http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Russ
She's hardly in print anymore. I think the problem she's had is that SF still tends a bit to be a genre for spotty-faced boys (or the imago form of that creature), while her work was intensely feminist. But she's well worth a read and any discomfort she might cause the adult form of the spotty-faced boy.
I'd say Wilson is over-rated by his fans and under-rated by everyone else. I have picked up his novels numerous times and rapidly get bored--but only because I've already read the stuff he's drawing on, so it's not so much fun a third or fourth time around. But if you're not an English major who's read all the various conspiracy and occult sources he plays with, you should definitely pick him up. And if you do like him, you might also branch out into Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and a whole swath of Modernist novels that play with the same ideas, including the actual original pretending-to-be-true stuff like Blavatsky's corpus or the various anti-Jacobin works "revealing" the Illuminati, Masons, Rosicrucians, etc. They are a hoot.
Yes to Simak! Some of his stuff is just brilliant, and he was pretty hot when his stuff was new, but you don't hear his name as much these days as you should, partly I think because of the cyberpunk fad.
I have to really disagree on him not being well-known outside of the Hollywood remakes. His name has been in pretty wide circulation for three decades.
It's reasonable where I live. I know it's common around the country to pull up campaign signs, but in my particular area vandalism and beatings are also common. In recent months, people have drawn guns on others over political beliefs.
I think the point is that the benefits of these beasts don't outweigh their finickiness. We didn't need an M-16. An AK-47 would do the job. And we don't need an F-22 because there's not even a job for it currently. Yet we're talking about or are phasing-out the A-10, which we clearly need. Another great example would be the B-2, which can't fly a useful number of sorties because it has to be based on the other side of the world from its targets because of its finicky maintenance demands. We were better served in Iraq by the B-52 flying 18-wheeler from the 50s, which can haul twice the payload of the B-2 and was operated from in-theater bases as well as from US bases. Granted, the B-52 is plenty complicated, but is nothing like the "Spirit." Another great example would be the obviously failed combat radio project, which ended up with a device a soldier couldn't carry, couldn't operate in anything like outdoor temps, and took a few minutes to boot up. Can't recall the name, but there was an article on Ars Technica a few weeks ago.
Oh, and feel free to lie to yourself or your parents to justify the purchase of a maxipod or what-have-you, but more often than not that gadget will just distract you. Heck, I love boring crap, and I've been in lectures by Prof. Famous Dude I Admire speaking on "Topic that Give Me a Hard-on," and I'll find myself checking Twitter or something. And I'm older and have greater impulse control than I did when I was 19-21. So I'd strongly suggest to sticking to the paper and pencil for actual real use. (I write this as a guy who installs a new ROM on his Android phone just about every month and spent two hours last night alternating between FreeCol and Civ4 Colonization trying to decide which ruleset was better. I love my gadgets, but I do think that there's a tool for every job, and that the right tool for notes is still that ancient paper technology.)
In the past my job was teaching students about note-taking. I haven't read the current research in a while, at least more than for fun, but here's the upshot as I know it. Take notes. Pencil and paper is probably best because it's the least prone to break and because it can be the most free-form. But the tool is not as important as what you do with it. Don't be slavish. Just take down the high points. Use the recto and the verso. The recto is for in-class, the "note-taking"; the verso is for after class, the "note-taking" most students don't do. This is for notes in which you interpret, summarize, and clarify. Basically it's for reprocessing and setting-up for further review. Then review material frequently at irregular intervals. In a given study session, work on the verso for that day, then review material from the same day a week ago and the same day from one month ago. Also, the best time to study is just prior to some sleep, either the night's sleep or a nap of at least 15-20 minutes. Now, in my experience, many students will respond: Oh no Dr. C____, I'm special/different/exceptional. I'll be more blunt here, in the interest of space: no you're not. At least there are no studies suggesting that any other methods than I've described are more effective. Feel free to supplement with tape-recordings, etc. But remember the main ideas of limited recording, reinterpretation, and frequent review at irregular interviews. (An added brief note: the research is building that, with very, very few exceptions, no one is a "visual" or "verbal" learner; that's mostly 70s touch-feely bullshit. But most people do learn well if they use multiple media for information storage and retrieval. This could be as simple as notes with words and diagrams. And that brings me back to the pencil and the paper.)
That old sort of joke says more about its author and those who think it's funny than it does about the humanities. Yes, there's some BS. But, having worked in the science and now being a humanities professor, I can tell you that there's BS in both. It's just that people tend to think they can or should be able to master the humanities, to, for example, walk up to a sculpture and appreciate what it's about. But sculptors tend to reference other scultors they like, shapes call out to other shapes, materials to materials and traditions of working them, etc. etc.. Certainly there was a fat wodge of bullshit in 80s decon. But that's because it was HARD and poseurs could hide out in that hardness, chatting with one another about the emperor's new Member's Only jacket. And there's been bullshit in every era of the humanities, but most often what is derided as the work of a dunce is really good stuff that just happened to be inimical to the received opinions of its day.
And I use algebra constantly. And knowledge of algebra is necessary for my spreadsheet grade books. And geometric proofs gave me some of the most pleasurable homework/classroom experiences in my K-12 education. I honestly don't think it hurts anyone, everyone, to learn algebra. Maybe calculus is taking it a bit far for _everyone_, but not everyone even takes algebra, so this guy is basically doing the high-brow version of trolling.
If anything, I'd say we need MORE math, but of a simpler, more applied variety, like calculating compound interest, household budgets, calories, bills, and so on. But the need for more simple stuff doesn't mean we don't want people to at least have a taste of higher abstract thought and fricking reasoning. God knows, we could do with more reasoning.
You are already harassing the women on your team. And something about the new hire is "special," so you think she can't "cut" the crap you boys are already dishing out. The job market is tight, and you idiots are already living on borrowed time. I'd grow up fast and learn to act like a professional and not a bunch of adolescent fools. I'm surprised HR/management hasn't already caught on to your antics and cracked the whip on your silly asses. The women shouldn't have to be slapping you down. Do you really think that they enjoy expending the extra energy it takes to fend off and/or cope with your crap?
Is alcoholism a disease independent of alcohol? I speak as one who had to pull the plug earlier today to get some work done. I was much more productive before the Internet, RSS feeds, and my smart phone. And the kids. I need to unplug them too.
You can use one of the many pw programs that can sync their encrypted databases via a service like Dropbox or some other means. I use a tool that works in Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and maybe some others (I don't use any other OS at the moment).
"Its hard to know" -- it's not a conspiracy, and it's easy to know. Just use the Google and look at legislation, funding reports, and publicly-available budget numbers. But, I can tell you, but, be warned, pull on the tinfoil hat, I'm one of those fatcat professors milking students dry to support my rockstar lifestyle. Federal and state funding is way down. The recession tanked university investments. At the same time enrollments are up. And universities are competing for students by providing amenities, like cable TV in all the dorms, new rec centers. And then there are all the requirements of increased enrollments, like new classrooms, parking, etc. Add to this the need to add computer technology to budgets, new machines, new networks, then new machines and new networks again as equipment becomes obsolete and students use the internet more and more. And there you go. The ONLY people making bank out the changes are administrators, and, yes, administrators have increased in number, and their salaries have gone up. But though all the faculty hate them, the truth is, those salaries aren't that big a difference percentage-wise (granted the new style administrators do harm in other ways, seemingly trying to run universities into the ground and eliminate as much of the educational mission as possible while they focus on "profit centers"; soon you're only be able to get a business degree, education degree, or engineering degree.)
Yeah, because that few bucks you get on a hundred dollar textbook is really worth alienating all your students. The money comes when the textbook is good enough to be adopted by other faculty at other institutions. And check this out: a professor might well write a book that he or she thinks is the best book for the class. There's also a very high incentive not to write a crappy book and look like a dumbass in front of all your colleagues.
Yes, it is an attempt to make faculty obsolete. I interviewed for a professorship at a university last year that made this perfectly clear. I was told that I would be paid a very small amount for developing an online class ($2,300), that I would be required to do so as part of my contracted workload, and that all rights would belong to the university, and that others would teach the course after I developed it. I looked more closely and noticed that people were staying at this place for 3-4 years and then getting their tenure appeal denied. See what's happening? They hire a faculty member, have her develop a few courses in her expertise, paying a pittance and demanding the rights, and then kick her out the door. (Not getting tenure is pretty much getting fired.) I know I'm a sucker; I'm a humanities professor, but I'm not that HUGE a sucker. I backed out of the final interview.
In the United States, at public institutions, students are not paying customers, really. That's because, even after 30 years of cuts in public funding for education, the education at public universities and colleges is still mostly paid by the taxpayer. That's changing, slowly. Soon we'll be back to the good old days when only the wealthy can afford to pay or risk the crushing loan debt. Keep voting for "fiscal conservatives" so that we can more swiftly reach that new Gilded Age.
I don't know where you worked, but your statement doesn't reflect my years of experience teaching at four different universities and one community college. Every higher-ed institution I've worked at, attended, or considered as an employer had a bookstore that was run by an external vendor. The money from the books doesn't go back to the institution. There is sometimes a sort of kickback deal where a percentage of sales will go back to a specific department. I and many other _professors_ consider that shady, and we don't like it, but it's often thrust upon us. At my current institution we just got out of a contract that had such a provision, and we're glad to be out of it. The sort of publisher who needs to offer you kickbacks is not the type providing a good product. By the way, we used the kickbacks to buy photocopier paper and some computers for the honors students' program; we didn't otherwise have the funding. On the issue of "Pell Grant farming" and programs fitting available funding, hell yes that's happening. What do you want to do? Pay higher tuition instead? Every school I've worked at in the last few years has been shedding instructional faculty because we don't have money. Enrollments are up, demands on us for tech, parking, new buildings, entertainment in the dorms, those are all up. But state and federal funding has dropped steadily for 30 years. Our endowments and investments tanked in the "great recession." So where are we going to turn? We'll jack up tuition as much as we can without cutting enrollments, and we'll "farm" what little public money is left.
Keep in mind that "they" is not the faculty member. It's the publisher. The publishers sucker faculty into these deals with promises that aren't kept. For example one major publisher told my department two years ago that if the department signed a two-year contract, they'd get this wonderful system with grade tracking, self-grading exercises, wonderful textbooks, an integrated clicker system, and all of it would integrate with Blackboard and our online grade entry system. All we had to do was require our students to buy an expensive text with one of these serial numbers you use to log into the fabulous educational wonderland that the publisher was providing. So we did that. And very little of that online stuff worked, and the publisher's rep couldn't do anything about it but wave her hands around and make empty promises. So I contacted a friend in the industry, who works for a competing publisher, and he told me that this is pretty common across the board, even in his company. And that the idea is "vertical integration" and that the end goal is moving all the content--including faculty content--to packages the publishers can sell. I could continue to rant about this, but I will only say that our department dropped this previous publisher like a hot rock this year when the contract expired, and we're no longer using any books that come with these phony baloney serial numbers, and the texts we're requiring all cost about half of the one from that previous publisher.
I've looked through textbooks in english and composition, and they're not very useful because so much of what you teach is protected in some way. And the sort of things that can be published, grammar guides and such, still aren't all that great. This area of endeavor is in its infancy. And I'm glad to see so many younger people interested in it. I look forward to seeing you all invest your time and energy in helping to produce high-quality, open access instructional materials.
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Russ She's hardly in print anymore. I think the problem she's had is that SF still tends a bit to be a genre for spotty-faced boys (or the imago form of that creature), while her work was intensely feminist. But she's well worth a read and any discomfort she might cause the adult form of the spotty-faced boy.
I'd say Wilson is over-rated by his fans and under-rated by everyone else. I have picked up his novels numerous times and rapidly get bored--but only because I've already read the stuff he's drawing on, so it's not so much fun a third or fourth time around. But if you're not an English major who's read all the various conspiracy and occult sources he plays with, you should definitely pick him up. And if you do like him, you might also branch out into Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and a whole swath of Modernist novels that play with the same ideas, including the actual original pretending-to-be-true stuff like Blavatsky's corpus or the various anti-Jacobin works "revealing" the Illuminati, Masons, Rosicrucians, etc. They are a hoot.
Yes to Simak! Some of his stuff is just brilliant, and he was pretty hot when his stuff was new, but you don't hear his name as much these days as you should, partly I think because of the cyberpunk fad.
I have to really disagree on him not being well-known outside of the Hollywood remakes. His name has been in pretty wide circulation for three decades.
It's reasonable where I live. I know it's common around the country to pull up campaign signs, but in my particular area vandalism and beatings are also common. In recent months, people have drawn guns on others over political beliefs.
I think the point is that the benefits of these beasts don't outweigh their finickiness. We didn't need an M-16. An AK-47 would do the job. And we don't need an F-22 because there's not even a job for it currently. Yet we're talking about or are phasing-out the A-10, which we clearly need. Another great example would be the B-2, which can't fly a useful number of sorties because it has to be based on the other side of the world from its targets because of its finicky maintenance demands. We were better served in Iraq by the B-52 flying 18-wheeler from the 50s, which can haul twice the payload of the B-2 and was operated from in-theater bases as well as from US bases. Granted, the B-52 is plenty complicated, but is nothing like the "Spirit." Another great example would be the obviously failed combat radio project, which ended up with a device a soldier couldn't carry, couldn't operate in anything like outdoor temps, and took a few minutes to boot up. Can't recall the name, but there was an article on Ars Technica a few weeks ago.
Oh, and feel free to lie to yourself or your parents to justify the purchase of a maxipod or what-have-you, but more often than not that gadget will just distract you. Heck, I love boring crap, and I've been in lectures by Prof. Famous Dude I Admire speaking on "Topic that Give Me a Hard-on," and I'll find myself checking Twitter or something. And I'm older and have greater impulse control than I did when I was 19-21. So I'd strongly suggest to sticking to the paper and pencil for actual real use. (I write this as a guy who installs a new ROM on his Android phone just about every month and spent two hours last night alternating between FreeCol and Civ4 Colonization trying to decide which ruleset was better. I love my gadgets, but I do think that there's a tool for every job, and that the right tool for notes is still that ancient paper technology.)
In the past my job was teaching students about note-taking. I haven't read the current research in a while, at least more than for fun, but here's the upshot as I know it. Take notes. Pencil and paper is probably best because it's the least prone to break and because it can be the most free-form. But the tool is not as important as what you do with it. Don't be slavish. Just take down the high points. Use the recto and the verso. The recto is for in-class, the "note-taking"; the verso is for after class, the "note-taking" most students don't do. This is for notes in which you interpret, summarize, and clarify. Basically it's for reprocessing and setting-up for further review. Then review material frequently at irregular intervals. In a given study session, work on the verso for that day, then review material from the same day a week ago and the same day from one month ago. Also, the best time to study is just prior to some sleep, either the night's sleep or a nap of at least 15-20 minutes. Now, in my experience, many students will respond: Oh no Dr. C____, I'm special/different/exceptional. I'll be more blunt here, in the interest of space: no you're not. At least there are no studies suggesting that any other methods than I've described are more effective. Feel free to supplement with tape-recordings, etc. But remember the main ideas of limited recording, reinterpretation, and frequent review at irregular interviews. (An added brief note: the research is building that, with very, very few exceptions, no one is a "visual" or "verbal" learner; that's mostly 70s touch-feely bullshit. But most people do learn well if they use multiple media for information storage and retrieval. This could be as simple as notes with words and diagrams. And that brings me back to the pencil and the paper.)
That old sort of joke says more about its author and those who think it's funny than it does about the humanities. Yes, there's some BS. But, having worked in the science and now being a humanities professor, I can tell you that there's BS in both. It's just that people tend to think they can or should be able to master the humanities, to, for example, walk up to a sculpture and appreciate what it's about. But sculptors tend to reference other scultors they like, shapes call out to other shapes, materials to materials and traditions of working them, etc. etc.. Certainly there was a fat wodge of bullshit in 80s decon. But that's because it was HARD and poseurs could hide out in that hardness, chatting with one another about the emperor's new Member's Only jacket. And there's been bullshit in every era of the humanities, but most often what is derided as the work of a dunce is really good stuff that just happened to be inimical to the received opinions of its day.
And I use algebra constantly. And knowledge of algebra is necessary for my spreadsheet grade books. And geometric proofs gave me some of the most pleasurable homework/classroom experiences in my K-12 education. I honestly don't think it hurts anyone, everyone, to learn algebra. Maybe calculus is taking it a bit far for _everyone_, but not everyone even takes algebra, so this guy is basically doing the high-brow version of trolling. If anything, I'd say we need MORE math, but of a simpler, more applied variety, like calculating compound interest, household budgets, calories, bills, and so on. But the need for more simple stuff doesn't mean we don't want people to at least have a taste of higher abstract thought and fricking reasoning. God knows, we could do with more reasoning.
Yeah, because the answer to sexual harassment is more sexual harassment. This is workplace, not Carnival.
You are already harassing the women on your team. And something about the new hire is "special," so you think she can't "cut" the crap you boys are already dishing out. The job market is tight, and you idiots are already living on borrowed time. I'd grow up fast and learn to act like a professional and not a bunch of adolescent fools. I'm surprised HR/management hasn't already caught on to your antics and cracked the whip on your silly asses. The women shouldn't have to be slapping you down. Do you really think that they enjoy expending the extra energy it takes to fend off and/or cope with your crap?
Is alcoholism a disease independent of alcohol? I speak as one who had to pull the plug earlier today to get some work done. I was much more productive before the Internet, RSS feeds, and my smart phone. And the kids. I need to unplug them too.
Forgot to mention browser plug-ins for all Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera (those are the only browsers I use).
You can use one of the many pw programs that can sync their encrypted databases via a service like Dropbox or some other means. I use a tool that works in Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and maybe some others (I don't use any other OS at the moment).
Let's apply it to search algorithms!
What's with the comma in the second example?
Among other things, you're missing wind and the rotation of the earth. The Pacific ocean is about 20cm higher than the Atlantic. Science is fun!
"Its hard to know" -- it's not a conspiracy, and it's easy to know. Just use the Google and look at legislation, funding reports, and publicly-available budget numbers. But, I can tell you, but, be warned, pull on the tinfoil hat, I'm one of those fatcat professors milking students dry to support my rockstar lifestyle. Federal and state funding is way down. The recession tanked university investments. At the same time enrollments are up. And universities are competing for students by providing amenities, like cable TV in all the dorms, new rec centers. And then there are all the requirements of increased enrollments, like new classrooms, parking, etc. Add to this the need to add computer technology to budgets, new machines, new networks, then new machines and new networks again as equipment becomes obsolete and students use the internet more and more. And there you go. The ONLY people making bank out the changes are administrators, and, yes, administrators have increased in number, and their salaries have gone up. But though all the faculty hate them, the truth is, those salaries aren't that big a difference percentage-wise (granted the new style administrators do harm in other ways, seemingly trying to run universities into the ground and eliminate as much of the educational mission as possible while they focus on "profit centers"; soon you're only be able to get a business degree, education degree, or engineering degree.)
Yeah, because that few bucks you get on a hundred dollar textbook is really worth alienating all your students. The money comes when the textbook is good enough to be adopted by other faculty at other institutions. And check this out: a professor might well write a book that he or she thinks is the best book for the class. There's also a very high incentive not to write a crappy book and look like a dumbass in front of all your colleagues.
Yes, it is an attempt to make faculty obsolete. I interviewed for a professorship at a university last year that made this perfectly clear. I was told that I would be paid a very small amount for developing an online class ($2,300), that I would be required to do so as part of my contracted workload, and that all rights would belong to the university, and that others would teach the course after I developed it. I looked more closely and noticed that people were staying at this place for 3-4 years and then getting their tenure appeal denied. See what's happening? They hire a faculty member, have her develop a few courses in her expertise, paying a pittance and demanding the rights, and then kick her out the door. (Not getting tenure is pretty much getting fired.) I know I'm a sucker; I'm a humanities professor, but I'm not that HUGE a sucker. I backed out of the final interview.
In the United States, at public institutions, students are not paying customers, really. That's because, even after 30 years of cuts in public funding for education, the education at public universities and colleges is still mostly paid by the taxpayer. That's changing, slowly. Soon we'll be back to the good old days when only the wealthy can afford to pay or risk the crushing loan debt. Keep voting for "fiscal conservatives" so that we can more swiftly reach that new Gilded Age.
I don't know where you worked, but your statement doesn't reflect my years of experience teaching at four different universities and one community college. Every higher-ed institution I've worked at, attended, or considered as an employer had a bookstore that was run by an external vendor. The money from the books doesn't go back to the institution. There is sometimes a sort of kickback deal where a percentage of sales will go back to a specific department. I and many other _professors_ consider that shady, and we don't like it, but it's often thrust upon us. At my current institution we just got out of a contract that had such a provision, and we're glad to be out of it. The sort of publisher who needs to offer you kickbacks is not the type providing a good product. By the way, we used the kickbacks to buy photocopier paper and some computers for the honors students' program; we didn't otherwise have the funding. On the issue of "Pell Grant farming" and programs fitting available funding, hell yes that's happening. What do you want to do? Pay higher tuition instead? Every school I've worked at in the last few years has been shedding instructional faculty because we don't have money. Enrollments are up, demands on us for tech, parking, new buildings, entertainment in the dorms, those are all up. But state and federal funding has dropped steadily for 30 years. Our endowments and investments tanked in the "great recession." So where are we going to turn? We'll jack up tuition as much as we can without cutting enrollments, and we'll "farm" what little public money is left.
Keep in mind that "they" is not the faculty member. It's the publisher. The publishers sucker faculty into these deals with promises that aren't kept. For example one major publisher told my department two years ago that if the department signed a two-year contract, they'd get this wonderful system with grade tracking, self-grading exercises, wonderful textbooks, an integrated clicker system, and all of it would integrate with Blackboard and our online grade entry system. All we had to do was require our students to buy an expensive text with one of these serial numbers you use to log into the fabulous educational wonderland that the publisher was providing. So we did that. And very little of that online stuff worked, and the publisher's rep couldn't do anything about it but wave her hands around and make empty promises. So I contacted a friend in the industry, who works for a competing publisher, and he told me that this is pretty common across the board, even in his company. And that the idea is "vertical integration" and that the end goal is moving all the content--including faculty content--to packages the publishers can sell. I could continue to rant about this, but I will only say that our department dropped this previous publisher like a hot rock this year when the contract expired, and we're no longer using any books that come with these phony baloney serial numbers, and the texts we're requiring all cost about half of the one from that previous publisher.
I've looked through textbooks in english and composition, and they're not very useful because so much of what you teach is protected in some way. And the sort of things that can be published, grammar guides and such, still aren't all that great. This area of endeavor is in its infancy. And I'm glad to see so many younger people interested in it. I look forward to seeing you all invest your time and energy in helping to produce high-quality, open access instructional materials.