12 Jun 2013 @22:28 — Filed in:
TechnologyOne of my most popular blog posts explained how to remove @replies from a stream of tweets embedded on a website. I wrote it on March 31, 2012, and it’s been relevant ever since.
Until yesterday, when Twitter shut down their v1 APIs.
So here’s how to achieve the same result under the new v1.1 APIs. It’s much simpler than I would have expected.
Full Post…Tags: Information Delivery
06 Jun 2013 @07:58 — Filed in:
Teaching | TechnologyStandardized testing and an educational process formed during the Industrial Revolution have led to a view of students, particularly in K-12 education, of students as cogs in a mechanized wheel, there to do the same thing everyone else does, to achieve the same goals, and to write the same way. By the time our students get to our first-year composition courses, many have had any individuality in their writing and thinking stripped away. In this post, I turn to massive open online courses—MOOCs—for some inspiration to reform our on-ground classes and resist the mechanization of our students.
Full Post…Tags: MOOC
03 Jun 2013 @09:14 — Filed in:
Technology | HacksWhen a structure like a residence has a gate built around it, the gate exists to give the impression of limited access and create the pretense of privilege. However, as the number of people living behind that gate increases, the selectivity of access decreases, not just because more people are supposed to have unlimited access, but those people have guests, deliveries, etc. And unless the gates are a really quick variety, tailgaters often accompany authorized entrants on a routine basis. Because the gate at my complex is one of the slow ones, I only get notified from the call box with about a third of the times someone arrives. Because “buzzing people in” is a nice notification of someone’s arrival but can also be a hassle for both guest and resident, I wanted a solution that automated access and still notified me, without requiring my immediate action. Here’s how I used Google Voice to simplify the process of admitting guests through an entrance gate.
Full Post…31 May 2013 @20:31 — Filed in:
CommentaryI’ve spent the past week visiting London, Paris, and Rome on a whirlwind tour that was far more relaxing than I had expected. I was traveling with a friend who is quite frankly an obsessive planner. By contrast, I’m a very go-with-the-flow sort of person. As I was packing for the trip, I had visions of my carefree attitude leading my travel companion to panic. I was ready to step up the reassurances and be comfortable with detailed preparations for what I thought should be decided on the fly. Thankfully, none of that happened, and we settled into a comfortable balance almost immediately.
This is a classic case of differing temperaments, directly in line with the “judging” vs. “perceiving” traits of the infamous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Indeed, the way people handle travel is one of the key indicators used by the survey instrument to help identify a person’s J/P temperament. As I began my travels home (a rather convoluted path that involved four airports, three languages, and a hotel stay), I decided to start in on Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Several friends had recommended that I read this book, knowing how much I value my alone time. Looking at my international journey in light of the introversion/extroversion temperament has made me re-examine my views on crowds, travel, and even drinking.
Full Post…Tags: Personality Types
19 May 2013 @10:22 — Filed in:
CommentaryThe new Star Trek movie came out this weekend, and, being the loyal Trekker drone that I am, I obligingly visited my local theater to check it out. I’ve been a Trek fan for years, and I was thrilled with the way the 2009 reboot handled the franchise. I was curious to see how the new version would handle itself after it successfully established itself essentially as a spinoff with the previous film. Overall, I thought the movie was excellent. But that last issue—of being a separate entity from the original show—served as an Achilles’ Heel at the wrong times in this iteration, rather than as an effective or endearing hand-off.
This blog post departs from my normal focus on writing and education as I indulge in a bit of movie review. While I don’t intend to include explicit spoilers below, if you like the mystery created by the trailers, I won’t be able to preserve that level of vagueness throughout.
Full Post…Tags: Star Trek, Movies
24 Apr 2013 @12:54 — Filed in:
TechnologyRecent conversations about data loss—both potential and actual—revealed that many people treat dissertation research data the same way they treat anything else on their computers. This can be problematic when sensitive, personally identifiable information is included with the dataset.
In this post, I review basic principles for effective backup management and suggest some noteworthy points relevant to research projects.
Full Post… 
