Ceaseless Idleness

“Using music and movie delivery as a model, here’s my proposal for the ideal etextbook system. There are two parts – the delivery mechanism and the reading device.”

http://bit.ly/d8D5Fq

Hans on Tech: Using requirements to see through marketing

I posted a thing on the Purdue IDC blog about eTextbooks (part 1). bit.ly/cgOR6v

I went to take out the garbage and realized it was a nice summer night.  Summer nights in Indiana are nice. For about 2 minutes, before the mosquitoes set in and you want to get back into the air conditioned indoors because the temperature seems to level out at Pretty Uncomfortably Warm. Those few moments, when it’s nice and comfortable, the sky acting like a blanket – it reminds me of when I was a kid, specifically two things: night games and sleeping out.

Probably a lot of people had this in their neighborhood. Usually for kids starting about age 10 or 11, at about dusk, after dinner, rounding up a bunch of other kids in the neighborhood to go play. It would start with kick the can or freeze tag, or POMP!, which I’ve never found anywhere else. POMP! is pretty straightforward – think of red-rover with only one person in the middle of a lawn. Everyone else is on one side. The person in the middle yells “POMP!” – everyone tries to run to the other side. The person in the middle TACKLES whoever he or she (usually he) can. Not touches, or even ‘two-belows’ (touches with two hands below the waist, I don’t know if that’s legal any more). Tackles, takes down. This made a lot of sense at the time. Whoever he tackles is in the middle with him – and they both yell “POMP!” and people try to run from the side they’re on to the new side. After POMP! it would head into Kick the Can, which everyone knows, and Follow the Judge to Court, which after a quick search reveals may have been a very Utah (and possibly Provo) thing. I’d love to be wrong. Follow the Judge to Court was a favorite for some reason – basically it’s hide and go seek but when you’re caught you follow the Judge to catch others, and try to take off while they aren’t looking. It goes on forever.

Usually with my younger sister and very good buddy back then. Not in a tent, just out on the lawn.  Nights got cold quickly in Utah, being a desert – about 20-25 degree drop – so you usually needed that sleeping bag when 1 am approached. One night I woke up to some sniffling in my ear – a neighbor dog had gotten out and was waking us up. We shooed it away and it came back another time or two. After a refused to do anything, my sister got up and chased it away with a metal rake. I thought she was going to kill it. It got the message and didn’t come back the rest of the night. Other times I slept over at a buddy’s house and we usually didn’t last the night outside, we’d end up on the floor in the living room because it was too cold.

I’ve thrown in some songs below (for however long GrooveShark and those songs within it last) that act as a revisionist version of youthful summers back in Utahr. The first song by Owl City obviously wasn’t out then – but to me it’s like an aural manifestation of the summer feeling. If it’s not already, it’s a Disney emotio-exploitation device just waiting to happen. Just try to get it out of your head. Sensitive ears can skip the last two – the ‘Mode song (just think about the lyrics for TWO SECONDS) and the Beastie Boys (uh, it’s the Beastie Boys. That’s why we love ‘em.). See, I warned you, wasn’t that nice?

Being Towel Day, I’m getting back to my roots and thinking more about the ‘increasingly mistitled’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy (which is actually four books, five if you count Mostly Harmless, which I really don’t, but still enjoyed). I put a new wallpaper on my iphone and mused on Twitter that it actually was like the Guide itself (photo). A friend from work pointed out, actually, the iPad is actually the closest thing.

He has a point. Stephen Fry thought so as well: “One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker’s Guide that humankind has yet devised.”

And he’s not the first to think of it: the National Post thought so. ”The Hitchhiker’s Guide of Mr. Adams’ imagination offered its readers a window through which they could learn about the world — or worlds — around them. It offered helpful articles and hints to make their planet-trotting lives easier and provided what they needed, when they needed it.”

I think the Guide itself describes it the best. Try this statement and instead of the Guide put in The Internet and book put thing: ”The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times over many years and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travelers and researchers.” (p. 53).

It really has, hasn’t it? I think the price differential (the guide was always slightly cheaper than the Encyclopaedia Galactica) is still the sticking point for me. The iPad isn’t really the Guide – it’s more the Encyclopaedia Galactica, and whatever android, open-source version comes out in the next year or two that is slightly cheaper, pretty reliable, and easy to use is the Guide.

Another good comparison here.

I looked for a while for someone with an iPad with DON’T PANIC on it but this is the best I found.

Source: Adams, D.  (1996). The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. This one:

My current copy. The book the quote above is taken from.

Iron Man has a frowny face which makes him look sad and tough. Tony Stark is conflicted, self-destructive (and I wonder if they’ll ever bring in his alcoholism or just nod to it, like they did in one set of scenes. I doubt it, it seems to be made for kids, who don’t care). I’m getting tired of self-destructive superheroes. I’d like to see one that likes his/her job, does it well, knows the score, and doesn’t need people taking care of them and “getting through to them”. They’re normal, they like people, and they have superpowers. Does this exist?

I did like the scene where they land in the biodome and talk for a minute, then the ensuing action sequence, where there was no music and good chemistry between Mr. Cheadle and Mr. Downey. Chemistry between males was pretty high all around, actually. The action in general was pretty good, if confusing at the end.

Best part, honestly, trailer for Tron 2. I could have watched that several times and called it good. Much better in the big theater. No matter how the movie ends up, the trailer was well done.

Clark Aldrich (via Stephen Downes, who I read often) talks about how a high-quality MBA will eventually be produced that will cost about $1,000. His argument comes down to this: 1) We have stuff now we never thought would be this cheap, like computers and cars (cars? cheap cars? that run? really?). 2) There’s a huge need for it in every country with a growing business sector with middle management that lacks MBA-like skills, and 3) the technology is on its way, if not there. Aldrich is a big proponent of (and consultant in) simulations, which are one way parts of mass, cheap education could be done. They’d be distance courses, he predicts people would flock to them en-masse, and to stay valued they’d have to be high-quality, so would take an initial investment.

The reason I like this is it’s a solution to a problem that has “winners” financially on both sides. The MBA school makes money, the MBA students get a good product for a good price. The reason I like scenarios like these is that they’re more likely to happen. In this reality.

There seem to be two kinds of educations, to bifurcate it for simplicity’s sake. There’s the kind you can put on your resume, and the kind you can’t. The kind you can put on your resume may have stuck, but it may not have – you pay your money, you get your degree, but the information’s useless. But you have your degree, and your job will probably train you on what you actually need to know, which may or may not be related (probably not) to your degree.

The kind you can’t – I learned how to properly drain and smash a coconut for neat consumption over the weekend, via our dear Internet. I have friends that can do whole jobs that they aren’t paid to do, but they don’t have the degree. They’re experts at geneology, or cooking, or painting, or building, but their degree is in computer science or finance or education. You can’t put that on a resume, you can learn all you want about it, but it’s got to come from you. There’s not outside validation. So, you head to school and get a degree and go through the expensive, often inefficient steps to learn, and if you’re at a research school (with a good reputation) you’re often not taught by instructors but researchers who definitely know the stuff but would rather be reading about it than teaching it.

My ideal would be inexpensive, rigorous tests that everyone can take. You think you know the stuff? You put together your own curriculum strung together with Youtube videos, blog posts, and free articles on Google Scholar? You bought a second-hand book from the library book sale and went through the problems? Pay $20 and take the test and get it done. The test may be written, it may be multiple choice, it may be performance. Whatever it is that you have to do on the job for the degree you want. Want to take it again? That’s fine, another $20. That’s the first idea.

The new electric company is pretty urban. It’s interesting, has cool effects and the “Electric Company” is actually a group of kids who have special powers. There’s a “bad” group of kids who don’t have powers but play tricks on the Electric Company and deceive them, etc.

The effects are pretty good, and straightforward, and the actors are solid in selling words. It’s all about words and reading, which I didn’t remember from the old Electric Company (I remembered Dracula and Spider-Man, but that’s me), but it turns out they were all about words, too.

The old EC seemed to be aimed at teens and adults – I’m surpised it lasted as long as it did, though my 4-year old liked the Spider-Man sketches we watched on YouTube, like this one:

But it looks dated. REALLY dated, almost so dated it’s good again because it’s such a time-piece. The new one will probably look dated in 20 years if the urban vibe is not as prevalent then as it is now. There’s a beatboxer on staff who does some sketches but mainly beatboxes. It gives me hope that I, too, an ungainly white person, can also beat the box. Actually when I try it with my 1-year old he’s ok with it.

Their songs, though, generally, are pretty terrible, homewritten high-school play quality. Anyway, the new one is fun enough to watch and has clever enough dialogue (the one I watched yesterday had a running gag about an alien who passed gas through his ear which smelled like toast and thought of noodles to calm down – that’s pretty good stuff). The old one is pretty bizarre, in a good way. Take for instance, one of the most widely respected actors today, Morgan Freeman, who was on it all six seasons according to IMDB, playing Dracula taking a bubble bath in his casket.

Bill Cosby, and as voices Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and Joan Rivers, on – not as guests, but regular players on the show. So it has more than “geez those weird 70s” historical value, and makes more sense than HR Pufnstuf.

I’ll finish this posting I started December 3:

My daughter, after not wanting to eat her dinner, finally made it into hysterics, then oversalted her chili and when she ate the cold, oversalted chili between sobs she ended up barfing it out.

I don’t know how we’re going to get her to eat chili again. This is the girl who at least weekly reminds us about the time she barfed up a bean and cheese quesadilla for some unknown reason (my wife and I ate the same thing and didn’t get sick) and on nights where she’s eating food she’s not keen on, sandbags like the best of them. She knows how to work a dinner table filibuster.

She'll eat these, she'll eat ANY candy.

I’ve made a semi-goal (in my head, which is different than a REAL goal, which I write down in a place or two before I ignore it) to post more in the blog. Which brings up all this stuff about What Kind of Blog Is It and to Make Sure I’m Keeping On Point – things I’ve read about a blog writing.

I also want to avoid being the guy who has three followers (I don’t – I have 0, I think, lemme look – I can’t tell how many are subscribed it turns out I have 1. Thanks, dood! – but I’m pretty sure my mom checks it every six months to see if there are more pictures of my kids) and every couple of months throws a post up apologizing they weren’t posting more. It’s possible a buddy or sibling might ping me and say, “Hey, brotha, get ya some more pics of your kids on that blog!” and I would do a post like that, but I’m guessing these posts are more aimed at themselves…”Sorry, self, for not posting more often. I’ve let you down.” Self: “It’s ok.”

Anyway. Keeping consistent themes and patterns I suppose works for a blog that Has a Purpose besides being an outlet for the deep need I feel analyze every single thing I see, but this one doesn’t right now, so here’s my thinking: I will be wildly inconsistent and cover a nightmarish range of topics. I’ve seen this done well, so I think it’s all right. Example A is mightygodking.com, which seems to cover in equal parts comic books, reality TV, law and politics (both Canadian and American), and vulgarity (watch out ye of tender sensibilities, it uses the pottymouth language), but all in great depth. And many/most of the posts are from the one dude, MGK.

So that’s the goal. That’s what I’ll be trying to do, and do it more or less consistently, intentional ambiguity there.