I really need to start blogging my "predictions" or "premonitions" when I get them, so it doesn't look like I'm simply bandwagoning when I have known this all along!
I have thought for the longest time that mobile VoIP was going to be the death-knell of the cell phone industry, much like blogs have been to the newspaper industry as we know it. All it takes is one company to offer iPhone-esque hardware, and charge simply for unlimited wireless access. No minutes...no need. You have Skype or something else to allow you to talk globally for free.
Well, this of course won't sit well with those currently in the driver's seat of the industry, just as journalists first scoffed at blogs...before they got really nasty. VoIP wasn't really on the radar of the cell industry...until Skype got an iPhone app. Now, they're getting nasty.
I'm secretly hoping that US Cellular will make the jump to a new business model (and to iPhones), because I am ready to ditch AT&T!!!
I understand newspapers and their desire to vilify the disruptive technologies that will one day lead to their demise or render them irrelevant. This is what people who aspire to jobs that may no longer exist when they graduate think of new media. Let's reduce it for you:
Talking ain't what it used to be.
Telephones are cool, even though it ain't face-to-face.
IMs are cool, even though there's no voice.
But SMS (oh, my!) is the bane of our existence and the demise of Westen Civ.!
And Twitter! Don't get me started! I don't get it, but don't get me started!
If we had a Twitter account, we would wear our Luddite tendencies on our sleeves!
Let me help you out on the Twitter part. Dr. Donna Murphy of the Edinboro University of PA had a very interesting take on this struggle in education and conferences recently in the SLED discussion list:
"There's some misunderstanding here...twitter, backchannel, etc. isn't necessarily multi-tasking. When you're focused on the topic that you're hearing about, and thinking/responding to it through various media, it's the same task for you. It's just a different way to take notes. I find it interesting that people rarely see taking notes in a lecture as multi-tasking, but twitter is. For some of us, our brains don't stop asking questions during a lecture. These other media allow us to ask those questions, and in some ways declutter our brains and capture our reactions. As a bonus, I can also get some response to that process (say, another expert telling me that the information I'm listening to has been debunked already) with the same ease as glancing at the clock in the room."
Interactive note-taking. Funny that journalism students (or their advisors) wouldn't think of that.
Of course, that may be why newspapers are failing.....
My youngest has the intestinal fortitude of my wife!
Did the ran-too-fast-fell-flat-on-my-face-and-bit-a-hole-in-my-lip thing @ the gym play area while my wife was working out...not a peep, apparently! How did the gym employees find out? They noticed a big splotch of blood, and followed the red trail until they found him...playing as though nothing had happened!
Took him to East Tennessee Children's Hospital, and he had to get 3 stitches deep into his mouth. Oh, he cried, but not because it hurt...he was mad that 5 people held him perfectly still and immobile for about 5 minutes while the sewing took place!
Levi, the yin to Simon's yang, is more my temperament. Had the same thing happened to him, all of Knox County would have known about it!
I managed to find a live version that isn't bad, a scat duo of the song with his son:
And, if you can believe it, I found a version on SESAME STREET, of all places...a bit bowdlerized, although it's not clear to me how "pretty coquettes" differs from "blondes and brunettes" except that the former may be more inclusively sexist. "Lulu" has the physique of Sam the Eagle, the fur of a darkish Harry, and the voice of Cookie Monster:
Isn't this a lovely way to start a Monday? I really like this song because I think I "get it" a little better than others, not as good as some...
In a not-so-distant former life, I got a front-row seat to a wide spectrum of mental illnesses, from organic confusions to BPD. The easiest class I took as an undergrad was abnormal psychology...I slept through the chapter on medications and still aced the test,with high mention for the essay on tricyclics, because I was a daily (and occasional nightly) witness to it. From an outsider's perspective, I couldn't at the time imagine ever wanting to live that roller-coaster life first-hand (it was nauseating enough living it second-hand). To the point: my companion at the time was convinced I had BPD (Actually, it was ADD, thankyouverymuch), so much so that I soon found myself at the doctor's office, getting a prescription for lithium. At the time, I didn't want the ensuing conflict of telling my companion "no", I did have a problem (just not BPD), and I was not averse to better living through prescribed pharmaceuticals.
I took them for 1 week, and that's it. I can't truly describe the feeling to you, it was like being tightly wrapped up, inside and out, with a metaphorical version of bubble wrap. My passion is teaching (technology and French), and I couldn't get half the rush I usually got from teaching, and apparently neither could my class, as they finally broached the subject (intervention-style) mid-week to ask me if I was sick or dying or something. I've never really wanted to or think I could fathom being on that stuff long-term.
I would imagine that for some, it's a relief to not be on that emotional roller-coaster. For others, I suspect they prefer the disorder.
And for someone who has never taken it, Amy Lee seems to capture the desperation-turned-to-anger that having one's "will to fly" drowned in medication evokes in some. Some people are willing to undergo, and even thrive on, the ascent from the ashes to "l'azur", knowing full well that, like Icarus, they will find themselves in the ashes once again.
