metaspencer.blogspot.com

Template Composition

2009-06-23T08:04:00.003-05:00

For poster presentations, my institution has just released a new template. Fill-in-the-blank composition; where "identity standards" mean all texts look identical.

Here's what it looks like:

Dorm Bloggers

2009-06-15T15:07:00.002-05:00

Dunno if you follow m/any dorm bloggers, but they can be kinda fun, providing a journalistic angle on campus life, classes, and living in the dorms.

This one is a nice end-of-year post from one of the more popular dorm bloggers:

Comics at the Newberry

2009-06-10T08:05:00.001-05:00

Viral Syndication

2009-06-02T19:21:00.007-05:00

The other day, ML had a nice article published about her recent work on fMRI deception detection.

The article provides a nice example of viral syndication, having been picked up all over the place.

postchronicle.com: Professor Dubious About New Lie Detectors

bio-medicine.org: Scholar unconvinced new lie-detection methods

breitbart.com: Professor dubious about new lie detectors

news.usti.net: Professor Dubious About New Lie Detectors

sciencedaily.com: Scholar Unconvinced New Lie-detection Methods Better Than Old Ones

upi.com: Professor dubious about new lie detectors

labspaces.net:
Scholar unconvinced new lie-detection methods better than old ones

themoneytimes.com: Professor dubious about new lie detectors

It's even over at questionsoftheuniverse.com. Gotta love it.

Visualizing Revision, Part II

2009-05-22T15:32:00.004-05:00

Earlier in the week, I put up a post about using tag clouds to visualize revision. It's a somewhat problematic approach, as it relies so heavily on lexical repetition, but with that known, it still shows a lot.

Now I see that RLG's Merrilee Proffitt (hi Merrilee!) is using a gadget called Wordle to visualize clouds a bit more ... artfully.

So here we go again: my dissertation, completed in 2005, on Wordle, followed by my book as of 2009:

Using Tag Clouds to Visualize Revision

2009-05-17T13:48:00.005-05:00

You probably know this: for folks in many humanities departments at large research schools like UIUC, a published academic monograph is a key part of getting tenure. That book is often derived in part from the dissertation, but there's this culture in place where, no matter how great that dissertation is, one generally has to demonstrate how much the book is different from the dissertation. This demonstration is usually done in prose.

Enter the tag cloud. Dump the text from both documents into an online clouder like tagcrowd.com, and compare results.

Here's the cloud from my dissertation, completed in 2005:

created at TagCrowd.com

And then here's the cloud of the book manuscript circa 6.2009:

created at TagCrowd.com

As you can see, some themes have stayed the same; others have disappeared or been added. For me, knowing these two documents so well, the tag clouds are detailed maps of the writing and rewriting. Each term is a pathway into so many decisions, dead ends, and productive avenues.

Next time I teach revision, I think I'll have students cloud their drafts.

Non-Contact Graduation

2009-05-13T10:25:00.002-05:00

Here at the factory we're churning out another batch of graduates, but this year with less touching advised.

To: Faculty, Staff, Students
From: Robert D. Palinkas, M.D.
Director, McKinley Health Center
Subject: Handshaking at Commencement

Because of ongoing concerns about the possibility of spreading the flu virus, students receiving degrees and their families should not shake hands at Commencement if they have symptoms of an upper respiratory infection such as fever and cough.

McKinley Health Center will provide hand sanitizer on the platform at the Assembly Hall ceremonies so that graduates can, if they wish, use it before and/or after receiving their degrees. Members of the official platform party also are encouraged to use the hand sanitizer provided.

Everyone is encouraged to observe the other guidelines to reduce the risk of infection, such as covering coughs and sneezes; avoiding touching eyes, mouth and nose; and washing hands frequently.

Robert D. Palinkas, M.D.

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

The White House and Photoshop

2009-05-10T14:55:00.010-05:00

News today that $350,000 in taxpayer cha-ching has been spent getting the following pic over the Statue of Liberty. (It's not even that good.)

In the news is how the White House aide who authorized the flyover has stepped down as it freaked out about half of the residents of NYC.

Do White House aides know nothing about Photoshop?

As a service to our nation, I present these additional pics highlighting other national treasures:

Slap Chop

2009-05-04T11:04:00.002-05:00

Slap your troubles away with Slap Chop. I've done it and found virtually no remaining troubles.

The Game of Writing (Online)

2009-04-27T11:36:00.001-05:00

If you can see this, your browser doesn't
understand IFRAME. However, we'll still
link
you to the file.

I-Cubed

2009-04-24T15:36:00.003-05:00

There's a nice bit of hype about my recent web-writing class over at the local I-Cubed Hub.

With just a few weeks left in the class, students are putting together some amazing stuff. If I get consent, I'll post a few projects here. Video games, typefaces, simulations ... they've done it all this semester.

e-Waste

2009-04-16T20:22:00.003-05:00

I have a class to teach in Chicago tomorrow, so Found Friday is going to fall a bit early in the week. This time, it's a poster found strewn about the grass on campus. As e-Waste gets attention, traditional waste gets made.

Inspiration Tuesday

2009-04-14T10:14:00.001-05:00

Inspirational video of the week.

Found Friday, Wrath and Patience Edition

2009-04-03T14:18:00.003-05:00

You're on the way to give your talk on God, in particular focusing on God's wrath and patience. At that exact moment, as you walk across the quad, God's wrath surfaces ... and you lose your note card.

Fortunately, God has patience, too, so as you stumble through your talk your listeners and God are understanding. Thank God.

Omegle Chat Box

2009-04-01T11:20:00.003-05:00

Chat boxes are old on the interwebs, but Omegle is a bit different, creating a one-on-one chat space w/ a perfect stranger. You don't need to sign in. You enter a chat box. Said stranger is in the box with you. The two of you chat until one person disconnects.

There is no topic, theme, or stated purpose to the encounter. Just a one-to-one connection.

I found Omegle via MW, who says she likes to confess things via the program. She's creative that way. As for me, connecting a few times to see what would happen, I found myself getting amazingly nervous. Kinda thrilled-nervous. A very strange feeling, created, I guess, by the "talk to strangers" vibe branded on the site.

You should try it. Oh, I should say that, in the four minutes I was on, I got called a "jew" and told that "Canada is a country you stupid fuck." These messages were strangely random.

For the record, I know about the country Canada.

Spam Poetry

2009-03-30T19:06:00.004-05:00

This came in via email under the spam filter; I kinda like it:

Garnish the dish with oranges and lemons in quarters there
can remain no important new facts to disclose, there was
movement among the bushes at the far of, ii.hospital, ii.projected
railway, ii.tashil, purchases them the arms of foreign soldiers,
by.

Birds and Music

2009-03-26T15:45:00.003-05:00

From Walter Garstang's 1922 Songs of the Birds.

Informatics of Everyday Life

2009-03-24T09:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I put this video up on Facebook, saying something like "Isn't this amazing?!" And it is. Funny, smart, and all about the information of daily life.

ML then showed me that it is a response to this video by Royksopp called "Remind Me," which is equally amazing.

The "Remind Me" video has a strong element of social critique going on, where as the Little Red Riding Hood story is much more purely about reducing daily life (and I guess narrative) to quantifiable information.

In 1998, I spent the year collecting every set of instructions I could find, pasting them into my offline journal. Instructions on how to assemble things, make things, and do things. Instructions are a terrific genre, with all their 1-2-3 logic; my personal favorites are instructions for doing intuitive things.

Which makes me think that an archive of instructions like this one would lend itself nicely to an interesting take on the informatics of daily living.

USPS Goes With PowerPoint ... Sans Presenter

2009-03-23T10:45:00.004-05:00

PowerPoint is usually used for presentions; the USPS is using it to disseminate information online ... sans presenter. This is kinda odd. Instead of going to a website to learn about the new envelope regulations, you can download a .ppt file and flip through the slides, my favorite of which is:

Found Friday

2009-03-20T08:51:00.004-05:00

From LN, a dedicated member of the research team here at Found Friday, we present this beauty. (FF Archive #343.34 BN)

Gogle.com, btw, redirects to Google.com, so no need to worry. I tweaked the names at the bottom of the image to preserve the anonymity of the young researcher or researchers who created this document.

Just Cool

2009-03-19T14:57:00.001-05:00

Blog Cleaning

2009-03-19T10:40:00.005-05:00

Cleaned up the blog a bit today. Lighter. Brighter. All of that. Post a comment if you're having view.problems and I'll try to rectify.

Five-Paragraph Essays for Obama

2009-03-18T09:14:00.004-05:00

The headline reads "Eduify Answers Obama's Call to Help Students With New Service." A press release, of course, part of which reads:

Eduify's research also shows that students often get stuck in different places during the typical academic writing process, for example, creating a thesis statement or outlining a five-paragraph essay. Eduify offers a variety of services to tackle these hurdles. These services include teacher-written tutorials and models on a variety of topics which are easily discovered to help students get started or past common problems fast. Additionally, the writing coach service offers tailored help--including proofreading and editing services for a fee--is available to make papers perfect before submission.

Post Conference

2009-03-17T11:07:00.006-05:00

Conferences can be fun, they can be interesting, they can be great for seeing and meeting people, but for me, the presentation part of a conference is often underwhelming. People don't show up. I get scheduled at a weird time. Or something goes wrong during the prez. At CCCC.2009, about 15 people attended our panel. In the three days since, three times that many viewers have viewed my presentation online.

A year-or-so-ago I presented at SLSA, and the conference organizers were cool enough to archive presentations after the conference. I like that. A conference, that way, isn't just an event that ends, but a collection of ideas that live on via web publication.

UPDATE: A detailed blog post by Elizabeth Losh covering the session.

CCCC 2009

2009-03-14T17:26:00.005-05:00

CCCC 2009 in San Francisco was really great: a wide range of topics, plenty of interesting exchanges, nice people, and food. Oh: walking too.

For me, the highlight of the conference was getting to go to so many panels on video games, mainly MMOs. As I'm just getting into this area of research, I learned a lot from what I heard and saw.

As I mentioned to a few people at the conference, my presentation is now online. It's on YouTube in two parts, both of which I'll syndicate below. I've also updated my web.projects page over at metaspencer.com, so you should be able to find the presentation there as well.

I received plenty of useful comments and questions (both in the panel and later in the hallways), so I post the presentation knowing that, in future iterations, I'll be able to pull the ideas together in some more interesting and robust ways.

Part I:

Part II:

UPDATE: A detailed blog post by Elizabeth Losh discussing the session at CCCC 2009.