Posts from — June 2004

Trent Lott Defends Torture, Killing of Prisoners. by TChris Trent Lott's knack for saying in public what other right-wingers in power only mutter behind closed doors cost him his position as Senate majority leader. Now it should cost him his job. In an interview, Lott defended the… [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

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according to this, trent lot says they should have been killed…. when should they have been killed? once they were captured or injured, then we are talking war crimes, is trent lott advocating a war crime? i wouldn't doubt it. the moral ineptitude of the republican majority is clearly demonstrated.

apparently they don't like the humiliation of relationships.

The secret lives of teachers. Dave Eggers offers a heartbreaking work of staggering support for increasing teachers' salaries in the current Mother Jones: As a… [Critical Mass]

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teachers, all teachers, need to be paid more.

old ipod is dying.

so i used my audible.com $100.00 discount to buy a new 15gb one, it will be here tomorrow. weee!

i must say, this original ipod, a 5gb, that came free with a server, is quite nice, and it lasted a long time. it still sort of works, but two times in the last month it has just stopped and required a complete reload to get it going, oh and once it has to be hit to get going…. so really, it had to be replaced. i didn't need a dock or any of that crap, and i don't need a whole lot of space, all my music fits in 25gb, but… i don't listen to all of it on any given day. all i need is my playlists. which all in all are about 10g, which i had paired down to fit on my 5g ipod. the extra space will be nice.

Good Thing He's Joking. This Chun fellow could be very dangerous if we didn’t all know that academic blurbs are written by university administrations and forced on unwilling shy and retiring academics. That said, I genuinely believe that some of my colleagues really are the leading authorities on certain things. But better not to name names…. [Discourse.net]

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hmm, i get a fair amount of 'expert on' stuff sent my way. not as much as other's i'm sure. but then i'm not really an expert on anything per se, but i do have some knowledge scattered about, mixed with trivia, and nonsense that tends to help people resolve their questions.

but then i do not think that this is a joke, if a professor isn't an expert in something, then what are they teaching?

Weblog research roundtable. Excellent multiparty interview with weblog researchers Cori Dauber, Kaye Trammell, Jill Walker, and Alex Halavais. I especially liked Alex Halavais' insight into the future of weblogs:

“I suspect that over the next few years we will see a lot of calls
suggesting that blogging has died, and I suspect that in a sense they
will be right. The act of keeping a “Weblog” as a separate entity will
become something of an anachronism. The broader world of collaborative
Web publishing will continue to grow and converge with other
technologies, including IM and e-mail. Imagine asking someone today if
they are an “e-mailer.” That question made sense, among a certain
group, 15 years ago, when you weren't sure if someone had e-mail or
not. I have a feeling that the production of public media — whether in
the form of Weblogs, wikis, collaboratively filtered lifelogs, or some
form that I am too shortsighted to predict — will be the moving force
of a new era.”

[Seb's Open Research]

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yep, alex hits the head on the nail, once again read more for other insightes

Are you a geek?. Ken always finds the good tests. He's a a “Total Geek” with a score of 26.23274% (gotta love that precision). I, on the other hand, am a “Poser” with a score of 6.1144%. I'm not sure that's a bad thing …. [IDblog]

researchers are finallyl realizing that antibiotics aren't good for the human system and some now suggest that you need to recover from them, which i completely agree with.

E-signatures fail to catch on. Florence Olsen dares to write about the failure of market-based e-signature solutions in Federal Computer Week: “Electronic signatures have often been touted as a cornerstone of e-government, providing the legal underpinnings needed to do away with paper and move transactions… [InternetPolicy.net]

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hmm, i've used e-signatures before, they are a bit painful to get right though….

Abstinence-Only: Does It Work?. At institutions that accept government money, teachers must advocate abstinence until marriage. But is the policy realistic? By Jane E. Brody. [New York Times: Education]

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no, it does not work. enforcing ignorance never works.