Jive Talkin' Choirboy

Book cover

2011-11-11T17:57:00.001-08:00

Barsoom

2011-07-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

If you recognize the reference in the Jeddak project, then you'll understand why this is exciting.

2011-02-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

Tura Satana RIP.

Nerd humor

2010-10-13T14:26:00.001-07:00

Report from Helsinki

2010-05-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

News item.

Back to the future

2010-05-15T07:19:00.001-07:00

Next stop, Helsinki...

Hypnotizing chickens

2010-04-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

The military has a powerpoint issue. My favorite quote:

Senior officers say the program does come in handy when the goal is not imparting information, as in briefings for reporters.

The news media sessions often last 25 minutes, with 5 minutes left at the end for questions from anyone still awake. Those types of PowerPoint presentations, Dr. Hammes said, are known as “hypnotizing chickens.”

Update: Good deconstruction of the article:

If, in fact, you were a reporter, rather than a royal stenographer and self-appointed Messenger to the Mighty, and you were doing an article on problems with PowerPoint presentations in the military, you would be obligated to mention Edward Tufte's famous essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint which brilliantly described how thoroughly misleading and counterproductive these cheesy slideshows can be...

But if it is stenography - and it surely is - it's stenography with a particular message. Somebody powerful - Gates? Petraeus Both? Others? - is really fed up with sitting through all the stupid fucking PowerPoint presentations and wants it reined in.

Moustache of Understanding

2010-04-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

Best. Friedman. Takedown. Ever.

It’s impossible to divorce The World is Flat from its rhetorical approach. It’s not for nothing that Thomas Friedman is called “the most important columnist in America today.” That it’s Friedman’s own colleague at the New York Times (Walter Russell Mead) calling him this, on the back of Friedman’s own book, is immaterial. Friedman is an important American. He is the perfect symbol of our culture of emboldened stupidity.

Helsinki in May

2010-03-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

Simon Dobson and I are organizing the first workshop on Programming Methods for Mobile and Pervasive Systems (PMMPS), as a satellite workshop of the Pervasive 2101 conference. We now have a preliminary program up.

Modern Web Design

2010-02-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

I am having some fun this semester teaching SOC 606 Introduction to Developing Internet Applications, one of the core courses in the SOC program. After developing some materials for a lecture on Web design, I found this very appropriate.

Well I don't blame Bill Gates, there's plenty of blame to go around.

Looking forward

2009-05-28T10:34:00.001-07:00

Gregg Vesonder gave me the idea of blogging as an adjunct to teaching. I hope some former students will come back and let me know what they're doing. I'll post occasional ruminations myself on both teaching and research. I'm coming out of a busy couple of years launching some new graduate programs. Developing those programs has given me several research ideas that I'm anxious to pursue. It's an interesting time in Computer Science. I'm convinced we are witnessing the end of the age of the desktop, and there are lots of interesting research questions to be addressed. If you're thinking of going back to graduate school to do a Ph.D., drop me a line.