Technologorria

I trust the independent voice

2011-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

I nearly clicked on Google's video about it's new product, Google+, the facebook killer (we shall see). I almost did it, but then I thought, "Do I trust the Google video about Google?". There are other videos out there, of course, like the one I watched the other day, and this one was very explicit about it independence. With the amount of independent, worthy voices of review and opinion, it seems less plausible to me that I should listen to the corporate source, at least when it comes to marketing messages, which are slanted by design.
Better, I think, to listen to a plethora of opinions from the outside, closer to my own vantage point, than use the precious seconds I have to wallow in adspeak.

Digital Native Languages - not just for Digital Native

2011-04-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

This fun little quiz reminds us that it is not your age or generation, but who you are and what you do that matters.

web 2ools

2011-04-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

I just made a new net-term.

How fun and hilarious (you can be)

2011-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've heard it oft said of late that personality is the key to communication. Well, not exactly like that, but when a teacher claims that his students connect with his lessons more when his humor and humanity (aka. mistakes) come out in a recording. Let go of perfection and greet the welcome reality, even if you can try a "take 2!".
Here's a YC instructor that has said, "...it's funny how students will reference my lectures in their discussion board posts and assignments -- e.g., "As Dr. Karly said in the lecture about blah blah blah," lol! It's great to know they're listening (and not texting under the desk, which is the bane of my existence in any lecture class today). And it's always nice to get those emails saying how much they appreciate the pre-recorded lectures (and "how fun and hilarious you are")".

Social network with personal/professional limiting

2011-03-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

When at the Innovations conference, I asked everyone I could about whether they would be open to "friending" their students. ONE person (besides Todd Conaway:) would've. Ok, I get it, we want to have separation and a private life. While I've taken the tack of creating multiple Fb personalities, the Latin American oriented social network site Sonico has conveniently separated people for you, into work, family, and friend "buckets'.

On Wisconsin Blogs

2011-03-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

I get my alumni magazine "On Wisconsin" mailed to me(!), and it serves as excellent fodder for our bathroom library. This latest edition has an article called Brave New Blogs, about UW profs blogging and is, above all, a good read. Anthropologist John Hawks describes it in wonderfully simple terms, “It’s about getting people excited about what we know,” he says. Yes it is.

It gives me perspective, again, that I am in a unique and privileged position, and NO, not everyone is hip to blogging yet, and it is a highly useful part of the world's dialogue.

Illegal Invite?

2011-03-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

The images in my Picasa slideshow may be violating copyright, pending the response from the British website Sciencephotolibrary.com to whether student use is allowed without a membership. While I wait for a cease & disist order, I sent this "share" e-vite to myself, where I can click to contribute photos. I'm quite a guy!

Our baseball team has a Shutterfly website which links to our pictures of little league glory, and are functional collaborative sites like Ning or Grou.ps, with modules for blogging turned to game reports, news items used for pitching advice, and storage of files like the team yearbook pdf.

UPDATE: The sciencephotolibrary replied to my inquiry:

Dear Thatcher,
Thank you for the email.

We have made our collection available through the Encyclopaedia Britannica Image Quest, which is an educational subscription.

http://quest.eb.com/

This link is a pay subscription, so one would surmise that using the images violates copyright, though I believe since they are watermarked and available, an in-class use by teachers or students would be fair use (of course, only a court would say for sure). My posting them online is probably not.

Innovations Conference - What is a Great Teacher?

2011-02-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Todd and I are currently in San Diego attending and presenting at the Innovations in the Community College conference.
I look around and get a pretty wonky impression that there are more administrators than teachers here, but it should be fruitful, and I'm pleased to report that some warm fuzzys are germinating, inspired by the keynote speaker, Allan Golston, President of the U.S. Programs for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

He spoke of the pain in realizing some early efforts came up short, mainly that systemic and structural changes in K-12 education did not have the effects hoped for. What they learned was that real change happens at the classroom level, WITH THE TEACHER. Top teachers can improve even the lowest performing students. Wooo! This was personally affirming, because after going through 5 different schools (so far) with my 3 kids, this was dominant lesson for us as well. School philosophy be damned, it was the teacher that mattered. I can imagine that this was painful for Mr. Golston because a good teacher is something of an outlier, and far more tricky to find and develop that making changes in policy or method. A good teacher transcends all those things.

Mr. Golston told the story of his being a young accounting teacher, confronted by ill-prepared students. Instead of flunking them, as one mentor coldly suggested, he opened a special Saturday session to bring those students up to where they needed to be. It wasn't a special gift of oratory, cleverness or technology, but simple willingness to go beyond for those students. I got totally choked up. The quality that all great teachers have? They care deeply about their students.

The Things that Don't Change

2011-02-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

If you don't update your blog for 3 months, people will wonder whether you will ever be back. Currency is valuable on the internet, and I'm not talking cash. It's more of a credit line. If you keep your web log fresh, like the flowers on the table, you might keep people coming back for a bite. Let it wilt to crusted brown and there will be no one coming to your door.

Do you find this ironic? Postings on the web can last, well, until the electricity runs out. So wouldn't this permanence let you say the things you need to only once? No need to repeat yourself, it would live on in transcendence of time, there for the searching now and forever.
It doesn't necessarily work that way - the internet gets stale faster than french bread. I doubt anyone will read any post contained in my archives, and they will be as good as last month's newspapers, balled up and burned. It's a good thing this internet isn't static, but churning churning out more fresh bit-burger-bytes. Still, what lasts? What do you return to?

Reflecting on Our F2F Meeting

2011-02-05T13:27:00.003-08:00

Do you have 5 minutes?

Springing into Edu255

2011-02-01T21:41:00.000-08:00

Wow, this will be Edu255's sixth semester. 75 amazing teachers! Looking at the change over that time and the growth ahead is amazing, and we are in the very center of it. Very exciting stuff, and frightening, and fun, and difficult at times. Technology surrounds us. We can resist it, or go ahead and make the move, toward it, without leaving behind our values and what we believe. It is ours to shape with everyone else, so let's learn how.

When approaching the online world, open to the possibility that what you might imagine to be possible, is possible. Can you talk to people through it? Yes. Can you make this blog whatever color you want? Yes. Can we organize videos together for a lesson plan? Affirmative, with the proper curiosity and perseverence. That kind of customizability by you - and students, together in interactive spaces, is really neat, with huge potential. These new contexts can create new self-motivations for learning.

We've had incredible discussions. The discussion board is the heart of the course, and this semester's going experimental again using the discus discussion tool, which personalizes it Facebook-style. The visual image gives life to it.

I look forward to making more great connections this semester. See you on Saturday!

Multitasking is Just Wrong

2010-10-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

This short, entertaining (two words I hope will combine to make you actually WATCH this) video may make you want to do less. Enjoy and be entertained, and perhaps, educated.

Dangerous Science Education

2010-09-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

This article about science education was very interesting so I thought I'd pass it on here. Whatever get them engaged, I say!

Philosophy of Teaching

2010-09-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

My philosophy of teaching is undefined, evolving, turning in on itself, and I have limited teaching experiences to draw upon. From these, I believe caring about students is a strength I possess and something that matters for students, a conclusion drawn from course evaluations and talking to students. I believe when students feel that a teacher cares about how they are doing in class, this tends to affect them for the better in terms of engagement.

Everyone at different times takes the role of teacher or student, and it has been said that perhaps teaching makes one the best of students. Teaching and learning are two sides of the same thing - to discover. When one has a passion, sharing that passion through teaching brings it alive for the teacher to live again and again.
I have often found it difficult to refrain from the old lecture mode, expounding on a subject to one's own delight, to the detriment of the listener.

While much criticism is heaped on the "old" methods of teaching as a kind of one-way conduit of information flowing from the sage to the student, who is expected to memorize and repeat the facts and figures, there is of course a place for this kind of teaching. We need to know the facts, formulas, and faces of our world. The exciting learning, though, always takes place somewhere in the conversation of ideas.
In this practice we have to let go of assumptions, experiment, fail and find our way back to knowing again.

We learn by making mistakes, as Edison famously said before inventing the lightbulb, "I have discovered 10,000 ways to do it wrong" or something to that effect.
The best discoveries take place within each student, and within each student's creative capacity. Creativity carries a kind of artistic stigma that it belongs to a gifted few, but creativity is necessary for every endeavor - we wouldn't survive without it.
People learn by doing.

Educators stake in Net Neutrality

2010-08-05T09:57:00.001-07:00

Educators at all levels, not to mention their students, have to trust the internet to be a space guided by the democratic principles on which this nation is based. Our schools have come to depend on a level of openness in communication, information and innovation on the web, and limiting access by commercial interests is not in the best interest of educators and citizens alike.

Net neutrality is important as other freedoms are to this nation.

Text Deficit

2010-05-19T10:51:00.001-07:00

ALERT! Being looked at like a complete fuddy duddy is not restricted to one generation! People of all ages look with brow furrowing skepticism upon anyone who does not yet text.

Comment Context

2010-05-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

If I or you comment on a blog, we reply to that one human's expression, making two in conversation, and the dialogue begins.
There is a tremendous difference in one and two.

We have an understanding in Fb that we talk.
In a blog, you are going out on a limb, and should either give a shout out or be smart.
A YouTube comment is the street, a shout down or out, like one yells at the TV or cheers from the sideline.
Recall Forums? and for the really early adopters, message boards and green type on black monitors.
They are still around, and I wonder if there are more users in those than social nets - is that possible? at what moment did they get passed up? In those, there is an assumption of 'help', and humble banter going back and forth.

(these are wandering thoughts..)

Weather or not on the Internet

2010-04-28T06:53:00.000-07:00

Gusts of wind nearly blew over the trees last night

But there's no wind on the internet.

While online, the weather's fine

My pages are quietly under the rumble

A calm escape from the worldly tumble...

...TBC

Ning RIP

2010-04-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

The end of Ning as a free resource is pretty discouraging for the future of free, and how it will affects educators. Will the domino effect leave free culture tumbling away in free-fall?

In an attempt to recover my balance, I've tried two more social networking sites today: Grou.ps, and SocialGo. My hopes were tilted upward for SocialGO until five minutes into my exploration revealed that little "Upgrade Plan" buttons emblazoned with the ubiquitous shopping cart icon were laid over all the good features. Ning, we never knew what we had until it was gone.

Trying the Grou.ps avenue will have to wait until tomorrow.

Newly Available Condition: Internet Addiction

2010-01-30T14:34:00.000-08:00

It's here, it's official: internet addiction is now a psychiatric problem, at least in Korea. I would like to generalize it to "screen addiction".

dramatech

2010-01-24T09:56:00.001-08:00

It's time for a dramatic reading of the help files.. Prepare yourselves.

Zen and the Art of Computing

2010-01-23T15:07:00.000-08:00

Each time the machine asks you to wait. To "please wait". Take this golden opportunity to do nothing, breathe, and be.

Praise Technology

2010-01-12T08:23:00.001-08:00

The Church of England proclaims "blessed be thy 3G network." During a service in London Monday, The Times reports the Reverend Canon David Parrott blessed all kinds of electronic gadgetry — a modern take on a prayer for laborers that dates to medieval times then: plows and hammers.

Now: smart phones and laptops. The blessing: "May our tongues be gentle, our e-mails be simple and our Web sites be accessible."

Timeline Tyranny

2009-10-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

the ticker, the playhead, the clock that shows you where you are and when it will end. That line at the bottom of every video, always the same length, with beginning and end, between which stretches the story, preferrable less than 10 minutes.

What if we did not know how long a piece lasted? Could we stand it, not knowing, being able to anticipate the finish, when we can go on with the other thousand things we think about doing?

Heard of These Social Networks?

2009-10-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

I found these while hunting down embedded lore on Lasagna and chips.
Interestingly, Ning seems to have dominated the homemade social net set, and it's exciting to see some new blood and hopefully moving toward something evermore relevant.

groupsite

socialgo

Grou.ps

Ruth uses Meebo and would love to train anyone to use it, too, btw :-* and in this same blog post is a plug for this chat tool.

Streamlining

2009-10-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

They streamlined the "turn on my video" button right out of the last version of Skype. They streamlined the "File" menu out of Microsoft Office. Things are much slicker and less usable all the time.

Tech Stoppers

2009-09-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

Googling the above title returned interesting but unintended links like:
Adding a few more keywords got me no closer; finally I entered "technology setbacks user willingness computers blogs online education" and the fish started biting. Things like Wesley Fryer's Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog was really what I was looking for. Technology "stoppers" are failures that cause us to quit trying to get the damn thing to work.

We all have a breaking point, a level of tolerance, a 'click ceiling' above which we just say "enough! I have things to do and I didn't become an english teacher to learn how to program C++!" If you are taking an online course in educational technology, your tolerance is higher or you have committed yourself to tolerating it, so you're different than my friend, the english teacher.

I keep nudging her to blog, "it's writing, after all, and it increases your cool factor." She says she will, but just using Blackboard is difficult enough. When she tried to get the YC Plagiarism Tutorial into Blackboard, it worked the first time, then failed, and that was it. Over. Done deal. Stopper. Was it the machine or the human interface that failed? There's always some collusion, but does it matter? She hit her click ceiling and it was over. What's your level of tech tolerance, and how will you shape your's and your student's use of technology to stretch it?

Tech Fatigue Workshop Recording

2009-07-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

A recording of the 1 hour session from last May's Yavapai College Summer Institute.
Play session>

Warning: Only 40 Hours of Freedom Left

2009-07-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

I just got an email from Pandora online radio, one of the 5 best things to happen to the internet ever. It said my 40 hours of free monthly listening was almost up. Ding-dong! Hello! -Didn't know there was a limit, as everything online is free now.

This is a warning to the free-school generation: look for more limits on our free-culture in the Web 2.0.

Ponder these: When Google has a total monopoly, will it still be free? Is free natural? What do expect from a free service? Is anything free? and...

Will you pay for things that are worthwhile, such as my beloved Pandora?

If You are a Procrastinator, Please Stand Up

2009-07-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

If you are a procrastinator, please stand up - some time in the future. The rest of you can get right to work sitting where you are.

It's not easy to get down to work on a Sunday afternoon, at least not computer work. Sunday is a day to be outdoors chopping wood, gardening, fixing up the leaky nozzle or two, and going to the park. It's going to take a behemothic act of will OR something special to entice me to sit once more in front of the glowerectangle.

GOOD NEWS is: the computer also = music, pictures, interesting news and videos - all things I love. These things will tempt me there, and after a few diversions into Facebook, She & Him, and self-indulgent blogging, I will get down to some computer 'work'. And that feeling of accomplishment will make the nap so much sweeter.

"NOVA Science Now is Cool", Say Bohrman Kids

2009-06-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

My children loved this show about science! I always was a PBS wonk and hoped, despite our not have television in the home, my offspring would appreciate the erudite emulations of public tv.
They were on verge of tears as this show with a comedic astrophysicist host aired in the place of either a Wii session or the Apple Dumpling Gang. Then, 2 minutes into the first story about the post-911 anthrax investigation, complaints were silenced as the fascination set in, never to be abated.

And now I know the story of the Capcha, the inventor of which, a 30-yr-old genius, was profiled on the program. More fascination. Not only does this now common convention help stop spam, but whenever you complete one of the new 2-word ReCapchas, you take part in digitally archiving words from older texts that computers cannot recognize through OCR.

Suck it Up and Do More

2009-06-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

There is more.
More to consider, to read and watch, to see and do, to learn. As Will Richardson's blog post mentions "My day has probably gotten longer, but this is important stuff."

**Sigh** Our collective brain is that much wider, and we're just going to have read faster, devote more time, and dedicate ourselves to constant learning (i.e. improvement) if we want to see the larger picture of this super collectivised world.

Full Body Browsing

2009-06-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

The last thing my heart desired this spring lingering sunday was to hop on to my computer. Once there, though, the portal is opened, and the curious exploration continues. Click after click.

If I could only use my whole body to browse the internet. My bud in Chicago chatted me from his iPhone walking home, but really it's two separate acts: walking and typing. You're not going on the internet with your entire body.

Dancing Dreaming Inside the Desktop

2009-06-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Picture me hopping happily on my one good leg, twirling dervishly and waving a mouse around: this is the feeling of helping someone through their tech troubles. And I find it even better than getting through my own. With the help of Mikogo screen sharing and the trusty old telephone, another student is now on her way to Tegrity Heaven.

They say when you are dreaming about getting chased by a monster, just turn and face it, and it won't scare you anymore.

...
Just underneath your deceptively peaceful desktop...
Dark blue tunnels await,
A hall of mirrors labelled "Next", "Agree", and "Run",
The side of your brain that processes logic will be challenged by messages like this one:

On the phone with help desk again.
All for the sake of getting an education delivered right to your living room.

But with
Patience, breath, and a comfortable chair
After
Following me through the endless tabular clicks, clicks (clicks),
OK! (one more)
Forgetting what you intended to do with this 45 minutes,
Finally the restart comes.
And it works.

Once the dust settles and you've updated the drivers to get back on the infosuperhighway, got your paddle back in the media stream, and recovered from all those "serious" errors, you just might say, "YES, I can do this."

Google chief asks grads to turn off computer

2009-05-27T10:00:00.001-07:00

Is this you?

2009-05-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

There you are sitting down to work in the morning, the system has just about logged you in through password 1, applying settings, mmhm. Waiting. I’ll just get some coffee, say hi to everyone.

Oh there it is, the desktop, my fishing trip, that was a beautiful lake. Here we go, I have an idea that’s about to be gotten down to. Hey, I’m excited to start doing what I do, (it’s a pretty great place to work… ) Bing! New updates are ready to be installed – click here to begin. ... A little message for me, from the system, the computer, whatever.. it needs my attention, to help it along. Isn’t it set up to do these kind of things on auto? I mean, if you need updates, go get ‘em, yes.

If I don’t have those, well, then what? What is updating? Who is out there and what exactly is the improvement that was needed? I’ve been doing pretty much the same tasks all along: writing, imaging, communicating, and it doesn’t seem much faster than it ever was, though I’m not sure my expectations now and then can be compared. It must be faster – it HAS to be, right?

So, I’m going to X-out of that message after all and just get down to business. Of writing, “There you are sitting down to work in the morning… “

Four Good Questions

2009-05-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

1. How much time in the day are you using a computer ?

2. Do you use a computer at home?

3. What are some jobs that don’t require a computer? Do people who don’t work with a computer have a different relationship with them?

4. Can you do what you do, without a computer ?

I can’t. It’s pretty much all on computer, or could be. I find ways to be away from it, but must inevitably return. It is the daily companion, mediating my every move. Do you like being forced to go online? Forced, as our students now are, to register online? I don’t think anyone wants to forced to do anything, but we have to accept it to do business.

Star Trek was created in the 60's.

2009-05-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

Yes it was. Now that I've stated the obvious, let's think about how long ago that was: goin' on 50 years. Floored.

In the TED talk I beamed in biking home, Mae Jemison said the technologies we enjoy today are at least that old, and we're pretty much coasting on them. Is innovation lacking? When you attain a level of comfort and entertainment, it's hard not to be content with channel surfing the same spark and glow.

Will we still be happy with the same thrills in another 50 years?

Old Trek 24/7

Right Now

2009-05-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sprint Corp. has created an interesting site that monitors the moment from multiple angles. Worth a quick look.

Your Computer is Your Car

2009-05-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

Do you talk to your automobile? Maybe it needs gentle coaxing up certain hills, or a dash-rub on cold mornings. Chances are it has a name, and when it breaks down, even after a few compulsory curses, you feel sympathy and even empathy for this machine whom you rely on for so much.

Does your computer receive the same treatment when it goes blue screen on you? Certainly the cursing part, right!? If you feel frustration at all the mad things that happen over technology, maybe thinking of your computer as an imperfect beast of burden could help ease the rage.

Usually our relationship with our machine is like that between two embittered co-workers instead of trusted colleagues working toward the same goals. I know I don't want to spend much of my day in front a rival; if my computer is acting uppity, perhaps it needs a little love. While you may call this geek-emo, compassionate computing just might save my computer from a bullet-hole in the hard drive.

*photo courtesy Peter Barker, Flikr

Data Planting

2009-05-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Kevin Kelly is a unique thinker. Thanks to his site for this photo and his thoughts on technology and it's relationship with life.

My Assignment

2009-05-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

It is funny how you get hooked into these digital imperitives.
You must now update.

HP just had me run a job:
Update peripherals, stat.
I click on the Next, next next. Just keep clicking Next. Ok Install.
And watch it roll
Waitin patiently in the hole
Watching the progress bar go by
bye bye

MAY DAY MAY DAY

2009-05-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

TGIF at Yavapai College means, "Time Gawking Isn't Fun". Gawking into the computer screen, waiting, ever waiting, for it to be ready. The rapid clicking of hard-drive access, like the sound of marbles being poured into a bowl, goes on and on. It's the computer's way of saying, "Please wait, humanoid, I have things to do, drivers to be updated, scans to complete; I will be with you shortly". Do you ever wonder if the computer would rather be left alone to do it's business?

It's worse on Friday for some reason. The average startup time goes from 5 minutes to 10 or 15. Today it's still clicking like gangbusters 25 minutes after login, and I haven't touched it! Should I be surprised? I register a sigh from my next-door neighbor, "17 minutes and I can't open my email!" As I blog from my mac, I look back at my PC and wonder why.

Google Closes the Notebook

2009-04-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year and a half - that is how long I have used Google Notebook, the handy browser plugin that allows you to quickly clip sites and make notes while browsing the internet.

THAT"S ALL OVER NOW... Google has stopped development, and is not supporting new users, though apparently I will be able to continue. If anyone knows a comparable tool I'd love to see it. Notebook is fast, accessible, organizable and sharable in the 2.0 way. A wiki may be the next closest thing, but (oops...) that'll be new to me.

Face The Book

2009-04-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Last year around the Holidays, I was inundated by Facebook emails from friends and even people I knew only remotely. These requests to view their profiles drew an emotional response from me that went like this, "I need to get on this network, my friends are running ahead of me and if I don't grab the baton I'll be left behind, forgotton." A stress response heightened by acceptance that I wouldn't be joining them in the social note-passing reverie any time soon. I would be swimming, and taking walks with the kids, and going to the bookstore, and learning to surf - none of which would happen online.
The thought of sharing these things online excited me. Reflecting on the doing of life is a healthy part of the whole experience, and blogging is just journaling in the public eye, unlocking our diaries, opening up.

I still have not joined the network: my friends are waiting, the party is being missed, and my sense of loss grows each day. Maybe tomorrow I will get in, or maybe canoeing will get in the way.

Delicious not so tasty

2009-04-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

I just removed the delicious bookmarking tool in firefox. It is so good to have the old bookmarks bar back, in their fuddy-duddy folder structured way.

I keep thinking, "Don't complain, don't sound whiny, don't critcize", while moving steadily in the direction of hating technology in every way. How do I make this sound positive? Technology is getting more annoying daily. Hourly - no, by the minute! And it's the pace of aggressive change that is the root of it.

I was looking at a site about "The Hero's Journey" that had the copyright date of 2000 - ancient in internet time. A colleague told me he thought that some exciting new web 2.0 tool he found a month ago might already be out of date, "Man, that is so last month!" How fast can it get? We know this isn't true in practise, because we still study all the masters, the wisdom of those that came before from ages and ages past. None of what we take for granted today would exist without it.

What's hurting my brain is the feeling that there is no time to stop and use what exists. The gap between doing and looking forward is widening. These things are cool, yes, there's some cool stuff, but nothing is cool enough to not look forward to it being improved, and soon after made obsolete. I'm afraid I have to admit it: I'm sick of learning new things. NO, scratch that, sick of throwing away what I already knew.

I thought I was a liberal minded innovator. NOPE. Turns out I'm a conservative who wants standardization, so I can rely on something being there where I left it when I went to sleep.

Printer Jargon

2009-04-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

Instead of the mapI had just printed out a minute before, the printer spit out a sheet of paper with the following message:
PCL XL error
Subsystem: KERNEL
Error: ColorSpaceMismatch
Operator: VendorUnique
Position: 9

With this valuable information, I could do....what?

Banned in China

2009-04-23T11:21:00.003-07:00

Walking the hill behind campus, bearly bearing the pollenating micro-monsters, there’s a target bag under one of the Junipers. I instinctively pick it from under the branch, and start marching for my truck. I will keep this bag, it is a large and thicker, more durable kind, and since they will be scarce in a few years, their value is obvious.

This is pre-garbage mining.

Act as if the whole earth’s resources have already been used up, and the old toy planes, broken chairs, paper piles, are shaped into the new. Mashuped structures of collaged woodpulp pop up where there was drywall, and freshpoured concrete is multicolored mud stew. It really is treasure trash, all reformed.

2009-04-23T11:21:00.001-07:00

You have been locked out

From Spring 2008:::

My Gmail account, and therefore my budding Googler lifestyle, had been abruptly shut down. I feel so wronged, all I have to do is attempt at logging in again, and the blood boils over. I have done nothing wrong, as I wrote in my “contact us” message, and the resultant auto-reply did nothing to assuage my feelings. I feel so angry.

It’s the spammers. I have been getting a ton of wonderful offers to have my various parts enlarged, supercharged, pumped up and fully engorged - all at an amazing price! Over and over I duly mark them as spam, hoping that my diligence will identify and purge them forever from my inbox. But now, NOW I have been shut out of the entire G0ogle-verse on a whim. I feel so wronged. Unjustly accused and banished to the abyss of emptyness. I am innocent - can I get a witness!! hey there!!! You see, if they think you’ve been up to some spamming or using software that jacks-up your email to some ignoble purpose, you’re in trouble. And should be. BUT I am not doing that, ok?

Perhaps worse, I feel so … dependent. There was I time I didn’t even reply to an email for weeks. That’s changed, and with the embrace of new internet tools comes a new reliance on communicating by asking people to “check online”. I have lately come out of the techno cold and started (as you see) blogging. And calendaring like a mo-fo, I can’t wait to update the location of this Friday’s school assembly so my mom can check it and stay on top of things. Online photo albums, I love it! the shots linked to the map so you can see exactly where my son almost fell to his death climbing a rhyolite slope, and captioned to tell you all about it. Google notebook now keeps all of my notes intact, available and ready to share anytime. Cool! The team now nows exactly who has snack duty on what game. Are we organized or what? BUT NOW I”M LOCKED OUT.

And saddened.
Maybe it wasn’t the spam. Maybe it’s an innocent mistake and tomorrow my tummy will be all better. I hope so. I feel sick wondering if the reputation of my user ID has been tarnished.

If you have a life on the internet, you get pretty messed up if it goes down. And many many many people have a life on the internet way bigger than mine. It’s pretty scary to be so suckled to the electric teat.

“If you don’t articulate your conscious desires, your unconscious patterns will come true.” - Brezney’s Psychiatrist

I wanna go Viral!

2009-04-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Everybody read this and digg! it and delicious it and make me internet famous, if not rich.
As the internet's popularity contest races on, it's 15 lines of fame for every blogger that makes it to the top of the pile.

reup

2009-01-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

I'm resurrecting the blogger blog to attach to my youtube channel.

You have been locked out

2008-03-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

My Gmail account, and therefore my budding Googler lifestyle, has been abruptly shut down. I feel so wronged, all I have to do is attempt at logging in again, and the blood boils over. I have done nothing wrong, as I wrote in my “contact us” message, and the resultant auto-reply did nothing to assuage my feelings. I feel so angry.

It’s the spammers. I have been getting a ton of wonderful offers to have my various parts enlarged, supercharged, pumped up and fully engorged - all at an amazing price! Over and over I duly mark them as spam, hoping that my diligence will identify and purge them forever from my inbox. But now, NOW I have been shut out of the entire G0ogle-verse on a whim. I feel so wronged. Unjustly accused and banished to the abyss of emptyness. I am innocent - can I get a witness!! hey there!!! You see, if they think you’ve been up to some spamming or using software that jacks-up your email to some ignoble purpose, you’re in trouble. And should be. BUT I am not doing that, ok?

Perhaps worse, I feel so … dependent. There was I time I didn’t even reply to an email for weeks. That’s changed, and with the embrace of new internet tools comes a new reliance on communicating by asking people to “check online”. I have lately come out of the techno cold and started (as you see) blogging. And calendaring like a mo-fo, I can’t wait to update the location of this Friday’s school assembly so my mom can check it and stay on top of things. Online photo albums, I love it! the shots linked to the map so you can see exactly where my son almost fell to his death climbing a rhyolite slope, and captioned to tell you all about it. Google notebook now keeps all of my notes intact, available and ready to share anytime. Cool! The team now nows exactly who has snack duty on what game. Are we organized or what? BUT NOW I”M LOCKED OUT.

And saddened.
Maybe it wasn’t the spam. Maybe it’s an innocent mistake and tomorrow my tummy will be all better. I hope so. I feel sick wondering if the reputation of my user ID has been tarnished.

If you have a life on the internet, you get pretty messed up if it goes down. And many many many people have a life on the internet way bigger than mine. It’s pretty scary to be so suckled to the electric teat.

“If you don’t articulate your conscious desires, your unconscious patterns will come true.” - Brezney’s Psychiatrist

VIDEOKINS

2008-03-28T09:24:00.001-07:00

Shooting video as the trees bloom out. A few more days and the other trees will spring green.

Certain older generation, they have enmity for cameras now. Its all that surveillance everywhere. It’s the camera phone people. Its getting in my way, and don’t tell me to act naturally. They don’t want to be all over the place, recorded and being taken out of context. I think they still like being in the newspaper.

The generation that’s coming up now (The whatever generation , etc. many tags are being tossed around, but let’s not label), they totally ignore it. Walk on by like it’s not there. There’s a way of appearing unaware of the camera, while being completely aware. A third-party awareness, Coasting along among many lenses, and it could be anytime, anywhere, and that’s cool, just don’t stick it in my face and ask me to do something.

video ideas

2007-05-30T12:46:00.001-07:00

Has a month gone by? Sheeish..

2 ideas for short videos:

1. My kid wanted to get a gumball at Safeway the other day. Well, when they recently remodelled the place they must've decided to let the kids' vendoland go away, because now they have no gumballs and a change counting machine in its place. Then I remembered the True Value Hardware store didn't have their gumball/candy spiral shooter machine the last time we went, and all my kids go with me just to get their quarters in this thing. My question is: are gumball machines an endangered species? I think this could be a worthwhile documentary.

2. I have really lost touch with some old friends, and would love to reconnect. At mid-life (age 38), this a bit of a soul-searching exercise and brings up some fears, like: do they want to connect with me (boo-hoo)? I will videotape the calls and see what happens. While I was hashing it over on the way to work an oldies station was phasing in and out and I thought that might make an interesting soundtrack. Then as I drove through an alleyway I thought that might be a metaphor for my searching for past friendships, experiences and such.

Peace

2007-04-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

Heard later - it was his worst ride ever, and he wished we wouldnt've gone. He wasn't up for it this morning.
Now I'm thinking it was easy to take things calmly when I'd already committed to a long haul. I guess I could've turned back.

2007-04-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Rode bike with my son to school and work today. He was in no mood and both of us were late. It was harrumph from the beginning but I didn't make much of it, choosing to let his mood take him where it would and stay silent and, hopefully, helpful when I could. If I can't come up with something he can use, I am finding it better to ignore and play it cool. Being a daddy.