Annoyances

Time alone with my mind

Sherry Turkle has written an article in Forbes “Can you hear me now?” on how we are losing ourselves to our devices. She brings together images of a world first seduced by technological gadgets and then being enslaved by them.

Much of the imagery is what we have come to expect: audiences at conferences preferring email to listening, consultants networking virtually while ignoring real life, and students doing anything but listening in class.

One brilliant quote from a stressed BlackBerry abusing consultant: “I don’t have enough time alone with my mind”. Wow! What an amazing insight. I have already complained about my teaching workload this term but when I read this quote I realised what was wrong with my worklife. No wonder I am not able to do any good writing (even this blog has been erratic at best) it’s because I don’t have enough time alone with my mind. And even less time to read.

What to do? According to Turkle: To make more time means turning off our devices, disengaging from the always-on culture.

Hmm. While I am always up for a little tech-bashing I really don’t think that turning off devices is the answer.  I think my problem is that I need to stop accepting teaching engagements and other jobs for other people. It is eating all my time and leaving me empty and dissatisfied.

Posted on by mklang

Multiple Mails – Multiple Lives

Jorge Cham, of Phd comics (my favorite), has drawn an excellent strip hinting at the complexity of modern communication. Recently a colleague sent me an email (and cc it to three other of my addresses) asking me which was my “real” address. It got me thinking of how many aliases I have and how many mail accounts I run – most appear in the same inbox but not all.

All the accounts are there for a reason (or several reasons) but it does sometimes feel a bit like a case of multiple personality…

Posted on by mklang

Secret Numbers

Have you been following the recent blog craze on the topic of Digg and the HD DVD key? Basically the Digg team deleted a story that linked to the decryption key for HD DVDs after receiving a take down demand and all hell broke loose. More stories appeared and were deleted, and users posting the stories were suspended.

Naturally this just made things more exciting and the number now appears on over 50 000 websites, as a set of colors, a poem and at least one t-shirt!

Many of the blogs reporting this news have been in anguish over the fact that numbers should not be copyrightable but this is acutally missing the point. Fred von Lohmann (EFF) clarifies the situation in a neatly written post:

Is the key copyrightable? It doesn’t matter. The AACS-LA takedown letter is not claiming that the key is copyrightable, but rather that it is (or is a component of) a circumvention technology. The DMCA does not require that a circumvention technology be, itself, copyrightable to enjoy protection.

Posted on by mklang

Teaching with powerpoint

In November last year I wrote about my concerns about powerpoint misuse in an entry called do you hand out your handouts. Emeritus Prof John Sweller has presented research showing that powerpoints are not really good pedagogical tools.

Basically the human mind cannot effectively take in, process, understand and remember information which comes simultaneously from two sources. Therefore the lecture two sources of input (heavy powerpoints and the lecturer’s voice) becomes a cognitive overload for the short-term memory.

This work is part of his development of cognitive load theory (wikipedia).

Sweller writes on his website:

Cognitive load theory (e.g. Sweller, 1988; 1994) is an instructional theory generated by this field of research. It describes learning structures in terms of an information processing system involving long term memory, which effectively stores all of our knowledge and skills on a more-or-less permanent basis and working memory, which performs the intellectual tasks associated with consciousness. Information may only be stored in long term memory after first being attended to, and processed by, working memory. Working memory, however, is extremely limited in both capacity and duration. These limitations will, under some conditions, impede learning.

The fundamental tenet of cognitive load theory is that the quality of instructional design will be raised if greater consideration is given to the role and limitations, of working memory. Since its conception in the early 1980’s, cognitive load theory has been used to develop several instructional strategies which have been demonstrated empirically to be superior to those used conventionally.

Not all powerpoint is bad. For example showing a diagram and explaining its meaning is useful since it shows the same information in two different forms. These both reinforce each other.

I have never really liked powerpoints overfilled with text so now I have a reason to like them even less. The problem (as always?) lies in finding a good balance between visual aids that reinforce the message and distraction. But what really annoys me is my own dependence on powerpoint in my role as a teacher. In the long run I want to develop myself and leave technology behind.

Posted on by mklang

Social Idiocy

Historian Barbara Tuchman has written several fascinating books (many of which have been top sellers). One of her most interesting books is March of Folly (1984). In which she studies human stupidity in history.

Tuchman sets specific standards to what is to be defined as stupidity (or folly as she prefers to call it). To be understood as folly, acts have to be clearly contrary to the self-interest of the organization or group pursuing them; conducted over a period of time, not just in a single burst of irrational behavior; conducted by a number of individuals, not just one deranged maniac; and, importantly, there have to be people alive at the time who pointed out correctly why the act in question was folly (no 20/20 hindsight allowed).

Itâ??s easy to understand why this book is fascinating. We are often fed with success stories but I believe that we have more to learn from failures. Success can always be attributed to a number of vague and contradictory reasons but never really pinned down â?? success can be a result of dumb luck. Failure on the other hand can be studied.

But Tuchman has a specific type of folly in mind. My thought for today is more concerned with the stupid move the idiot idea. Not quite a total nutcase but more the act of sheer dumbness that is done unintentionally. OK so we have the Darwin Awards for those who manage to remove themselves from the gene pool and phenomenon like Jackass for pubescent humor â?? but who studies the fuck up?

What I am thinking about is the social Darwin awards. People who manage to remove themselves from a social group (friends, job, hobby) through an act of sheer dumbness.

If man is a social animal then how is it that we can be socially so inept? Sorry about this strange rant. If you are still reading this you must be wondering about my weekendâ?¦ It was very nice thanks!

Posted on by mklang

Offensive Report

Infocult writes about a report from ScanDefender which shows that 80% of the blogosphere contains “potentially offensive content,”  the majority of the medium is seen as threatening. This is the typical kind of scare tactics which is just annoying. What is it that is offensive? According to ScanDefender’s definition this is widely described as “rang[ing] from adult language to pornographic images”.

The focus of the report is on malware but it does find a small space to invoke the dangers of the blogosphere (download the report here). The whole point of the 80% offensive content seems to be only there to create a catchy headline.

Naturally there is offensive content on the Internet and also in blogs. But define your terms! What is offensive? To whom? By which objective standards? The blogosphere is huge so how did you arrive at 80%? etc, etc… The methodological questions are too many to list. Unfortunately this validity of claims such as these are not questioned – people seem to prefer the snappy headlines.

I find reports such as this offensive…

Posted on by mklang

Torture and the Future

Torture and the Future: Perspectives from the humanities ( Critical Issues in America, January 2007 – June 2007) is a companion website to an exhibition at the UC Santa Barbara. The exhibition is filled with interesting events which unfortunately all take place over there. I would have loved to listen to some of the lectures and it is unfortunate that they are not available online. However the site also contains a very good links section filled with online recommended reading and other material of interest. This alone is well worth the visit.

Posted on by mklang

Churches in Second Life

The Swedish state church is planning on establishing a parish in Second Life. Their rationale for doing this is that they want to be where people are and that they have been losing customers. The Swedish church is obviously not the first but it may be the first state church to establish itself in this virtual environment. Sheesh, the progressive church of today, huh.

Why would people go to church in second life if they don’t feel that it’s important enough to visit churches in real life?

(via Humaniorabloggen)

Posted on by mklang

Short Complaint

Urgh, I am tired. This week I am giving six lectures in four days. After the first four I feel worn out. Don’t get me wrong I love my job but I am getting tired of hearing my own voice. My legs hurt from pacing up and down the room and my brain is numb from concentrating.

When I feel like this it’s good to remember that I have an easy job…

from Age of Irony

Posted on by mklang