10% here to stay

This, from the Chronicle today, will affect us greatly in the future...

Back up your work

This is a pathetic reminder to back up your hard drives. My hard drive just died on Friday for no good reason and I lost 6 months worth of orals notes and pictures.

Follow-up on Marvin's drug post

Remember "Drug Makers Paying Doctors"? Here's an article by the mother of a man in Minnesota who was mis-prescribed an antipsychotic by one of these doctors on the take...

What wall is this?

The Chronicle has an interesting article today about American high schoolers' knowledge of US history. They are supposedly testing better, but the article makes it clear that the level of testing is so low anyway that "testing better" means only that they have more facts, not that they are better able to display any independent thought, or ability to synthesize, or anything that we grade them for at the college level.

But even given these lower standards, their fact-level knowledge still isn't that great. Excerpt from the article:

In one of the most alarming examples, Ms. Kozbial-Hess said, the eighth- and 12th-grade tests showed students a photograph of a wall being torn down, labeled "Berlin 1989." The students were asked what event was depicted and what influence it had on U.S. foreign policy, she said.

"More than half of eighth graders and almost one-third of 12th graders did not even give a partially correct answer that this photo showed the fall of the Berlin Wall, despite the strong clue," Ms. Kozbial-Hess said.

"Only 1 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of 12th graders gave an appropriate or complete response that identified the event and also mentioned the impact of the end of the Cold War," she said.

Given the name of this blog...

I figure someone should say something about Jerry Falwell and how he managed to extend Sacvan Bercovitch's thesis into the 21st century. I can't think of anyone who mastered the jeremiad in my lifetime better than Falwell. Remember that hs said that 9/11 happened because the US is to secular with its gays and other sinners.

I also can't think of anyone else whose death I've been happy about. What a prick. Anyway, most of you will recognize this ad as the one Falwell took Larry Flynt to court for (it made it to the Supreme Court and Flynt won), claiming that Falwell lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.

Long live free speech!

How/why did our culture forget about St. Augustine?

Anyone who half paid attention to the news last week and the week before would've gotten the distinct impression that Jamestown was the first permanent settlement in the US. Wtff? Was this another way of erasing the Spanish influence on our culture? Is it related to the way we are encouraged to mispronounce Spanish names around here (San Jacinto, Manchaca, Guadalupe, Pedernales)? Here's an article about St. Augustine's reaction. It makes the excellent point that Jamestown wasn't even permanent. It stopped being a town in the mid-18th century while St. Augustine has continued to survive since it was founded in 1565.

Worth Checking Out

Friday night we went to see Buttercup, a band from San Antonio who come up to Austin pretty frequently to play free to cheap shows. They are really awesome and (I know Lisa's going to be pissed at me for saying this) Buttercup's free show blew Bright Eyes out of the water. I don't know if it was that the acoustics in Bass Hall weren't suited for a band who decided to turn all their levels up way too high or if it just wasn't my scene.

Anyways, go check out Buttercup if you have a chance this summer. Here's there website where you can check out there tunes: http://buttercult.com/

Totally entertaining fun band.

The future of American Studies

I've never actualy heard anyone referring to pop as "coke". But interesting nonetheless. I think my dissertation will be on the great "bag" vs. "sack" controversy that so divided central Illinoisans from Chicagoans when I grew up.

Anyway, check it out.

Would you eat one? I sure would.

Kool-aid pickles. F'in awesome.

Tidal waves and forks

Interesting article on Salon by a business owner whose company was wrecked by outsourcing. He's not mad about it, just rueful. It's rare that you get this kind of honest fly-on-the-wall account of the inside of the end of a medium-size business...

UT Press Book Sale

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the UT Press Book Sale. If you're like me, you just delete most of those official-looking event announcements from UT, but, the book sale is freaking awesome.

The film books are usually a pretty good assortment, and some of the cooking, birdwatching, art and photography things are good to have on hand for gifts. I'm sure the gardening and whatnot are fine, but that's not really something I'm hip to.

The University of Texas Press invites you to our 31st annual book sale! Come take advantage of terrific savings on new and classic books in many subject areas, including Texas history, gardening, cooking, birdwatching, children's books, art and photography, film, multicultural studies, and so much more. Purchases must be made in person during sale hours.

ALL NEW BOOKS 50% OFF!
MOST OTHER BOOKS DISCOUNTED 60-90%
HUGE SELECTION of "NEW" $3.00 and $5.00 BOOKS. No "hurt" or "used" books in this sale.
Sign up to win $500 worth of free books.
Free bonus book for each $50 of your purchase.
Free parking & wheelchair access.
Cash, Checks, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express accepted.

Friday, May 11--10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday, May 12--10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Rain or shine, under the tent at the Printing and Press Building located at the intersection of the northbound I-35 access road and Manor Road (north of Disch-Falk baseball field). For a map, visit our website at www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/booksale.html

Copyright your own number

I encourage all of you, in the wake of the AACS encryption scandal, to try to protect your very own 128-bit number.

Here's the background in a nutshell according to boingboing:

"Last week, the AACS consortium made history by issuing legal threats against the 1.8 million web-pages (and counting) that mentioned its secret code for preventing HD-DVD discs from being copied.

In effect, AACS-LA (the AACS Licensing Authority) claimed that it owned a randomly chosen 128-bit number, and that anyone who possessed or transmitted that number was breaking the law. Moreover, it claimed to own millions more random numbers -- claimed that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalises telling people how to break anti-copying software, gave it exclusive dominion over its many keys"

The new labels

I couldn't stop. I blame the polar bear paper directly, and Knut indirectly. Feel free not to use them if you hate them.

Laptops in high school

NYT writes today that a lot of high schools who started techoptimistically giving a laptop to each of their students have decided to take them back, because the one-to-one student-laptop ratio doesn't seem to be doing any good for education. The lede of the article:

"The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did). Scores of the leased laptops break down each month, and every other morning, when the entire school has study hall, the network inevitably freezes because of the sheer number of students roaming the Internet instead of getting help from teachers."

Interesting, vis a vis all of the arguments for and against letting undergrads have laptops in lecture so that they can google "Duke Lacrosse T-shirts" instead of taking notes. I, for one, still think somebody should invent the lecture hall wireless-blocker device and make a mint.

Loyalty Day

I can't take the credit for digging this up, but yes, May 1 is officially "Loyalty Day" in the United States. Have you taken your oath yet?

Update: Stupid Safari with no HTML link function! Click on the title of the post to see the link...