Kevin Maher is one of the funniest people I have ever met. At Vassar College, he was in the now-defunct Laughing Stock comedy group. When we were at Metuchen High School together, I remember him making these bizarre radio shows on tape before I went away to Europe. When we were on the YMCA swim team together in third grade… well, he was hilariously young.
Kevin debuted the SciFi Dept on the SciFi Scanner blog over at AMC in August. This is definitely going into my queue of things to view. Thanks, Kevin!
It recently came to my attention that a video camera has been set up at Vassar College to be streamed into SecondLife. I first encountered the device when I went to the Vassar island in SL. It took some significant software sleuthing to uncover the URI of the offending and offensive device. I find the undocumented practice of surveilling a public space at Vassar College extremely disturbing. Have the students and faculty who walk across the Library Lawn every day been told that they are being filmed and broadcast to the world? My research into the matter indicates that this has not been discussed in any public manner. How does this filming enhance the teaching, learning, and research that happens at Vassar? I do not think filming and streaming into SL has any academic merit.
I post the link to the camera here. I would buy the argument that, by posting this, I am violating privacy even more than whoever installed the camera. I would respond that the content is fully accessible to anyone in SecondLife. Further, I hope this shames the responsible individuals into removing the offending device permanently.
A number of years ago, students taking a course in the Media Studies Development Project approached me about performing "open and transparent surveillance" of the Media Cloisters. My understanding was that the camera would be set up in the space with clear signs outlining when and how the camera would be used. It was also made clear that the footage would be used for in-class presentation. All footage not used for the presentation would be destroyed. This idea was shot down, justifiably, because the Media Cloisters was a space set aside for unfettered use of technology. Surveillance of users of the space, it was felt, would create an unfriendly atmosphere.
I won’t go into the use of SecondLife at Vassar beyond stating that I am skeptical of the pedagogical value. The Vassar MOO and MOOssiggang engage students much more dramatically in the building of space, the writing of text, the display of imagery, and computer-mediated communication than SL currently can. Yes, the technology of the mid-90s doesn’t have the whiz-bang factor of SL, but the pedagogy was sound.
I hope that faculty, students and administrators at Vassar look carefully at what they are allowing with this ongoing filming of the campus. Yes, I know that the images are from a great distance, that they are of fairly low quality, and that some may argue that Vassar is a public space. I think these arguments area slippery slope and fallacious. Cheaper, higher quality cameras will become available. Vassar is a private institution, and has a commitment to protect the privacy of its faculty, staff, and student.
If I go to reunion this year, I will be staying away from the Library Lawn.
So the blogosphere is abuzz about the hostess on The View who demonstrated tremendous ignorance with regard to the shape of the earth. You can watch the full clip here.
The signal:noise problem on YouTube comments means that things get missed. So I am reposting my comment here.
in all fairness, at least the clip ends with the celebutard saying, "baby, we have to go to the library". proper respect for that move. and its true. take yourself and your kids to the library. often. nothing else to it. the more your read, even if its tripe, the more you think, the more you will be able to think critically about the information that gets pushed at you every day.
I barely caught her final statement at the end, and I’m glad the original poster did not cut that out, and that I was listening so passively that I wasn’t completely incensed by her ignorance. No, this does not redeem her totally by any stretch, but it does go in the right direction. Read, folks. Read with your kids. Take them to libraries. Take them to bookstores. Donate time or money to libraries. Have your kids donate time or money. "Think of the children." Take them reading.
On Sunday, September 16, I worked for Shaun Cox of Northeast Adventure Company as a kayak guide for the National MS Society 2007 Swim the Hudson for MS event. With 75 swimmers and 25 kayakers in the waters off of Croton Point, I had my hands full one and a half miles from shore. The weather and currents cooperated, though, and Westchester County Sheriffs Department and Croton Fire Department, along with about 15 pleasure craft, helped ensure that everyone stayed safe and had a great day. I paddled close to six miles, and escorted the final swimmer back from the 1.5 mile mark to shore.
Last week while commuting home I spent about seven minutes outlining how I want to spend my days, and the aforementioned paddle re-affirmed the importance of vacations. I want to write down and publish these daily goal averages. I am also interested in putting together a web-app, perhaps for the sidebar of this site, for tracking my progress in accomplishing these goals.
The Daily Grind & Goals
π. The dog deserves two hours every day of my time. This includes walks, grooming, trips to dog parks, and feeding. This is part of the approximately 12 hours of every day that he is able to enjoy my company.
Reading. I want four hours a day.
Writing. One hour a day would keep me happy. I may look to increase this.
Roller-hockey. One hour a day. I currently do two hours per week. Two more two hour sessions and I will be there.
Coding/programming. I need to do about two hours a day between this blog and other projects and interests.
Snowboarding. I want to get the average to about one hour a day, so 365 hours a year, or about 40 days on the slopes. Good luck.
Surfing. Same as above, one hour per day average.
Fly-fishing. Also one hour per day average.
Dinning. Until I can get everything IV, I read that we take about two hours every day to eat.
Bathroom/HABA/etc. Sources say two hours, I think I am down to one.
Kayaking. Lets add an hour per day.
Sleep. Sadly, eight or so hours per day.
Teaching. Last, but certainly not least, I love to teach. Especially technology, where I have the most knowledge and experience. One hour a day would work. (I need tenure somewhere, clearly!)
Some of these things have potential overlap. I can fly-fish from a kayak. I do a lot of skateboarding as part of workout time with π. Lets add up the numbers, though, and see if this is in any way realistic. I count 25 hours in my goals. Not great, but getting there. Any chance on lengthenging the day? Probably not.
None of the above are things which will pay my bills unless I do them so regularly that they become jobs. So how do I reconcile these goals with the reality of existence here and now? I can get paid for kayaking. Programming gets me paid. I could teach snowboarding, and surfing in short order. With some training, I could work as a fly-fishing guide.
This serves as a starting point. ToDo: build a tool that lets me check off the hours I spend doing these things so I can track how close I am getting to these goals.
At the request of friends and family, and to clarify a conversation I recently had with Swerdloff (btw, you know how important content is. You used to rule with content. Your site is all 2.oh, but there isn’t a "there" there. Photos are cool. Events are nice. Prose and poetry are better! I have spent the last four years teaching that concept, which I feel I learned from you.) I present below my "The Story of π: A Prose Formula for Naming My Dog (Show Your Work)".
The first part was pretty easy. π was whelped on March 14, 2006. March 14 is π Day every year. My brother, the math teacher, earned "Teacher of the Month" for March because of his in-class π Day celebrations, including pie and measuring the circumference and area of said pies.
So π is an irrational number. Irrational numbers are numbers which cannot be written as a fraction, but are not imaginary numbers. This is a pretty fair description of him. I honestly haven’t attempted any form of rational discourse with the dog. Or relationship on that end consists of me giving him what I want to give, and his unconditional acceptance thereof.
π is also a real number. Real numbers are any numbers that are either rational or irrational.
π is always a hit with the under 13 crowd. I probably has something to do with his size. The neighborhood kids always start shouting his name when they see my car driving by. He’s something of a local celelbrity.
π and I went to DC to visit my sister and some friends over the Labor Day weekend. While there, we hiked the Billy Goat trail at Great Falls. On this particular hike, lots of people asked about π Two little girls asked what kind of dog he was. I told them he was a shiba inu. Their eyes got real wide and they exclaimed in unison, "I thought they were imaginary!" Apparently, they had played quite a bit of Nintendogs™, but having never seen a shiba in real life had assumed that the authors had taken some artistic liberties. This is how I now justify my claim that π can indeed be imaginary.
When a number has a part that is both real and imaginary, that number is called a complex number. My dog is the only instance of π that is a complex number. The label of complex definitely fits this dog!
Finally, some numbers are transcendental. "A real or complex number is called Transcendental number if it cannot be obtained as a result of an algebraic equation with integer coefficients." (Wikipedia) π is a transcendental number. π is also, perhaps unsurprisingly, a transcendental dog.
I provided some technical asssistance a long time ago to an undergrad film major at Vassar College named Jonás Cuarón. A few years later, I heard that his father directed one of the Harry Potter movies. Then, still later, I saw Children of Men, one of the best films ever made. Boing-Boing linked to a video Jonás did for Naomi Klein’s new book, Shock Doctrine. Its a great video, and I can’t wait to see what Jonás does next.
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