Watch This Space (A Marathon Day of Video Posting)

So, when I finished last semester, I still had chapters 8-17 and a few smaller pieces still not uploaded from my research project. After my awesome summer internship I will be presenting my work on pfour at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Technology and need to get the rest of the videos up. So. Here goes my 12 hour day of video uploading. Every time I get a new video up on YouTube, I will post it here. Watch out!

Update, 2:26pm. First video up! It’s “Birches” by Robert Frost

Update, 2:56pm: Second video up! It’s “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost

Update, 4:22pm. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. Enjoy!

Update, 6:19pm. Parts 1 and 2 of Peter Pan, Chapter 8 are up!

Update, 6:37pm. Part 3 of chapter 8 of Peter Pan is up.

Money quote: “To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

Update, 6:42pm. All of chapter 9 is up (this sudden bursts of uploads has more to do with queuing than huge jumps of productivity ).

This is one of the quirkiest in all of J.M. Barrie’s quirky book. In it, the Never Bird saves Peter and Wendy from drowning by letting them use her nest as a boat. It shows Peter at his most transcendental. Enjoy!

Update, 7:32pm. Part 1 of Chapter 10 is up. It’s missing a bit–go to the YouTube page for the text of the missing parts. Part 2 is on its way.

Update, 7:45pm. Here it is!

Update, 8:06pm. Here is chapter 11, parts 1 and 2″

Update, 8:55pm. Here’s Chapter 12, parts 1 and 12:

Update, 10:11pm. Parts 1 and 2 of Chapter 13 are up:

Update, 10:15pm. Parts 1 and 2 of chapter 14 are up. Horray!

Update, 10:54pm. Both parts of Chapter 15 (“Hook or Me This Time!”) are up!

Update, 10:58pm. Sad update. I cannot find Chapter 16. But you can read it here. Coming up is one of the most bittersweet chapters in all of children’s literature. The final chapter of Peter Pan.

Update, 11:04pm. Last chapter *sigh of relief*. Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Chapter 17 of Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie

I spent 9 hours working on these videos today, and I still feel jazzed. I love creating defined objects that will be used, that help people access things I love. I love it. Time for sleep.

Inspirational Quote:

A hundred ten in the shade is sorta hot, but you don’t have to shovel it off your driveway. ~Author Unknown

p4 has Gifts of the Magi Up!

[This post is from my research project blog, pfour]

This is a story I have always associated with Christmas. It is a set of sad images of monetary (but certainly not spiritual) poverty. Ripe with gender stereotypes, and other problematic images. But to me, the story rises above its assumed norms–it rises to a story of sweet sacrifice. It is quite romantic.

It is quite dark (lighting-wise)–I learned about settings on the camera after filming this .

Here is the podcast of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”. And below is the YouTube video. Because of YouTube’s strict 10-minute only requirement, I had to split the video up into 2 parts. Enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2:

When the Web Connects our World, and Defines It

I’ll admit it: I am a pack-rat. I horde well-written articles (and sometimes websites). I keep them in tabs on Firefox, sometimes by the dozen.

Just like any other pack-rat, when I leave a tab open, I’m always thinking “I’m sure I will find a way to use that soon”. Sometimes I never do, and eventually I have to close the tab (or Firefox quits and refuses to save them for me anyway).

This is not one of those days. These two articles and a website are all great examples about how the Web communicates conversations while it is re-defining us.

• This one speaks to the true intrusion of Gmail into many of our lives.
• This one speaks to the power of the Internet to connect: it is a website where you can pay 30 euros (around 40 US) to have a Palestinian artist tag the dividing wall with any message you like (as long as it is not hateful).
• And this one I found through the Colbert Report–it is Sandra Day O’Connor’s foray into Web-based educational resources on the judiciary. So cool.

So, here are three tabs I can close, what a relief. Speaking of ways the web connects our world and defines it.

Inspirational Quote:

“I get a lot of people complaining about my ambiguity, often in cases which there is nothing ambigous at all. As far as I can see, people read it when they were half stoned and listening to the TV. Then they come back and say gee, it’s impossible to figure out what’s going on in a story.” –Gene Wolfe

Rules for Commenting (or, a Lesson in Internet Etiquette)

Recently there was a bit of drama on the feelingelephants comments. People don’t leave many comments, so this was a bit of a surprise. Even more of a surprise was how uncivil the poster was. A brief chronology of the event exists below, but first, I would like to summarize the rules which I created in reaction to the ugly behavior of that one commenter:

-Ad hominem attacks are not permitted.
-Profanity is rarely useful, but is un-prohibited.
-Opposing views discussed politely are permitted.
-Crudeness is rarely useful, but is permitted as long as it is not obscene.

I figure these are the loosest rules I could tolerate, and so were a good first step of adding some law to the previously lawless (and nearly unused) comments sections on feelingelephants. Hopefully I won’t have to do anymore.

Below is a brief, and hopefully impartial, summary of my first experience with a comments spammer.

29 January, 2009 @ 12:12 am, “Clint Mahoney” comments on Planned Parenthood Escorting–Protester Images

29 January, 2009 @ 12:22 am, “Clint Mahoney” comments on Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood Escort

29 January, 2009 @ 12:40 am, I (feelingelephants) reply to “Clint Mahoney”’s comment on Planned Parenthood Escorting–Protester Images, not having yet seen his comment on “Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood Escort”

29 January, 2009 @ 1:03 am, I reply to “Clint Mahoney”’s comment on Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood Escort, having just been notified of it.

1 February, 2009 @ 11:00 pm, “Clint Mahoney” comments on Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood Escort

1 February, 2009 @ 11:53 pm, I reply to “Clint Mahoney”’s comment on Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood Escort

Clint Mahoney is, as far as I can tell, an pro-life organizer. In the above chronology I used quotes around “Clint Mahoney” because I am making no assumptions about my commenter’s actual identity.

If you want to read the conversations, feel free, they’re in the comments sections of the posts linked to above. A friend of mine replied to a few of his points, so there is some good discussion. For all of my comments I was pretending I was Miss Manners, so they may read a little formal.

You may be wondering why I have given “Clint Mahoney” this much more exposure (by not just deleting him once he started insulting me at the time, and now by writing a post referencing him), since the comments-storm someone using his name was stirring up at the time was probably a ploy to gain more exposure for their anti-Roe Anniversary protest.

I am giving “Clint Mahoney” this exposure because 1) the commenter confirmed publicly that he is Clint Mahoney; 2) I believe he comported himself badly in his commenting and I think this is a good lesson in netiquette. I also feel I comported myself well, and answered his accusations in a polite way, and want to show off a little.

Btw, if Clint Mahoney does not want his name tied to this commenter, he may comment here and we’ll see what we can do about it. You will notice in the comments I signed my full name, because I do not hide behind handles when I am engaging in political debate.

Also, if you are interested in a simpler lesson in internet manners, I will direct you to one of the more succinct posts on netiquette which I have found.

Anyhoo, for my first encounter with a flamer, this was probably tame. But it certainly was interesting, and helped me articulate my rules for commenting on feelingelephants.

Have a great day!

Inspirational Quote:

“I think we can disagree without being disagreeable” Barack Obama.

Using Facebook for Surveys

I apologize in advance for inviting everyone to yet another “Research Survey” (I am speaking to the group of FeelingElephants readers who are also my friends on Facebook. Everyone else, chill until the Inspirational Quote).

I am working with a group studying something which I can’t explain here in case it biases our answers. Here is the text of the invite I sent:

Hello,

We are conducting a survey for a class. It will take less than 5 minutes and we will be very grateful. Thank you very much,
Here is the link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4_2bgN1PhNCT0P5LnTI0i1Ww_3d_3d

Feel free to invite others!

I felt quite awkward inviting everyone. I don’t like to impose on people’s time. But I swear, it truly is 5 minutes, and I will post the results here (with the permission of my co-authors of course) by March 6th. Thank you for your patience,

Inspirational Quote:

Herman Melville – “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”

President’s Day Video

ok, I am not usually into posting educational materials, but I thought this video was oddly (and geekily) cool:

(I found this on this morning’s TopOfThe Ticket)

It is a video of all 43 president’s faces melding into each other. Franklin Pierce was a cutie, Jimmy Carter is the first president for whom they use a photograph, and while most General Presidents (Washington, Grant, Eisenhower) make serious eye-contact, Eisenhower is the only one who is in uniform. Basically a bunch of presidential trivia. Great fun!

And the winner for most bizarre facial hair goes to–Chester A Arthur (President 21).

Gosh this weekend has a lot of holidays–happy President’s day!

Inspirational Quote:

“In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.”–Rutherford B. Hayes (President 19)

The President’s New Website Rocks

I really wish I had a screen-capture of the ugliness that was the Bush Administration’s face to the web world. It was like the websites I remember from the 90s. But now I might have to say the Obama Administration’s website might be too cool–it’s hard to tell its a government website it’s so slick. The only truly awkward thing about it is the screen that pops up whenever you link to another government website:

Thank you for visiting our site.
You are exiting the White  House Web Server
http://www.amtrak.com/
We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable.
To comment on the site, send feedback to the Web
Development Team by clicking here.

It looks like a great private blog, except for all of the seals and stuff. The colors are great–I love the deep red and brilliant blue. The web design is also great–with logical headings, clean menus. It might become a joy to stalk what our administration is doing.

I also love the multimedia–not only is our President posting his weekly address to YouTube through the White House’s YouTube Channel, but he also has slideshows (this one is portraits of all previous presidents) and blog posts with videos. Great stuff for us visual learners.

Unfortunately, while the design is lovely, the content is lacking. The blog is fawningly supportive of the President, and his position pieces are clearly copied from his campaign website. They seem to be more focused on advocating Barack Obama’s stances than explaining them. For example, in the section titled “Women” we hear about what Senator Barack Obama has done to support women in Science and Technology and in the workplace, and only vague descriptions about what President Barack Obama will be doing. Here is the preamble to that section:

President Obama has a long record of standing up for women. In Illinois, he passed the Equal Pay Act to give 330,000 more women protection from pay discrimination and passed another law that ensured victims of domestic violence could seek treatment without losing their jobs. In the U.S. Senate, he introduced and sponsored legislation to reduce unintended teen pregnancy, strengthen families by supporting fathers who are doing the right thing and cracking down on those who are not, guarantee workers paid sick leave, and ensure that women are not receiving less pay than men for comparable work. And throughout his career, in the Illinois Senate, the U.S. Senate, and the White House, Obama has stood up for a woman’s right to choose.

Sounds like a campaign blurb rather than a Presidential one. Now, he’s only been president for a week, but in six months time, if these pages haven’t been re-written with achievements (and if the tone of the website doesn’t become more professional) I will be disappointed.

Don’t fall in love with yourself too far, Mr President, there’s a lot of work to do.

PS: maybe this is me being a super geek, but can I describe how exited I am that the President made clear that all Presidential papers go to the National Archives unless the President has a really good reason to not let them go? And, in case you hadn’t heard–the President revoked the Mexico City Policy (more commonly known as the Global Gag Rule). So. Cool.

Inspirational Quote:

Reader Responses from the Eternal Perspectives Ministries review of the book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions by Randy Alcorn.

I am a first-year family medicine resident at SWMC. I have made the difficult decision to not prescribe any contraceptives (pills, patches, IUD’s, etc) in my practice. The main motivation for this has been Randy’s article Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortion? These possibilities were not taught to me in medical school and I really believed that the Pill completely suppressed ovulation. Now I know differently and it has changed the way I approach women’s health care. I encourage Natural Family Planning and I am trying to put together some resources to give patients. I wanted to let you know that as a ministry, you are changing hearts and my wife and I are all the more committed to life. We had been on the pill for our first 3 years of marriage. After we both read the article, we felt that the Spirit was telling us to trust God and not use contraception except NFP. It has been the best year of marriage yet! We are even expecting our first child in April! Thank you for preaching the truth fearlessly even in the face of so much confusion in the Christian medical world. – D. H.

PS: yeah DH, that’s totally your job to decide. I hope you tell your patients your beliefs before they treat you as a normal family medicine doctor. I hope this guy understood what commenting on the internet means. If you want a more medical view of Birth Control options, try Scarleteen’s Birth Control Option table. And in case you were wondering, check the author’s definition of abortion to see if it fits with yours before going off the Pill.

Copyright Term Extensions, Historically

Here’s how I came to be so interested in intellectual property, in policy, and the technical aspects of both of these things. I’ve traced some of my more structured fascination back to this Keynote (as opposed to PowerPoint) presentation by Lawrence Lessig. This presentation built on the anger I felt when I saw that Tom Dooley was a copyrighted work. My grandmother taught me Tom Dooley, and Cotton Pickin’ and Mountain Dew, and in my copy of Rise Up Singing they were all copyrighted. I was filled with righteous anger. How could people make money off of works which I learned from my grandmother? What did it mean that I could not publically perform songs which she told me she had learned back home in Tennessee when she was a girl?

I am sure, being the vocal person I am, I brought up my anger in one of my classes with Ms Nace. Later, she sent me this keynote:

In the version I had, the last slide was a list of websites I could go to if I wanted to learn more. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was one of them. I applied for an internship, got it, and here I am today, four years later, in love with the Berkman Center and planning on Law School after undergrad.

In support of the presentation above, I found this amazing graph:

Historical Increases in Copyright Terms

I found it when I was researching the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. The graph is, fittingly, licensed under Creative Commons Share-Alike License. It is also fairly damning evidence of the stead historical increase in copyright terms. This is a trend which I have never heard fully explained–do we in 2008 need so much more protection than Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway or The Brothers Grimm?

Inspirational Quote:

Dick Armey – “You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.”

A Safe Place for Seeds (and a favorite article of mine)

I collect pet articles. “Seeds to Save a Species” from Popular Science is one of my collection. It was written before the global food crisis became well publicized, and predicted it in some ways. It is those who dedicate their lives to preserving genetic diversity in the world’s crops. It touches on a global network of national seed vaults, with Svalbard Global Seed Vault as their backup. It gives a background on the politics and science of genetic diversity. But more interesting to me are the stories of the biologists who hunt seeds. These people sound more like adventuring explorers than lab rats.

Many of these scientists revere Nikolai Vavilov, “the Russian botanist who in the early 20th century developed a landmark theory about the origins of cultivated crops” (“Seeds to Save a Species”, Hillary Rosner, Popular Science, 2008). His theory was that “[t]he area where a crop has had the most time to evolve [...] will be the area where that crop contains the greatest breadth of genetic diversity” (ibid). Vavilov is “both a hero and a martyr”:

He spent his career crossing places like China, Bolivia and Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) on foot, camel and donkey, gathering what was at that time the world’s largest collection of seeds, both cultivated and wild, for conservation. The genetic diversity contained in those seeds, he believed, represented humanity’s hope for survival. But politics got in the way of his work. Stalin wanted nothing to do with genetics, and Vavilov’s progressive ideas amounted to heresy. In 1940, in his early 50s, Vavilov was jailed for pursuing “impractical science.” Three years later, he starved to death in prison.

Vavilov wasn’t the only Russian scientist who died in the name of crop diversity. During the 872-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad, Vavilov’s colleagues holed up inside the gene bank he founded, determined to protect the seed collection from the Germans and the city’s hungry residents. There, locked inside a building filled with seeds, roughly a dozen scientists died of starvation.

“The rice breeder literally died sitting at his desk with bags of rice,” says Fowler, shaking his head. “I remember visiting the Vavilov Institute in 1985 and trying to understand what had gone on in this building that people would starve to death rather than eat food on their desks.” He posed the question to a woman then connected to the Russian institute. “She looked at me quizzically and said, ‘They were students of Vavilov.’ As though that explained it all.”

(ibid)

Such understated heroism hits me in the heart–it speaks of a level of faith and commitment which is hard to understand. Anyway, it’s a great article and I hope you enjoy it.

Inspirational Quote:

“I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you’re writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn’t flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.”– Ursula K. Le Guin, which I first heard on the Writers’ Almanac for October 21, 2008.

The Internet is for English Teachers (and their resources)

Sometimes I think the internet is dominated by English teachers. Literary Fanfiction, trailers for books on YouTube, and sites like tvTropes.com seem like really good teacher’s resources dreamed up by bored English teachers. I’ve written about fanfiction before, and you can see a movie trailer for a book series below.

I want to talk about tvTropes. tvTropes is probably one of the quirkiest and book-geekiest sites I have seen. The website is a comprehensive list of tropes found in television, anime, movies and books. But, because it is a wiki, the tropes have names like:

• ICallItVera
• PublicDomainArtifact or
• ImportantHaircut

It’s oddly addictive reading through these irreverent, fan-obsessive and eerily accurate descriptions of these tropes. Each trope page (put together by groups of tropers, ie, those who lurk on tvtropes.org) starts with a description of that trope, and then tons of examples. For Machiavelli Was Wrong the description (sans links) is:

Bands of heroes are generally held together by The Power Of Friendship, Love, or just general loyalty to the hero. Bands of villains tend to be held together by fear of the head villain. Eventually, villains often discover to their surprise that while fear might be easier to establish, love has a lot more staying power.

It then goes on to gives examples Machiavelli being wrong in books and tv shows, touching on the contrasts between Harry Potter and Voldemort’s gangs, the differences in loyalty for Buffy’s Scoobies and the vampires she fights. It also, in typical English teacher fashion, points out that Lord Vetinary in Discworld  subverts this trope (this then leads to the VetinaryParadox).

The writing is chatty and full of inside jokes. That can make it confusing to peruse or simply delightful, depending on the reader and the situation. The website is also organized by works (and authors, and characters, and and and…). You can read a summaries and lists of tropes for

• The Lord of the Rings
• Snow Crash or
• Hamlet

I can’t wait until my generation of teachers gets into the classroom and hooks the energy of these fans (who, despite the thesis of this post, are probably mostly bored teenagers) and channels it into exploring outside the world of the web. It will be great fun.

PS: the trailer for a books series I linked to is for the Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. It is one of the best trailers I have seen–I love the use of the Hans Zimmerman music to make it epic. Here is the video:

Inspirational Quote:

“Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will grow on the factory floors. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory.” Andrew Carnegie