flash mobs

i had never heard of smart mobs but i have heard of flash mobs. there was one on campus a few weeks ago where people gathered and bowed down to the UT tower. this site is pretty good in giving info on the latest flashmobs http://flashmob.com

here's a good one..


the brits do it way bigger...

the death of print

i had a fantastic conversation last night. two were MBA students, one was a physics professor, another was a statistics professor, and me. the statistics and physics professors are married, and nick and i were at their house for dinner. surrounded by so many great books, i asked them who liked to read those books. the physics professor said those books were hers, but she said that she reads much less these days. one of the MBA students said he used to read voraciously but now said he doesn't read much. you know, people say that a lot. that they don't read much. but they DO! and from our readings, people are reading in such different ways these days. he says he emails, he games, and he surfs the internet. all very legitimate ways of accessing literacy, i say. but the statistics professor disagrees. he says we're taking the definition of literacy too far. the physics professor agrees somewhat. she thinks books will soon become a hybrid of digital technology in the form of print. she fantasizes about a time when she'll order a book online, go to the nearest ATM to print it out, and have a hard copy in her hand. but when she's 90 or so, she'll probably be transitioning to all digitized text and she'll pull out a foldable computer screen from her pocket to read her 'book'. but, she'll still keep printed books as art around the house.
so she imagines these fantasies because she's a bookophile. one day when students have to go to a museum to see what a book is, a day when their teachers will say, "kids, these are what WE had to read out of," they will wonder how people ever read text that way and can't imagine reading books in any other way but through some digitized medium.

mormon undergarments

can i say that wikipedia has taken over my life? the hypertexting is endless. last week, someone told me that mormons wear secret undergarments under their clothes, even during sex. in my mind, i'm picturing it looks like some kind of chastity suit or something. and i'm really curious to know more! so there i am on wikipedia, my source for all pop culture knowledge, to learn more about the secret life of mormon undergarments. so i read about mormonism, about their garments, about how they engage in a special ceremony to wear them, about how they're burned when thrown away, about how they have crotch holes, and more and more. but, in exploring the world of mormon undergarments, i also ended up reading about the amish, the scientologists, and cults. while reading about cults, i was thus reminded of my home in FW, home to many cultish colonies. home to the infamous david koresh, robert tilton, the trinity network, kenneth copeland. what a crazy place to grow up!
hypertexting creates unbelievably long chains of thought, sometimes leaving me to wonder what i looked up in the first place. how in the world did i get from mormon undergarmets to david koresh in one thought? it's like playing six degrees of separation in your mind.
1. mormon undergarments
2. amish
3. scientology
4. cults
5. david koresh

soon i shall like to learn how to hypertext, add images and video to my blog, to connect it all together in the way i experienced it.

techie this week

here's a short of the computery things i've done so far this week:
IMed with some friends and family
typed up many, many documents on word for work and school
listened to a 3 hour lecture on powerpoint
emailed a lot!
texted to my honey
participated in an asynchronous discussion for psycholinguisitics class
downloaded materials off of blackboard
downloaded several journal articles online from online databases and online magazines
watched several clips of the ROOTS TV series in class on my laptop DVD player
used the library card catalog

more to come...

love/hate relationship

i have a love/hate relationship with TV. i used to say that i would never have a TV in my house, but i do. but what i don't have is cable. i think TV contributes to laziness, allowing the viewer to take, take, take, and give nothing in return. it's easier to sit on the couch and turn on the TV and let it feed you entertainment or information. it's harder to pick up a book and read or get the things done around the house. hours can go by sitting on the couch watching TV. does Johnson make some good claims about the value of television? yes, he does. watching certain TV programs require viewers to reach into their cognitive toolbox and make predictions, recollections, connections, and characterizations. these are the same qualities that we attribute to book reading. the quality of TV has gotten better because viewers demand more stimulating and challenging plots. while we don't physically want to move, we want our minds to be pursued and moved. there are few shows that i keep up with, but i do enjoy watching LOST. in the past season, the plot has become so predictable that many religious LOST viewers are blogging and writing that LOST has lost its way. the characters are quickly losing depth, the plot seems to be going nowhere or is feeling redunant. i am losing patience with the show, and i don't look forward to wednesday nights like i used to. and do i love watching shows without depth? sure i do. but in this regard, i take an oppositional stance and stand on viligant guard against shows that will probably not add something positive to my well-being. and i take an oppositional stance to shows that might have depth but again, don't add something positive to my well-being. shows like deperate housewives. like the "Dallas" example in our reading, someone who loves that show will definitely need to write me and explain your obsession. do you love it because it takes you into a fantasy world? do you hate it but watch it anyway to poke fun at it?

maybe i'm a marxist

i don't know that much about marx, but some of the pieces that shannon pulled from marx, i believe. such as: "Marx calls this alientation--the subordination of the worker to the reified product of his labor." yes, i once was the subordinated worker who labored over making sure her students manufactured good quality products--passing TAKS test scores. perhaps shannon refers to students as the products of labor, but these days, tests are the products we strive to manufacture with perfection. children are just the tools we use to create those great products. with great products comes money, fame, and the coveted "exemplary" status. i was compelled to read (from wiki, only) about marx and his other beliefs. he was an enemy of capitalism for sure. the goal of his historical project was to claim the "universal right to be freely active, to affirm ourselves, to be spontaneous in our activity, and to pursue the free development of our physical and mental. YES! dewey would say YES! too. the mantra of capitalism might also sound very similar, though. the pursuit of happiness through the almighty dollar. can't it be read that way?? obviously, it comes down to philosophical differences in the goals of education. and i stand on the side of marx.

technofied thoughts

i have moments when i'm in the middle of a tech moment where i marvel at the speed at which i can gather information or complete a transaction thanks to the tech age we live in. yesterday i had to explain to my elderly neighbors how we write research papers these days, browsing through thousands of online journal articles, reading at least 50 of them, and writing at least a 30 page paper. my neighbor told me that back in the 1930s, when she was in school at UT, she remembers having to write a "term theme" by hand and slaving hours over it at home wishing "she could be out on dates with willie (now her husband)." times have really changed.

on that very same day, i had a flashback moment when my mom was trying to teach me how to cook a favorite chinese dish of mine. chinese turnip cakes. while she probably could have sent me a recipe (or i could have found one online), i needed to have her demonstrate, face-to-face, and orally, how it was to be done. "first you cut up the turnips and grate it in the food processor. then you add this much water if you had this much turnip." i don't think the tools of technology could have captured the depth of this learning moment. how does one define "this much water with this much turnip" through written remarks without something going awry with my recipe? i needed that oral coaching and proximity to fully understand just how to make a recipe that probably was passed down to my mom from her mom.

so i guess im trying to say that we're walking in between different worlds these days. sometimes we slip back into the roots of oral tradition, but for the most part, we are walking the path of technology. i feel fortunate to be living in this awkward age of in-betweens. i can't imagine not having my mom teach me how to make my favorite chinese dish any other way. i can't imagine writing a term theme by hand. and i sure can't imagine writing a paper without online journals.