Posts from — December 2006

Have Laptop, Will Learn?:
So, if this project is a huge success and actually causes some global reconceptualization of what learning is all about, it could have a positive impact on libraries. On the other hand, having Intel, Microsoft, and the worldwide education establishment poo-poohing your initiative is, as we used to say in Iowa, a tough row to hoe.
—–

ALA posits optimism without real thought about OLPC. Why do people think this is a good idea? because people think that technology is a good idea. I’m with Bill Gates, fix the vital infrastructure of health and education, and technology will resolve itself.

The Dream Palace of Educational Theorists – New English Review:
Professionals have their own credentialing systems: You may have graduated law school, but you’ll still have to pass the bar exam, and so on. Then why make aspiring lawyers go to law school? Presumably for the same reason we insist on cube jockeys having bachelor’s degrees from accredited four-year colleges. Why not let them study up at home from Teaching Company DVDs, then sit for a state-refereed common exam when they feel they’re ready? Why not let lawyers learn on the job from books and as articled clerks, the way they used to? I don’t know. College-going is just an irrational thing we do, the way upper-class German men used to acquire dueling scars, the way women in imperial China had their feet bound. Griggs vs. Duke Power probably has something to do with it. Since, following that decision, employers are not permitted to test job applicants to see how intelligent they are, the employers seek a college degree as a proxy for intelligence.

———-

ahhh, a nice critical piece to start the day. keep in mind that this ‘journal’ is a bit iffy in terms of who it affiliates with and i’m not really supporting this guys writing, just saying…. that there is something to be critical about in the critique of education, and well, the way education conceptualizes the person is one place for critique.

They Might Be Giants covers Phil Ochs:

——
I dreamed i saw phil och’s last night as live as he could be.— billy bragg to the tune of Joe Hill.

10 signs to identify the hacking spirit in your son:
Who knew that youtube could be so darn educational!… that is, you can learn how to identify if your son is a computer hacker.

——
Biella finds television to be useful….

Lost for words | Books | The Australian:
Pierce is concerned that academics who specialise in Oz lit are getting on or getting out. But what are universities to do if students won’t sign up for Australian literature courses?

Pierce says the claim that students are no longer interested is a “chicken and egg argument”. “Students and PhD candidates will hardly be encouraged if Australian literature is not an interest of any of the academics in their university,” he argues.

He is withering about the idea that cash-strapped universities should offer students only the courses they want: “This assumes that universities are not there to educate but simply to gratify the necessarily limited background interests of its students, no matter how bright those students are. It’s like saying, they won’t be interested in higher maths, so we won’t teach it.”

Referring to the cultural cringe she encountered as an honours student 40 years ago, Webby says “you’re still fighting some of those same battles”. “Hopefully,” says this woman whose life’s work has centred on her own country’s literature, “we will never go back to the situation of the ’50s.”
———

australian literary studies… are dying in australia.

What caused Nietzsche’s insanity and death?:
A paper just published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reconsiders the insanity and death of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who is commonly thought to have died of neurosyphilis.

In contrast, the authors of the new study suggest that Nietzsche died of frontotemporal dementia – a type of dementia that specifically affects the frontal and temporal lobes.

While many people have ‘diagnosed’ historical figures in retrospect, this study is different, in that the authors reviewed Nietzsche’s actual medical notes in light of what is known about the progression of syphilis and dementia today.
——

i think it was the opera.

Is That a Razr in Your Pocket, or is the FBI Glad to See Me?:
Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. “They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time,” he said. “You can do that without having physical access to the phone.”

—-

i own a razr…. it’s a cool phone… but i don’t use it much.

Licensed Librarians:
They license librarians in the Philippines. I wish they would do this in the US. Reasons forthcoming in my column for Information Today (February 2007 issue). (via)
——–

perhaps a licensure of librarians is a good thing…

US: EPA Closes Its Libraries, Destroys Documents:
The EPA Closes Its Libraries, Destroys Documents

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun closing its nationwide network of scientific libraries, effectively preventing EPA scientists and the public from accessing vast amounts of data and information on issues from toxicology to pollution. Several libraries have already been dismantled, with their contents either destroyed or shipped to repositories where they are uncataloged and inaccessible.
——

if you remove the products of scientific practice, that is if you delete knowledge that is not broadly available, you increase the base of ignorance in society, which then enables you to mount counter-truth campaigns more effectively…. that is ‘destroy the libraries if you want people to believe things that go counter to the evidence in the libraries’.

“The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.”: An Opportunity for the Republican Machine:
[Christopher] Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.
===

this is quite interesting…