a thaumaturgical compendium

Today is my birthday. I feel really old. Where did the last few years go? I need a change of me.

Reading Metafilter today, I am struck with how lucky I am. In some countries, journalists who question the party line can expect the government to start whispering campaigns against them. Some countries call themselves democratic, but when minority representatives get out of line, the police can be used as a threat against them. In some countries, you can be stopped from getting on a plane because of a button you are wearing, or may be questioned by plainclothes agents for reading “questionable” materials. In the same countries, you may find yourself in jail for sharing a single song with someone. In some countries, those brash enough to speak out against war or policy are targets of police surveillance, and dossiers are constructed to help track them. Those suspected of anti-government sentiment can be “detained” indefinitely, snatched from the street without any warning or explanation, and agents watch what websites and books people are reading to keep them from “dangerous ideas.”

Of course, the irony is that most people who live in police states or totalitarian regimes are unaware of this. There are always exceptions, but most of these folks never feel the need to test whether or not the freedoms they take for granted really exist. I’m glad I live in the home of the free.

David Hampton, the protagonist of John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” recently died in New York.

He [...] briefly experienced the glamorous Manhattan life that had first seduced him from his upper-middle-class home in Buffalo, a city that he once said lacked anyone “who was glamorous or fabulous or outrageously talented.”

Add this to the recent news that “the great minds who married virtually kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV” and an impending birthday, and it seems that fame, fortune, and fabulousness are quickly fleeting.

On Fark this morning I see that Aaron Delwiche made the smart move of channeling his Everquest addiction into a new course in virtual ethnography. I had wanted to do this in my grad course last year, but didn’t get the chance. I’m glad he’s tested the waters, and I wonder how the course turned out. Maybe I can bug him for some insight and see if I can do something similar here at UB.

I’m back. It was good to get away for a little bit. Great oportunity to gain a bit of perspective. However, until I work out exactly what that perspective is, I don’t think I’ll blog about it. Has something to do with not having as much fun in my chosen profession as I once did. That may just be the down side of the standard up-and-down.

Instead, I’ll post a new addition to the list of things I would like to have. It is the Sony PCG-U101. Jamie and I both have Sony laptops of some age right now, and I love how much they can pack into such a small space. A bit spendy, no doubt, but only by today’s standards. A few years back, a sub-$1700 palmtop with that kind of power would be all but unimaginable. It’s not obvious from the photo, but the computer is about the size of the average paperback, only thinner, and includes some nifty features.

Driving out to Chicago for a while to attend a wedding. (House burglers who may read my blog: nota bene, we have a good alarm, a big dog, friendly/nosy neighbors, and absolutely nothing you couldn’t pick up for less than the price of a six-pack at a garage sale.) It’s easy to forget that you are in the middle of nowhere until you realize that the drive to Chicago is only slightly longer than the one to New York City.

So, unlike today’s marathon blogging, chances are I will be relatively blogless for a while. I’m (probably) not dead, just off the grid.

Meanwhile, I leave the blog entries on these to you:

• The Virtual Reality lab at UB now makes it possible to touch things at a distance. Melon shopping may never be the same again.
• Have to read this paper during the trip. Appears to be an interesting approach to detecting and describing the modularity of the internet. They conclude that the internet breaks down into 100 components roughly corresponding to nation-states. Excuse me, but am I missing something here? How is that a surprise? The method, at least, is interesting, and might also be applied to a hyperlink analysis.

Proving once again that my finger is pretty far from the pulse of student attitudes toward a class, the teaching evaluations (quantitative and qualitative) were much worse than I expected them to be. That isn’t to say that they are horrible–they are just slightly higher than average for the department–but I had thought the class went fairly well last semester.

What I know is that I spent too much time on it. Clearly that time didn’t pan out. And so, I will focus on research for a while. I will also go back and teach com theory rather than the law class. It’s easier, and the students have low expectations of it that are easy to exceed. But I think we’ve seen the last of the media law class for a while. Why should I spend so much extra time on preparing classes and exercises when students prefer three multiple-choice exams? Grumble.