Overload

One of the first things I realized about blogging was that, no matter how much it is on your mind, no one wants to hear about how long it has been since you last posted or what resolutions you are making to blog more frequently. Still, I will be breaking that cardinal rule now, only to point out that not only did I FAIL MISERABLY at the “blog-a-day challenge” (learned about from Erin, still going on for lots of ETS folks), but I didn’t even manage to get a lot accomplished in my hiatus from the blogosphere. So a big fat “UGH” to me.

I had a dissertation deadline on Thursday, one which I didn’t really meet. I’ve made progress, but I was supposed to done with a complete draft of Chapter 2 (the first chapter I’m writing) by this afternoon. What I managed to produce was 20 pages of polished draft, 10 pages of unrevised, sloppy crap, and a lot of angst. I’m getting somewhere, but it’s slow and painful. Conversations with other folks in my year who haven’t even started writing are somewhat encouraging, but don’t actually get me where I need to be. Also, they are reading and “marinating in research.” When I’m not writing, I’m not doing anything else that’s useful for this chapter. I know pretty much all I need to know; now I just need to put it on the page.

This post is title “Overload” because, for the last nearly-two-weeks without blogging, I have stored up a truly amazing number of things to blog about.  It’s also because, since I started writing this post on Thursday, it has taken me WAY too long to finish it.  I shouldn’t really spend too much time writing stuff here, but this is my evening to unwind a little before getting back to work. I’ll try to mention only the most interesting bits.

I’ve found myself watching videos of TED talks a lot recently.  I don’t really know why (I found one recently through a convoluted path that included John Hodgman’s blog/Twitter account… weird.  Still, I highly reccomend Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk.  Never read her books, but she gave an amazing speech about creativity and “genius”).  These talks seem a little odd to me, and they sometimes make references to each other that remind me that they are directed to an audience of which I am not a member, but for the most part I am digging them.  Oh, Barry Schwartz’s two talks were good also.  The first of those two is a little better I think: the loss of wisdom is an argument that I find almost profound.  The “paradox of choice,” while I agree with it more or less, seems a little facile (basic argument: after a certain point, more choice = less happiness, and we long ago passed that point.  While that is true, there are a ton of available filters for reducing choices, plenty of people out there who, if one is willing to delegate a little, will help a consumer make a choice.  Beyond that, the “paradox of choice” does not seem like a societal problem in the same way that the “loss of wisdom” is…. wow that was a long parenthetical).

Here are 8 useful tips for maximizing your use of Twitter, courtesy of Mr. Tweet.  Mr. Tweet is good tool for maybe finding people to follow on Twitter, but I don’t know how useful it actually is for someone like me.

I had more to say, but I might actually end up writing another blog post soon, so I’ll leave it at this.

 

Variety Show!

So much stuff to put up…

First, it’s February!  Generally a cold, bitter month with nothing to recommend it, I’m hoping that this February will be a turn-around month for me.  Specifically: had a meeting yesterday with one of my two dissertation advisors.  He was very encouraging (I’m sensing a good-cop/bad-cop routine) and we had a great conversation about dissertation writing in general, the difficulties of the first chapter, the overall purpose of my project, etc.  I felt more confident afterwards than I ever have have in a while about writing and about what I was going to accomplish by writing this thing.  It’s hard, especially when you’re writing a chapter that is mostly lit review/other-people’s-history (at least for now), to keep track of what you’re doing that is new, interesting, and worthwhile.  My advisor helped me remember what that was for me, and I’m grateful.

On a related turning-over-a-new-leaf note: Erin has been blogging about a February blog-a-day challenge which I think I will (belatedly) try to join.  I tried something similar on my own at the end of last semester, when I was just getting this thing started, and I didn’t do so well.  I’m hoping that this time around, things will be better, if for no other reason than that now I can maybe have the influence of peer pressure.

There is a NYT article about the “25 Random Things” Meme… (I think I found this via Michael, or maybe one of my new Twitter friends?  I don’t remember).  I find it interesting that the meme attracts that much attention.  I find it annoying that, after I was tagged twice by the meme, I filled out a list of my own and got up to number 20 before I either closed the Facebook page or managed to delete everything; whatever happened, I wasted a bunch of time and didn’t even get the silly pleasure of being part of the fun.  Grrr!!!

Lastly (though only because the graphics are so big) I found this interesting political/social orientation test on Kim’s blog and thought I’d post the results (I know these things are a little internet-cliche, and I know that Michael is raving against cliches today, but that’s just the way things go):

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an… Economic Liberal (15% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

There’s something a little odd about being told you’re a socialist by an (apparently) objective test… I’m right on the border with “Democrat” though, and in the “famous people” version of the graph (which I can’t figure out how to copy from the site) I’m right next to Obama… so that makes me happy!

 

News

My cousin has a new blog up about his latest adventure.  For those not in the family: my cousin Tim has become something of a bike nut (he was always a nut, the bike part is newer).  Last fall he and a friend spent four months (June to October) biking from Alaska to Mexico, and blogged about their journey.  That ride included an effort to raise funds for Heifer International (hence the name of the blog, CowSpokes).  Now he’s at it again, this time with my other cousin, Chris: they are biking around New Zealand, and blogging about it.  I don’t know if this trip will involve a similar charity connection; if there is, I’ll let people know.  I also don’t know how long they’ll be there for, but I wish them luck and safety.

Una and I are fostering another cat from Centre County PAWS.  For those who don’t know, PAWS is a volunteer organization that tries to find homes for cats and dogs without owners.  Una volunteers there some weekends, and we’ve occasionally taken in a cat to try to give them people to stay with during the week (PAWS is only open, and thus only shows cats and dogs to prospective owners, on weekends).  The last two cats we tried fostering (Teal and Sunshine) didn’t get along with our permanent housecat, Molly the Marauder.  We’re hoping that the newest kitty, Ebony, will be a better fit (awful name for a black cat, though).  The fact that she’s only 7 months old should help, I would think.

Other news: President Obama is doing good things… but maybe that isn’t news.

Also: I want this book just because it looks cool.

I was going to say more, but maybe that’s enough for now…

 

Rejection

I’m feeling kind of bitter these days.  You can probably guess the general reason, from the title of this post.  In the past couple months, proposals of mine have been rejected from the following conferences: CCCC 2009, ATTW 2009 (haven’t received an official rejection yet, but acceptances went out about two weeks ago, as far as I can tell), and the RSA Summer Institute 2009 (this last one has given me the opportunity to attend a different workshop than the one I first applied for, chosen off a list of workshops that have not filled up yet, and there was one that might be a great fit…we’ll see).  The CCCCs proposal was a panel proposal, and the ATTW and RSA proposals were both fairly rushed, but excuses for failure sometimes feel like just that: excuses.

Other things are going a little bit better: Chapter Two is shaping up into an actual chapter, rather than just the idea of one, although I’m beginning to worry that there is not a lot of room for me to contribute original content in this chapter.  The purpose of Ch. Two is to set the context for the textual analysis of Chapter Three… but the contextual discussion is based on the work of other scholars, and has even been summarized fairly well (for the most part) by Paul Starr in The Creation of the Media.  [Sidenote: this book looks, and sometimes reads, like popular history rather than "scholarship," yet it is the most deft summary of a wide variety of sources that I have seen in a long while... I am confused as to how to think about this book.  For one, he discusses the Public Sphere, and takes an approach to it that I would like to emulate, but he also manages to mention Habermas only in the endnotes...  I'm a little intimidated by the way this book manages to easily capture the disparate elements that I thought I would bring together to make Chapter Two interesting].

This post is beginning to depress me.  A more upbeat one will follow on its heels, and if I’m lucky that will return to me my usual good mood.

 

More from Lessig

Here’s a video from Lawrence Lessig’s blog about campaign finance reform.  I have only vaguely heard about what’s going on over at change.org (change.gov?) but if this video is the product of some sort of contest for most urgent problem, I am intrigued…

EDIT: Recently, I can’t get video embedding to work for some reason.  Sad!

 

Lawrence Lessig video

Lawrence Lessig talking to Stephen Colbert

I never really like the Colbert show interviews, because when Stephen is in character he can’t really have a conversation with anyone, he just ends up spouting ridiculous non-sequitors (which is itself a parody, but a less entertaining one than you might think). Still, I am intrigued by Lessig’s book, in no small part because it has the same title as this textbook by Katie Latterell.  Damn remixers remixing things!

 

Making up for lost time

Because I haven’t posted for so long, I’m posting twice today!  Go me!  This post, unlike the last, will be more of a list of things that I’ve been looking at/think are cool.  More of the old-school “web-log” if you will.

• Have you ever heard of Cryptozoology?  I hadn’t…but it sounds pretty awesome, if a little kooky.  The term seems to cover everything from the discovery of new species (and re-discovery of species thought to be extinct) to the investigation of phenomena like Big Foot and the Yeti.  Anyway, check out a list of the Top 10 Cryptozoology stories of 2008 on Cryptomundo.
• Answers.com has an application available called 1-Click Answers (or is it Alt-Click?), which allows you to click on any word you come across online and receive an Answers.com explanation of that word.  The description says that “Alt-Click works on any text in virtually every Windows program.”  I am intrigued, but also wonder: do they anticipate all possible contexts and uses for a given word?  I doubt it.
• I find the fact that this guy, predicting the break-up of the United States, is actually being listened to incredibly funny, if also ridiculous.  Especially post-election, when the news has been so focused on “Obama brings us all together” stories.
• I’ve been looking for a way to manage the fact that my iPhone imported all of my contacts from Gmail, including people I barely know.  This blog post seems like it might be an explanation of how to hack things somewhat better…
• I’m very excited to hear that Al Franken is being declared the winner, even if only by 225 votes, and even if the result will immediately be contested.  I would have thought a race this close would deserve a new election, but apparently Minnesota doesn’t work like that, and they’ll have to settle for a decision by the courts.
• I’m partly posting this link about the Birth of RSS because I’m going to want it later, as my diss will include a history of that occurence… I also just think it’s cool, though.  Note that the New York Times is considered by some to have been instrumental in getting RSS feed technology going/popular.  It always comes back to the newspapers, huh?
• I don’t know how I found this (I can’t remember the process of linking that lead me to it, I suppose I should say) but here is an article by Michael Crichton, published in Playboy in 1991, entitled “How to Fight.”  The article is a how-to guide for men, about how to have an argument with their “domestic partner” (assumed from the start to be a woman).  The article is obviously heterosexist, as well as a bit of the good-ole-fashioned regular sexist, but it’s also pretty interesting (in that way where you say on the one hand “OMG I can’t believe he said that” and on the other hand “should I be trying to do that?”).  After reading I felt a little bit gross, actually.  The focus of the essay is on how to “win” an argument (although it does acknowledge that many arguments are not won, or even ever resolved), and I wonder if the advice might have been different if the purpose were to communicate better and have a healthy, relationship-improving discussion.  Some of the points Crichton makes seem like they actually match up very well with that kind of purpose too, despite being delivered in a kind of “I’m a cold bastard” tone….

That’s all I’ve got right now…

 

Post about the Post

I’ve been frustrated, recently, while trying to write a certain section of the current dis. chapter.  I’m going to try to talk through some of my thoughts here.

I’m writing about the circumstances surrounding the development of periodical publication in 18th C. England, and I’m devoting a section to the postal system.  The “post” referred to in “postal system” usually referred to fresh horses that were made available (in the most basic sense they were “posted,” as in attached to a hitching post in a given location) at intervals along a given route.  The routes were often temporary, depending on the level of need at a given time.  Charles I made his Royal mail system available to the “public” in 1635 (how many people could actually afford to send letters through it is certainly questionable), but the system of sending letters to people in other towns, counties, or countries was not a terribly comprehensive or voluminous endeavor.  As far as I can tell, the postal system did not change terribly much between the Civil War era and the mid- to late-eighteenth century, except for one specific innovation.  More after the break…

 

New Years and other cool things

I can’t remember where I found this link, but Flowing Data is an interesting site for those interested in visual rhetoric…or professional writing (I feel like I know slightly more about the latter than the former, meaning not much about either.  Still, I want to learn).  I was particularly intrigued by the 5 best data visualization projects of the year.   Good stuff!

This might be kind of random, but since I know people on the job market this year (and I’m a big nerd who thinks this stuff is cool): check out the cost of living calculator at Sperling’s Best Places.  You punch in two cities, and the site will compare the average costs for a whole bunch of different categories… cool beans!

Also, it’s nice to know that celebrity scandal is dead. I don’t know if I buy it, but I think everyone is excited by the Obama-natory mood of the coming New Year.

Speaking of the New Year, I have a fairly traditional (read: stereotypical) list of resolutions this year:

• Lose weight (50 pounds by the end of the year) 
• Write my dissertation on schedule (250 pages by the end of the year)
• Drink less, eat better, take vitamins, go to the gym, etc.

I have a couple of less obvious resolutions, though.  For starters, I want to establish a routine: I think I will be more productive if I am doing the same things each day, such that I build up a rhythm, and can sustain my work over a longer period of time.  To that effect, I will be: going to bed at the same time each night (11:30 or 12), working out at the same times each week (although this might run counter to some weight-loss advice I’ve heard…we’ll see), and writing during certain times of day, regardless of what else is going on.  I also want to do certain things every day that I don’t always do: take vitamins, drink two gallons of water (total), floss, exercise for at least 30 minutes (preferably an hour), and only spend an hour surfing the inter-tubes (maybe half an hour each, morning and night?).  

I’m curious to know what other people might be resolving at this time of year.  Or do you even believe in resolutions?  Do you get more points for certain resolutions, a kind of degree-of-difficulty challenge?  Should we avoid arbitrary time-related comitments, and focus instead on doing the things we think we should do all the time, not just in response to a socially constructed calendar point?

 

laptop literacy

Check this out:

I have some serious qualms about “laptop literacy” programs that don’t seem to get that there needs to be some larger framework of support for technology use, but I also think that attempts to “bridge the digital divide” need to start somewhere.  Therefore, I am both heartened and disturbed by this program, “One Laptop Per Child.”  I like the idea, but I would have liked some acknowledgment, at least, of the fact that internet access and laptop capability does not automatically equal learning.  To say “replace the word ‘laptop’ with ‘education’” is to profoundly misunderstand the nature of education, and of technology.  I don’t doubt that laptops can help to make education possible, but laptops ARE NOT education.  Period.  

If the kids receiving the laptops are not provided with support or instruction, and are not challenged to use them for educational purposes, it’s just as likely that the laptops will go unused, or be used superficially.  Granted, such support and challenge have to be local in origin in order to understand the needs and limitations of these children, but the OLPC program could acknowledge that need and try to help provide solutions in that area too, when necessary.