A French Farmhouse

So, 5 reporters want to lock themselves away with only access to Twitter and Facebook to test the accuracy of news reporting from the two sites. Ummm, this strikes me as ridiculous. Those sites are built to work alongside other technologies, not as a sole reporting device in a void.

http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3807080

Transfer

I've just moved this blog's content to a new server. Test.

Marathon...again

Although my knee is not nearly 100%, and my training is nowhere near where it needs to be, I've decided to attempt the marathon this Sunday. It's not going to be easy and I know my time is going to be terrible, but I'm giving it a shot anyway. Next time you see me I may only have one leg.

The Composting Bin

So I finally got the composting bin set up. It isn't the prettiest thing, but neither is the space between the apartment complexes. Unfortunately, this is the only place I was able to set it up. A few banana peels and an apple core later I should have a cup of soil to do whatever my heart desires.

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Oh Austin...

It looks like Austin is right behind Vegas for the top spots to celebrate NYE.

Part 2

My knee doesn't work anymore.

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My knee

This is going to be a two part entry. Part one involves me getting out and testing out my knee by running 3 or 4 miles. The second part will be me describing the status of said knee.

Hold on knee. Here we go.

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Marathon

I started training 5 months ago to run a marathon this December. At this point I'm not really sure why I started running or where the motivation came from to do something ridiculous like running 26 miles. But, I've run two half marathons and I was training fairly well up until a week and a half ago. During my last race I did something to my knee and it hasn't recovered yet. I knew I wasn't going to have a great time on my first marathon, but now I just hope I can run and that I finish.

New Compost Bin

Like most people, I've been looking for a few ways to help out environmentally. After a quick search it was found that Santa Barbara is offering a great deal on a composting unit. I'm off to get a hold of one of these today in hopes that it will be large enough for our entire apartment complex and that my neighbors will use it. If so, we can save some trash and at the same time create some soil for the plants around here. Should be a simple thing to do. I'll post later about its success or lack thereof.

The Talking Heads

Every other month or so I find myself compelled to re-open a Talking Heads album and play it over and over. That stuff is seriously genius. I know I've said it before, but David Byrne is seriously one amazing artist.

Research Focus

Lately my research focus has broadened. For the past 8 years I've been mainly focused on written communication and technology. In recent years I've been moving slowly to the educational issues involved with technology, and written communication has provided me with an interesting angle to pursue that research. Even more recently, and this goes back to my days studying technical communication, I've been looking at educational elements found in presentations. "Presentations" is a broad term here and I need to work on defining that for all of the different genres that can be found under this term. Traditionally we think of a presentation as something done either in a classroom or at a business meeting with handouts, etc. This is, indeed, one important type of presentation. However, those of us with a regular teaching schedule rarely think of our weekly lectures as a presentation. It may do us some good in starting to think that way--or maybe it would do me some good to start thinking that way. Because, it makes sense that in the traditional term of a "presentation," the presenters practices the speech several times and coordinates the rhetorical moves that he or she will use. With teachers we sort of conduct an on the fly sort of presentation based on hundreds of hours of experience dealing with students and the topic we're presenting on. After looking back over some research articles I've accumulated, it doesn't appear that the overlap with these different types of presentations readily exists--and it should. Those who provide traditional presentations may learn quite a bit from those who perform presentations on a weekly basis and vice versa. Outlining the rhetorical moves found in all types of presentations would definitely be of value. I haven't found that yet, and if you know of a good resource, please let me know. Otherwise, that may be a good next project.

Duarte Design

The paperwork has been finalized and just needs to be faxed in the morning for the research internship. I'm interested in this project not because of the pay (low), but because of the people involved in the project. I'm going to be tracking down some research in the tech comm / business comm world dealing with professional presentations, etc. I'm familiar with some of this research but an update and review is always a good thing. Also, I feel like my professional presentations are above average because I'm comfortable with public speaking, but of course this doesn't mean what I'm saying is making sense to the audience and I'm always looking to improve. This work will hopefully push me in that direction.

In other news I'm still working on ideas for fcode. More on that to come in later posts.

And, I've returned with motivation toward the augmented reality stuff because of a successful presentation at Computers and Writing this year. My love and interest for this technology is like having a crush on the girl who you know is trouble but you simply can't run away. Ahhhh, the siren that is technology.

One more thing--I've got a lunch set up with a friend of mine from Mindflash. Love brainstorming with this guy and hopefully he and I can grab lunch more often and get fcode going.

Been listening to Pure Cult: The Singles from 84-95 this morning. Not great.

Slideology

A friend introduced me to slideology today. Possibly going to assist in research for the next book in her series.

sketchup

Curious about creating a project around sketchup and engineering students in electrical engineering.

why not?

I have be gone too long. You still working Mr. Blog?