Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Didn’t even realize this was the last Wednesday of February

On campus today, remembering some great advice I once reserved from a former news director, and some equally good advice I received from a faculty colleague, I talked scheduling. It was one of those things you plan ahead about what things you should highlight and discuss, and then suddenly it all disappears when you sit down to do it. Oh well, main points shared. Camaraderie achieved. No one’s lunch was interrupted. Also, I set up another meeting for next week, because I want to be the appointment guy, not the walk in and interrupt your flow guy. That’s how you develop real camaraderie, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, my fall classes look set. A conversation I had last week was fruitful in making some changes. I am not accustomed to having this sort of say in things. Three interesting classes, including one I am designing, but all of them are new to me. New ones take a little more work. I’m going to be proposing and hopefully designing a lot of new classes in the next few years. That’s the plan. Fortunately, I have a notebook devoted exclusively to just these ideas. I wonder how long it will take me to fill that one up.

In class today, we discussed television. Monday we did the same, mostly formats and history. But today it was Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, India. No one saw that coming before I gave the class a reading list.

Did you know the differences between how television works in all of those places? It starts with culture, is heavily influenced by the local languages, or regional historical politics, and, also, topography. Kyrgyzstan, for example, is incredibly mountainous, which limits what we think of as cable and over-the-air television. Also, their past with, and proximity to, Russia figures into what goes on television there, primarily cities versus rural, and you can probably guess the breakdown from there. For Ghanaian television, it’s a balance of history, cultural mores, and importing other products. India is similar, but not at all the same. There are so many languages, so many places where different parts of the country’s people overlap that television is a curious mix. And when the outsiders came, in the early 1990s, there was a lot of pushback. India knew something about invasions, and imported television was seen as a cultural invasion, and not at all welcome. Apparently that has subsided, but I bet there’s some older folks who remember that feeling well. Culture, it keeps coming back to culture. What you’ve got, what you’ll accept from other places, and what other places (the U.S. and Europe in these case, primarily) are offering.

Happily, a bunch of young people who don’t watch a lot of television themselves are going along for the conversation. And next week we’ll talk journalism. It’s a survey of a variety of media forms around the world, and it’s a lot of fun.

The view on the drive home.

This is how I know the days are getting longer. I don’t arrive in the driveway in darkness. I am pleased with this progression.

I haven’t been on my bike in four days, and it showed. Also, today’s route had two climbs in it, so I took my time, enjoying the two-hour effort, and covering 34 miles.

Just one Strava PR today, and it was a climb. It might have been the one pictured here, but they all look the same to me. I do wonder, though, why the avatars don’t get cold. If you pulled off and stopped pedaling, he’d just stand there waiting for you. But, way up there, he should be shivering. Instead, he is immune to the weather, the higher altitude, all of it. He just keeps pedaling, so long as I do.

I have to stop making excuses to not ride. “Schedules” and “work” and “dinner.” Whatever. I should probably ride uphill more. It’s not like my avatar will mind.

photo / Tuesday / video — No comments
25
Feb 25

The tease of not-spring

Here’s a lovely video I shot from the front porch on a recent evening and forgot to share here. Hey, the colors were nice, OK? I sped it up just a bit, to add some whimsy.

It was a beautiful day today, so much so that I spent a solid hour doing yard work. And by yard work, I mean picking up and breaking branches. I have an impressive little tower growing in the backyard just now. The top half of it is what I did today.

All of this will go in the fire pit, eventually. If you look in the foreground you can see some thicker branches also waiting for that bit of ambience. Not pictures is a bunch of firewood. The first problem is that it has been, paradoxically, too cold to start a fire.

And now, suddenly, and briefly, it is not.

On the other hand, it is much too windy. But, eventually, we’ll get the right set of conditions. On that day, we’ll start by burning all of these leaves and light lawn litter that is in the fire pit.

It’s a rite of spring, or something. Now if spring would just hurry up and arrive. But, friends, it was a lovely and almost warm day today.

After my break in the yard this afternoon it was back inside and grading once again. Students were reading this piece, from my colleague, Dr. Angela Cirucci.

Facebook is forthcoming about what happens with our posts and the related meta-data (e.g., tags, locations, and sharing permissions) that we have intentionally provided (the chopped carrots). These are the data, as Mr. Zuckerberg notes above, that we can download. However, Facebook is much less forthcoming about the data they assume we have unintentionally provided (the fingerprints) and the data that Facebook itself derives from our contributions (the registry).

One of the main strategies that Facebook uses to side-step this topic is to focus only on notions of social privacy, rather than institutional privacy. While your social privacy includes which of your content other internet users are privy to, your institutional privacy has to do with what Facebook themselves can see, and what new content they ultimately derive.

In fact, Mr. Zuckerberg’s definition of privacy is an outdated notion of privacy that only includes social considerations. If, for instance, we set the permission, what Facebook calls the “audience,” of a post to “Only Me,” we expect that coworkers, family, and the public will not be able to view it. However, what about Mr. Zuckerberg himself? Or members of a Facebook research team? Or a new data analysis tool developed by Facebook? How would we ever know? Suddenly “Only Me” seems potentially misleading.

That’s from 2018 and Facebook has only gotten more concerning, I’m sorry to say.

This is a moment in that class, though, where students (most of whom are dismissive of Facebook as something that Boomers use) start to really consider the implications of all of our social media platforms. It’s an eye-opening read, and we would all do well to give careful consideration what we use, and how. And, in this go around, this batch of students seems intent on doing just that, which is gratifying in its own way.

And that’s what I’m reading about today. And probably all of Thursday, too.

Monday / photo — Comments Off
24
Feb 25

Is everyone all caught up?

We took a long walk yesterday, enjoying the sunshine and not-freezing temperatures. We’re in a short stretch of days with temperatures in the 50s. It’s almost like spring, but you can’t be fooled. You can, however, be happy about it, and not tricked by it. There’s still, sadly, plenty of time for more winter. We are at the point of the season where it could go one of two ways, grim acceptance, or with that seconds-old proverb: You enjoy what you get, and you get what you enjoy.

Once again, it seems the web has not recorded that phrase. I coined it. I coined it and you can’t have it.

Though I’ll tell you this, you enjoy what you get, and you get what you enjoy. And, in this case, what you enjoy is another nugget of wisdom from me, your humble correspondent.

Anyway, in the backyard, I found these these old guys just hanging on.

I haven’t even been in that part of the yard for a while, obviously. It’s not as if it’s a huge yard. It’s just, you know, winter time. But it was only coolish Sunday and so we had a nice long sunny walk. Unfortunately, and oddly, we solved none of the world’s problems on that walk.

Usually we bash out one or two of them as a matter of course.

Let us check in on the kitties, because most of you are just hear for that, anyway. Phoebe has been studying her new friends in the backyard. She stayed in this exact position for a long, long while.

Poseidon, meanwhile, was taken a bit of time off from monitoring things from his doorway view. Everybody needs a little tunnel time now and again.

In class today we talked about television. It was a rip-roaring discussing about history, game shows, international licensing rights and streaming. I might have wandered all over the place. Definitely talked to much. On Wednesday, I’ll make the students do the talking. We’re covering television in parts of Africa and Asia.

Friday / photo / Rowan — Comments Off
21
Feb 25

I need a new notebook

Last Friday, when I wasn’t writing here, I was writing on my work machine. I was also tempted to tear my hair out. The project was the contracting packet, which you must do every so often. It’s a windy narrative of the things you’ve done since the last packet. This is my first one at the new job. They’ve also changed their process. And universities, of course, love their process.

This is where I was in the process. The draft packet was due. My department has a committee that gives helpful feedback of the draft. Next month, I must turn in the real thing. So the draft is due. It’s a new process for me, and a new procedure for them. So I had to write all of this stuff. Simultaneously, at one point last week, I was listening in to a webinar explaining the new submission system. It still has some kinks to work out.

So I just concerned myself with the narrative. This shouldn’t be difficult. If there’s one thing I can do, is write. And if there’s another thing I can do, it’s write about me. And if there’s a third thing I can do, it’s do that at length.

There’s actually a page count. And if you maxed it out, the packet can be up to 39 pages. I finished my draft at 26 pages. To be fair, the packet is meant to be a narrative exploration of the last two or three years (depending on where you are). But mine is only an exploration of the past four months or so.

The hair-tearing part wasn’t about the content, but the formatting. And good grief, if someone could either make a word processing program that can just do straightforward work or just teach me how to use the train wreck that Word is intent on becoming, that’d be great. (This document I was working on has two different sets of table of contents for some reason, for example, with active links and so on. It’s just a series of things to deal with, format wise.

My lovely bride, who has already completed her packet because she has a different deadline for some reason, was exceedingly helpful with this whole week long exercise. She did three things that I probably could have done, but much more slowly. One of those things was to help with the PDF links.

It was due on Friday and in the 23rd hour of the day, after three days solid of working on it, not a sleep because of it, and two days behind in my grading because of it, and entirely over tabs and fonts and bullet points in Word, I sent it in.

And then I noticed the email that said the deadline was Sunday, and not Friday.

Even better. I’d finished early and it didn’t dominate the rest of the weekend.

The grading did. Because I was two days behind.

This week I had a meeting with a colleague who heads the committee that oversees this whole process. He said I did too much. The packet is laid out in steps. He had given me another colleague’s completed packet as an example, though it is now outdated. And in our talks he’d told me about this and that, explaining what each item was and should look like. And I guess I heard that as “Do this, and then do that, and do these things … ” He needed me to go through step 4, but I worked all the way through step 7.

So I’d done too much. But, he said, he wished everyone had to go through step 7. Because that’s where it has to go eventually. So I’m ahead of the game. And now I can pretend like it didn’t happen until I get feedback from the committee a week or two from now.

We also talked, this week, about what my classes would be next fall. So I am now in the know seven months ahead of the term. And we also discussed problems with the schedule. And he’s fixing the problems. It was lovely. And then we discussed how I can schedule classes for future terms.

For instance, one of my classes next fall will be a new one I’m offering, Criticism in Sports Media. I’ve already started assembling source material and laying out course objectives.

Starting one brand new course a term is possible. Getting a new class up and running takes a lot of time and attention and so it might not be wise to start a bunch of brand new courses in one semester. That gives me something to shoot for in the next several years. Fortunately, I have pages and pages of ideas. Also, I have a line in my job ad that asked for me to design new courses. And, after that meeting this week, I suddenly have a great deal of agency in my work.

That’s so exciting, I want to go right a bunch of notes.

And so, this week, I have written five posts here which discusses two weeks. And it was still incomplete, as recountings go. Next week, the normal pace returns. I am excited for that, too.

But, now, those notes.

photo / Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off
20
Feb 25

Type type type all day long

Let me tell you about last Thursday. I went to campus with my lovely bride. She had to teach. I had lunch with the provost. He does these occasional sit downs with various groups of faculty and you get invited once every three or four years. So you take advantage of it, for the delicious sandwich wraps, and some chit chat.

We went around the room, introducing ourselves, which is no less painful than when you did it on the first day of school, no matter how old you are. The provost said a few things, and then opened the floor to questions. One of our colleagues asked about the NIH cuts on grants and what effect that would have on the university. The provost answered that question, a long, thoughtful, encouraging answer. He and his office had put a lot of thought into this, which is great, since it is so new and, as he said, there’s still a lot we don’t know. (Which is one of the points.)

Then someone else asked a similar kind of question, getting into the nuts and bolts of that. What precisely the grants mean, how this overhead concept works, and so on. Not everyone is involved in this process on a daily basis, and so it was a good question, and he answered it well.

Then I asked a question about addressing students in the face of all of this uncertainty.

That took up most of the rest of the lunch hour, because there is a lot of that answer to still work on.

The provost is a sharp man, an engineer by training and trade. He believes in the university’s vitality in an easy, contagious, kind of way. We had a pleasant talk, and then he and I talked again after the lunch was over.

And then I went home and got back on this writing project. There was a draft of it due by Friday night. The draft of a project meant to describe my first year. It’ll be about 30 pages. To be fair to me, I’m really writing about four months, and not a whole year. But I’ll drag that out for tomorrow’s post.

Here are some geese I saw last Thursday during a work break.

Today, it was more grading, grinding my way through that Hogan reading I mentioned the other day. Bernie Hogan’s The Presentation of Self, that is. The abstract:

Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous “situations,” and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.” Goffman’s dramaturgical approach (including the notions of front and back stage) focuses on situations. Social media, on the other hand, frequently employs exhibitions, such as lists of status updates and sets of photos, alongside situational activities, such as chatting. A key difference in exhibitions is the virtual “curator” that manages and redistributes this digital content. This article introduces the exhibitional approach and the curator and suggests ways in which this approach can extend present work concerning online presentation of self. It introduces a theory of “lowest common denominator” culture employing the exhibitional approach.

It is an interesting paper, and an interesting thing is happening with the students. When I taught it last semester I saved a file with all of my notes thinking I might recycle them in some future class. I write to the students about specific questions they think up while reading the paper. This crop of students, however, have asked entirely different kinds of questions. So I have about eight pages of notes that are no good. Meaning I have to write all new answers.

It’s a hard life.

I haven’t been able to ride my bike enough lately. Too many real world intrusions. But I got in a quick hour this evening. And I included a few miles in the quantum realm.

Zwift put in these extra features a year or two ago. They call them climbing portals, where the point is just going up, which I did. I assume, or I read and I’ve forgotten it, that the idea was to give additional climbs without spending all the development time of building the background decoration of the surrounding world. This also means they could alter these relatively easily or quickly. I don’t know if they will, or maybe they have. But I doubt both. Everything you perceive in the quantum realm is weird.

For example, in that photo, I’m actually headed back out and on the descent, bot that you can tell. But, believe me, the legs notice all these differences. Everything in the quantum realm is weird.

Except the one thing. I was going slowly.