today i'm finally giving the new year some attention, i guess

so while the intentions are good, new year's resolutions are lame.  resolutions in general, however are not.  

and if the turning of a clock, and the subsequent anticlimax that undoubtedly follows incites people to do better with themselves and their lives, then that is good in its own sense.  however if one can't see the need for this kind of action or movement in any other time of the year, and one must sheepishly follow the standards of time and gimmick, standards that were created by humans of course, then this is what's "lame".   and it's this, this lack of genuine and very personal motivation, that often leads these resolutions to remain unpacked suitcases sitting in the corner of the room.   

so today i'm finally giving the new year some attention.  i will say my new year's wasn't the greatest, and it is almost never is, but it did cause for a lot of personal reflection.  and i guess recently i have come up with some sort of resolution, a motto of the year if you will.  i mean the standards of time are good for many things, such as goal settings, and there are goals that i have laid before myself this year. and therefore some year motivation, some motto is worthy of noting.  it was a voice of simplicity that came through and i honestly feel will be continually referenced, and it came from mother teresa. 

i'm sure everybody, at least anybody with an internet connection and a social networking account or feed of some sort, has swam through the muddy sea of inspirational quotes and images.  like anything in excess, they lose their "inspirational" value in this way, but i also find that none of them offer many solutions or answers on how.  they just tell.  tell you to feel inspired, to go somewhere, to stop crying, to see things this way.  and yes so does this quote.  but for me this was the one and only one that made sense, at least for me - me in this year.  so let's be a bit trite 2013:   i'm going to do it anyway. 

today i'm catching up on tomorrow's questions

I began subscribing to C-PET's updates a few semesters ago when I was taking my first IAKM course on Futures Research, taught by Michael Nelson.  I always look forward to updates from Nigel Cameron, and now that I've had some time to catch up on most of my RSS and e-mails, I've had some time to catch up on some sage insights, which is something I thoroughly enjoy.  So today I'm reading Nigel Cameron's commentary, learning more about the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz and his extreme but heroic fight for open access, and re-listening to Ray Kurzweil speak about his studies on the neocortex and how technology really is an extension of human intelligence.

And I think it's fitting to include a quote of Nigel Cameron's 2013 things to watch.
   "It's a comment on our complacency that there is not enormous alarm across the political and social spectrum at the advances being made by artificial intelligence and robotics in the workplace"

today i'm finally feeling like i have some time

i really threw myself into my classes this last semester - i vied that i would read every assignment in its entirety (twice if necessary), take my time, draw it all in and learn as much as possible.  as soon as classes ended, it was holidays and then the yearly onset of SAD for me - which usually means a lot of wine, fiction, and sweatpants.  so today, i'm finally chipping away at my inbox, catching up on news, organizing my desktop and feeling like i finally have some time.

so here's what rang true to me today: 

"Digital literacy is less about how to turn on a computer and more about how to move between apps." 
 -Will Manley, Digitized to Distraction

"put another way, today's ear of corn is 80% knowledge" -Thomas Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations

today i'm liking the nascent simplicity of mister rogers' what do you do with the mad that you feel

it's always good to revisit the classics, the basics, the fundamentals, the predecessors, the road-pavers.  I mean say what you will, how corny it can sound, but Mister Rogers is an originator, a revolutionary in children's television who approached his show with an innocent creativity, and did so with very limited resources.  In light of last night's presidential debate and Mitt Romney's infamous promise to remove Big Bird from television, i find myself loving this PBS advocating video circulating the internet as a result.  It makes you respect Mister Rogers' genuineness and his evident dedication to understanding children's needs.  It kind of makes me long for days without facebook posts, chain e-mails, digital petition signings, and other kinds of lazy, homogenized activism.  Not to be a curmudgeon or an idealist, I love technology and innovation, but a side effect of the technology age is a lazy society, and you have to really get inspired by the days when people actually wrote up proposals, literally stood up, showed up, and intelligently presented to the government face to face, without any great monetary motivation or care of how it shows on their resume or how civil it makes their internet image appear, but simply an interest for the public education of humanity.

and today i'm liking the simplicity of mister rogers' song, "what do you do with the mad that you feel." Sometimes children just have the ability to articulate things with an innocent clarity that adults often lack.  it's a good question, and after last night's debate, I think it's an appropriate one.

 

in looking towards banned book week 2012

A great video from Bookman's (a small bookstore chain based in Arizona)

today i'm wishing peyton manning really said this

 "Each turnover has its own story that no one really wants to hear," Manning said afterward. He then paused, looked in every reporter's eyes, and said, "Actually, let's do this. Turnover one was a lonely girl with big dreams who wanted to escape the drudgery of life in her tiny Nebraska town. Her father was an undertaker, but she longed for more, so she joined a traveling circus. She found joy and she married a carnie, but late one drunken night she died while riding the zipper and they sent her body back to her father. INTERCEPTION. Turnover two was a lot like the boy in Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer." Poor kid, ragged people, bleeding winter, dead from boxing. INTERCEPTION. Turnover three was just a bad pass. WRONG. TRICKED YOU. Each turnover has a story, never forget that. Turnover three was the look my father gave me one October morning, age 8, when I said I wanted to become an artist. "I hate football, Daddy. I love paints and oils." Old Archie threw me in the back of our pickup truck, drove me out to the woods, and left me with nothing but a football for six days. It worked. I fell in love with that football and named it Godfrey. My artistic dreams died with the midnight howling of the wolves. INTERCEPTION. COME BACK, GODFREY. But Godfrey's gone."

source: grantland

actual events.. womp womp 

just because

What I'm reading today: Research Methods Knowledge Base

"A fallacy is an error in reasoning, usually based on making assumptions"  -William M.K. Trochim

today i'm reviewing the aids international conference and listening to hydeia broadbent

i was a little young and sheltered to remember all of the culture and media around the AIDS discovery of the 80's but i have found myself somewhat disgusted at how people address the virus in current times.  It's not in the news nearly as much as it should be, and when it is, there is very little mention of cures and not enough emphasis on simple education- it's all about treatment and drug development. People are complacent and even light-hearted about it anymore and it is not doing anybody any favors. 

And today, I listened to Hydeia Broadbent speak as a 28 year old who has survived AIDS for 25 years of her young life.  I listened to her still get emotional about everything the virus has taken from her and people she's known, and how hard the struggle is to live every day.  I listened to her echo my thoughts, going as far as to say that it is a scarier time now than it was in the early 90's because of people's willingness to step down from the challenge of eradicating the virus, to accept it as something light and treatable.