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  • Why Facebook Won, and Other Hard Truths

    Some great points by Mike Caulfield. UXD (User Experience Design) is what really sets “social media” apart from it’s precursors. I’ll buy that.

    mikecaulfield's avatarHapgood

    A lot of people have been tweeting and emailing me and DM-ing me the recent Guardian piece by Iran’s “blogfather”.

    You should read it yourself, but in short it is the story of a man sent to jail for blogging in Iran at the height of blogging’s influence and coming out of jail many years later to find that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have “killed the web.”

    In a related conversation yesterday we were talking about the New York Times article featuring a cast of merry Luddites talking about escaping the endless grind of Facebook and the stream.

    And yes, The Stream Won. I get it. But when you ask revolutionaries *why* it won the answer you get, more or less, is that Evil Facebook and Twitter and Instagram hid the truth from the larger population and fooled them into thinking they wanted Evil Facebook and Instagram and Twitter…

    View original post 604 more words

  • The Functions of Education-Technology Criticism

    Audrey Watters (Source: The Functions of Education-Technology Criticism)

    Really good work of writing about the often times over promotion of educational technology over real actual learning. Much appreciated on my part and worth a read if you find yourself in the unenviable position of questioning what is we actually DO here in higher ed.

  • A new lease on life

    Wow, now that’s a happy ending if I ever read one. I remember Jon’s earlier posts about his pain. Glad to know he found a resolution and it’s working for him. It gives me hope too! Sometimes there is a medically viable solution that’s better than living with the pain. And it sounds like Jon wil also get ever penny’s worth of value out of his hip replacement.

    Jon Udell's avatarJon Udell

    Two weeks ago I underwent surgery to replace both of my hip joints. I’d been having trouble since the summer of 2012, when running became painful and I found that I couldn’t mount my bicycle by swinging my leg over the seat. These were signs of what would be diagnosed, in April 2015, as moderate-to-severe osteoarthritis. It could have been diagnosed two years earlier, when I presented symptoms I identified as a groin pull and pain in my quads. But I was still able to be very active then and, after a round of physical therapy, regained much of the range of motion I’d lost the year before. Deep down I knew something was really wrong but I convinced my doctor and physical therapist that it was all muscular, that I’d be able to work through it, and that there was no need for an x-ray.

    In reality the disease…

    View original post 1,218 more words

  • One Bright Idea: University of Rochester River Campus Libraries’ Digital Academy Presents

    One Bright Idea: University of Rochester River Campus Libraries’ Digital Academy Presents.

    Lots of exposure to lots of different tools.

  • feedly + Google Now: Your most important stories, when you want them

    Despite all the good will towards Google Now, Google did have Google Reader at one time.

    It was the premier web-based RSS reader and everyone migrated to it after Bloglines hit the wall and shutdown. Now I’m on my 3rd reader: Feedly. I hope this helps with the hard core adherents to Google Apps. But as for me, I’m going Feedly, or I’m going home. Google Now?, not ever.

  • The father of the American shopping mall hated what he created

    Hey Everybody look! It’s Midtown Plaza!

  • Learn 40 Years Of Mech Prototyping At Lightspeed

    I’m going to watch this when I get home today.

  • Sunday Morning brings Fulongon

    Another day and another friend of my wife meet up. This time we went to West side of Tokyo to a little community center. My wife’s friend instructs a class in Fulongon. And I got drafted to participate so I did my best, gambatte.

    I was surprised to discover I could cross my legs over top one another and hold the lotus position for roughly 10 minutes before I lost circulation in my legs!

    After the morning Fulongon session we hopped another train even further West. My wife has relatives out that way, and we met at thier house for lunch. We got to see thier daughter who had a very young baby during our last trip. Today we saw herband she’s walking and talking and feeding her self. After lunch we went to an open air museum, called the Edo Tokyo Museum. It’s an architecture collection of houses disassembled and rebuilt onsite. Each one is significant for the era it depicts. So there are farm houses, businessmen’s houses. Near the end they had an interesting collection of commercial store fronts from the early 20th century including a really cool urban style bath house (which btw are slowly going away each passing year). I have some photos of museum at the end of this entry for you to peruse.

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    From android to wordpress

  • Ueno Park and the Tokyo National Museum

    We met with Mariko’s college friend to attend an exhibit of old art. It’s the oldest known example of fanciful artwork of anthropomorphic animals. What’s really odd is it was in the collection of an old Buddhist Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

    http://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=1707

    It’s notable for art historians and pop culture types who follow manga (the written cartoons) and the anime (the animated cartoons). Some speculate and say these artworks are the historic precedent to Japan’s current day manga. I don’t know if that’s true but let me tell you, this exhibit was very crowded as it is closing down tomorrow (Sunday June 7th). I’ve been in long lines while in Japan. Both Tokyo Disney Sea and the Skytree had long lines. But we spent the whole part of 1 day waiting to see the vital first volume of the Choju-Giga. And it was worth it. It was very well drawn and funny. A lot of frogs and rabbits wrestling or presenting gifts to an Emperor figure drawn as a monkey. So here now is also the visual component of today’s outing as that’s what most people want anyways is to see where you’ve been rather than READ about where you’ve been.

    Sitting at the Starbucks
    Sitting at the Starbucks
    In Ueno Park there's so many buildings housing collections and then there's also the ZOO!
    In Ueno Park there’s so many buildings housing collections and then there’s also the ZOO!
    The museum is made up of a number of different buildings. There's a permanent collection, a traveling exhibit building, a research library, etc.
    The museum is made up of a number of different buildings. There’s a permanent collection, a traveling exhibit building, a research library, etc.
    Research building
    Research building
    There were3 some cutouts made and displayed in the fountain in front of the traveling exhibits building.
    There were3 some cutouts made and displayed in the fountain in front of the traveling exhibits building.
    Peeking through the buildings at Ueno Park is the Skytree.
    Peeking through the buildings at Ueno Park is the Skytree.

  • Some travel blogging

    I’m traveling in Japan and wanted to take advantage of my WordPress site and document my travel. Here now an essay on how I love NHK Morning shows. They do more international stories than their US counterparts. There was a short segment on India (I think as I’m not Japanese proficient). But I feel I can sometimes figure out the gist of these stories. When I don’t know exactly the story I fill in the details in my head. (screenshot below, note we were up early today)

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