My Twitter Assignment for CMNS 253

In some ways I’ve failed. I failed to get any of my Twitter contacts to respond to my tweets. You see, I asked my class to assign me something to do with Twitter last week, and they wanted me to tweet with the stars, obtaining elusive “shout outs” (definitions here) from celebrities. I did that. However, going into this, I expected minimal (or no) response from the celebs I chose. So I decided to make this interesting in a tangential way. I tweeted whatever I wanted to at them, and then I created some responses in the form of comic strips, lolz and an xtranormal vid. I only had a week to do it, so this is pretty sketch, as you might surmise. Anyway, here’s how the assignment went, from guidelines given to students, to their instructions to me, to my celeb-tweets, to my fake responses…

Our class had a “Tweetup” one week ago (note: as “tweetup” is a newish term, I’m using my own idiosyncratic definition for it, which is “scheduled online gathering of/discussion by a group of Twitter users”. Apparently the mainstream definition is “face to face meetup of Twitter users”, but I don’t find that unique. Isn’t that just a “meetup of Twitter users”? Nothing novel about a meetup. However, scheduled live Tweet-based discussions are novel. Hence, they merit a neologism proper (though Wikipedia’s deleted the page for Tweetup at the time of this writing…neologisms need not apply…). Anyway, we can argue the semantics further if you wish…

At any rate, at the start of said Tweetup, I gave my class some instructions, via Twitter. They were as follows (read from the bottom up, Twitter.com style):

They took an hour to discuss this, which was quite an experience. You can view the Tweetup at your leisure at the public Twitter list for the class here (view the activity that took place between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Sunday, November 7, 2010). It’s interesting in its own right. More about this experience later…

At 8:00 PM the class posted a page to our class wiki with my instructions. Here’s a cap:

I spent some time selecting celebrities, trying to think of interesting ones. The class seemed interested in some very bland ones, or ones I’d never heard of, so I thought I’d find some better ones than they suggested. Then I gave some careful thought as to how I should approach them, and what I should ask them, to help create meaningful or interesting exchanges (even if they had to be fake). What do you ask of people who are famous actors, politicians, or cartoon characters? What do you want them to tell you? What’s the value in this? I asked the class for clarification on Friday on one crucial point, because I did not know (and still do not know, even given the definitions above) what a “shout out” is:

I received one answer from one student, but nothing that really clarified the definition. So I went with my best instincts, took a deep breath, and fired my tweets off on Friday night. I tweeted 6 celebrities (the second one, the Clements, was a 2-in-1 shot).

Then, nothing but tumbleweeds.

Today I frantically assembled my fake responses. I had to choose a minimum of two media; I chose three (again, comic strips, lolz, and an xtranormal video). I hope you enjoy them (if the text in the pictures is hard to read, open them in a new tab or window to see the full size versions):

First up, Garfield:

Next, Tony and Jemaine Clement:

Next, my current hero, AI_AGW, the climate change sceptic-trolling Turingbot that made geek headlines last week:

Then, the illustrious ShitmyDarthSays:

And finally, William Shatner, whose Lopez Tonight performance of “Fuck You” (which made the FB/Youtube/Twitter rounds last week) inspired my tweet, which “generated” this response:

Students, you may submit your evaluations via Twitter (single tweets only please) to @jeanh by tomorrow at tutorial time. Thanks for motivating me to create some meaningless digital detritus. That was fun!

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This is your funky cup of tea

Heh. In a flourish of dog day afternoon catchup (smack between finishing up grading for one semester and course planning for the next one), and with the help of the 3 year old girl, I have here the long-delayed fourth installment of my audio archiving project. Today the world hears for the first time ever the most brilliant sketches to ever go absolutely nowhere, the work of one Yummibrayn.

It was four, then five people, Yummibrayn. We did appear on CFRO for an interview at some point, but never had any gigs. Yummibrayn’s provenance was somewhere between the initial List of Mrs. Arson forays and Pc.s, but in retrospect is far more sophisticated than both of those enterprises combined. It’s a pity that LOMA and Pc.s both had gigs and Yummibrayn did not. At any rate, keep on crunchin’ on that crunchy dolphin snack nose (you had to be there), as the later instantiations of LOMA revived much of Yummibrayn in spirit, to my mind.

Enclosed for your listening displeasure, credit mainly due to my brilliantly patient and critical daughter (despite tha fact that she had 100% of the tape inside this very cassette unspooled all over the living room laminate at one point – I had to fold the laundry at some point, no? – are two select tracks from the Yummibrayn nonalog.

First up, a spirited number entitled “Funky Junk“, which, according to my meticulous 16 year old liner notes was conceived, composed, recorded and never revisited on/since October 30, 1988. It is an unbelievable and dire mess of a hooky tune. What’s even better is that it was recorded over a mixtape, straddling the Clash’s “Rudy Can’t Fail” and the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout”. Make of that what you like…

Second, a Yummibrayn track entitled “Thought For The Day“, a much more planned affair, with amazingly mature lyrics like “lo/hi/dot/or die” and instrumental interplay (mainly the guitar and synth) that very nicely blends Tones on Tail and Wire. But it’s recorded so badly, you likely didn’t notice.

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Why the HST is a Labour Issue

I don’t usually post about taxation or provincial politics (do I?). But being one of a sizeable community of technology workers (and workers in many other industries) who are required by law to charge 12% tax instead of 5% tax to customers/clients as of today, I felt that it was really important to correct the deceptive claims about “benefits to small business” (Intuit guesses at some of these benefits here) that are said to result from Harmonization. For readers not privy to this issue due to your far-flungness from it, I offer apologies (it is Canada Day, after all), the official primer, and the word from some of the HST’s opponents).

I’m also teaching a class (sorry, it’s a PDF) about the history of labour and technology this term, and part of the course deals with the growing sector of “contract” workers (workers who are not legally defined as employees of a company). A related issue (for those who work in high technology industries, and especially for those who work for multiple employers/clients) is the fact that since 2002 some workers in B.C. also come under the legal definition of a “high technology professional“, which excludes them from the benefits of overtime and holiday pay provided under British Columbia’s Employment Standards Act (contract workers, who are of more central concern WRT the HST, are obviously outside this legislation entirely, but it’s still important to understand the various shades of “employee” in B.C. to better appreciate the context and options for workers).

The rhetoric about HST in the mainstream media has thus far pivoted mainly around two stories: (1) impact of the tax on consumer household costs (mindless media tropes debunked here) and (2) the businesses who will enjoy reduced administrative costs (this blog post casts some doubt on that assertion, recounting how the B.C. government is going through some restructuring – which can be costly – partly to avoid the increase in HST). I’m not dealing with these issues here, as they are receiving plenty of discussion elsewhere.

The claims about “small business” benefits (mostly touted by the BC Liberals) from harmonization, however, are misleading.

If a small business sells goods and/or services that are already subject to PST, there may be a small benefit in that the HST can now be offset by claiming Input Tax Credits [ITCs]. Currently a business collecting PST for the government can only claim a nominal commission for that collection as against the tax, while with GST (and as will be the case with HST) they can claim all the GST/HST they spend for business purposes as against that tax. No question, this, on the face of it, offers some benefit for some small businesses.

But consider the context. When we think about “small business” we think about the coffee shop on the corner, the plumber, or the freelance software designer. There are many other sorts of contract workers who are legally categorized as “small businesses” – call centre employees, video game beta testers, stock pushers, and so on. These services were not subject to PST under the former tax system. For these workers to now comply with Canada’s tax laws, they will have to charge higher rates to clients or customers in cases where previously PST didn’t apply. For the on-contract call centre worker or game beta tester making just over $30K (net) (the minimum threshold for collecting mandatory GST/HST in most cases), this means that to be in compliance with Revenue Canada, he/she would have to invoice their “client” 12% HST instead of 5% GST. What do you think their “client” would say to that?.

Likely, clients/customers in many industries will be attracted by the lure of non-taxing contractors in the underground economy, as this article in the Winnipeg Free Press asserts.

It’s simply bad for small business. And the smaller the “business”, the worse it gets, it seems. Let’s hope this HST gets reversed.

But more importantly, let’s try not to not forget what the HST pinch is now throwing into sharp relief – the ongoing erosion of our identities as workers and the recasting of us as businesses. This process is wonderful for government revenues, and even better for the bottom line for large businesses. But it’s bad for us down here on the flexibilised assembly line.

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and now on to something else

I just formally completed my comprehensive exams. The oral defense was held today, I passed, and now I’m officially ABD (all but dissertation). This is the other side I said I’d see you on.

I think the defining harrowing thing about comprehensive/qualifying exams is that they come to us (1) without precedent (most of us who do a dissertation have already done a Master’s thesis, and gone through the same process of defending it – but when in our education do we go through a 6 day writing blitz, on subject areas we largely define ourselves, with little in the way of explicit expectations?), and (2) with seemingly infinite expectation (the feeling that no matter what one writes it can never be good enough, thorough enough, broad enough, or deep enough).

So now, I’m on to things with more manageable processes and outcomes.

I believe a glass (bottle[cask]) of wine is in order.

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Dateline 8 May 2010

Fortunately there is much going on this weekend to keep my attention away from books and the start of the summer semester next week (& fortunately my prep is all done!). The Stone Soup Festival is happening today, the sun is out, and everyone’s in great spirits!

I had hoped to attend Northern Voice this year but tickets sold out far too fast. C’est dommage.

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jumping ship

I’ve left Facebook for good. In recent weeks I shed applications, then later removed most of my data (photos, posts, etc.), with each surreptitious nudge that they’ve given us in their relentless quest to end privacy. Previously I was irritated with the constant change in Privacy Policies on FB, but now I’m finding the tradeoff (giving up intricate data about myself – to whosoever – in exchange for the convenient social connectivity the site affords) is no longer worth what it once was.

For those of you (and I know there are many of you) who are also considering this move, you might want to consider some of the following (I did):

• Not totally convinced that you should quit the FB habit? Consult Gizmodo’s Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook. You’ll be glad you did. The kicker, for the cynic in me: “the Facebook application itself sucks”.
• If you’ve installed any Applications on your profile (or had FB do it for you without you realizing it), it might make sense to revoke any permissions you’ve granted (known or not) to them to access/reuse your data. I think this should be done in addition to and in advance of FB account deletion. Why do I think so? Well, recently a developer discovered a data hole in a recent API released by FB to its developer community. All of those “companies” who build FB apps have access to your Events schedule (and god knows what else), and this apparently, whether or not you’ve added the application to your profile. It may yet be that you cannot revoke the permission you’ve granted to (or had stolen from you by) these entities. At any rate, it can’t hurt to try and revoke as much as possible. Seeing that privacy is such a dirty word over at Facebook, I wouldn’t put it past them to just be lax about pretty much any user data they come across…
• If you have a profile on Friendfeed (or any other property that Facebook owns), it’s probably a good idea to delete your presence there, too.
• Have an exit strategy. You don’t want to lose contact with all of your friends or those high school dropouts to whom you have no other connection except FB. Take down email addresses, phone numbers, IMs, and any and all other contact deets for your FB friends (the ones you really want to keep, of course). Remember that Facebook doesn’t own your sociality, nor your social capital.
• Finally, do the right thing. Don’t follow those misleading links within the Facebook privacy settings pages to remove your account. Go directly to this link to delete your FB account. It will vanish instantly, and will (supposedly) be permanently deleted in 14 days’ time.

Take a deep breath. There’s a whole world wide web out here that we forgot to attend to while we were tokin’ from the Facebook bong. And it’s just getting started.

Besides, Facebook jumped the shark over a year ago. I predict a whimper.

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The Work Of Purification

So personal stuff came to a head early in 2010. Must be something in the stars, or the numerology of it, but right smack dab in the middle of the 2010 Olympics (and right smack dab in the middle of my exams), I’ve had to review everything in my life going back 7 years, and to get all the facts about me in order. It’s been a very overwhelming, gut-wrenching, and at times utterly paranoid excursion into self-evaluation, and it has tested everything. And I confess I passed the test and we will never sever.

Everything except Facebook, that is, though for unrelated reasons. I now have a reduced presence on that data-sucking, privacy-averse dump of a place. No offense to my many FB friends. It was a very difficult decision to make, as FB offers many unique opportunities to interact with people near and far. I understand why you stay there. I’m simply uninterested in constantly poring over the continually renewed privacy policies. Life’s too short for privacy policies. And what a dump.

I’ve been to hell and back in the past month, and I’ve dragged my family there and back too. It could’ve been a spectacular mess. But we’ve cleaned up well.

More on this after exam #2 is done and the situation reaches full closure.

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One Fine Day

5:00 AM – awaken and start reading Stiegler’s Technics and Time.

5:20 AM – 20 pages in the ‘emergency laundry’ thing occurs (potty training the toddler who must have at least 3 pairs of clean ginch for daycare).

5:25 AM – other chores interrupt the ‘emergency laundry’. whilst sorting poopy ginch, discover our 30 pound cat has created what we (try to) affectionately call a “Carlyle Log”. Plug nose, scoop, dump, flush, sweep, spray, scrub, breathe.

5:35 AM – while this is going on both cats begin to howl for food. wash water dishes, dump old food, put in new food, new water, all in random order.

5:45 AM – make bed, pack snacks while spouse is with washing machines in the basement.

6:00 AM – return to bed. 15 minute catnap (running on empty).

6:15 AM – awaken again. attempt more Stiegler. 2 pages in I realize I need to know more about Dasein. So on to Heidegger. 45 minutes of flummoxery here, back and forth, WTF is going on…

7:00 AM – laundry complete. fold/put away, prep toddler’s clothes/accoutrements for the day.

7:30 AM – spouse leaves for work. 15 more minutes of the Stiegler-Heidegger mental exercises, then

7:45 AM – toddler is up. trains out. then oh it’s pee pee time. to the can, make a ‘potty train’ (big potty-stool-small potty). toddler switches around for about 5 minutes then squirts about 1 fl oz in the small one.”you want a sticker. you want circles…” wash hands dry hands put on band aid, put about 40 pounds of TP in the toilet while I’m not looking. “judiciously flush this” for about 10 minutes. wash hands dry hands. sticker, circles. toddler is silent and motionless for 30 seconds…

8:15 AM – yep, that was half an hour there. breakfast, which consists of asking for things and then refusing each in sequence: eggs, cheerios+soy milk, toast/margarine, grapes, oranges, rice crackers (not given).

8:40 AM – this is interrupted by a “you want to pee pee”. back to the can. wait three minutes during the potty train scaling, then give up. underpants back on. hands washed, dried.

8:50 AM – toddler attends to her trains and track segments. packing of supplies. daddy changes out of pyjamas, etc.

9:00 AM – already way behind schedule, dress up the toddler. brush hair, hair elastics, wipe face, boots, coat. then daddy’s shoes, hoodie, umbrella, bag. shut curtains, expel cats from bedrooms. shut doors, set alarm, march up the hallway.

9:20 AM – out in front of apartment in the pissing rain. toddler dawdling. we get a half block en route to the co-op car. fuck i forgot the fucking car seat. ok let’s go back home and get the car seat. annoyed toddler trudges back in wid me, past the mailwoman, past the electricians invading the strata bldg.

9:30 AM – long story short, back out in front as before plus car seat hoisted over shoulder. a shitload to carry, but toddler insists on alternating btw a dead stop (to provide commentary on every car we stroll past) and what i’m starting to recognize as the ‘drunken dawdle’

9:45 AM – after much impatience from me and stubborn immobility from the toddler, we finally make it to the coop car (parked only two blocks away from our bldg). it took this to get her to finally move: “I’m James, you’re Thomas, and we’re racing. Let’s race to the car!” To be sure, I’ll need to invent something else in a week’s time.

10:00 AM – car de-fobbed, keys out of lockbox, car seat installed, toddler installed in that, anti-theft bar off, bags on floor, walkaround complete, mirrors adjusted, mileage entered in book, defroster on. It’s still cats and dogs. I’m soaked head to toe, but relieved to be moving 2 hours and 15 minutes later than intended.

10:05 AM – pull into the drive-thru coffee shop (an indulgence reserved only for such rushed, rain-soaked days), this goes unexpectedly quickly.

10:10 AM – upon exiting the drive thru, toddler cries “you want to make a pee pee”. stop at home? or wait until daycareмаси, I ask. “stop at home”. bien sur.

10:15 AM – back home, in the door, coat/shoes/pants off, on potty. again, 1 fl oz of stuff. wipe, cram TP in the can, ash, dry, sticker, circles. then coat/shoes/pants back on, back to the car.

10:25 AM – back on the road.

10:50 AM – drop daughter at daycare. after organizing all her stuff, stuffing it into cubbies, etc, we kiss see ya later.

11:10 AM – leave the childcare centre. drop kip at the gym locker.

11:15 AM – grab early lunch to beat the awful noon lineups. read more Stiegler, pendant.

1:15 PM – to the gym. 1000 calories shedded (I only get in 3x per week, so I must go hardcore like this). plus shower.

2:25 PM – answer work emails + student inquiries. great that students are bloggin and taking an interest. not so great that a tentative contract will not be moving forward after all.

3:00 PM – back to the Stiegler. at 4:35 I break to write a self-indulgent post about my day. I’ve only got until 5:15 PM until the daycare closes, after all…

5:03 PM – finish this post and hurry off to the daycare!… total intermittent study time: 4h55min

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Laboratory Life: Seeking input from YOU on course design

So I’m redesigning a course I’ve taught a few times now (CMNS 253, which I’m teaching right now, too) to transform it from a lecture/tutorial format that uses an all-in-one wiki/blog/CMS (Howard Rheingold’s Social Media Classroom build of Drupal) into, well, a lecture/lab course in writing for social, mobile and pervasive media (using Mediawiki, WordPress, Twitter, Digg, and a whole ecosystem of other open-platform mobile and social media tools).

The 2 hour lectures still follow the same format, tracing the history of analog and digital communications media as told by Wade Rowland in Spirit of the Web. However, what’s new is the lab component: 1 hour following the lecture every week is a workshop in social media literacies and tools, culminating in (1) an individually written research paper in the form of a crowdsource-mediated blog post and (2) a citizen journalism exercise/team multimedia project.

I’m interested in your input, so I’ve included a draft of the syllabus below. Please comment on this post if you have any ideas or criticism. Some of it is more-or-less complete, while stuff toward the end of the thirteen weeks is a bit hazier as of now.

In particular, I’m wondering if there is room in here for things I haven’t yet included – web metrics and analytics, for one, but there are probably others. And I’m also open to suggestion as to whether the lectures should match each lab somehow in terms of theme (though I don’t think this is really warranted, as Rowland’s history stands on its own, and dramatically underlines the watershed represented by the Internet and social media in communications history.

CMNS 253 (W) J1, Spring 2010 – Draft Syllabus

Week 1 (Jan 5) Information, technology, new media, social software.

• Read: Rowland, Prologue, Chapters 1, 2, 3. See Week 1 for details.
• LAB: Introduction to the computer lab
  • Overview of Lab Assignments
  • Start a Blog, Get on the Wiki
  • Post a brief blog post about yourself, then post a link to it on the wiki.

Week 2 (Jan 12) The Telegraph. Theories of technology.

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 4, 5, 6. Also, Kierkegaard’s The Present Age. See Week 2 for details.
• LAB: Doing online research
  • Tools: Google Scholar, Google Books, EBSCO & library databases
  • Style: APA, blogging/linking conventions, attributing, Zotero, Endnote
  • How to identify and use a peer reviewed source
  • How and why to use non-peer reviewed sources
  • Choose a topic (you sill stay with this topic throughout the semester) from a list provided, OR choose one off-list by emailing me about it.
  • Exercise: find a scholarly article that is relevant to the topic you’ve chosen, post the APA-cited reference to it on your blog before next class (we will need you to read it before next class too, as you will be discussing it in next week’s lab).

Week 3 (Jan 19) The Telephone. Theories and critics of Information Society.

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 7, 8, 9. Also, Howard Rheingold’s Disinformocracy, Rheingold’s encounter with Habermas and Kellner on Habermas. See Week 3 for details.
• LAB: Searching and Social Bookmarking
  • Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon introduced. (We vote on which to use)
  • Search techniques (both push -twitter, friendfeed, etc. , or pull -google,yahoo,wikipedia)
  • Topic search to find a news article, blog, or other timely (academic or non-academic) source of relevance to your topic
  • Find at least 2 people who are experts on your topic who you can follow for timely topical updates
  • Create a social bookmark for the article you found. Establish a routine search for topical items. Everyday, do a news/bookmark/digg search. Also read your feeds (people, experts)

Week 4 (Jan 26) Radio. The Tetrad Protocol as a method.

Week 5 (Feb 2) Radio as an Industry.

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 13, 14, 15. See Week 5 for details.
• LAB: Blogging.
  • Post a blog as a first draft for your Major Research paper, based on your research thus far. Include your two sources (at least one academic) found thus far. Be sure to cite in APA (including a references cited list) and link/attribute appropriately.
  • Comment constructively on 2 other students’ blog posts about social media.

• Assignment: Major Research Paper draft

Week 6 (Feb 9) Television (and review of previous weeks).

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 16, 17, 18. See Week 6 for details.
• LAB: Collaborating on a Wiki
  • team forming, idea clustering (based on topics chosen) (teams will also work together on the video assignment later)
  • discuss and differentiate your ideas. identify your unique contribution (we can’t all write about “Facebook and surveillance”, for example – if more than one person is writing about something – try to work together to differentiate your individual topics)
• Due: Major Research Paper draft. Give it to a partner for formal peer review.

Week 7 (Feb 23) Midterm exam

No reading assigned this week. No lecture/lab this week. 2 hour in class exam. See Week 7 for details.

Week 8 (March 2) Pre-history and history of computers

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23. See Week 8 for details.
• LAB: Exploring & Coordinating Online Syndication: RSS & APIs
• Due: Major Research Paper draft – formal peer review – use form for review, communicate review privately to original writer (ccd to me).

Week 9 (March 9) Microchips, computers, and the Internet

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. See Week 9 for details.
• LAB: Exploring multimedia sources
• Due: Major Research Paper (final draft). Post as a document (Word, Open Office, something that permits me to comment and edit) to your blog. Revise based on peer feedback.

Week 10 (March 16) Search, Social Media and the Real-Time Web

• Read: Rowland, Chapters 29, 30, 31 and 32, and Jenkins’ “If it Doesn’t Spread It’s Dead” (part one). See Week 10 for details.
• LAB: Mobilizing your social media
  • What’s in your phone/laptop?
  • Using SMS and MMS with social media
  • Using cameras, streaming media
  • Using location apps
  • Using the field: making use of free wi-fi, 3G, Bluetooth to communicate live (laptop or cel phone)
• Assignment: for the final multimedia assignment, decide on a topic based on your teams’ individual research. Can you combine your topics or just use one (or two) of your individual studies to springboard into a multimedia project? Remember that you will decide on a local event (or create your own) that is useful to your research topic – a conference, barcamp, public event, political protest, or flashmob. Preferable to use one that’s already happening.

Week 11 (March 30) Copyright and its Digital Discontents

• Read: Oswald’s “Plunderphonics”, Doctorow’s “The DRM Sausage Factory” and DeBeer’s “Respect and Reality are Keys to Reform” See Week 11 for details.
• FIELD EXERCISE: Citizen Journalism and/or Flash Mob. We will cover a live event, or create one of our own and cover it, in teams we formed back in Week 6. we will decide on the location ahead of time, so the timing might not sync with lab time. in that case, we’ll cover the event (on a weekend or evening only that we decide as a team, or as a class if we all do the same thing, but regardless it will have to be something that happens in wek 10 or 11 in order to have enough time to edit footage down. I will compile an event calendar of things accessible via skytrain or bus that will be suitable), and instead use this time in the lab for editing/scripting as needed by the various teams of 5. post your footage to the wiki, blogs, and make it creative commons.
• Assignment: In teams, and using the wiki, script/design your video or multimedia project. Remember that as we’re doing this around a live event, you need to decide what kinds of footage you’re likely to need:
  • interviews – with whom, and using what questions? script your interviews ahead of time, get model release forms and informed consent forms signed first, on location
  • b-roll – establishing shots, ambient footage. looks good behind voice-overs, can be used for montage, etc.
  • event footage. when we get closer to the event, spec out the setting for: lighting, probable noise, angles, probably sites where the action will be, where the audience will be, where signage is, etc.

Week 12 (April 6) The Mobile Web and Pervasive Computing

• Read: Castells et al, The Mobile Communication Society (Chapters 6 and 7). See Week 12 for details.
• LAB: editing, remixing, mashing
• Assignment: Edit your video or multimedia project.

Week 13 (April 13) Student Video Presentation Day

• No assigned readings. See Week 13 for details.
• Hand in video/multimedia project via this wiki the night before (April 12), and bring a hard copy to class as a backup.
• Screening of student multimedia projects in Lecture.

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bucking and sucking down trends

and confusing the hell out of porn-bots everywhere, to be sure, with a title like that. shortish entry about my current doings, which are actually getting pretty interesting, at least for me. that’s the ‘bucking’ part, where I surprise you all by switching off the automatic Tweet updates and instead throw a real live post exceeding 160 characters.

the ‘sucking down’ trends part comes in two parts, really. one is trivial – i joined the google wave thing on a whim. we’ll see where that goes. i have nothing to say about it. the other is that i have embraced thrift in recent weeks, always a year behind the trends. but being years behind mainstream trends is always already the new early adopter, the new avant garde. it took me ten years to listen to any nirvana songs (i will always fondly associate their music with the attacks on the world trade center).

what’s so interesting about any of that? nothing. what’s interesting are the inches of progress i’m starting to make on my PhD. i’m writing my first exam in two weeks’ timein February 2010 actually (logistics weren’t in place for a Nov-Dec write), and i think i feel somewhat prepared (as prepared as any PhD student ever is for their comps, I mean, which given the vicissitudes of living life as a grad student, is not at all. so i guess i’m feeling better prepared than most).

but something in this has clicked, in the sense that it has subsided to become a sort of routine, mindless, administerial form of work, this sorting and sifting of theories and methodologies, and busting them up against each other. you can only spend so long in university without this sort of administrivial subsidence.

but this is good, as it means that my mental energies can be focused on higher callings. i’m not at all disdainful of my work, but it is work first and foremost. let’s face it – it’s a gig. it’s taken a long time to admit as much. but doing so has converted it into a day job – of sorts, in the sense that any 21st century space-of-flows info economy laptop-job (hello again porn bots!) can ever be thus.

but the combination of thrift and work subsidence means that the ASIHE record will be pressed, and soon, ‘cos I can afford it in terms of both money and mental effort. so that’s interesting too. yum, artefacts.

toodle-oo!

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