Resurfacing with review
Observations on exams:
1. Okay, fine. Renewals and termination of transfers is rocket science. I will still test on it!
2. When the question has a female protagonist, most people use her first name. When the question has a male protagonist, most people use his last name. There’s even a correlation between people who mistake “Jo Harvelle” for a male (despite the use of the pronoun in the question) and use “Harvelle” instead of “Jo” to answer the question. Just submitted for your consideration.
3. Stop saying “arguably” or I will hurt you. Ok, I’ll just reduce your grade. Argue or do not argue; there is no arguably.
I’d say the show has jumped AWAY from the shark.
Clay Shirky, whose essays are regularly referenced by people on LJ interested in how an online community functions, Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization: Internet technologies have enabled a fundamental change in what can be done-small, cheap contributions can create enormous resources. This is a revolution, especially in low-freedom environments where the tools that I use for entertainment, such as LJ, convert easily to political uses. (For the high theory version of this, Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks says the same things, though in a less layperson-accessible way; on the other hand, you can get The Wealth of Networks free and even as a free audiobook, which just makes the point that these days there is someone willing to provide almost anything for free just out of love.)
Shirky has a blog for the book and an interesting video summarizing the book, for those who want to watch the thesis in 40 minutes. You’ll miss out on his discussion of the dangers of new methods of connecting people (for example, you might connect pro-anorexia groups who offer new sources of support for girls who want to stay sick) and his business-y conclusions about how new technologies need to match promises, tools, and bargains with users together properly to succeed. One statement I found particularly relevant and useful: “Any experiment of any importance will always have people who want it to fail. Only the systems that have defenses against such users can thrive; the assumption that those users won’t appear is an inadequate defense.” If the blog or the video sounds interesting, then reading the rest might well be worthwhile.
1. Okay, fine. Renewals and termination of transfers is rocket science. I will still test on it!
2. When the question has a female protagonist, most people use her first name. When the question has a male protagonist, most people use his last name. There’s even a correlation between people who mistake “Jo Harvelle” for a male (despite the use of the pronoun in the question) and use “Harvelle” instead of “Jo” to answer the question. Just submitted for your consideration.
3. Stop saying “arguably” or I will hurt you. Ok, I’ll just reduce your grade. Argue or do not argue; there is no arguably.
I’d say the show has jumped AWAY from the shark.
Clay Shirky, whose essays are regularly referenced by people on LJ interested in how an online community functions, Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization: Internet technologies have enabled a fundamental change in what can be done-small, cheap contributions can create enormous resources. This is a revolution, especially in low-freedom environments where the tools that I use for entertainment, such as LJ, convert easily to political uses. (For the high theory version of this, Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks says the same things, though in a less layperson-accessible way; on the other hand, you can get The Wealth of Networks free and even as a free audiobook, which just makes the point that these days there is someone willing to provide almost anything for free just out of love.)
Shirky has a blog for the book and an interesting video summarizing the book, for those who want to watch the thesis in 40 minutes. You’ll miss out on his discussion of the dangers of new methods of connecting people (for example, you might connect pro-anorexia groups who offer new sources of support for girls who want to stay sick) and his business-y conclusions about how new technologies need to match promises, tools, and bargains with users together properly to succeed. One statement I found particularly relevant and useful: “Any experiment of any importance will always have people who want it to fail. Only the systems that have defenses against such users can thrive; the assumption that those users won’t appear is an inadequate defense.” If the blog or the video sounds interesting, then reading the rest might well be worthwhile.