First, I’m already psyched about the upcoming Watchmen movie.  It helps that the trailers are incredible in every way, especially the music.  I’ve got the soundtracks off of iTunes, and while the music is now inextricably linked to the movie, I’ve also found them quite enjoyable to listen on their own.

Secondly, If you’re using Firefox, you must check out the Ubiquity plug-in.  I’ve been using it for a few months now, and it’s made it’s way into my toolchain.  For example, I quickly checked the definition of “inextricably” a few moments ago, just to make sure it means what I thought.  Now this was already an easy task: open a new tab and type “define:intextricably” into the google search box, and off you go.  This cuts out the new tabs part, which is a small improvement that feels much better.  Ubiquity can do much more than dictionary look-ups, though.  I’m more than a little biased: Ubiquity is the topic of a teaching conference presentation I’m giving in a few months.

The Future of this Blog

I’ve been working on a post for the last few months at least entitled “Software for Introspection.”  Introspection, not in the programming sense, but the psychological.  It’s a topic I’ve always been interested in, and along these lines, I’ve developed a personal suite of tools I use for both quantitative and qualitative analysis of internal processes.  This suite of tools is really aimed at my personal needs, and I’m not sure just how transferable some of these tools would be to someone else.  However, given the new home of the blog, I think that I might begin to aim at a public release.

Just over a month ago, I moved from my old domain, joshuamcharles.com, to the current domain, sudolife.org.  I had several reasons for this, the biggest being that I really like the play of “sudo”-”pseudo.”  The website isn’t my life, but it is.  It is the electronic presence that tells the world who I am, but it isn’t necessarily an accurate representation.  Therefore, it’s psuedo-josh.

As I thought about the other side of the wordplay (”sudo life”, as though it’s a unix command), though, something else occured to me.  This could be the perfect place to release my introspective tools as a service, once I get them to a point that they would actually be useful to someone else.  I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not, but I wanted to throw it out there and see if anyone else has any thoughts on the matter.  It could be that there is no demand for this sort of software at all.

Beyond that, I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, especially considering that it’s too late for me to be blogging.  I have noticed a distinct increase in the lack of ability to sleep over the last week or so, as well as an increase in general anxiety, and a fixation on certain topics.  The next few days could seem excruciatingly long.

photo credit: TheArtGuy

This post contains BREAKING NEWS.

I haven’t been blogging lately, or keeping up with all my blog subscriptions.  While my Google Reader is telling my I merely have 37 unread posts, this is at least partly due to the judicious use of “mark all as read” button.  But why is this so?  Well, I have my final two grad courses for this semester to finish up this week and the next, and I”m also putting the “finishing” touches on the CMS I’ve written for my School.  But yesterday something was offered to me, and today it was confirmed that has thrown a huge load of work on my shoulders.  I don’t mind one bit, however, because this is something I am *really* looking forward to.  What is it?

*I* am teaching a class here at the University next semester.  My *own* class!  It’s in the catalog.  Students are registering for classes.  I keep pinching myself.  This is *actually happening*.

So what class is it that has my heart thumping in equal parts fear and excitement?  TE385, also known as “Teaching and Learning with Technology.”  Basically I’m going to teach future teachers how to be more effective students and teachers (and people in general) by utilizing technology.

I have many ideas about what I want to cover in this class.  I’m not the only person teaching this course; there are other sections, so there is a basic set of things I need to cover, and then we can move beyond that.  I’ve started the process of creating the syllabus, and the collosal size of this task is starting to set in.  I have a lot of work to do in the next month if this class is going to be successful.

oldfriend says:  Sup!
Josh says:  hey man!  what’s up?
oldfriend says: Sang your song last week.

At this point, I’m thinking “What in the world?…”

oldfriend says: Still hits home when I sing it.
Josh says: which song is that?
oldfriend says: “Our God is powerfull, our God is wonderful…”
oldfriend says: That one.

Okay, now I remember.  See, when I was still a christian, I used to write worship songs.  I’m a musician, so what else would I do?  This particular song happened to be the only one that other people actually liked.  This was because I took the best music I had written on my own at that time and adapted it into a worship song.  How embarrassing is that?  It’s too bad because this music could have been used for something much greater.  At least there is no danger of making that particular mistake again.

Five Things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Attending my sophomore year in high school
2. This time of the year was district band season, so I was making the district honor band and actually practicing my euphonium.
3. Joining the Cross Country team.
4. Preparing for my drivers license examination
5. Working on Driftwood (my one time pad encryption program written in QBasic - How embarrassing!)

5 Things on my “To do” list today

1. Setup a meeting to get some data automatically fed into my system (done)
2. Have dinner with my friend Tara
3. Purchase sandwich bags at the store
4. Check my ongoing Chlorophyll experiment to see where I’m at there.
5. Check out an episode or two of this seasons’ Big Bang Theory.

5 Snacks I love

1. Cheese and Crackers
2. Popsicles (the sugar free ones taste better)
3. No-bake cookies
4. Sunflower seeds
5. PB & J

5 Things I would do if I was a millionare

1. Build a house with crazy home automation (and all those other goodies like a home lab, recording studio, two stories library, hidden rooms / passageways, observatory etc.)
2. Get my souped up Mac Pro
3. Visit New Zealand
4. Quit work and get my doctorate.
5. Purchase a Dodge Viper

5 Places I’ve Lived

1. Osage City, KS
2. Bennett Springs, MO
3. Lebanon, MO
4. Kansas City, MO
5. Butler, MO

Hmm, that one makes me sad…

5 Jobs I’ve had

1. Insulation Installer - I put the fiberglass insulation into private homes.
2. Sheetrock Grunt - Yeah, carrying sheetrock from the lumberyard to the job site.  While it was on the truck, all was good.  Other than that… not so much.
3. Work Study at the SOE - From my first day on campus here at UMKC, I’ve working in the same department.
4. Web Developer - This was a shitty job and turned me off to ever developing for other people ever again.  I still do it anyway.
5. Audio / Visual Tech - My Current position.   My actual job isn’t any like the title.

People I’ll tag.  This means you have to do this same thing:

• Tara Craven
• Evolved Rational
• My Life as Fanfiction Writer
• Peaceful Atheist

Your students are reporting to us that you are offering a non-scientific alternative to how plant and animal species evolved on earth. Many of them are quite disconcerted with what seems to be a blatant attempt to subvert scientific fact and theory with unfounded speculation, mythology and beliefs. Since we have not personally heard your presentations we cannot accurately judge what you are, in fact, presenting or what your approach to teaching science is. If there is even a whiff of creationism or intelligent design being offered as a legitimate alternative to science in your classes then that would go against the basis of the recent Dover decision in Pennsylvania (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005, Judge John E. Jones presiding).

You can read the rest over at their blog.  I realize this is an issue that goes under-reported so I feel it’s important to bring as much attention to it as possible.

The word delusion is defined as “an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.”  Given the mountains of evidence that exist in support of the theory of evolution, is it a stretch of language to call rejection of the theory a delusion?

For a special treat, check it out at the 5:55 mark to see Ben Stein stick his foot in his mouth back in August 2007.  Actually, you can watch the whole thing to see both the brilliance of Schiff and the idiocy of Stein.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/sudolife

Okay, that’s all for now!  I have more book reviews in the process, and a couple really cool EdTech papers to talk about in the near future, I hope.

Back in August, my MBP developed some hardware issues that required a visit to the Apple store.  The Kansas City Apple Store happens to be on the famous Plaza, and very near to a Barnes and Noble.  So during this time, I ended up spending a large amount of time browsing books at said store.  As I went through the store, I happened to wander over to the science & technology section where my eyes fell upon a book with a very strange title:  “Everything Bad Is Good For You.”  If that wasn’t enough to pique one’s interest, the subtitle would be: “How today’s popular culture is actually makeing us smarter.”

Needless to say (but I’ll type it anyway), I was extremely skeptical.  Never-the-less, it was a provokative enough title for me to pick it up and turn to the first few pages.  The author, Steven Johnson,  begins with a discussion about a precursor to the modern fantasy sports games.  The story was engrossing enough that I went ahead and purchased the book, and once I was home I devoured it.  I just couldn’t put it down.

Johnson describes what he calls “the sleeper curve.”  His basic argument is that popular culture requires an increasingly complex involvement by the consumer to fully enjoy.  He supports his arguments with several specific examples taken from tv shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Sopranoes” and video games like “Zelda.”  I’m not much of a popular culture participant, and was unfamiliar with all three of these, but this did not hinder my understanding of his argument.  While I had started reading the book quite skeptically, by the end, I felt like he had made a good case using the examples that he did.  However, I do think his argument benefited from a selection bias to begin with.

One of my main criticisms is how citations and the bibliography were handled.  There were no in text citations.  The bibliography contained a snippet of the text where the information was used and then the source itself.  It’s a painful way handle sources.  One nice consideration was a section on suggested further reading, however.

Overall, this is a very worth-while book, and while I’m not completely convinced by his argument, I have to agree that Johnson is certainly on to something.  Published in 2005, it is available from Amazon.com, and other retailers.

Other Book Reviews Coming Down the Pipeline:

1) The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

2) The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

3)  Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner

I realize I’m a bit behind the times, especially with gladwell’s books, but I don’t personally know anyone else who has read them.

However, I’ve been noticing a trend from Apple.  They treat their independent developers worse than microsoft does.  There is a very low barrier of entry into writing software for microsoft.  There are countless articles, podcasts, and videos available to help someone get started, but also help all levels of developer.  With Apple, it’s extremely difficult.  I’ve been on the lookout for even a book that helps someone get started in development on Leopard.  There are reference books available, and books that are targeted at earlier versions of OS X, but nothing recent.

But what brought on this most specific rant?  This posting from macworld, announcing that the videos from WWDC (the apple developers conference) had been made available on iTunes U.  That sounds awesome, and I headed over to check it out immediately.  Unfortunately, these videos are free, but only to those developers that have paid $3500+ to become an apple “premier” developer.  Compare this to say the availablility of all the Lang.NET 2008 conference videos for free. You don’t have to sign up for anything.  The videos are listed in a clean interface and you can just scroll and download.  Things can’t get much better than that when it comes to developer videos.

Come on, Apple!  Get with it!