New Year's goal which is: Increase energy levels

10. Find out why my left foot has been numb for months. Or at least the toes

11. Get Moodle working or buy Filemaker pro server.

12. Review lab budget

13. Return stupid Quark package

14. Write application for laptop (mid-semester)

15. Draw map of technical communications

16. Print out course calendar and add to syllabus.

17. Expand syllabus to include new, brutal attendance policy.

From ATTW-L



Related to Roy's query -- and interesting follow-ups -- I heard or read

once that a key difference between technical and business communication

can be seen along vertical or horizontal lines. For technical

communicators, the communication might be horizontal in that there's less

emphasis on hierarchy among readers (you can see where this scheme begins

to crack already -- bear with me for a moment): "users," subject-matter

experts, editors, clients, consumers, other technical communicators, &

etc.





On the other hand -- this is what I heard, not what I'm arguing, mind you

-- business communication is more hierarchical, and thus vertical in its

taxonomy -- committees, boards, executives, shareholders, competition,

corporate oversight ... & etc.





Whether or not these are interesting or helpful distinctions is debatable;

but has anyone else hear or read the vertical-horizontal distinction

somewhere? Can you point to where I might find it?





In Kynell's Writing in a Milieu of Utility, she shows how the disciplines

overlap and how they differ: business comm emerged from the needs of

commercial- and business-related enterprises, whereas technical

communication emerged from the needs of increasing uses of technologies.

In contemporary discipline formations, these boundaries seem to collapse

even more. More recently, Faber and Johnson-Eilola suggest that we're

'hybrid professionals' and that product knowledge, strategic design, and

business knowledge belong in the domain of technical communication, too.

(Their context is globalization, which is the impetus for my

vertical-horizontal distinction query.)





I'm looking at it in disciplinary terms -- rather than programmatic, which

is local -- and collapsed business communication with professional

communication.





Having sufficiently muddled it, then -- best wishes,





Michael

bitter pill: it's like no cheese I've ever tasted?: "'Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.' - Wolfgang von Goethe "

I am grading today. I hate grading. Every semester I tell myself, "This will be the semester that I put all grading online, and refuse to accept late assignments, and fail everyone who misses class more than five times." Sigh.

Date: today

Subject: Miss Chick-fil-A Pickle Picker



Dear Miss Chick-fil-A:



The last three times that I have ordered a Chick-fil-A sandwich without a pickle, you went to the back and removed the pickle from an existing sandwich. How do I know this? Because, upon biting into the sandwich I could discern the distinct taste of what I like to call "pickle urine."



It's people like you that create customers like me.

The Automobile Theft Prevention Authority

50 tips for preventing car theft. Most of them are behavioral.

The Automobile Theft Prevention Authority

WebCT Login Page: "This server has been locked for maintenance by the WebCT administrator.

The server will be available at 10:00 pm on 12/07/03. Thank you for your patience and understanding."



It is now 12/8, 11:45pm. This is not unusual.

style.org > Mapping Votes by County



A fascination look at infographics

List of things increasing the level of my stomach acid:



1. End of semester grading

2. department politics

3. college politics

4. dissertation

5. committee politics

6. a general, low-level of smoldering anger about so many things that can't be fixed.

7. Control plays masked as benign paternalism.

I have found my cell phone (old coat pocket) and bought another grinder attachment to sharpen the shovel, then found the original.





Current favorite form of relaxation: shooting the pellet pistol in the basement at 10m targets. I've been reading pellet gun web pages, and there is a really weird, interesting little subculture out there. I swap match scores with some guy I've never met in England. I find this pellet pistol thing to contain a weird confluence of Southern white guys on fixed incomes discussing zen-like strategies for keeping the pistol still. Followed by spirited defenses of killing squirrels.

I really feel sorry for academics whose identity is so wrapped up in their job that they can't watch a good, stupid video and enjoy it. I feel like I am playing David Lodge's "Shame," but I really liked The Fast and the Furious. It was a great video rental, and connected with about 300 different adolescent fantasies that are still floating about in my psyche. I wanted to go play hot wheels with my kids afterwards.

style.org > Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

http://complicity.uvsc.edu/~carboosters/group%20Wholedocument.doc



http://complicity.uvsc.edu/~solar/solarfinaldraft.doc



http://complicity.uvsc.edu/~construction/lastest%20drafts/



Climbers? Buehler?

Words4Nerds - online help, manuals, technical writing, documentation development. Specializing in documenting software products for small businesses.

GNOME Documentation Style Guide V1.3



This would be overkill for your projects, but it gives you an idea of what a style guide is and how it is used. Bonus question: what is Gnome?

blogosphere.us > A Course About Weblogs

Classics-L: dissertation and teaching: "But, beyond the personal issue, it seemed to me that Classics is

>misdirecting its talent. The fact that PhD programs don't teach their

>students how to teach is a scandal of long-standing. (Personally I think

>the recentish on-list suggestion that acting should be a graduate

>requirement is an excellent one. Teaching is a performance skill.) It

>would

>be bad enough if programs were also not teaching students how to write.

>But, through the genre of the dissertation, *successful* students in PhD

>programs are actually being taught how *not* to write-- how not to write

>clearly and effectively, how not to make remarks of import on issues that

>matter, how not to distinguish evidence that matters for an argument from

>evidence which does not matter, how not to avoid crafting too-lengthy

>sentences with too many parallel clauses.... (damn it!). How many of these

>bad lessons, once learned in the intense formative experience of writing a

>dissertation, will never be unlearned, affecting the writing and even the

>thinking of the future professoriate?

"

Now missing:



My cell phone, possibly left at the library, and my large bag of rechargeable batteries. No idea where they are. Grrrr. I need a brain implant.

Put yer Ugly Sentences (tm) here

Online Technical Writing: Power-Revision Techniques--Structure-Level Revision

Wired News: A Peek Inside the Secret World: "Washington's decisive victory in the 1775 War of Independence can be attributed as much to his skills as a director of clandestine intelligence activities as his military savvy, according to Eugene Poteat, a retired CIA scientific intelligence officer.

"

I found my missing computer bag. Now I am looking for the desire to write. Pray for me.

: "Disallow: /president/september11/text Disallow: /president/statearrival/iraq Disallow: /president/statearrival/text Disallow: /president/statedinner-mexico-200109/iraq Disallow: /president/statedinner-mexico-200109/text Disallow: /president/statedinnerprep-mexico-200109/iraq Disallow: /president/statedinnerprep-mexico-200109/text Disallow: /president/statevisit/iraq Disallow: /president/statevisit/text Disallow: /president/statevisit/window/iraq Disallow: /president/statevisit/window/text Disallow: /president/statevisit20030522/iraq Disallow: /president/statevisit20030522/text Disallow: /president/statevisitday2-mexico-200109/TEMP/text Disallow: /president/statevisitday2-mexico-200109/iraq Disallow: /president/statevisitday2-mexico-200109/text Disallow: /president/tee-ball-01/iraq Disallow: /president/tee-ball-01/text Disallow: /president/tee-ball-02/iraq Disallow: /president/tee-ball-02/text Disallow: /president/tee-ball-03/iraq Disallow: /president/tee-ball-03/text Disallow: /president/text Disallow: /president/winterwonderland/iraq Disallow: /president/winterwonderland/text Disallow: /president/world-leaders/iraq Disallow: /president/world-leaders/text Disallow: /president/worldunites/iraq Disallow: /president/worldunites/text Disallow: /response/diplomatic/iraq Disallow: /response/diplomatic/text Disallow: /response/iraq Disallow: /response/military/text Disallow: /response/text Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/behindthescenes/iraq Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/behindthescenes/print/iraq Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/behindthescenes/print/text Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/behindthescenes/text Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/iraq Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/photos/iraq Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/photos/print/iraq Disallow: /stateoftheunion/2002/photos/print/text"

Apple - Pro/Film - Joel and Ethan Coen

SR-71 Online - SR-71 Flight Manual

Favorite thing to say before grabbing the swatter: "They-ah is gonna be killin' he-uh today, and I'm gonna do it."

If you put your files in the "Sites" folder, you can view them by going to:



http://complicity.uvsc.edu/~carboosters



Except you need to substitute the name of your group for carboosters.

Hi alabamalady,: "I don't work full-time anymore, but I work 32 hours a week, which is almost the same (I get Thursdays off). My trick is to go for a half-hour walk after work, and then to let myself unwind for an hour before I hit the diss work. Then I post on the daily (I really like to co-pact, especially lately) that I am going to do 2 sessions of 45 minutes (which is all I can usually bring myself to do after a full day's work). Then I make myself quit after 2x45, no matter whether or not I still feel like going. And I read fiction, or chat, or do something mindless before bed. That way I don't burn myself out.



The only exception I make is when I have a deadline within a few days--because I can sleep more after I make the deadline.



I also do at least 5 units of work over the weekend. I try to always take Sundays off, but make some exceptions.



Everyone seems to have different strategies, though, as I'm sure you'll notice when other people start responding to your post.



I hope you'll be as nice to yourself as you can possibly be. Transitions are really hard, even beyond trying to figure out a new workable schedule."

Things I can't find:



1. my cell phone

2. the little grinder drill attachment that I am going to use to sharpen my shovel and dig up weeds

3. the battery charger

Top 10 Software Titles Every Home PC Needs?

ftp settings:



server: complicity.uvsc.edu



url: http://complicity.uvsc.edu



For next class period: read chapter 6. Prepare for a brutal quiz.

http://www.faithfuldesigns.com/tools/guides/ftp/wsftple.zip



Download WSFP_LE

In class today:



1. creation of group accounts and web pages

2. use of ftp

3. blogging requirements

4. Workflow and document management discussion

5. Read chapter 6 (collaboration) for Monday. Keep revising your drafts.

carboosters:boosters

construction:construction

solar:solar

climbers:climbers

The Register: "Perseus' study doesn't see a 'community' as much as a graveyard. The average weblog is only updated once every fourteen days, and Perseus concludes that 'the majority of blogs started are dissolving into static, abandoned web pages.' Well, maybe people have simply got better things to do. This is not a bad thing.

"

CAQDAS Networking Project: "OS X"

I'd love to see a non-profit, uncopyrighted website that

collected free disciplinary readings that could be automagically

combined into downloadable coursepacks. Or just open it to

instructors to prevent crushing bandwidth bills, and let them

worry about distribution to students. I suppose such a site

could also collect lesson plans, etc. although those usually need

to be taken in a particular context to be very helpful. Please

promulgate this idea so someone else will throw this together :)



Think of a Napster for free (legal) textbooks. Bookster (the

domain is only $5000). It's arguable that I'm just describing

Google.





I'm not ready to throw out traditional publishers, however,

because despite the numbing sameness of many composition

handbooks, there is still great stuff out there that probably

wouldn't have ever emerged without a publisher (and tenure

requirements).

Slashdot: Search writer's block

Overcoming Writers Block: "3. Polishing it off

My thesis advisor gave me this advice: 'The sword is mightier than the pen.' Meaning, it's easier to cut stuff out at the end than try and find quality filler.

So I always write more than I think is necessary - and out of all of the extra roughness, a few gems usually appear. "

Overcoming Writers Block: "Write something every single day - I have taken a few writing classes, and one common denominator (and perhaps the only meaningful information from any of them) was so simple as to defy imagination. Simply write something every single day.

I write one article, completely polished and ready for publication, every single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Sometimes I write two or three articles in a day.

It really doesn't matter what I write, although I usually write about the internet or computers. But occasionally I write other things, including pages for my autobiography or even a love letter to the wife.

Put aside time to write - I have set aside 'writing time', two hours every single night, in which I isolate myself in my office at home and write my heart out. My wife respects my introversion during this time as it allows me to do one of the things that I love the most: communicate ideas in written form.

Fill in any missing blanks - If I find that I am having trouble explaining something in writing or the words just don't flow, I look around and see if there is something about it that I do not fully understand. That often works.

Ignore the idiots of the world - There sure seem to be a lot of jerks sometimes. However, I don't need to allow some babbling idiots ruin my writing. Just because someone does not like something does not mean anything except they didn't like it...

I do not ask for criticism - I never ask anyone to criticize my works, ever. I do not ask for site reviews of my websites, I don't submit my works for review. Why not? I am not interested in other people's silly opinions about my works. I know I am a good writer, a excellent webmaster and a great manager. I don't need anyone to tell me how good I am, and I certainly don't need anyone to point out my faults.

Changi"

Hypnosis for Writers: "Conceiving of the Block as an object or symbol of some kind, and then destroying it while the writer is relaxed in hypnosis, is yet another way to overcome Writer's Block.

Generate Ideas

The well-worn advice to 'sleep on it', when you are confronted with a tough problem, really means 'prime your subconscious.' And so it is with hypnosis. Instead of drifting off to sleep, you drift into hypnosis. You could have asked your subconscious for ideas, or just let yourself flow with whatever it pops into your conscious mind."

[Biathlon] re: hitting low when shooting off hand: "[Biathlon] re: hitting low when shooting off hand "

From now on, clever little links are going to the "linkages" blog thing. And I am just going to write in this space.



On the way home from work my transmission kept slipping into neutral. Fortunately I had just payed $270 to have this problem fixed. And it's not just the money that hurts, it's being without a car for days as their original estimate extends into days and the cost creeps up and I get the sneaking suspicion that I am paying these guys to learn how to fix my car. Instead of the Pell Grant, it's the Crane grant.

Irfanview --a great free graphics program.



Gadwin printscreen



Really useful freeware programs for manipulating images and grabbing screenshots.

The Onion | Idaville Detective 'Encyclopedia' Brown Found Dead In Library Dumpster: "Because of the long-standing mutual enmity between Meany and Brown, Meany was named among the suspects in The Case Of Encyclopedia Brown's Mangled Corpse. Meany denied the allegations.







'It's true that Detective Brown and I didn't see eye to eye, but I would never do something so downright dirty rotten as murder him,' Meany said. 'Besides, it's a matter of public record that, at the time the crime was committed, I was at the North Pole watching the penguins.'







While no solid leads have surfaced, Kimball-Brown said she has a hunch that Brown knew his killer.







'The bitter irony is that Brown would have easily cracked a case like this one,' Kimball-Brown said. 'I just can't help but wonder: WHAT DID ENCYCLOPEDIA KNOW THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED HIM SOLVE HIS OWN MURDER?'"

CNN.com - Poll: Davis in peril, Schwarzenegger shows strength - Sep. 29, 2003: "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) --Voters in the California recall election might be poised to kick Gov. Gray Davis out and vote Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Sunday.

When asked how they would vote on recalling Davis, 63 percent of probable voters surveyed said they would vote yes, compared with 35 percent who said they would vote no."



Essentially, Ah-nuld is a pro wrestler. Where does this deep longing for pro wrestlers as politicians come from? It frightens me, but it also shows on some level a canny acknowledgement that politics is entirely spectacle.

USATODAY.com - The lighter side of Jack Black: "White had to slightly alter his tale to accommodate specific teen musicians plucked from a nationwide pool of thousands, but Black's character underwent no significant alterations.

'Mike wrote it in my voice,' Black says. 'The script was a Ferrari that pulled into my driveway. I sat in it and said, 'I can't believe I'm going to drive this.' The seats were leather, but I was hoping for crushed velvet, and Mike changed it just for me. Tiny, minuscule tinkering. Then I took it on the road and noticed there was a turbo button that released the nitro. OK, I've taken this metaphor too far.'"

rabbit blog: "I want a peddle that changes the channels on my TV. Maybe one that's connected to my TiVo, so I can fast forward through the dull parts and still type like the wind. I want a robot who'll answer my phone, and also call publicists and make nicey nice with them, and become their friends and take them out to drinks and learn all of the complicated relationships between them, and then exploit those relationships to get advance tapes and interviews with key figures from the entertainment universe. I'm not malevolent enough to do this dirty work; I prefer to spend my time here, in my lair, barely moving at all.



I have a stupid office chair, but the point is, I don't want to have to sit upright at a desk. Sitting upright at a desk makes me feel like I'm working or something. I prefer for my posture to give the illusion of slacking around the house without a care in the world. Otherwise I feel like I'm working, like I have a job or something. I must trick myself, I must never, ever catch wind of the fact that I have a job with responsibilities and obligations. Otherwise, the brain muscle feels weak and won't wrinkle upon demand. If the brain muscle thinks its being forced to exert itself for pay, it sighs deeply and says, 'I can't think of anything. I'm tired. I need chocolate to think.' "

GIRLS ARE PRETTY: "9. I was in love once. And the feelings I held for my lover, if I were to imagine those feelings of love taking the form of a little tiny couple in love themselves, that love-couple would look like those two. Except with different shoes. And, oh wait, is that dude wearing an earring? Oh wait, sorry, never mind.



Happy If You're Both Attractive, Stay Together For The Sake Of The Rest Of Us Day!"

Meteorites, Meteorites and Impacts: "Here is what President of the United States Bill Clinton had to say about the discovery of evidence for life in a meteorite from Mars:



'It is well worth contemplating how we reached this moment of discovery. More than 4 billion years ago this piece of rock was formed as a part of the original crust of Mars. After billions of years it broke from the surface and began a 16 million year journey through space that would end here on Earth. It arrived in a meteor shower 13,000 years ago. And in 1984 an American scientist on an annual U.S. government mission to search for meteors on Antarctica picked it up and took it to be studied. Appropriately, it was the first rock to be picked up that year -- rock number 84001.



Today, rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles. It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Its implications are as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined. Even as it promises answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses still others even more fundamental.



We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say as we continue the search for answers and for knowledge that is as old as humanity itself but essential to our people's future.'"



I can't even imagine Bush reading that paragraph. With help.

stevenberlinjohnson.com: Remembering Edward Said: "Like many people, I'm sure, I was deeply influenced by Said's work -- Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, of course, but also some of the earlier less political works, like Beginnings. He was largely responsible -- some might say to blame -- for importing French cultural theory into the American intellectual scene, particularly Foucault, who obviously had a huge influence on Orientalism. But he always resisted the inane wordplay and self-absorption that characterized so much of American theory in the eighties and early nineties. He absolutely despised 'radical theorists' like Judith Butler, for instance. I remember him bristling anytime someone used the word 'discourse' in one of our seminars -- and I remember thinking at the time that I had first starting using the word myself after reading Orientalism during my freshman year.

I'm sure there will be a flood of eulogies with more insightful surveys of his work (and no doubt some critics, given his political stances.) But I think it's worth saying something here that I've said about Said for more than ten years now: on his best days, he was the most charismatic man I've ever met in my life -- handsome, stylish, impossibly articulate, and surprisingly willing to take a joke at his own expense. (I used to tease him about his being indirectly responsible for unleashing Butler on the world.) I remember vividly one early spring afternoon, sitting through a seminar he was teaching on public intellectuals, in a room overlooking the Columbia campus and the sun setting over Riverside Park, and thinking to myself: there's literally nowhere else I'd rather be right now. I'm sure there are thousands of his students out there sifting through similar memories today. "



If I ever felt that way about graduate school the memory has long since fled.

Idle Words: "The Cincinnati Airport is full of small adventures. I just saw a very bored flight attendant saunter by holding a cardboard box with a large orange sticker on it reading 'Human Eyes'. Note to Delta Connection passengers: skip in-flight snack.

Also, there are Russians here! More specifically, there is Natalya from Nizhny Novgorod, who mans a forlorn muffin-and-coffee cart near the blaring CNN sector. Nothing whisks away airport anomie like having a short conversation in a foreign language with someone who shares your fondness for potatoes. "

The Observer | UK News | Suncream is 'no protection against cancer': "Sunbathers who smother their bodies in lotions to block out harmful rays are not being protected against skin cancer and premature ageing, a new study has found.



Research published tomorrow will show that sunscreens, even when they are high factor and applied in the proper amounts, do not prevent dangerous changes in the skin's make-up which can promote the growth of cancer.



Although the lotions prevent burning they are less effective at blocking out UVA rays, which are believed to cause melanoma, the most dangerous skin cancer. Scientists are expected to warn this week that people must not be led by a false sense of security into staying longer in the sun because they are covered with high-factor lotions.



Cases of melanoma are now rising faster than any other cancer in Britain, and deaths from the disease are also on the increase. In the UK, 1,600 a year die from melanoma, more than the 1,000 annual deaths in Australia, where people have learnt to cover up in the sun."

The Miami Herald | 09/21/2003 | Roughing it easier with eyes closed: "After our briefing, Ron and I got into our kayaks and pushed out into the river to practice our paddling skills. In a few minutes we found that by stroking our paddles on the left or right side, forward or backward, we were able to have absolutely no effect on what our kayaks were doing. Our kayaks were taking direction only from the Salmon River, which was telling them: Go Downstream Now! So we did. In a few minutes we hit our first rapids, which were officially classified as a Class 3 rapids (``Not Always Fatal'')."

CNN.com - Poll reveals most hated sports include dogfighting, golf - Sep. 27, 2003: "Ten years ago, only 12.5 percent of white Americans had strong feelings against the NBA. In the poll this year, that soared to 21.1 percent of whites who hated or disliked the NBA. The number of black respondents who felt that way stayed virtually unchanged at under 3 percent. "

CNN.com - Poll reveals most hated sports include dogfighting, golf - Sep. 27, 2003: "'In the NBA, there are underlying racial issues and resentment about how the players act, how many get arrested and how much they're paid,' said Sports Marketing Group managing director Nye Lavalle. 'In baseball, the labor disputes, the huge salaries, the perception of players on steroids and their perceived arrogance are factors.' "

Any day now there's going to be a class action lawsuit by all the brunettes who didn't get hired at Checker auto. Unless they bleach them out after hiring.

Today I found:



1. electric screwdriver power supply

2. missing wirecutters

3. bootleg microphone, also missing



also modified the trigger pull on my air pistol and it worked!

Google Search:: "Or you can just take a cardboard box, fill it with old computer magazines, with the spines of the magazines against what will be the far wall of the box, crumple up some old newspapers and stick them in the open space at the front of the box. Tape a target on the front and you are ready to go."

'60s 'Boys' went through hoops not to grow up: "When Larry Brown talks about the clarity he found dropping acid for the first time, the understanding of his connection to the earth, the words may be those of an aging hippie who now builds environment-friendly homes outside of Woodstock, N.Y., but the underlying sentiment is really about the common experience of lost youth. To a man (and one woman), the subjects of 'The Boys of 2nd Street Park' look back at their time shooting hoops in Brighton Beach and find themselves 40 years later asking, 'What happened?' "

Clean-up! Sculpture in aisle nine! | Metafilter: "I recall a legendary guerilla art installation put up in the middle of the night in (I believe) Northampton, Mass: a television playing a video loop of something disturbing to the public decorum ( like a talking head proclaiming the advent of Orwell's 1984, or some such )was bolted 8 or 10 feet up on the side of a building on Main Street. A metal cage over the TV prevented easy removal, especially because the contraption was rigged to throw off showers of sparks if disturbed. It sucked power off a line coming directly from a pole. The fire and police depts. eventually gave up and called the electric company to cut the line. It was quite a public spectacle.



That's good art too."

Continuation of The Matrix Reloaded (kottke.org): "Sajjman says:

Has it been mentioned that the principle of 'The Matrix' is almost identical to Sokrates and Platons 'The Cave' theory ? That if u're used to one reality you're bound to that one until someone releases you and you see the other reality ? It must have been mentioned , and if not i'll try to explain more in detail.

» by Sajjman on September 18, 2003 at 03:50:19 ET

Ken Wais says:

Sajjman, this 'cave' sounds interesting, do expand. Sounds like a version of relativism. "

outline.doc

HarkTheHerald.com: "In fairness to the incompetence at the Provo School District, the issue of paying for personal risk management and health maintenance odds should not be part of business or services. It is counterproductive, outdated tradition. Business and services should concentrate on business and services undistracted by the costs and logistics of workers' personal risk management."

Democratic Underground Forums - Clark in NY last night. My report.: "OK, now the juicy stuff. There was at least one diplomat at my party. Charlie Rangel was at a couple of the parties. I heard that Ben Stiller, Bianca Jagger and a couple other notable people were at the other parties. The high dollar event was 'intense' according to people that volunteered. A famous musician that is supporting one of the candidates from the northeast was at one of the parties. I don't know what that's about, but it was supposedly a big deal. I leave it for you to figure out.



And one last thing; I got to shake his hand (again). I said to him: 'You said in Knoxville that we wouldn't be afraid of guys like Limbaugh. They are coming after you.' He said: 'Limbaugh's full of shit.' I have to agree. He said that he is not going to sink to their level. He said that he needs us to call the radio stations and do what needs to be done.



So that was my experience. Hot, sweaty, powerful, and somewhat intense. I will repeat this one more time. Clark is OK. He has said that he is running for us. General Clark would be a President that we could all be proud of.

"

Lost items that are driving me insane:

1. power screwdriver adapter

2. many rechargeable batteries

3. old laptop case and books

4. motivation

Kelley's new series worth looking at -- unlike its stars: "To Kelley's credit, he has all but scrapped the pilot and reshaped the series. But there are now broader hints of Kelley's fascination with serendipity and whimsy -- Hank and Dottie getting therapy from an internist instead of a shrink, Garrett's daughter painting 'Spongebob Squarepants' on his bald head, Waylon asking his wife to duct tape his butt cheeks together because it will increase his confidence as he searches for a job. "

Lighting and Crime: Summary: "Improving street lighting, when it reduces crime, tends to reduce daylight crime as well as crime during darkness. This certainly means that a simple view of lighting as having its effects through increasing surveillance is not tenable. It probably means that lighting improvements which are accompanied by other measures to consult and inform residents, and otherwise enhance social cohesion, will stimulate the mixture of ‘active ingredients’ underlying lighting effects. Such considerations should be incorporated in local crime reduction strategies under the 1998 Act.



· Crime and disorder is distributed very unequally. For example in 1991, some 60% of assaultive crime occurred in the 10% most crime prone areas. This means that crime prevention measures across wide areas with varying crime problems will generally not be regarded as the most cost-effective use of resources. In the CCTV challenge process, local bids had to justify locations for camera installation. In the Government’s current Crime Reduction Programme, the Local Initiatives element will unquestionably be subject to a similar process of assessment for funding. The criteria of such assessment will include originality and focussed effort. For this reason, schemes which involve lighting small areas or the innovative use of lighting will have an advantage over those which involve lighting of large areas and those in which the mechanism of operation is explored. It is acknowledged that street lighting has economies of scale, and that its installation is only incidentally crime preventive. Thus there will be a tension between the extent and nature of lighting desirable for other purposes and that for crime reduction. "

United Press International: Analysis: 'West Wing's' fresh start

Justin's Links: The Quickening

UNDERWORLD / ** (R): "But 'Underworld' is all surfaces, all costumes and sets and special effects, and so you might as well look at the doors as anything else. This is a movie so paltry in its characters and shallow in its story that the war seems to exist primarily to provide graphic visuals. Two of those visuals are Kate Beckinsale, who plays Selene, a vampire with (apparently) an unlimited line of credit at North Beach Leather, and Scott Speedman as Michael, a young intern who is human, at least until he is bitten by a werewolf -- and maybe even after, since although you become a vampire after one bites you, I am uncertain about the rules regarding werewolves,"

Screenwriting: Script Review: Tarantino's KILL BILL: "Kill Bill is about 'The Bride' (Uma Thurman) who seeks revenge on Bill after he slaughters everyone at her wedding and leaves her for dead. Her apparent dying words to him are that she is pregnant, and it’s his baby. She of course doesn’t die, but lies in a coma for 5 years. Bill is an expert swordsman and deadly assassin, as is The Bride. Why he wants her dead isn’t known at this point. There are other characters as well. The Bride seeks her revenge on all of them. The story is also a little more (and I mean just a little) complicate than that, but I’ll leave you with your imagination. "

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Second sight: "Or, at least, they hope to. Bloggers always hope to rush into the arms of Mammon, despite all the signs that Mammon is not interested in even a small cuddle. Bloggers are convinced that at any moment, the rest of the world - besides the 2% of web users that analysts Jupiter say now look at weblogs - will eagerly pay for the stuff they write. "

Food For Everyone Foundation - FAQ -The Zoo-Doo Man: "However, the most important thing I learned in that two-year experiment was not how to make and sell Zoo-Doo. I learned for myself that I could grow better vegetables more consistently, and with a lot less time, cost, and hassle, with a few pounds of inexpensive natural mineral nutrients than I could with truckloads of 'the world's best compost.'

I therefore continue to use good, clean organic materials when they are available, but I know that highly productive vegetable gardens are not dependent on improving the soil with organic material."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic ice shelf splits: "The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is located on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory.

The huge mass of floating ice, which has been in place for at least 3,000 years, is now in two major pieces. "

Yahoo! News - How a regular guy gets homeless: "At one state park on the ocean north of Santa Barbara, a mountain lion walked through my campsite at dusk while I was tending a campfire. I slept in my truck that night instead of my tent.

Falling through the cracks

At first I wasn't eligible for food stamps because I had more than $2,000 (the maximum allowed to qualify) to my name and because I thought my truck was worth too much. But eventually, the money ran out and I found out that my truck, with more than 170,000 miles on it now, was worth less than the $4,650 the food stamp program allows. I got anywhere from nothing to $139 a month in food stamps depending on my freelance income for the month. I had several glitches on food stamp amounts due to errors by bureaucrats, but I appealed and won."

Total Population Control: "GWEN works in conjunction with HAARP and the Russian Woodpecker transmitter, which is similar to HAARP. The Russians openly market a small version of their weather-engineering system called Elate, which can fine-tune weather patterns over a 200 mile area and have the same range as the GWEN unit. An Elate system operates at Moscow airport. The GWEN towers shoot enormous bursts of energy into the atmosphere in conjuction with HAARP. The website www.cuttingedge.org wrote an expose of how the major floods of the Mid-West USA occurred in 1993."

Yonkers Police - YonkersPD.com - Carjacking Tips | JMB Web Designs: "Why is Carjacking a Problem?

No one knows for certain, but some explanations include:

It's a crime of opportunity - a thief searching for the most vulnerable prey. Sometimes it's the first step in another crime.

For some young people, carjacking may be a rite of passage, a status symbol, or just a thrill.

Cars, especially luxury ones, provide quick cash for drug users and other criminals.

Sophisticated alarms and improved locking devices make it harder for thieves to steal unoccupied cars.

It's easy to buy, steal, or barter for guns in this country. And a pointed gun makes a powerful threat.

More teens and adults commit crimes of violence than ever before.

Intense media interest may have created 'copycat' carjackers. "

Rock Climbing as Therapy