Internet Sports

I was at school working on lots of stuff (as you can see from the screen shot). The US Open playoff was streaming live online, and I couldn't keep away. I wasn't the only one.



Here are some comments from people watching the US Open playoff on their computers at work:

“If IT shuts this down, I will suddenly develop the 12 hour flu.” Justin, CA --- “The magnificence of this website is only eclipsed by the wonder of this live feed.” Timmy, IN --- “This is awesome! Thanks IBM and USGA for the feed. Watching on dual monitors :) Go Tiger!!” Michael, TX --- “Boss just walked in on me......he asked for the website address.” Obee, MD --- “Thanks USGA. I thought I was going to have to go home "sick" today.” Homer, AZ --- “I know I’m not the only one with my mouse over a fake spreadsheet document.” matt, MA --- “Love the raw feed with the pacific blue, misty La Jolla cliffs instead of commercials...nice!” Tim --- “The internet - man's greatest achievement.” Mark, AZ --- “The first time I have never had a case of the Mondays. Thanks USGA.” Matthew, FL --- “Thank you USGA, this is simply the best day of work I have ever had! juan, MA --- “Get to work Mr. Pierce, this is your BOSS!!!!!” David, NC --- “Thanks. Sent link to the boss and got a "That a boy"” Jason, WA --- “I haven't wasted this much time at work since Friday.” Bill, VA.

Have you ever heard such effusive praise for the Internet machine? Productivity, what? (All joking aside, it really was pretty amazing to watch online. During televised commercials, the camera cut away to a live feed of the California coast. And what a tournament to watch; Mediate was awesome, but Tiger…well.)

What's in your bag?

I'm not sure how I first ran accross these photos (probably from someone researching networked space and images or something). At any rate, there is a flikr group devoted to showing the world the contents of their bags. This group has over 10,000 members. Yes, 10,000. People from around the world spill out the contents of their bags and snap a photo. Some people are very organized in the presentation of their bric-a-brac. Others, not so much. When I got my new timbuk2 bag in the mail the other day, I thought I'd better snap a few pictures to show the world. I then searched the "What's in your bag?" group for timbuk2 bags, and wouldn't you know it? No one had a D.W. doll stuffed into an oatmeal box or fake keys in their bag. And no one had a sweet Elayna Mae in a bag either.





And one more thing...since my bag is technically a messenger bag, I couldn't help commenting on Chicago's crazy bike messengers (and bikers in general). The other day I was crossing the street downtown, when a bike messenger darted through oncoming traffic to cut a corner. I guess it must be thrilling to be on the edge like that, and this probably the reason these bike people were excited to get this law passed last year. It requires drivers to yield three feet to bikers. Three feet. And that's a victory.

US Open

Today marks the beginning of another US Open in golf. (I'm more of a US Open tennis fan, but oh well.) Anyhow, both tournaments, the one with clubs and the one with racquets, have been going for over 100 years. I wanted to mention it today because of its location in SoCal this year. Torrey Pines Golf Course is near San Diego and actually sits in La Jolla. (I went to school at Biola University in La Mirada, about ninety minutes or so north of San Diego.) When I was a freshman, we went down to La Jolla a few times (making the trip in about sixty minutes; oh, the idiocy of youth). We have a number of crazy stories and pictures to go with them; the stories I won't repeat and the pictures I can't find. Later, I took my future bride to a super-expensive dinner at George's At the Cove (I think we're still paying for it). At any rate, I guess I'm just reminiscing.

For all you golf geeks, you can keep track of the current leaders here. The current leaderboard says Rocco Mediate is ahead at 4 under, while Tiger is 1 under and Mickelson is 3 over. You can evn watch Tiger and Phil live online. That's a little bit eerie.

digital words

Did you know how cool the Internet is? It's really amazing! I can send letters to people electronically without paying for a stamp! It's like magic! And did you know I can surf the 'Net and see pictures of places other people took -- people I don't even know! I even heard someone talk about chatting online with people all the way across the world! I can't believe it. It's hocus pocus, but I'm SO addicted. (I go to sleep at about 4 a.m. every night.)

Do you remember being like this? Unfortunately, I do. But as advanced as technology is these days, there are still times when I think to myself, "self, this Internet thing is pretty awesome." [CAUTION: this is the point where you want to stop reading; my geekiness is about to ooze. I WARNED YOU.] So, I've told the story to my students many times. I try to wow them with my love for research by telling about when I was writing my masters thesis. I could be found in the JFK Library, pushing a cart full of books around like a transient with a shopping cart, searching for that final source, the final point that would bring my whole thesis together. (I'm not sure I ever found it...) That was only three years ago, all that pushing a cart full of books business. How old fashioned.

Now, in 2008, I get frustrated if I even have to get up out of my chair and leave my apartment. It used to be that a person could find academic articles online, but books had to be found, touched, checked out, and carried away in a bag. Nowadays, I get those "Wow Internet!" moments when I search for a topic online and find myself looking through the pages of a book. A real, live, hard cover, full-of-pages kind of book. Here's an example.

Say I'm writing a paper on The Yellow Wallpaper, and I need to find the part that mentioned a certain word, say "arabesque" (I know, random). I'll head to everyone's favorite page, Google Books and search for the full version of the book. There, I did it. Once I'm at the about page, I just type in the word "arabesque" and it tells me which page it's on. Now I know what I wanted to know, and it took just a click, click, click. You probably noticed that you can download the whole book in .pdf format too. (Only old books can be found in full versions, but newer books often have limited previews.) It's crazy, some people work full time thinking about how digital media like this will change print sources.

Suffice it to say, I'm spoiled. I don't even go to the library anymore. But when I'm on campus, I go to the Information Commons (a library without books). It's funny how I whine when I have to go to the library and check out an actual book, but I'm now happy to trudge through the Chicago wind to sit in a building with computers -- computers that help me find things I surely could have found at home, sitting in my recliner with the laptop on my lap.

Reality Check

I hate to state the obvious. But McCain really
doesn't
have
a
c
h
a
n
c
e.
I generally don't enter political discussions, so I won't discuss.
I'll just compare.

Google You

I've been online for something like 12 years now. I remember logging in on ancient library computers my junior and senior years of high school (using a 14.4 dial-up modem!). Since then, I've had a number of now defunct webpages and blogs, most of which are untraceable even by the Wayback Machine (look at Google way back when). I bring this up just to say it can be interesting to see what's out there in cyberspace about you. One thing I didn't realize, is that I was really good at football in high school! Also, someone mentioned a presentation I did last year on their blog...kinda surprising. Finally, I never knew I had any financial savvy or lived in Utah! (One of these links is not like the others...) Take a look, I bet there's something out there you didn't know about you!

Me & MIT

I thought these pictures were amusing, especially since we were in Boston not too long ago. If you look at the three black and white pictures, you can't help but notice the crazy building. That's the MIT Stata Center. Here's a picture some guy took. And here's mine. (OK, so we didn't actually get off the trolley to go see it.) Perhaps subconsciously, I didn't want to go see the building up-close because MIT is SO different than any school I have ever attended. I know at least one guy who is smart enough to go there, but he decided to stay out west where the sun shines more. Oh well, I'll stick with English and the not-so-fancy-pants kinds of schools.

iWanna iPhone

Well, I'll take one from you if you're giving it away. I'm certainly not gonna fork out the $500 to $600 dollars they cost - let alone the 2 year contract required. (We usually get the cheapest possible cell plan, you know...the one with a free phone.) Anyhow, today's Rocketboom got me interested in the arrival of Apple's iPhone. They go on sale tomorrow night at 6 PM, and people in NY have been in line since Monday. Just plain crazy. Anyhow, it got me wondering what was going on here in Chicago. Apparently, there was no line at the Michigan Ave. store this morning. There are five locations within about half an hour of our apartment in Rogers Park, so it seems that no one felt the need to start standing in line on Monday. Even so, according to one forum over at MacRumors, there are people planning to wait in line tonight, whether there's a need for it or not (at the time of this posting, there were 72 messages in the thread and at least 2 people staying out overnight). There are even moms offering to stand in line for those of us who actually have to go to work during the day. But whatever ends up happening in the next 29 hours, one thing is certain: Apple knows how to create a marketing frenzy.

And on a completely different note, here's an article by literary theorist Terry Eagleton on how Mikhail Bakhtin liked to - among other things - use his theoretical manuscripts to roll cigarettes.

In other news...

How do you stay informed? To begin with, I'd like to say that I'm not particularly well informed. Unless you're talking about ninjas. Or very small newts. Or perhaps about the people outside my window who are playing their acoustic guitar and yelling impromtu song lyrics. Other than those things, I'm pretty uninformed, but I thought I might pass along a few news pages that I've come across lately. I generally don't check in on CNN or FOXNEWS or whatever other big news pages people read. They seems a little depressing...or maybe it's sterile. I like to hear human responses to what's going on...usually humorous human responses. So, I came across The Morning News about five years ago. They have the daily headlines on the right-hand side of the page, and they often make me chuckle. They're on vacation or something right now, though. So the news is old and dry. I came across another interesting page a few weeks ago. It's called Arts & Letters Daily. It's put out by some academic types, but the links are on diverse topics. Also, they have a whole slew of interesting links to check out. I also subscribe to flavorpill. They send out emails once a week with current happenings and whatever. But since I scoff at the idea of staying out later than about 9:30 at night, I tend not to go to the events they talk about. Yet, they do have a weekly world news page that is interesting. It's called Activate, and it hits the high points of what's going on. Finally, here's a few other pages I'm still not sure will make it into my daily surfing or not: Rocketboom and First Things. And now you've read about a few places I like...so what am I missing? What do you read?

Beantown

We are getting ready to head out to Boston on Wednesday. I'm presenting at the Popular Culture Conference there, so we decided to try and see some sights as a family while we're there. Our family loves baseball, so I'm sure we'll tour Fenway. We'll also try to see some historic places...you know like the bar for Cheers. Btw, we lived in Moses Lake, WA for a few years, which is on Interstate 90. This highway runs from Seattle to Boston, and I drove much of it on my way out to Chicago in August. We're flying, so we won't be seeing the rest of the road...just the end of it.

Anyway, I'm writing a paper on college students and Facebook. I'll let you know how it goes.

Need a mindless distraction?

Then check out my old friend in the lab coat at willitblend.com. I've only seen a couple of these, but that blender can do some damage. You can also track down these videos on YouTube. I especially like the iPod, the glow sticks, and the plunger, but then again, I haven't seen them all. Which ones make you wanna blend?

Online Worlds

Today I put a nice lady into an uncomfortable situation. I was doing a presentation on Internet Technology, focusing on social networking sites and virtual worlds. I asked for a volunteer to take over on the computer so she could chat in a virtual space for the rest of us to watch. She gingerly sat down at the computer, and hesitantly touched the keyboard as if it had just been sprayed with a squirt bottle full of germ water. She typed "hello," and after that was off and running (literally, well, literally in the virtual sense). I know how she felt, though. Trying a new technology in an atmosphere where there are a lot of people who know how to use it is hard (the rest of us weren't experts, just the 400,000 or so other people who use the virtual world - in this case, There.com). I wonder some day if traditional online courses will be supplemented with "in world" classrooms where we all login as our avatar and take our seats in a virtual desk (this video is LONG...I only listened to about a minute of it before I wanted to make the narrator stop talking).

Also, my presentation's main focus was how Social Justice relates to online experiences. I had some of my students login to virtual worlds as people of different genders and races, and it offered them the opportunity to experience - in some real sense - a few moments under a different identity than their own. From the responses that they wrote, it seems like it really affected some of them.

technology and social connection

So if you're super cool like me and spend a lot of time thinking about how crazy and convoluted our media world is getting, then you've probably heard of a guy named Henry Jenkins. If you haven't heard of him, then pinch yourself...you're still normal. (All pinching aside, I've reached the point where i have no choice but to embrace my inner geek.) One of the terms that Henry Jenkins coined, and the way I got interested in him originally, is "transmedia storytelling," but this is a topic for another day.

A topic that I'd like to mention briefly here, is what Jenkins calls "tele-cocooning." He mentions the example of Japanese youth who stay connected with wireless devices ALL THE TIME. In the academic article (everyone's favorite genre) Jenkins uses, the authors illustrate how students actually become closer to one another as a result of the technology, even though technology often seems more like a buffer between traditional face-to-face interaction. All of this to say: hey kids! tell your parents that text messages actually help you foster lasting relationships with your friends. If they scoff, print the stuffy article I've linked to, put it under their pillows, and write in small, humble letters: "this is just a little something I ran across the other day."

Social Networking Sites

Are you on MySpace? Do you have Facebook? Perhaps your like to share photos on Flickr. I know some people who are on Friendster, but I haven't heard much buzz about it. Also, there's the ubiquitous Classmates page that everyone's seen the ads for. What's your fancy?

Perhaps you haven't heard of any of these (in which case you should try hooking your TV up again because MySpace has been featured in news stories time and again, if only to scare parents of teenagers into screening their kids' internet use). But, I wouldn't worry if you've only heard of MySpace and Classmates, say. Even so, Internet savvy people should have at least a passing familiarity with the name of these webpages: "social networking sites."

I'm currently in the process of writing a few papers on the topic, with the specific purpose of seeing how the use of social networking sites can be helpful/detrimental to (roughly) college age students. At any rate, I'll post on issues about Internet Society from time to time. Check back if you're interested.