Without much critical examination, teachers accept they have to grade, students accept being graded, and none of us spend enough time thinking about the why, when, and whether of grades.
Reads
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
👓 TWP Action Plan | Desert of My Real Life
At the June 4 meeting of the Tackling a Wicked Problem instructors group, we were asked to develop an action plan to lay out things we need to learn about and/or do between now and our next meeting on July 30. Here is my action plan.
👓 Rocketman | Desert of My Real Life
I first saw a trailer for this movie over a year ago and I was kind of skeptical at the idea of a biopic that billed itself as a “true fantasy.” But as I saw the trailer over and over, the idea grew on me. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I see exactly why it needed to be called a true fantasy. The best thing about the movie is the music, of course, but a close second is the performance by Taron Edgerton. There are times when you would swear you were watching Elton John on the screen. I also love the fact that the movie doesn’t fall into the trap of most biopics–presenting almost a checklist of “Important Moments” in the life of the famous person. Instead, this movie presents what I imagine is an essence of Elton John’s life. There are reenactments of important moments in his life but the fantasy elements typically come into play during those moments and I think that breathes life into them in a way that is missing in the standard biopic. Rami Malek won an Oscar for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury last year. Edgerton is even better as John so I expect he will be a contender for an Oscar this year.
I’ll have to bump this up my list. I was already half sold with Taron Edgerton’s role as “Johnnie” in the animated movie Sing.
I have to be better about posting my movie “reviews” more quickly. I get overwhelmed thinking that I need to write something about the movie when really the whole point of me doing these reviews is just to record what movies I’ve seen. So this month, I’m writing very little about each of these viewings.
Summer is here and, with it, I again have the privilege of teaching a grad class with the (mouthful of) a title “Digital Citizenship, Intellectual Property, and Internet Legal Issues” AKA “Nousion” because…shorter titles FTW. It’s a small class (12-weeks, a half-dozen students) about big ideas. Any one of the clauses in the title could be a semester-long class, a PhD dissertation, or a book!
But we start with digital citizenship because, as problematic as the concept is, I think it works to have everything else in the course be part, or a function of, it. And the questions there are perennial:
- What does the word “digital” mean and do here?
- What is citizenship?
- How do we live and work online, individually and together?
- Where does digital literacy fit?
- What about identity?
- What about privacy?
- Whose data?
You get the idea. I love exploring this topic every summer with a cohort of engaged students even if by the end of each term the most important lesson I’ve learned is just how much more I don’t know and if the only answers to those questions are more questions.
One of my favorite new podcasts is WNYC’s 10 Things That Scare Me, a “tiny podcast about our biggest fears.” The premise is simple: someone (the guests, sometimes famous, often anonymous, are unidentified until the end of the show) shares—directly into the mic—ten things that scare them, each with little bit of narrative.
Sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing, mostly brutally honest…there’s just something beautiful in the simplicity of this direct sharing of fears. To get a taste, here’s a random sample of fears from recent episodes:
- climate change
- the marionette in my mom’s bedroom
- my Google search history being made public
- becoming irrelevant
- hospitals
- breathing tubes
- being shot by law enforcement.
Also, the relatively lo-fi (but very much intentionally so) format and editing fit the idea perfectly.
Best listened to without looking at the title of the show which, unfortunately, gives away the guest’s identity.
I took a few days off for the absolute pleasure of going to the Domains19 conference organized by the great people of Reclaim Hosting (my sc...
👓 Does the news reflect what we die from? | Our World in Data
There is a large disconnect between what gets covered in the media and the day-to-day reality for most. How do causes of death in the US match with media coverage and what people search for online?
Some interesting ethical and moral questions here relating to public health and how it’s covered in the media.
This could be a nice interview segment for On the Media.
👓 Are McMansions Making People Any Happier? | The Atlantic
Homes have gotten bigger, but Americans aren’t any more pleased with the extra space.
👓 Man Still Without Tow Truck After Repossessing NYPD Officer's Car | NY1
Rodriguez is due back in court June 26.
I would think the mayor’s office and internal affairs would be all over this…
👓 The ‘Platform’ Excuse Is Dying | The Atlantic
For years, tech companies have relied on a rhetorical sleight of hand. It’s not working anymore.
👓 Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House | New York Times
They’re still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show.
👓 Track changes with latexdiff | TeXBlog
Track changes is a popular tool in Word. If you are looking for something similar for LaTeX latexdiff is the answer. For example if you are an academic researcher submitting papers to journals, you…
This looks cool. I should play around with it a bit.
👓 Craft beautiful equations in Word with LaTeX | Nature
Manufacturers are ditching equation editors in word-processing software in favour of the LaTeX typesetting language. Here’s how to get started.
👓 Adversarial interoperability: reviving an elegant weapon from a more civilized age to slay today’s monopolies | boingboing.net
What made iWork a success—and helped re-launch Apple—was the fact that Pages could open and save most Word files; Numbers could open and save most Excel files; and Keynote could open and save most PowerPoint presentations. Apple did not attain this compatibility through Microsoft's cooperation: it attained it despite Microsoft's noncooperation. Apple didn't just make an "interoperable" product that worked with an existing product in the market: they made an adversarially interoperable product whose compatibility was wrested from the incumbent, through diligent reverse-engineering and reimplementation. What's more, Apple committed to maintaining that interoperability, even though Microsoft continued to update its products in ways that temporarily undermined the ability of Apple customers to exchange documents with Microsoft customers, paying engineers to unbreak everything that Microsoft's maneuvers broke. Apple's persistence paid off: over time, Microsoft's customers became dependent on compatibility with Apple customers, and they would complain if Microsoft changed its Office products in ways that broke their cross-platform workflow.