February 8, 2010

I, for one, knew the risks when I got started. No one lied to me or misdirected me or tried to snow me over. I’m here because I want to be.

Academia is risky, sure. But so is marriage and entrepreneurship and running for political office. Is risk conspiratorial? #benton

Benton blows more bitter, idealist crap about the failure of the “implicit promise” of academia: http://bit.ly/a4W9t6.

February 6, 2010

I’ve nearly finished my org to mmd converter; now I just need to fix my LaTeX export templates: this is nerd power for the English lit guy.

“ Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.
Ray Bradbury (via mrgan)
February 5, 2010

Just had to pull out the “you’ll do it to pay your room and board” argument to get my son out shoveling the snow. I feel old (but warm).

February 2, 2010

… and it requires Flash to download. And forces me to get an Adobe ID to read a free book. I expect it to ask my firstborn child next.

Just did what @amandafrench did: downloaded the free eBook at U Chicago Press: Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: http://is.gd/7z9GP.

First paper of the batch: graded. Time: only 2 hours. If they all take this long, I’m quitting and taking a job at the post office. #grading

February 1, 2010

The second problem with grading papers using Track Changes is that I am very mean. Handwritten comments keep me lazy and generous. #grading

The first problem with grading papers using Track Changes is that I write way too many comments and my comments are way to long. #grading

The 3rd problem with grading using Track Changes is that I can’t resist comments like “Yes, I do give a damn about an Oxford comma.”#grading

And apparently I am enough of a prude to write “damn” rather than quote Vampire Weekend verbatim in my comments to students. #grading

“

“The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.”(Barack Obama, State of the Union: 1/27/10)

“I thought (President Obama’s speech) was extremely partisan. I thought he regurgitated all the old lines of old speeches, doubled down cap and tax and on tax increases, more stimulus spending, (and) a (spending) freeze but the freeze doesn’t start for another year.”
(Hannity: 1/27/10)

Obama

http://www.mediaite.com/online/giving-context-to-pres-obamas-state-of-the-union-and-reactions/

(via csessums)

January 30, 2010

RT @DrLabRatOry: I loves me some Linux, but one of these days the open source community will learn that good design != prettier icons / …