Squirrel Splat

Today I watched a squirrel climbing, climbing, climbing up the brick wall of my office building. As I watched the squirrel making its way up the wall, I wondered why it would possibly want to climb that wall. Nonetheless, the squirrel climbed to the very top (three stories high) before realizing it had nowhere to go. It couldn't get to the roof because of decoration with no handholds (not even the tiny handholds needed by a squirrel). So there it was, three stories up a sheer brick wall and nowhere to go.

It looked around and saw a very small tree and jumped for it--but unfortunately the tree was not only small, it was too far away, so the squirrel landed on the sidewalk with a decided "Splat!" Luckily, after a few minutes of either unconsciousness or total embarrassment, the squirrel sat up and ran off--up a slightly bigger tree.

I suddenly realized that my day has been going just like this story--climbing, climbing, climbing, with nowhere to go unless I decide to go "Splat!" I just hope that, when I get to that point, I, too, can finally sit up and run (although I'm not sure I want to run toward yet something else to climb!).

Anyway, that's how my day has gone so far....

Interesting Readings

Interesting Readings

Walsh, Jason. “Information Wants to be Liquid.” Wired News 25 Jan. 2005. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66382,00.html (22 July 2006).

"Email is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder--a parent, teacher, or a boss..." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13921601/


Liu, Ziming. "Reading Behavior in the Digital Environment: Changes in
Reading Behavior Over the Past Ten Years" /Journal of Documentation/
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jd/jd.jsp
61(6)(2005): 700-712. - Interesting study on the changes in reading
behavior due to increased use of digital information. People highlight
less but search more; people read linearly less but show intense
concentration once sections are found that interest them. While
considerably more research is needed, this article is a good
introduction to the field. [plagiarised review from Bill Wolff, posted to techrhet@interversity.org (20 Dec. 2005)].


WIKIVERSITY
The organization that maintains the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
(http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) proposes the creation of Wikiversity, an
"electronic institution of learning that will be used to test the
limits of the wiki model both for developing electronic learning
resources as well as for teaching and for conducting research and
publishing results." Still in the initial startup phase, Wikiversity
could, at the least, be an open repository for educational materials.
Some Wiki board members also think it could serve as a host to online
courses, which, in turn, could lead to degree-granting programs. For
more information about Wikiversity, go to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity [original post by Carolyn Kotlas, posted to techrhet@interversity.org by mbulger (6 Jan. 2006)].

"Introducing the Hipster PDA." http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda/ (19 Feb. 2007).

Medero, Shawn. "Paper Prototyping." A List Apart. 23 Jan. 2007.
http://alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping (19 Feb. 2007). "As interfaces become ever more complex and development schedules seem to get shorter and shorter, you may find it useful to give up your user-interface modeling software for awhile in favor of something simpler. All you need is paper, pens, scissors, and your imagination."

Carnevale, Dan. “Professors Seek Compensation for Online Courses." Chronicle of Higher Education 13 Aug. 2004. http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i49/49a02701.htm (3 Mar. 2007).

See if you can navigate this site. All you will ever want to know about "the click." http://www.dontclick.it. [Posted by Kami Cox 5 March 2007].

Michael Wresch, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE . I've been using this in some of my classes, and I think it's very good at bringing in some of the issues that we are facing in the wake of changes in the technologies of communication. Of course, it might seem more useful to me because I'm familiar with the history (and some of the code and things!) it uses to demonstrate these changes. I'm curious as to how it might work for others. [4 Sep. 2008].

Kiwis Life Philosophies

Kiwi’s Life Philosophies

There are certain cogent philosophies by which I live my life. Just in case you want to know what they are, I’m listing some of the more important ones here.

1. Hurry! Only one day left until tomorrow! (seen on a roadside sign somewhere in Florida)
2. The trouble with the rat race is that, even if you win, you’re still a rat! (attributed to Lily Tomlin)
3. Today is the first day of the rest of my life (or is today the last day of the first of my life?) Either way, attribution is unknown.
4. No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

There! Are you happy now?