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6 Reasons We're Feeling Debate Fatigue
By Linton Weeks
Published February 22, 2012 at 5:59 AM MST
Brian Snyder
Reuters /Landov
Depending on how you tally them up, there have been 26 debates so far this GOP primary season. How many is too many?
Oh no. Not another debate among those guys who are running for the Republican presidential nomination. By at least one count, Wednesday night's Dustup in the Desert — sponsored by CNN and Arizona's Republican Party — is the 26th such face-off — if you count forums and head-to-head encounters.
Getting to know the presidential candidates is all well and good. But, well, is this good? Are we really seeing the four remaining hopefuls — Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum — from different angles? Are we asking new questions? Hearing original answers? Or are we using interrogation tactics, repeating the same questions over and over again in hopes that the subjects will slip up, flip-flop, melt down, crack up or downright lie?
For their parts, the candidates look pretty cool: refreshed, ready, raring to go. It's the rest of us who are so tired. A Rasmussen Report — following the last debate in Florida — shows that the largest number of respondents (45 percent) think there have been too many GOP debates already.
"The American people are not especially interested in politics," says Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "Just over 50 percent of adult citizens vote in presidential elections and less than 50 percent in midterm elections. So debate fatigue is to be expected."
We say we want to get to know our choices. So why do we still whine and whinny about too many debates? Here are six possible reasons:
1. Law Of Diminishing Returns. That first bite of ice cream always tastes a lot better than the 26th. Perhaps we are feeling debate fatigue because there have been so many confrontations of a similar nature. If this group drafted a new Constitution, it might begin Ennui the people... "The debates have lost their entertainment value," Lichtman says. "We now have familiar candidates saying much the same things they have been saying for months."
2. Emphasis Is On Personality, Not Policy. "Discussing character can be far more personal and seem nastier than say, education policy," says Neera Tanden, president of the left-tilting Center for American Progress. In 2008, Tanden helped Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton prepare for debates.
3. Debates Feel Like Lectures. The candidates act a lot like college professors. (Gingrich, of course, has taught a course or two.) But many Americans may not be that interested in sitting in a national classroom — listening to politicians hold forth. In fact, a recent Washington Post article notes that — in this age of easy technological engagement and interactivity — colleges are rethinking the old-school lecture. "Science, math and engineering departments at many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it's driving students away," the Postreports.
4. Spontaneity Is Sparse. Writing in The American Conservative, Rod Dreher imagines that if Romney is asked why he wants to be president, "I bet his answer will be so canned that it will tell us something about him. But maybe nothing that we don't already know." The other hopefuls, also, are prepped to be so on-message that they seldom stray from rote replies. "At this point," says Allan Lichtman, "the candidates have mostly lost their spontaneity and are giving well-rehearsed answers." They are putting the canned in candidates.
5. Audiences Can Be So Rude. By permitting — at times even encouraging — audiences to cheer, jeer, boo and audibly express their feelings, communications guru Kathleen Hall Jamieson says on Moyers & Company, the debates "have created a context in which the viewer at home is not watching the candidate and responding to the candidate, but is instead responding to the interaction between that candidate and an audience ... You are being cued to respond to the question and the answer in a way that doesn't let you, yourself, reflect on the meaning of that answer." The TV ratings have been relatively high. But the debate audiences "have put off a lot of voters," Democrat Neera Tanden says. She remembers that the atmosphere four years ago was quite different. "No hissing at service members. Or applauding someone dying without insurance."
6. Even The Candidates Are Tired Of Debates. Even attention-starved candidates don't want the attention of more debates. "These debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates," Rick Perry told Fox News in October, a few weeks before pulling out of the race. Now candidates are pulling out of the debates right and left. CNN and MSNBC have canceled debates scheduled before Super Tuesday in March.
The public response to debates is complicated, says Carolyn Curiel, who helped Bill Clinton prepare for debates against Bob Dole in 1996. Now a professor at Purdue University, Curiel points out that some of the 45 percent of respondents to the Rasmussen Report poll who said there have been too many Republican debates "nonetheless acknowledged the critical role of the debates. Nearly 70 percent of those polled saw the debates as important to how they would vote."
Echoing Tanden, Jamieson, Perry and others, Curiel says voters want candidates to answer questions about the issues of deepest concern. "Those concerns are almost universally economic: gaps in wealth, employment opportunity, economic mobility, access to good education, health care, housing," Curiel says. "These complicated issues are not always best represented in modern debate formats that compress response time."
And, she says, "voters may be tired of questions and answers about the candidates' personal lives that get the most media attention."
That might result in good theater, Curiel adds, but not the best debate.
NPR News Election 2012Presidential CampaignMitt RomneyRick SantorumNewt Gingrich
Linton Weeks
Linton Weeks joined NPR in the summer of 2008, as its national correspondent for Digital News. He immediately hit the campaign trail, covering the Democratic and Republican National Conventions; fact-checking the debates; and exploring the candidates, the issues and the electorate.
See stories by Linton Weeks
'Sugar Daddies' And Debates Changing All The Rules
Alan Greenblatt
Before setting foot in Michigan, Rick Santorum was leading in GOP polls there. It's the clearest illustration yet that the traditional rules that determine primary winners have been upended by factors that are new this time around, such as superPACs and the proliferation of candidate debates.
Republican Debates Become Must-See TV
Don Gonyea
'Newt-Romney' Dominates Iowa Debate
The rivalry between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney took on a life of its own as they squared off Saturday night. The jabs even got personal. The sparring was expected between the GOP candidates — the top two in most polls — as each hopes to win the upcoming Iowa caucuses.
Already? GOP Kicks Off Presidential Debates
The first debate of the 2012 presidential campaign was held Thursday night in Greenville, S.C. It featured five Republicans who hope to run against President Obama next year. But the group did not include some of the biggest names in the potential field.


Prepare to release long-held patterns of stress, and to deeply relax, as metal Himalayan singing bowls are played directly on your body in a private session at Radiance with Lori.
The sounds and vibrations from Himalayan singing bowls are the result of careful combination of metals to create an alloy that is especially resonant. The Therapeutic Series of bowls that Lori uses are designed specifically for Vibrational Sound Massage and Therapy. These bowls provide particularly clear, fine tones, rich overtones, and long-lasting vibrations. When the bowls are placed directly on the body, the healing vibrations penetrate the tissues and fill your body with a balancing resonance. The soothing pulse of the vibrations can aid in inducing deep meditative states, reducing depression and sleep issues, easing blockages and tension, increasing mental focus and gaining clarity of mind.
Sessions will be held at Radiance, 9 W Grant St in downtown Lancaster. Cost is $75 for a one-hour session. Call to schedule your appointment 717-290-1517, or stop in.
Wear comfortable clothing free of metal snaps and zippers if possible. Lori will need to know about any metal pins, rods, or body-piercings. This is powerful work, and is contra-indicated for anyone with a pacemaker, a recent concussion, pregnancy, or active cancer.
Lori Stahl is an artist, beekeeper, and healer. She has worked with Reiki energies for 20 years, and has received her Vibrational Sound Therapy Certification through the Vibrational Sound Association. She is also a certified practitioner of Biofield Tuning sound therapy.


Private family service for the late Toyoko Kubota, 86-year-old, Brawley, Calif.-born Nisei, resident of Gardena, who passed away peacefully on Feb. 26, 2015, was held on Saturday, March 21, at Inglewood Park Cemetery, graveside with Rev. Tim Yee of Union Church of Los Angeles officiating.
Toyoko, who is predeceased by her sisters, Teruko and Emiko Kubota, is survived by her loving family members: sisters, Sadako and Hisako Kubota; nephew, Richard (Cynthia) Kubota of Davis, Calif.; and also survived by other relatives.


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The garden located at Tra Linh Commune, Nam Tra My District will offer visitors more options when coming to Quang Nam. Ho Quang Buu, chairman of Nam Tra My District, said that Ngoc Linh was home to a very old forest. The place also has Ngoc Linh ginseng. Many tourists to Quang Nam have expressed their interest in exploring Ngoc Linh ginseng garden. However, they have not yet been allowed to go there due to security concerns.
The province has decided to officially launch a free tour to the area. The 85-hectare garden is divided into three areas. Among those, 11 hectares will be for tourism services; five hectares will be for scientific research and the remainder will be for ginseng plantation.
The tour is a chance for visitors to see the ginseng development process.
Tourists need to contact Ngoc Linh Ginseng Centre in Nam Tra My District to have tour guides for the trip. Initially, the tour is free, but in the future, local authorities would consider charging. Buu noted that the garden is expected to welcome 45,000-50,000 visitors this year.


Rosewood Hotels and Resorts has promoted Marie Le Vavasseur to area director of European communications.
Le Vavasseur steps up from director of communications at Rosewood London, a role she has held since May 2016.
The operator said her promotion followed her successful implementation of various PR and social campaigns during her tenure.
She will oversee communications at Rosewood's three European properties: Rosewood London, where she will remain based; Rosewood Hôtel de Crillon in Paris; and Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany.
Her 13-year career to date has seen Le Vavasseur work across a number of luxury brands in Europe, including taking the lead on Le Bristol's 90th anniversary celebrations.
She joined Rosewood following a short stint as PR manager for luxury restaurant group Corbin and King.
During her time with Rosewood London, she has helped raise £110,000 for the Rosewood Mini Wishes campaign and spearheaded the launch of the hotel's Art Afternoon Tea, Canine Package and Holborn Dining Room's Pie Room.
"Growing up in this beautiful family that is Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is a wonderful opportunity," said La Vavasseur.


Ed's Chicken and Crabs restaurant was destroyed after a car crashed into the Dewey Beach eatery early Tuesday morning.
"There has been a terrible accident." That's how the crash was described in a post on the Ed's Chicken and Crab's Facebook page this morning.
Dewey Beach Police said the fire ignited after a woman drove her 2013 Mini Cooper into the restaurant, striking a propane line. The woman was rescued from her vehicle when Dewey Beach police officers along with a State Trooper broke the drivers side window to get her out. The building caught fire shortly after she was removed from the car.
The fire eventually engulfed the entire building, which is presumed to be a complete loss.
The driver of the car has been identified as 36-year-old Michelle Small of Wyoming, DE. Police said she's been charged with Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol and other driving offenses. They said she was driving at a high rate of speed and crossed the center median about half a block before crashing into the restaurant.
After being rescued from the car and treated by firefighters for minor injuries, she was turned over to the Dewey Beach Police. While in their custody, Small became unresponsive and was taken to Beebe Medical Center.
While Ed's certainly wasn't a fancy, fine dining restaurant, many online reviewers said it was a "must-visit" spot during a trip to Dewey.


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Griffin ready for All Star experience
LOS ANGELES, February 19 – Just like the towering dunks he has become famous for in his rookie season, Blake Griffin has some pretty lofty goals he wants to achieve before his NBA career is finished.
The 21-year-old power forward is in the midst of a brilliant rookie season with the Los Angeles Clippers and is favoured to win Saturday's all-star slam dunk contest.
Even he admits things are moving at a rapid pace.
"I had hoped to be an all-star by my second year that was one of my goals. But for me this is just another stepping stone," Griffin said Friday at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This just makes me hungrier to become better."
It used to be that NBA's biggest stars shunned the slam dunk event with an almost too-cool-for-school mentality. But Griffin is a leader and not a follower so he jumped at the chance to show what he can do.
He wouldn't go into specifics because he wanted it to be a surprise, but Griffin did say he has enlisted teammate Baron Davis to act as as a prop.
"To be honest I have been practising one (dunk)," Griffin said. "The other ones I have done before.
"I am using Baron Davis and we are getting creative. It is all coming together pretty nice and he gave me some good ideas."
The 6-foot-10 inch Griffin will be playing in the all-star game with a heavy heart. Griffin's former high school basketball chum Wilson Holloway passed away Wednesday after a battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Nobody will be busier than Griffin this weekend. He plans to compete all three days, starting with the rookie-sophomore game Friday, slam dunk Saturday and play in the all-star game Sunday.
He wants to get the most out of his first all-star experience and not take anything that happens this weekend for granted.
"I am excited. There are so many guys that deserve to be here. In the back of my mind if feel guilty somewhat," Griffin said.
"Originally, I had agreed to do the slam dunk, and then they said I made the rookie game, and that was cool. And then fortunately I was able to make the big game. So, why not? It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so take advantage of it."
Kobe Bryant, who has five NBA championship rings, was quick to praise Griffin on Friday.
"Well deserved. Well deserved period," said Bryant, who is in his 13th all-star game. "He deserves to be here and I'm happy he made it."
Griffin learned about his selection after the team's plane touched down in Georgia where the Clippers were playing the Atlanta Hawks.
"A lot of people knew before I did," said Griffin, who is averaging 22.8 points and 12.6 rebounds per game this season. "I was on a flight to Atlanta so I didn't find out until we landed.
"It is crazy. If you had told me four years ago this would be happening I would have never believed you."
Heading into the all-star break, Griffin's Clippers are in fourth place in the Western Conference's Pacific Division with 21 wins and 35 losses. They have a winning record at home (16-14) thanks in part to a strong month of January.
Historically the Clippers have been one of the NBA's doormat franchises but now with Griffin leading the way, the future looks brighter than ever.
"We won some games in January and had a home win streak going. We had fans coming to the games so you could feel the home energy," Griffin said.
"Hopefully we can finish the season strong. Other teams are starting to wear down and hopefully we can keep it going."
Griffin says the adjustment to the NBA hasn't been as difficult as he expected. He says he is mentally and physically stronger than he was in college.
"I think I am a more mature player this year. The thing about the NBA is you have 82 games to redeem yourself," Griffin said.
"A lot of people want to be great but you have to put in the work. I enjoy working hard and putting in the time to get better."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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CLIENT ALERT: NLRB Issues Two Significant Decisions Overturning Prior Standards
Michael Passarella
On December 14, 2017, the National Labor Relations Board (the "NLRB" or "Board") issued decisions that overruled two cases from 2004 and 2015. In The Boeing Company, 365 NLRB No. 164 (12/14/17), the Board explicitly overturned its 2004 decision in Lutheran Heritage Village-Livonia, 343 NLRB 646 (2004), which provided the oft-criticized test used for the last 13 years for whether the mere maintenance of a handbook rule violated the National Labor Relations Act (the "Act"). Under Section 7 of the Act, union and non-union employees are permitted to engage in union organizing activity or protected concerted activity regarding terms and conditions of their employment. Protected concerted activity includes discussions (or social media postings or emails) about wages, benefits, safety, harassment, workplace conditions, etc. Using the Lutheran Heritage test, the Board had found numerous workplace policies unlawful because employees could "reasonably construe" the policy to forbid them from engaging in protected concerted activities. Some recent examples cited by the Board in Boeing included policies that:
Prohibited conduct that "impedes harmonious interactions and relationships";
Prohibited employees from recording "record[ing] conversations with a tape recorder or other recording device (including a cell phone or any electronic device) unless prior approval is received from your store or facility leadership";
Prohibited employees from using "loud, abusive or foul language";
Prohibited employees from showing "any type of negative energy or attitude;"
Required employees to "keep customer and employee information secure"; and
Required employees to represent the Employer "in the community in a positive and professional manner."
The Lutheran Heritage test was also used by the Board frequently to invalidate social media policies that could be construed by employees to prohibit certain conduct, such as rules preventing them from engaging online in "inappropriate discussions about the company". The new Boeing test will allow employers to argue that any adverse impact on protected conduct is outweighed by legitimate justifications. The new standard will provide employers greater ability to structure workplace policies that protect its interests.
On December 14, the Board issued Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, 365 NLRB No. 156 (12/14/17), which expressly overrules its controversial 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris Industries, 362 NLRB No. 186 (2015). In announcing the decision, the Board highlighted that "under the pre–Browning Ferris standard restored today, proof of indirect control, contractually-reserved control that has never been exercised, or control that is limited and routine will not be sufficient to establish a joint-employer relationship." It concluded that its restored standard adheres to the common law standard of joint employer liability.
With a Republican majority on the Board and a new General Counsel just confirmed, we expect more employer-friendly rulings in 2018. For further guidance on the new standards announced, their impact on your business and policies, or what to expect in 2018, please contact the Olshan attorney with whom you regularly work or the attorney listed below.
View Document(s):
NLRB Issues Two Significant Decisions Overturning Prior Standards


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Traditions at Chesterfield Carriage Collection, Traditions at Chesterfield Garden Homes, Traditions at Chesterfield Single Family Classics
Meet the Dream Team at Traditions at Chesterfield
| Traditions at Chesterfield Carriage Collection, Traditions at Chesterfield Garden Homes, Traditions at Chesterfield Single Family Classics
Kelly, Dana and the American Properties Realty, Inc. team at INFLUENCE Design Studio Training held last week at The Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank.
Kelly Flanagan, Sales Manager for Traditions at Chesterfield, and her Design Assistant/Sales Associate Dana Pennock.
Kelly Flanagan and Dana Pennock talk Traditions at Chesterfield, an award-winning Smart Growth community in Chesterfield within the 500-acre Old York Village.
CHESTERFIELD, NJ – People may forget what you say, and they may forget what you do, but they will never forget how you make them feel. – Maya Angelou. These are words to live by for Kelly Flanagan, Sales Manager for Traditions at Chesterfield, an award-winning Smart Growth community within the 500-acre Old York Village in Chesterfield, NJ, and her Design Assistant/Sales Associate Dana Pennock.
Flanagan began her journey with American Properties Realty, Inc. just over a year ago. "With over 20 years of experience, she is extremely involved in the industry and totally committed to the homebuyers," said Paul Csik, Senior Vice President for American Properties Realty, Inc.
In 1992, Kelly and her husband were building single-family homes in Hunterdon and Somerset Counties as Pyramid Management Company, LLC. As Project Manager, Kelly wore many hats from purchasing, sales process and investor relations to bringing clients to the closing table.
In 1995, Kelly dissolved Pyramid Management Company and went to work for a national home builder. Kelly sold various products from urban infill townhomes, single-family homes and lifestyle communities to condominiums and luxury single-family homes in different challenging markets. "For the next 17 years, I had the pleasure of working with many talented professionals and three national home builders," she said.
Through her years of experience, Kelly said it is evident that sales success is the culmination of many talented people's efforts from acquisition and development to good management. However, it all boils down to one key component: The customer wants to be treated kindly, honestly and fairly, and not like a number in a quarter, or a profit margin for stockholders – an adage that American Properties Realty, Inc. also believes in.
"American Properties Realty, Inc. has been in the business for 45 years, making customers feel good about their purchase decisions and less like a number," Kelly said. "I am honored to continue that tradition and return to my roots with a private real estate broker. As a team, we have been able to sell approximately 50 homes comprised of townhomes, condominiums and single-family homes since my start date of August 2017."
A key part of that team is Dana Pennock. "We are very lucky to have Dana as our Design Assistant and Sales Associate," Kelly continued. "She truly makes the neighborhood beautiful one home at a time. Dana personally walks clients through every facet of designing the interior and exterior finishes of their home with utmost care and positive energy."
New homeowners can conveniently make their design selections right on site. "Dana is amazing at what she does and has helped revamp the design studio to showcase cabinets, flooring and countertop options consistently, so that our offerings are fresh and represent current design trends," Kelly noted.
Once Kelly secures the contract, Dana sits down with all our customers helps them with all their selections. The selection process is typically completed in three appointments over a three-week period. "Dana is very important to the process," Csik noted. "She is here to help our new homeowners through every step of the selections process."
To stay ahead of evolving design trends, American Properties Realty, Inc. recently sent a team, including Kelly and Dana, to INFLUENCE Design Studio Training at The Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank. Hosted by Jane Meagher, President of Success Strategies, INFLUENCE is the premier training event for homebuilding professionals who want to establish trust, increase desire, build value and create urgency. "This is a fantastic networking event that highlights tried-and-true methods that blend consumer psychology with sales techniques to deliver a world-class design studio experience," Csik said. "Events like these help us connect with buyers on a deeper level, and that's what Dana and Kelly always strive to do."
About Traditions at Chesterfield
Traditions at Chesterfield is ideally located in Chesterfield, voted "#1 Best Place to Live in Burlington County" by Philadelphia Magazine. It is also convenient to West Windsor, Robbinsville, East Windsor and Monroe. The community is the best priced new construction for a single-family home in Burlington, Middlesex and Mercer counties, according to Kelly. Just minutes from the NJ Turnpike and highly ranked schools, people are flocking to the area for its country charm and convenient lifestyle.
The Smart Growth community offers new homes for sale in Chesterfield NJ featuring single-family living that highlights award-winning, neo-traditional designs that are Energy Star Certified®. Prices start at $411,990, home designs offer 3-4 bedrooms, up to 3.5 baths and 1-2-car garages. Quick delivery homes are also available, as well as furnished single-family models.
The community is in walking distance to Chesterfield Elementary School, which serves students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grades. The school boasts a 7/10 GreatSchools.org rating, an above average rating compared to other schools in the state. It also rated at 8/10 in test scores and 8/10 in student progress.
The New Jersey Turnpike, I-295 and Hamilton Train Station are all easily accessible to Traditions at Chesterfield for commuting to Philadelphia or New York City. Residents will find entertainment at nearby Six Flags Great Adventure and Mercer County Park and shopping at the Jackson Outlets. Chesterfield is also recognized for their top-rated, state-of-the-art elementary school (K-6), located within walking distance to Traditions at Chesterfield.
Interested homebuyers can visit the Traditions at Chesterfield Sales Office, located at 7 Borden Lane, Chesterfield, NJ (GPS: 38 Old York Road, Chesterfield). The Sales Office is open from 10am to 5pm daily. Schedule an appointment with an on-site sales consultant by calling 609-424-0026. For more information, visit TraditionsAtChesterfield.com.
*About American Properties Realty, Inc.
American Properties Realty, Inc., A Licensed Real Estate Broker, continues its proud 40-year tradition of introducing award winning communities that provide excellent quality, convenient locations and affordable pricing for New Jersey homebuyers. The Principals of American Properties Realty, Inc., have been involved in the creation of residences ranging from luxurious estate homes to master planned communities of apartments, condominiums, townhomes and single-family homes. Contact us now to find the community that's right for you!
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The Jefferson Apartments (3)
Traditions at Chesterfield Carriage Collection (14)
Traditions at Chesterfield Garden Homes (7)
Traditions at Chesterfield Single Family Classics (36)
American Properties Realty, Inc., A Licensed Real Estate Broker, continues its proud 40-year tradition of introducing award winning communities that provide excellent quality, convenient locations and affordable pricing for New Jersey homebuyers.
517 Route One South, Ste 2100
Iselin NJ 08830
Heritage at Pennington
Heritage at Highland Park
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Copyright © 2020 American Properties Realty, Inc. A licensed real estate broker. All rights reserved.
Traditions at Chesterfield will host Spook-tacular Kids and Pet Parade
Fall for the Hampton Quick Move-in home at Traditions at Chesterfield
The Jefferson Siteplan
Heritage at Colonia Siteplan
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Traditions at Chesterfield Carriage Collection Siteplan
Traditions at Chesterfield Single-Family Homes Siteplan
Traditions at Chesterfield Garden Homes Siteplan
Heritage at Highland Park Siteplan


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To be involved in work where I can utilize my skill and creatively involved with system that effectively contributes to growth of organization and could enhance my significant skill.
Pizza Drive : It is a Android application used to order pizza and other beverages to your place directly.
Tools Used : Turbo C++, Eclipse, Jcreater, SQL Management studio.
Have very good dilemma people orientation Skill and a good Orator.
Strong problem resolving Stamina and decision making skills.
Ability to get along well with colleagues.
Winner of group dance competition in Aura-Tech Fest at MAIET 2014.
Best player award in basketball at district level in session 2008-2009.
Second position in dance competition held in Government Engineering College, Bikaner -2011.
Certificate of participation in water rocketry during National Science Day-2007.


An afforable, quality offering as part of Hohner's Modular Series (MS), the Big River Harp is a loud, comfortable workhorse appropriate for beginners and seasoned performers alike. The airtight plastic body and open-ended covers combine for increased volume and projection. For just a little more than "throw-away" harps that may quickly go out of tune you can have a well-made, reliable harmonica that will last you quite a while.


Archive of the page on fictionjunction.com.
How did you decided to use male vocalist for the "tear fall in my heart" track of WFS, because it sounds so pretty yet you do it so rarely.
In your songs (especially those unrelated to instrumental themes), what usually comes first: melody or lyrics?


Through a close partnership between Panzura and CDW, Pret now enjoys CapEx and OpEx savings on its storage while delivering effective collaboration between teams.
As a global provider of handmade, natural food, Pret A Manger needed a file sharing system that enabled it's teams to collaborate across multiple offices in multiple countries. CDW delivered a strategy that aligned Pret's ambitions for cloud adoption with a fast and efficient user experience for every global office.
Through a close partnership between Panzura and CDW, Pret now enjoys CapEx and OpEx savings on it's storage while delivering effective collaboration between teams.
Pret A Manger is a household name. The company prides itself on its commitment to handmade, natural food. Over the last 30 years the business has grown to around 450 shops worldwide, with outlets in the UK, USA, France, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai. The business serves more than 300,000 customers every day.
As a global business Pret A Manger faces many of the challenges that creative, international organisations experience. Operating in a seamless manner across offices as far reaching as London, New York and Hong Kong is essential to Pret and business functions such as marketing will frequently co-create campaigns and share assets. But Pret found that when a dispersed team was trying to collaborate on huge Adobe creative files, for example, the existing file storage and sharing system couldn't support the speed required by the business.
Pret A Manger is a forward-looking organisation, and it's approach to technology has always been the same: 'what can we do next?' Despite a limited internal IT resource, the expectation is that the company's infrastructure will evolve at a consistently fast pace and so the working limitations imposed on the international teams therefore demanded a solution. Unfortunately file sharing can often be a complex challenge for IT teams to manage; volumes of data are frequently vast, and yet the data that is "hot" is typically around 5%.
Pret A Manger had an existing relationship with CDW for it's hardware and software supply. Finding the relationship to be both collaborative and cost effective, Pret began engaging CDW for a greater range services. Saville Midgley, Group Infrastructure Manager at Pret, explains "We're always looking for new opportunities to stay ahead in the development of our internal infrastructure. With a relatively small internal IT team, we have to make sure the tech really works for us, rather than us spending all our time just keeping things up and running. That's not the strategic role we need to fulfil.
CDW assessed Pret A Manger needs, and recommended Panzura as the best-fit solution both for the immediate challenges faced, and as part of the wider cloud adoption strategy. The goal was to harness the economic advantages and scalability of the cloud, without suffering from slow speeds and latency. Panzura provides a high-performance, globally distributed file system that takes the best of cloud storage and delivers it with the immediacy and control of a local file store. With Panzura's back end sitting in the cloud, it enabled Pret to activate its cloud strategy, with the benefit of a hybrid approach thanks to the local caching provided by the solution. This ticked a lot of boxes.
The Panzura-based strategy also provides support for accelerated setup of new office locations, so when Pret grows, the solution can grow too and so you can build virtual offices in Microsoft Azure and by utilising a Panzura controller gain access to all the required files instantly, without having to copy that data. Furthermore, the cost is almost negligible when compared to the traditional, physical movement of file data associated with a new site setup.
"The combination of CDW and Panzura has created an IT model that's beneficial on so many levels. We enjoy CapEx savings thanks to the reduced storage requirements, and OpEx savings due to the enhanced manageability. There's also longer term cost avoidance as we can think about reducing future storage expenditure" comments Midgley.
Pret A Manger has benefitted from the global file locking, which ensures data integrity of elements within files that one team doesn't want another to change. So in complex programmes such as an architectural project, different teams with different certifications can collaborate in one central model, but without compromise to the integrity of the work. It's fast and efficient.


The Ewood Centre is a Nurture Group based in a large multi-purpose classroom within Todmorden High School.
It provides a safe base with a relaxed atmosphere where identified students can come for planned sessions and drop-in support at social times.
The Ewood Centre aims to help students feel confident, understood, welcome, relaxed, happy, inspired and valued.
To build confidence and self – esteem.
To build relationships with peers in their classroom.
To create a safe environment for ourselves and others.
To show our emotions in an acceptable manner.
To understand we are responsible for our own behaviour.
To understand we all make mistakes and it is ok to do so.
To develop good listening and social skills.
To keep on trying, having a go and doing our best.
Why and How will we do this ?
To be more aware of how we feel and how others may feel.
To feel free to express our opinions to talk openly to the group.
To learn to listen to others and respond at the appropriate time.
Learning to share our snacks, offering them to others before ourselves.
Showing good organisational skills by preparing and clearing away.
Sampling foods we have never tried before.
Feeling confident during social chats and sharing news around the table.
To co-operate with each other, to share, to take turns and learn to wait.
To make friends and socialize through various activities such as role play, baking and problem solving.
To incorporate the curriculum within our activities such as English, Maths, and Technology.
To set ourselves goals and recognise our achievements.
The Ewood Centre works towards building strong links between school and home. Staff are available to discuss the progress being made and will listen and support parents with any queries or concerns they may have.


text:
Yes, That Too
Alyssa Hillary, an Autistic graduate student, blogging about life, the universe, and everything, especially their life. (The answer is 42.)
Note For Anyone Writing About Me
Guide to Writing About Me
I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.
I don't like Autism Speaks. I'm Disabled, not differently abled, and I am an Autistic activist. Self-advocate is true, but incomplete.
Citing My Posts
MLA: Hillary, Alyssa. "Post Title." Yes, That Too. Day Month Year of post. Web. Day Month Year of retrieval.
APA: Hillary, A. (Year Month Day of post.) Post Title. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/post-specific-URL.
#AutismSpeaks10 Aren't #AutismChampions.
I've been fairly active on Twitter the last few days with the Autistic and allied takeover of the #AutismSpeaks10 hashtag, and now the new tag, #AutismChampions (the s at the end is important, because without it you wind up in a different tag.)
I've also been super-busy offline, and I've been working on some cool advocacy, activism, and art stuff that's not ready yet, so I've not had enough time for that and blogging typically. In lieu of a more typical blog post, here's embeddings of all my original tweets to those two tags. :)
I seriously recommend looking at both tags, though, and maybe retweeting some stuff or adding your own! Warning, though: Some of the stuff Autism Speaks has done is really triggering, and we are talking about it.
#AutismSpeaks10 spreads the idea that our families are not living, just existing... and doesn't seem to worry how saying so affects *us.*
— Alyssa (@yes_thattoo) February 21, 2015
#AutismSpeaks10 style "awareness" is why TNJU didn't want an autistic student (me) to study abroad at their school.
(The Chinese tweet is a translation of this.)
#AutismSpeaks10 tries to teach autistic children to act normal (hence, speak) and then adults to STFU. Interesting turnaround.
#AutismSpeaks10 helped me realize just how much people are afraid of anyone who thinks and acts differently. By spreading that fear.
由于 #AutismSpeaks10 的"帮助" 和 "提高认识",天津师范大学恐怕自闭症,不要接受自闭症的留学生。
(This is Chinese for the TNJU (Tianjin Normal University) tweet.)
#AutismSpeaks10 has taught people that without normalization therapy, autistic people can't have a good life. But here I am, and here we are
#AutismSpeaks10 years lobbying to mandate therapy to match the guy who thinks we don't start with basic rights as people. See Lovaas: (1/2)
"With responsibility, the developmentally disabled individual takes on dignity and 'acquires' certain basic rights as a person."-The ME Book
#AutismSpeaks10 seem pretty sure that natural autistic body language and coping mechanisms are scary behaviors to eliminate. They're wrong.
Well, the Autistic tradition of flipping off the #AutismSpeaks10 offices when we pass them in NYC or Washington, DC is kinda fun, at least.
Like, JER left #AutismSpeaks10 essentially because they weren't listening. He already tried the nice thing. It DOESN'T WORK.
Be sure also to thank #AutismSpeaks10 for saying autism works faster than cancer and muscular dystrophy. #IamAutism @Privetine
Just a reminder that for an additional #AutismSpeaks10 backfire gift, you can totally leave a 1 star review here: https://t.co/wqKnUAjTZc
Y'know, without #AutismSpeaks10 years of fear-mongering, fewer #actuallyautistic would have so much time for twitter. #irony.
Given what #AutismSpeaks10 has for stated goals, I'm GLAD they're inefficient. Eliminating autism is eugenics, folks. #ActuallyAutistic
Reminder that #AutismSpeaks10 tried to sue an autistic minor for parody. Talk about silencing autistic people! http://t.co/OwheWn5gjn
Also a reminder that #AutismSpeaks10 has a history of plagiarizing autistic adults, white-texting, and lying about it http://t.co/1hmhMMd65X
But seriously, I have a "Problem with Autism Speaks" tag. http://t.co/7MTJPKDq0W #ActuallyAutistic #AutismSpeaks10 @autismspeaks
So @alannarwhitney made an #ActuallyAutistic alliteration acrostic of #AutismSpeaks10 here: http://t.co/C8XlhKVnDw Poetic truth to power!
#AutismSpeaks10 years of acting like autistic people are complete burdens and writing us out of our own stories.
#AutismSpeaks10 years of actively spreading fear of autism and #ActuallyAutistic response got covered on @BuzzFeed http://t.co/bpjqRlHQ4z
Just occurred to me that "The Beginning of Her Hell" is an argument against the "therapies" #AutismSpeaks10 suggests. http://t.co/XaCmPFlI9D
#AutismSpeaks10 years of every cool thing an autistic person does being "despite" or a sign of "overcoming" autism. :(
. @GMA Consider covering the #ActuallyAutistic responses to #AutismSpeaks10 Autistic people are speaking, listen to US.
#AutismSpeaks10 years insisting that barest acknowledgement of good things from autism is "false hope" of sunshines and rainbows...
#AutismSpeaks10 years of frank eugenics. That's what trying to eliminate those deemed "burdens" is. #ActuallyAutistic #RightsNotElimination
#AutismSpeaks10 speaks over us like we're not here and calls us #MSSNG. And also can't do math: 3 million Autistic Americans=total. Not kids
#AutismSpeaks10 uses our numbers to spread fear then denies we exist. #Autistic adults know what's up. #ActuallyAutistic #MSSNG #NotMSSNG
So remember that #MSSNG campaign that #AutismSpeaks10 ran? And how that's legit saying we're missing (stuff)? We're #NotMSSNG. We're here.
#AutismSpeaks10 lobbies to mandate a therapy that shares its history with gay conversion therapy. Lovaas-ABA. Look it up. #ActuallyAutistic
#AutismSpeaks10 lobbys to mandate a therapy with a stated goal of indistinguishability, at unreasonable cost: http://t.co/a2lHk0XWoR
Dude. If you get run out of your own hashtag by the population you claim to help, you are NOT #AutismChampions. #AutismSpeaks10
#AutismSpeaks10 is the problem, making it harder for #ActuallyAutistic #AutismChampions to get anything done.
Some REAL #AutismChampions are @UVGKassi @dkmnow @autistichoya @CorinaBecker @AutismAcceptDay @Aut_Love_Accept @Autism_Women
.@DeannaNMc Autistics speak, it's time to listen TO US. ( @autismspeaks can shut up now, they aren't #AutismChampions.)
#AutismSpeaks10 as #AutismChampions? More like #EugenicsChampions, get real. Eliminating autism *is* eugenics.
As an #ActuallyAutistic person, I'm grateful for @AutismSpeaks inefficiency, not their work- a sign they aren't #AutismChampions after all.
Posted by Alyssa at 8:14 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Ableism, Abuse, Autism, Autism Acceptance, Autism Awareness, Politics, Problem with Autism Speaks, Therapy, Trigger Warning
Democratizing Innovation notes
I actually read Democratizing Innovation a while ago, having reviewed it back in 2013. But I realized that I hadn't put my notes up yet (just a review) so here they are. You can get the book for free as a pdf at the authors website.
"I first ask them how satisfied they are with their backpack. Initially, most say, "It's OK." But after some discussion, a few complaints will slowly begin to surface (slowly, I think, because we all take some dissatisfaction with our products as the unremarkable norm.)"
But there are still a bunch of students who decide to make some sort of change to their backpack to make it at least a little better.
"adding more beta testers... increases the probability that someone's toolkit will be matched to the problem in such a way that the bug is shallow to that person." (Raymond qtd in von Hippel.)
That is, adding more people who look at a problem increases the chances that the solution will be simple to someone.
"The assets of some user will then generally be found to be a just-right fit to many innovation development problems."
parallel between user-innovator and scholar-activist?
Userinnovation.mit.edu
In the early days of computing, it was common to freely share software and modifications to it. Almost as soon as the first firm restricted access to source code, counters including the General Public License started appearing. Some people started calling these "copyleft."
hacker culture as an anarchist thing?
Conventional economic language talks about producers and consumers, supply and demand, but Weber notes that "the open source process scrambles these categories" (qtd in von Hippel) as users become part of the production process. He also suggests this integration could occur in other areas.
In open source, users are able to make complicated products themselves, like Firefox and Linux. (A user is kind of like a consumer, but it's a word that still works when the user is also the one making the thing.)
Experts in many fields form interest groups and informally help each other, freely revealing information in ways similar to that of open source processes. (von Hippel.)
Amabile, T. M. 1996. Creativity in Context. Westview.
Antelmon, Kristin. 2004. "Do Open Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?" College and Research Libraries 65, no 5: 372-382
Christensen, C. M. 1997. The Innovator's Dilemma. Harvard Business School Press.
Morris, A. D. and C. McClurg, eds. 1992. Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. Yale University Press.
Harhoff, D., J. Henkel, and E. von Hippel. 2003. Profiting from Voluntary Information Spillovers: How Users Benefit by Freely Revealing Their Innovations." Research Policy. 35, no 10:1753-1769.
Mishina, K. 1989. Essays on Technological Evolution. PhD Thesis, Harvard University.
Von Hippel, E. 1976. The Dominant Role of Users in the Scientific Instrument Innovation Process. Research Policy 5, no 3: 212-39
Posted by Alyssa at 12:00 AM 2 comments:
Labels: Academia, Reading Notes
Fiction and Representation (For Me)
After many, many years of being asked to visualize things and never being able to do it, and not forming pictures of characters or places in my head as I read, and never being able to accurately guess what a place actually looks like based on floor plans, I have reached the conclusion that I don't have a minds eye. (I reached the conclusion a while ago, so this isn't new, but it's relevant to the slightly unusual way I interact with representation in fiction.)
In fact, not only do I not come up with a mental image of a character as I read, but I also don't really remember the details of how a character is described as looking. (For similar reasons, I don't pay much attention to those details while I'm writing, which I'm working on because I know representation matters to people in all the ways they can interact with the information, and if I don't provide descriptions that show otherwise, people are going to assume all my characters are cisgender heterosexual able white people.)
One example I like to use for this is Hermione. The book descriptions of Hermione could be describing me, and I didn't realize this. After I saw the first movie, with Emma Watson as Hermione, while they were still trying to give her actual frizzy hair, I picked up on the bit where Hermione is a character who looks like me, but that didn't make Emma's Hermione take over the non-existent slot for my mental picture of Hermione. It didn't make me take over the non-existent slot either, because that slot doesn't exist. (Also, the book version of Hermione and I are fairly similar, personality-wise, which is the way that I can understand and interact with.)
For me, the non-existence of mental images for characters means that I personally don't much care what a character looks like. I care about it for the people who'll notice and care because they have minds eyes like that, and I care about it some (still not much) in movies because the pictures are given to me, but as far as making me feel represented goes, it really doesn't matter what the character looks like. I need characters who act like me, whether or not they look anything like me.
Give me characters who are awkward even when it isn't cute. Give me characters who avoid shopping because it's loud and bright. Give me characters whose interests don't line up with the idea of "geek" or "jock" or "creative type" or any of those, but have a mix from all. Give me characters who are good, really good, at some of the things they like but have to work hard to even manage "not terrible" for some of the others. Give me characters who act like me, with personalities like mine.
The physical descriptions matter for the people who can translate those to images, but that's not me and it will probably never be me.
Posted by Alyssa at 12:00 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Authory Stuff, Autism, Diversity, Fiction, My Life, Privilege
"Class" Discussion.
Over my winter break, I worked on a syllabus for a disability studies class aimed at engineering students, meant for the special section that the Society For Disability Studies is putting into one of their upcoming issues. (At least, I think that's how the section is working.)
I was talking to a professor in the school of education at my university (I have contacts in my university now! Yay!) We got to talking about books and reading, because her specialty is with English and I'm a bookworm. Somehow or other, the fact that she really liked the short story Harrison Bergeron came up. At this point, I mentioned that in one of the weeks of that syllabus I made, there are only two "readings." One is Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. The other is Fixed, a documentary about the science and fiction of human enhancement.
I wound up lending her my DVD of Fixed because she said it sounded interesting, and I left her with the question of why she thinks I'd put those two readings together. Now I'm opening it up here: anyone familiar with both pieces have any ideas on how they could work together in a class discussion? It doesn't need to be the same reasons/ways I have (note that I haven't said what those are anyways.) I'm curious, because I suspect that there's way more possibilities than the ones I've got.
Posted by Alyssa at 12:00 AM No comments:
Labels: Disability in General, Diversity, Education, Politics
Scholarship in the Digital Age Notes
And yet another "Alyssa reads a thing, here's sier notes." Yes, these are books I've been reading as I work on various chapters and papers and proposals as an academic person.
Citation for the book, as per usual.
Borgman, Christine L. Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2007.
And here's my notes!
In the first chapter, Borgman notes that much of the content of the Internet is unverified/unverifiable stuff like blogs and list serv discussions. As more and more academics blog, I question both the unversified nature and the unverifiable nature of these forms of media- blog posts with references exist- I know because I write these.
"Students acquire an insatiable appetite for digital publications, and then find on graduatiion that they can barely sample them without institutional affiliations" (3.) This is a huge, huge problem for independent scholars, especially poor independent scholars. And guess who's more likely to be an independent scholar rather than have affiliations? Exactly the same people who face barriers to participation in academia.
Nevertheless, making content that was created for one audience useful for another is a complex problem. Each field has its own vocabulary, data structures, and research practices. People ask questions in different ways, starting with familiar terminology. (10.)
Basically the quote I just copied in above. This is a big argument in favor of the disciplinary versioning with discipline-nonspecific version approach, though it also raises a question: what is the current intended audience, and should that be the indended audience? In conversations about disability, disabled people need to be part of the main intended audience, not an add on.
"Journal articles are more valuable if one can jump directly from the article to those it cites and to later articles that cite the source article" (10.) Oh hey, the Chinese journal system I used to download a ton of papers when I was in Tianjin can do that. It was useful, except for the part where a lot of papers didn't actually cite anyone...
Wissenschaften is apparently a German word that covers sciences, social sciences, and humanities. That is really cool. Also, cyberwissenschaften for the cyber kind. That's cool, but it's German and that means most USAians won't really know or use it. Sads. Cyberscience: Research in the Age of the Internet by Nentwich apparently talks about this some. Woo linguistics but sads because English.
I think I need to find William Gibson's novel, Neuromancer.
"Notions of scholarship, information, and infrastructure are deeply embedded in technology, policy, and social arrangements" (33.)
"Underlying the technical and policy developments are theories and philosophies about what is socially acceptable and appropriate" (33.)
"Scholars in the twenty-first century continue to use those channels [in person, by phone, and by mail,] while also communicating via e-mail, blogs, and chat" (47.) Ok so blogs are unverfied and unverifiable, but also are a way scholars talk to each other? That makes SO MUCH SENSE. Oh wait, no, it really doesn't.
Oh hey, problems with peer review. Ibby talked about those some in the cognitive accessibity and why we should share piece on the feminist wire, too. Lets see what Borgman's got to say.
"Double-blind reviewing is difficult to maintain, especially in online environments, as authors can be identified by searching for similar work on the topic of the paper." (61.)
Cronin, B.- interesting author. The Citation Process: The Role and Significance of Citations in Scientific Communication (1984), The Hand of Science: Academic Writing and Its Rewards, (2005.)
Peer review is a social process, with all the problems that can come from social processes.
Open posting and review of papers where anyone may comment brings up the question of who is a peer. The system used to be pretty well closed, with authors and reviewers being the same set of people. (I'm totally in favor of questioning who is a peer, the current system is super elitist. Not sure what Borgman thinks of blowing it open like this, I think she's trying to sound unbiased here?)
"Reviewing can be a conservative process that is more likely to reinforce the norms of a field than to identify significant breakthroughs. Articles that are ultimately highly cited often have difficulty getting published." (62.) She cites McCook 2006, Meadows 1998, Nature 2006, Shatz 2004, and Weller 2000, 2001 for this. So many citations, here's the full ones below now.
McCook, A. (2006). Is Peer Review Broken? Scientist 20 (2): 26.
Meadows, A. J. (2001). Communicating Research. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Nature Peer Review Trial and Debate. (2006). Nature. <http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/index.html>
Shatz, D. (2004). Peer Review: A Critical Inquiry. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Weller, A. C. (2000). Editorial peer review for electronic journals: Current issues and emerging models. Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology 51 (14): 1328-1333.
Weller, A. C. (2001). Peer Review: Its Strengths and Weaknesses. Medford, NJ: Information Today.
"New technologies did not result in shifting the balance among stakeholders as radically or as rapidly as some had hoped, largely because social practices are much more enduring than are technologies (65.)
"In a print world, most relationships are bibliographic references to other documents or to data sources. In a digital world, these references can be automated links that will take the reader directly to the source document or even the cited passage within that document." (70.)
"With active links, readers can follow a trail directly to sources and data, and may be more likely to verify claims" (70.)
Information technologies now enable anyone to be a publisher, in the generic sense that anything "made public" is published. Nevertheless, the supposedly low barriers to entry in computer-based publishing ignore the complex relationships between stakeholders. "Self-publishing" is an oxymoron in the scholarly world. Authors need peer-reviewers; publishers need authors, editors, and reviewers; and libraries need content to collect, organize, make accessible, and preserve. (76.)
Because academic publishing doesn't do the whole self-publishing thing, depending on others reviews before permitting publication, the lowering of technical barriers to publishing is insufficient on its own to make stakeholder voices be heard in academic conversations. The lowered technical barriers to entry mean that a social change of listening to stakeholders and inviting them into conversations are easier to do from a logistics standpoint. That's it.
Changes in online review led to asking "who is a peet?" "When considering the legitimization of digital documents online, the question becomes, "legitimate to whom?" (84.)
"Students, practitioners, scholars with minimal access to the published literature, and the general public usually are happy to read and cite any free version of a document they can find online" (84.)
Posting documents online was considered prior publication as far as journals were concerned for a while. As more and more authors took advantage of the interent to post working copies of papers on repositories and personal websites, the policy changed, and such posting and circulation became an informal communication which no longer prevented journal publication. [Like Melanie Yergeau's blog post that got expanded into an article on Disability Studies Quarterly!]
The ways that people actually read (or decide whether or not to read) scholarly publications aren't perfectly suited to print, with skimming of titles, abstracts, and conclusions more common than reading the entire article linearly. Similar jumping around sections is common for books as well. Electronic publications could take advantage of their increased flexibility, including the lack of requirement for linearity, and design for these actual habits. However, this doesn't usually happen. Online texts typically attempt to be just as linear as print texts.
Scholarly information never will be completely translatable between disciplines any more than languages ever will be perfectly translatable. Some ideas within fields cannot be fully expressed in the language of another field, just as some ideas in French or Chinese cannot be fully expressed in English. We can improve the transmission and translation of ideas through tools and practices, however. (230.)
I think that also ties in with the paradigm stuff that Nick Walker talks about in his essay where he describes the neurodiversity paradigm. Ideas from different paradigms don't really translate well to others, usually. Sometimes a piece of data can be picked up from one and re-interpreted in another, but it's a lot of work.
The lack of perfect translatability between academic fields is both a strength and a weakness of information infrastructure. It is a strength in that fields can express themselves in the full richness of their own languages. It is a weakness in that rich internal structures can create rigid boundaries between fields. Interdisciplinary work depends on the ability to span those boundaries. (231-232.)
Forfeiting the richness of local language is too high a price to pay for interoperability. (232.)
These two bits line up big time with the whole translation thing. Translators are important, both across disciplines and between activists and academics, and all kinds of cultural differences within and outside academia.
And now I go through the references section for stuff I'd read if time were infinite. I probably won't read most of it, though, because time isn't infinite.
Artandi, S. (1973). Information concepts and their utility. Journal for the American Society for Information Science 24 (4): 242-245.
Bailey, C. (2005). Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with e-Prints and Open Access Journals. Washington, D.C: Association of Research Libraries. <http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/oab.pdf> (URL is from 2006, might not still be working.)
Barnett, G. A., Fink, E.L., and Debus, M. B. (1989). A mathematical model of citation age. Communication Research 16 (4): 510-531.
Crane, D. (1972). Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Journal of Documentation- the article cited is way out of date now but the journal sounds cool.
Day, R. E. (2001). The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dillon, A. (1994). Designing Usable Electronic Text. London: Taylor and Francis.
Duguid, P. (2005). "The art of knowing": Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and the limits of community of practice. Information Society 21 (2): 109-118.
Gieryn, T. F. (1999). Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hemlin, S. and Rasmussen, S. B. (2006). The shift in academic quality control. Science, Technology, and Human Values 31 (2): 173-198.
Hughes, T. P. Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kling, R. (2004). The Internet and Unrefereed Scholarly Publishing. In Annual Review of Information Scheice and Technology, ed. B. Cronin, 38: 591-631. Medford, NJ: Information Today.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistimic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Camrbridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B., and Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tenopir, C., and King, D. W. (2002). Reading behaviour and electronic journals. Learned Publishing 15: 259-265.
Tenopir, C., and King, D. W. (2004). Communication Patterns of Engineers. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Labels: Academia, Politics, Reading Notes, Research, Science
Stumbled On: The Engineering Handbook of Smart Technology for Aging, Disability, and Independence
It's a PDF version, and I found it here. Since I'm in engineering and in disability, this is the kind of thing I am always interested in when I find it. Though I am definitely worried/expecting that it will be super medical model or maybe scientific model because that's where engineering tends to hang out.
First things first: the whole book citation is:
Helal, Abdelsalam A., Mounir Mokhtari, and Bessam Abdulrazak, eds. The Engineering Handbook of Smart Technology for Aging, Disability, and Independence. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008. PDF.
The select tool lets me select text, rather than selecting the page as an image, which I think means it's screen-readable.
It is one of those books where the different chapters have different authors, so when actually using it the different chapters get cited differently under most style guides. Yay for how long the works cited is going to be when I use books like this?
Also, the pdf is 971 pages long. Not every page in that is part of any chapter, but that is a lot of pages. There is no way I am sitting down and reading the whole thing. So I'm going to start with the table of contents and the index to figure out what to read on a first pass through, after which I'll make said pass through and take notes on that. Other parts, I may go back and read when they seem relevant to a particular project I'm working on. It's happened.
The chapters I think I want to read in full are:
International Policy Context of Technologies for Disabilities: An Analytic Framework. 49-60. Rene Jahiel.
ISO 9999 Assistive Products for Persons with Disability: Classification and Terminology. 117-126. Ir. Theo Bougie.
Part II: Users, Needs, and Assistive Technology. Chapters 7-12, p 127-236.
The Communication Assistant (Alternative Communication). 297-316. Leanne L.West.
Context Awareness. 585-606. Jadwiga Indulska and Karen Henricksen.
Universal Design/Design for All: Practice and Method. 803-818. Edward Steinfeld.
Usability in Designing Assistive Technologies. 855-866. Jean-Claude Sperandio and Marion Wolff.
That's a total of 12 chapters, which is still a lot, but considering that there are a total of 49 chapters it's a significant reduction.
Going through the index, I also want to spot-read pages:
2, 5-7, 11-24, 29, 31-35, 39-41, 46-47, 65-68, 72-74, 101-116, 121, 130, 257-259, 273, 282-286, 291-292, 322-334, 389-392, 397-399, 441, 572-574, 616, 793, 712, 770-772, 788-793, 823-824, 826-829, 846-848, 907-920.
Yeah, I've got a lot of reading to do now. But I'm hyperlexic and interested in the topic, so yay!
Labels: Disability in General, Engineering, Reading Notes, Research, Science
Technology and Social Inclusion Notes
And yet more "Alyssa reads a thing, and then sticks sier notes online" type stuff. This time, I read Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide.
Full citation is:
Warschauer, Mark. Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2003.
And yes, there is a lot of MIT Press stuff on my shelves. I get to the physical store a few times a year and they have a sale/hurt books shelf that lets me get academic books for often $3 or $5. This is useful. Anywho, the notes.
Projects to increase access and use of computers and the internet run into problems when they focus too much on simply providing hardware and software, rather than on human and social systems that need to change if the technology's existence is going to change anything.
"The stereotype of disconnected minority groups could even serve to further social stratification by discouraging employers or content producers from eaching out to those groups" (7.)
"The digital divide framework provides a poor map for using technology to promote social development because it overemphasizes the importance of the physical presence of computers and connectity to the exclusion of other factors that allow people to use ICT for meaningful ends" (7.)
Note: ICT=information and communcation technology.
Book works as one more citation for extra utility of the internet for disabled people, woot!
Literacy and internet technology education are both more effective when using content relevant to the learners needs and social conditions. It's often best to have this content created by the learners!
Reading and understanding typically involves the use of a large amount of background knowledge. [Book uses example of basketball game. Call for submissions example mine.] When reading a call for submissions, a person uses their knowledge of the topic (as long as the topic is explained in words that cause retrieval of this knowledge- a disabled person might not know the academic terms to describe their experiences even though they are expert on the actual experiences.) They would also use any familiarity with the typical format of calls for submissions, the writers of the call, the site the call is posted on, and whatever event (forum, conference, book, etc) the call is for.
Literacy, then, is political and cultural. The academic writer on any given topic is expected to speak the language of academia, to value the same ways of knowing and evaluating things that academics in that topic do, to argue in similar ways and for similar things that the dominant academics in that topic do. [And now I build my stuff on it] This is going to exclude writers who have been and continue to be marginailzed by academics and experts from writing about their reality in general, and the reality of their exclusion in particular. Bad, bad, bad. It also means that understanding an internet call for submissions will require both academic and internet literacies, both of which are based in certain cultural ways of doing things (which sometimes contradict, just to make it harder.)
Many interent resources require a high level of (culturally defined) literacy, including tutorials explaining how to make use of computers and the internet.
Content that addresses disabled people's needs is often lacking, both in terms of format (can we access the site?) and subject matter (are our needs and interests addressed by the site?)
Apparently European portals for disabled people exist! Rehab type programs, assistive tech, education, work adaptation, training, and legal stuff are all there. (I think culture, activism, calls for submissions about disability should all be around so that the portals encourage disabled people to be in discussions about disability. Not sure if those are there.)
This reminds me of the Chinese site that I check on occasion, it's got essays including a review of Design Meets Disability. Warschauer cites European Commissions e-Inclusion stuff from 2001.
Neumann, P. and C. Uhlenküken. 2001. Assistive Technology and the barrier-free city: A case study from Germany. Urban Studies: 38 (2): 367-376. Apparently mentions a database run by Muenster, Germany that has a database and interactive street map for mobility accessibility, including for services like transit, recreation, and medical stuff.
Reminds me a bit of the Ableride site, if that's what it's called? Reviews a la Yelp, but for access information.
Machine translation, already present and common online, is not yet of sufficient quality to reduce the utility of having a common langauge, and it may be a while until this happens. (But it's still a whole lot better than nothing, or than having your different langauge willfully misinterpreted!)
Jim Cummins (1984) draws a distinction between Basic Communication Interpersonal Skills and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. Since what I'm talking about is basically the idea that the first should be enough to talk/write about issues affecting your own life and be listened to, I think I need to at least look at his thing. Citation is:
Cummins, J. 1984. Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Related to this, I want to note that being able to explain the issues one faces does not imply being able to understand an academic call for submissions or being able to write the explanation in the same words an academic would use.
The creative writing on computers in Chinese thing looks interesting to me. He, K and J. Wu. 2001. Innovative research to achive the objectives of eight-year-old Chinese children's ability to read and write: The experiementation of integrating information technology into language literacy education. Unpublished manuscript, Beijing Normal University, China. (WHY MUST IT BE UNPUBLISHED I WANT TO READ IT.)
"In some situations, the Internet's most important role may be to allow people simply to find each other." (188.) Yes. This. Finding out that we're not alone, organizing, etc. Especially for marginalized minorities whose minority status is probably not heritable. He gives the example of gay people here, I mention disability. Sure, some disabilities are heritable, but not all. Not sure if it's even most.
People who aren't getting as much support for their illnesses (and presumably disabilities?) face to face tend to spend more time in online support areas. This is not even a little bit surprising.
Drawing a distinction between the institution of academia and the organization that is any given university, like Warschauer does, I note that these changes in individual practices I am suggesting both require and help bring about significant changes in the whole institution of academia: academia has been an exclusive and elite institution and I am suggesting it become inclusive and turn the current hierarchy of who is expert on the issues any given group faces upside down- the people who face them know most and should be most listened to.
Woo, time to go through the references to see if any paper/chapter titles look particularly interesting. I'm gonna be picky, though, cause most of the stuff I'm seeing is from 2001 and earlier, which for an internet thing is a bit out of date.
Blom, J.-P., and J. J. Gumperz. 1972. Social meaning in linguistic structures: Code-switching in Norway. In Directions in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes, 407-434. New York: Holt, Weinhart, and Winston.
Friere, P. 1994. Pedagogy of the oppressed. 3rd ed, New York: Continuum.
Stanley, L. 2001. Beyond access. Occasional Paper 2. San Diego, Calif: UCSD Civic Collaborative.
Labels: Academia, Politics, Reading Notes, Research
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Dehumanization of the Party and it's Members in 1984
从自闭症走出来?无意义的概念。
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Think These Images are Photoshopped? Guess Again!
Added on Feb 01, 2011 / Category : StrangeNews / Comments
There are thousand of articles available on the internet about Photoshop and photo manipulation. We have been all mesmerized by pictures that were altered with care and grew to think that every cool image must have been digitally doctored. However, I have made an effort to bring something different to your notice.
Well, here are pictures that will make you think their subjects have been cleverly modified, when in reality, these are all real! Their actions are real but might be edited for colors and adjustments. I appreciate to all those talented photographers who taken these excellent photos with their efforts, imaginations and creativity to give us a chance to see these photographic wonders from their creative eyes.
Mountain Does Marilyn Monroe Impression
No need to avert your eyes, you are not in fact witnessing the world's largest up-skirt. These bizarre, lens shaped lenticular clouds form in upward gusts of wind that naturally occur around mountains. These winds, known as "wave lifts", are so powerful that sail plane pilots have used them to glide 1,864 miles without a motor. Venticular clouds are often mistaken for UFOs, which sounds retarded until you see one of these hovering over your town.
Actually, a Translation Error Would Have Improved This One
Man, just imagine all of the uses. Wait, do dogs even sweat? We smell bullshit here. This is actually a spinoff of a popular Japanese drink called Pocari Sweat. We don't know who Pocari is either, but we're going to go ahead and assume he's a Sumo wrestler.
A Water Park Designed by MC Escher
What sucks about magic is the tricks are always incredibly lame once you know how they're done. This one is no different, it's supported by a pipe running up through the water.
Challenge God to a Fight?
This would be the second entry in the "Man, this is the worst CGI I've ever seen!" category, with what appears to be a strafing run by a plane-mounted flamethrower. This is a fire whirl, a momentary phenomenon caused by twisting air currents, captured in action by a lucky photographer.
Not-Falling Rocks
If not Photoshop, you could assume this is just some rocks captured in mid-fall, like maybe just out of frame is a dump truck and the camera is seconds away from being buried. But, no, this is a stationary object and an example of the art form known as Rock Balancing. That's pretty much self-explanatory, but proving that art forms are primarily created so that people can come up with pretentious ways of talking about them, there are actually four separate recognized categories of rock balancing. Just the thought of introducing oneself as a "freestyle rock balancer" should be enough to cause most people's balls to clench in anticipation of being soundly thumped.
The Secret Nuclear Origins of the Care Bears
This bad painting-album cover is a photo of the continuously spewing Fly Geyser in Nevada. The colorful mineral buildup from the continuous eruption makes it look like a giant serving of rainbow sherbet. If you think that photo looks doctored, feel free to take to Google and find a shot that doesn't look fake as hell.
Salvador Dali's Melting Train Tracks
These funhouse-mirror railroad tracks are a reminder that Mother Nature pretty much laughs at the things we build. What you're seeing is the aftermath of a recent earthquake in New Zealand. We feel sorry for those two guys in orange who apparently have been tasked with re-straightening the tracks with their bare hands. Hurry up, guys! The train will be here in 10 minutes!
We're Pretty Sure This is Symbolic, But Not Sure What It's Symbolic For
At the very least this looks like a posed shot, or maybe some sort of weird lobbyist advertisement trying to drum up some funding for our troops. But it's actually a real image captured of U.S. soldiers ambushed by the Taliban, and one guy who didn't have time to change into his war clothes. Why do we issue our troops huge, pink comedy boxers? BECAUSE WE ELECTED A DEMOCRAT.
"Damn Kids!"
At first sight, this appears to be a home improvement project that accidentally tapped into Stephen Hawkings' most abstract theories on space and time. But then you notice that the kid who is right next to the portal to another dimension isn't disintegrating into millions of pieces, or even looking up from his goddamn cellphone. So it must be a photoshop right? Wrong again. The Inversion House is an art project that answers the pressing question: what would your neighbor's place look like if it was sucked through a straw in the Looney Tunes universe? The answer is pretty cool, though apparently not nearly as cool as whatever 13 year-olds are texting each other these days.
Christmas Tree Decorations in Morocco
This might look like a lazy father's hastily photoshopped answer to the question "Where do baby goat's come from?" But in fact, it's a real photograph taken of real goats in in Morroco. When food became sparse on the ground, the hoofed creatures simply learned to climb trees. Pretty cool, though we'd imagine it loses some of its luster the first time you park under a tree and your car gets crapped on by a goat.
Mom, Dad, I'd Like You to Meet my New Girlfriend
This is one of those in the "not just fake but a bad fake" category, looking like something from some magazine ad selling ... bear insurance or something. But in fact it's one of several pics of Brutus the Bear and the family who's keeping him as a pet. Brutus was raised in captivity and serves as a pet/family friend to Casey Anderson, star of Expedition Grizzly. One of Casey's major goals is to use Brutus to show that giant bears aren't the dangerous man-eating monsters that we think they are. That's a brave mission he's on, considering the previous attempt to prove that resulted in the guy getting eaten. (source)


In his first international season, Steve Wijler collected both the breakthrough and recurve men's athlete of the year awards.
The Netherland's Steve Wijler was the big story as World Archery's Athlete of the Year Award winners for 2017 were announced during the 2018 Indoor Archery World Cup Final in Las Vegas, USA on 10 February.
As well as being named breakthrough athlete of the year for winning his first-ever Hyundai Archery World Cup stage in Shanghai, Wijler was also named the recurve men's athlete of the year for a season that saw him also podium at the Hyundai World Archery Championships and climb to fourth in the world rankings.
After nominations are received from federations, the athletes of the year are voted on by a combination of public poll and expert panels. Over 72,000 public votes were cast for the 2017 awards.
A debut season at 21 years of age saw Steve Wijler win the Hyundai Archery World Cup stage in Shanghai, come third at the worlds in Mexico City and finish the year ranked fourth in the world.
Olympic silver medallist Lisa Unruh beat out World Cup Final winner Ki Bo Bae and World Archery Champion Ksenia Perova to this second award in a row thanks to her win at the World Games in Wroclaw.
The world's number one ranked compound man took gold at the World Games and was one shoot-off arrow away from winning his second World Archery Championship title in a row in Mexico City.
A third Athlete of the Year award in a row for Lopez, who wasn't as dominant as in past years in 2017, but still took gold at the World Games and finished the season ranked number two in the world.
Simonelli performed both on the para circuit and as part of the Italian able-bodied team in 2017, coming extremely close to making an individual final on the World Cup circuit and representing Italy in the mixed team event at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in Rome.
After reclaiming her World Archery Para Champion in Beijing in October, two-time Paralympic Champion Nemati reclaimed this Athlete of the Year title for the second season in a row.
A first Hyundai Archery World Cup stage win at the first such event in his career, Wijler officially broke through into the cream of the world stage at Shanghai 2017.
Coach of double award winner Steve Wijler, Ron van der Hoff is contracted to lead the Dutch international squad through the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
World Archery Awards have been presented annually since 2014 to athletes and officials for exceptional performance or contribution to the sport.