Ceaseless Idleness

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.

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.

I’m not watching TV at home for a month or so. I’m about two weeks in. I’m a movie and TV show fan, I play video games. However, I think I need a purge. I find my free time and thoughts consumed by whatever’s happened in the last day or few days. If I watched a movie or TV show I found I would go through and analyze and rethink it. Why this, why that, what about that. Try to guess the character arcs, make notes about how it could have been improved and what I enjoyed, do little mini-reviews in my head.

This, I feel has been kind of a waste of time.

It’s ok – it’s not Bad. It’s not something I Need To Repent Of. But unless I’m going into media production, script writing, or something similar I don’t know that it’s that helpful. It’s good to have hobbies – but I start to worry when I feel I haven’t given the TV enough attention that day.

Also, things have gone from Busy to Redonk-a-Busy at work, so I couldn’t have found a better time to get back a few hours to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks.

To be clear, this isn’t a Fast or something I’m giving up for a personal Lent. I played Wii Fit last week or the week before with my wife and kid (and nearly passed out, how good of shape I’m in) and when people send a video link or something online I generally watch as much as I would anyway. That feels different, somehow. What I’ve done, basically, is not put it on my mental schedule.

The results so far:

1) The world has continued to spin. I don’t really miss it. Part of me wants to sit down and watch something mindless and zone out, but I don’t, and I survive.
2) I like caring about the things that actually affect, me, or at least slowly heading in that direction.
3) I get more done. I mean WAY MORE done. I’m forgetful by nature so having less mental clutter has helped me actually get stuff done I needed to get done.
4) I feel less like I NEED to watch things to unwind. It’s very possible I’m not unwinding at all and will explode, but it doesn’t feel as critical as it used it. I haven’t been reading a lot of fiction, either, so I don’t know what I’ve been doing, exactly.
5) Related to 4), I’ve gotten WAY more into music. I’ve been finding new music, winnowing away music I have on my hard drive to just those things I actually listen to, and branching out ever so slightly into new types. I find music can still be a form of escape, but it’s less engrossing than a screen or story, and allows me to get other things done. It’s also smaller, and bite-sized.
6) Movies are still a kicker. I’m going to a movie next week, Avatar, with a couple of buddies, and the other night I spent about an hour catching up on new movies trailers at Apple. But, in general, I find more and more I’m becoming an old man with movies. I don’t feel the need to see the Important Movies of the Day.

Anyway. Maybe I’ll report again on how it’s going.

We did a few Christmas activities through December – though we’re sort of on the hunt for traditions to call our own.

We hit the local live nativity, put on by the Faith Baptist church. It’s probably the most organized and friendly event this size that was not a football game I’d ever seen (note: I’m not a member of Faith Baptist). When we drove in they directed us to a specific parking spot, directed in by an attentive 12-year old. Everyone told us where to go, which checkpoint to go to next, and told us Merry Christmas. It was freezing, snowing during our quick 14-minute or so trip round the church to each of the stations. Our 4-year old daughter, Min, took the whole thing very seriously – after a couple of attempted explanations (“Sweetie, that’s the Garden of Eden, that’s Adam…”) she told us not to talk to her until it was over. There were CD players with explanations at each stop. When we tried to teach, for example with some of the more abstract set pieces, she would say “Remember what I told you?” So we waited. The best one, for my money (it was free), was the nativity itself – there was no dialogue, no acting, just a kind of cold and worried looking young couple and a plastic baby in a dark little manger, off in the corner of the lot. I probably read too much into it but wondered, realistically, how the night felt for Mary and Joseph and how they probably didn’t have all sorts of visitors that night and went through all of those emotions new parents have where they worry, are grateful, happy, overwhelmed, sad, tired. The cruxifiction scene was fairly tastefully done, with three crosses facing away from the visitors, wooden thieves and Jesus, a weeping Mary, and some naysayers there giving wooden Jesus grief. This was affecting for Min, who said it was one of her favorite parts, another kid we met in the commuinity center said the same thing and was working through that they were made of wood, so the blood on the wood legs was fake. Kids seem to zoom in on gore and tragedy. One of the highlights, honestly, was that when we were done and had some cookies and chocolate and got to our car, is that we were out of the lot in about 4 minutes. Those guys have their stuff together.

We also hit the Children’s Museum on the 23rd and saw Santa. Hoorah. It took about 50 minutes in line, so Mary went in and out with the kids while I stood in line and made periodic light conversation with the couple behind us. Santa himself had a real white beard (which one would expect, I guess) and took his time talking to Min, who pretty much didn’t know what to do with herself. He was pretty good. She put her wish list in his sleigh and we moved on.

As far as the Christmas itself – we dialed down on gifts to the parents and focused on making sure the kids got what they wanted (that Santa knew about it) mainly out of lack of energy or time to shop, mainly. Maybe next year we’ll try something a friend suggested, just three gifts for the kids to represent the gifts of the magi, to combat the ever-increasing feeling of riding a consumerist avalanche through the month. One gift I did get from my kids (I’m told on good authority from the Goodwill) was a dog and squirrel, representing my kids, who I referred to as a squirrel and little puppy as toddlers. So finally I have something to decorate my office at work.

After fooling around with the idea in my last post, I went ahead and tried it. I took the laptop to work and put it to the side and periodically looked at it to see if it needed me to click Ok or next, as installs of OS’s tend to be.

And I really like it. I installed it to a small partition (about 60 out of 200 GB) and decided to reinstall and give it a larger portion and use the Windows side for games and Office (read: Outlook) and try to do everything else on Linux Mint for while. It’s pretty intuitive, once I’ve gotten the handle on Package Manager and Software Manager (and that all the software I can use successfully isn’t on there, as well). (Click here to read the rest of this entry)

A guy at work came in to my office yesterday showing off his newly installed Linux Mint on his Macbook. He was so excited about it, and I’ve reinstalled Windows on our home laptop enough times in the past three weeks, and been preached to enough by smart people who were also shiny-eyed Linux enthusiasts, that I’m tempted to install Linux and do a dual-booted laptop. Partially to fool around with it, partially to use it as a system to put on old crappy computers that ours will eventually turn into that my wife can use for basic stuff, and partially to be a geek.

So, this morning I woke up early, mainly because my body thinks I’m either 70 or 4 years old and thinks to bed by 8 and up at 5 is what it prefers, and have been searching around for how hard it would be to add a new partition to an existing XP installation, and it turns out I’m not sure I want to be that geek of a geek. (Click here to read the rest of this entry)

When I left from work last night there was a tornado-level storm brewing. I didn’t know this – the south could rise up again and start marching in the streets this week and I’d only know if someone emailed me or it showed up on facebook (“sick of the south rising up again!!!! Txt me!”). By the time I got to the corner of old 231 and 26 it looked apocalyptic (see apocalyptic photos below). About two minutes later a light rain started. About 10 feet after that my umbrella folded back on itself and I ran for the nearest shelter, which was a movie theater. (Click here to read the rest of this entry)

This article made an impression on me – I need to follow up on some of what they’re doing. It’s a summary of different people doing cool stuff with innovation in education, brought on by technology. I heard Wiley speak when I was a grad student and was pretty impressed, now I want to follow up on Western Governors University – this question about focusing on competencies and exams ties in with this piece in the NY times talking about the End of the University. It does match the problem I see – few people, as much as we talk about how great it is to have information online, wants the degree without accreditation.

I don’t know about the term EduPunk. It’s cool, I like punk and everything, but I think it diminishes…well, I take that back. I’ll have to chew on it.