Loading ...Inception, a brilliant and entertaining film, continues a trajectory begun by many others of the past decade or so (Nolan’s own Memento, Dark City, The Matrix, Strange Days, etc.). These films blur the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, the (mis)remembered, or the purely mediated, and Inception is no exception, which makes it, frankly, not [...]
Entries Tagged as 'General'
Reflections at 300
August 4th, 2010 · 1 Comment · General
According to WordPress this will be my 300th post.1 Considering that I have been doing this since May 2004, that’s not really a lot. About 4 posts/month. Many blogs reach 300 in less than a year. I am not really that concerned about volume, though. Sure, there have been times I thought I should blog [...]
All or nothing
July 7th, 2010 · 1 Comment · General
This is a weird situation where I have a short idea/complaint that is too long for twitter and too short, perhaps, for this blog, but I am putting it here anyway. David Pogue reviews David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect (which I haven’t read), in which he, Pogue, takes Kirkpatrick to task for shoddy writing [...]
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Privacy
June 23rd, 2010 · Comments Off · General
I have been struggling with the implications of the somewhat popular rebellion of Facebook users to the changes in privacy settings several weeks back, and on privacy in general. Privacy in an attention economy if fraught, as people seek publicity and community, but want to maintain privacy, a feat which has always been hard, but [...]
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Jobs
May 13th, 2010 · 2 Comments · General
I am looking for a job. An academic job. A nonacademic job. Something in the middle. Everyone in academia knows the academic job market is very tight, and this is more or less off-season for a job search anyway. But still, I scour the appropriate boards and listings, looking for, ideally, a tenure-track position, or [...]
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Why revisited
April 17th, 2010 · 3 Comments · General
I was looking through the archives of this blog, and I found a post from four years ago entitled “Why?” in which I ask grad students, current and former, why they came to grad school and whether they still think it was worth it. A healthy discussion followed. I would like to re-ask the question [...]
Tags: academia·grad school
10 tips for surviving a dissertation defense
April 9th, 2010 · 2 Comments · General
The title should probably read “How I survived my dissertation defense,” because each project is different, each committee is different, and, therefore each defense is different. Some of the advice below is from people who advised me before I defended last week, and some are from my observations once it was all over. Depending on [...]
Tags: academia·grad school
Great Lakes THAT Camp
March 21st, 2010 · 2 Comments · General
Great Lakes THAT Camp was a great success. This was my first unconference, and it really suits my style. The basic premise, as Ethan Watrall said at the end, is to put a bunch of smart people in a room and see what happens. Most people proposed topics beforehand, and in the morning of the [...]
Tags: conferences·hackacad
Reputation Management
March 14th, 2010 · 3 Comments · General
I’ve been thinking about this incident where a faculty member was suspended for remarks on her facebook page. The remarks were stupid and I won’t defend them, but this brings up the ever-present issue of the private/public divide in the workplace. Should people be punished at work for things they do on their public sites? [...]
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guyperson on I watched the Watchmen
erik on Inception and spectatorship
Molly on Inception and spectatorship
Erik Marshall on Reflections at 300
megan on All or nothing