Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Yet Another Scientist Who Isn't Well-Read...

Professor Susan Greenfield claims that Facebook is turning our kids' skulls into mush and making our kids egocentric (!) Nevermind their parents...

The Problem with Pointing out Problems About the Metaverse

Yet another article pointing out how impractical it is to, say, order a pizza via Second Life. What makes it worse is that Skribe goes through a mini-history of pushing the tech. envelope for such mundane tasks...but not far enough to evoke how difficult doing this (now a routine thing) was when the Internet was in its nascent stage. The Metaverse will evolve, these complaints (which sound a lot like those of 20 years ago) will be addressed, and the Metaverse will emerge as the new Internet platform. I can't judge intent. If the intent was "wishlist/bug fix" in nature, then this is fine. But if, as I suspect, this is a whine that states the obvious, then I just lost 5 minutes I'll never get back... ;-)

Friday, February 20, 2009

Which conference session would you go to, and why?

I was reading an article attempting to debunk common [mis]perceptions about study abroad, but I got sidetracked by the very first paragraph. It made me want to ask: which is more interesting, conference sessions that "orient participants into the accepted language and landscape of a shared profession" or that "thoroughly rip apart the rhetoric and deconstruct a field’s founding myth"? If you had to choose, which one would you attend, and why?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

If you got this from Bb...

This is what passes for hilarious when one is up until midnight finishing an interview protocol due in the morning and surfs YouTube looking for something hypnotic to numb the mind:





I'm either dating myself or I'm not well, and I don't care to know which. Very stream-of-consciousness...

I tried to express this to my CSE 560 class, but embeds are still verboten in there, and I for some reason could not get an a href tag to work. I put in the link....I'm curious to see who goes out to the link, and even more curious to see what reactions occur from those that venture to a site with no context beforehand... I think I'll reply to my thread with a link to this post just to see who has no life...
If you are in 560 and you are reading this, you officially have no life! Welcome to the club. Sign the "guestbook" by commenting on this post....

A First Post from the Grid

Object-Name: Slurlblogger v0.4
Region: VolNation (291328, 289792)
Local-Position: (226, 187, 22)

VolNation - Testing SLurlBlogger on VolNation when I should be writing up an interview protocol or finishing Debby's codesheet!

Is THIS Mac Easy Enough For 'Ya? IS IT?

Not for the weak of heart...it is, after all, the Onion. While I disagree with the Pro-PC rant, this would be the perfect Mac for everyone that thinks that Macs are SO haaarrrdd to get!

Caveat auditor:


Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Monday, February 9, 2009

Let me turn on my contact lenses...

IMHO, the Telegraph article is fascinating not so much for the "TV in my eye" prediction as it is for the "empath tattoo", where a patch will cause us to feel the emotions of the characters on-screen. 

Singularity, anyone?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Rockytop is "irresponsible"

Apparently, I'm irresponsible because I've allowed my family to expand beyond sane limits, creating an unbearable burden on the environment.


Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

Did Roman culture revolve around the Circus Maximus to this extent?

Even Rockytop never gets to this kind of lunacy, does it?