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In: Generational Divide, Pop Culture, Technoculture
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Mix tapes are dead. Among the many dead technologies, I miss the mix tape. The death of a technology and its associated objects and habits can bring regret or relief. Think of letter writing. Often, the only clues to women’s history or the only insights into a previous generation’s thoughts and emotions are found in letters. Writing letters was a habitus, a way of being and doing. Today, our digital documentation is excessive, often thin, and shallow. A constant stream of 140 characters fails to capture the nuances of a traditional letter. Perhaps 19th century upper-class women writing about their tea service (see Veblen on spoons;Read More →

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I now own a brand new Amazon Kindle, acquired just before Thanksgiving in a recent tech splurge. Reviews all over the net are fairly accurate. The weight, screen’s readability, size, forward and backward buttons feel great. I don’t like the five-way toggle button or the lack of lighting to read in the dark. I don’t care about lack of a touch screen since I despise fingerprints and smudges in almost OCD proportions. I found a cute Vera Bradley bag that fits the Kindle perfectly. I’m happy. DRM is an annoyance. It’s true, you give up “owning” the book due to intellectual property rights. It’s inconvenientRead More →

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In: Technoculture
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I’m posting from my new Motorola Droid. It’s frustratingly wonderful. Or wonderfully frustrating. The WordPress app seems to be working well; the keyboard is easier. Immersion seems to be the key. My typical typing speed is 125-150 words per minute, not as fast as sentences form in my head, but fast enough to prevent frustration. Blogging on Droid is painfully slow. It is helping me improve texting skills, though, as a latecomer to that game. The new iPhone commercials inspired me to give up the granny phone and enter the new century. In particular, the ad for an augmented reality app caught my attention. YouRead More →

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In: Gratitudes, Pedagogy and Teaching, Technoculture
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Today I am grateful for copy machines. I have to return comments on group projects to students today, and I don’t have to rewrite the comments for each student. I can simply copy each group member’s copy on my magical combo printer/fax machine/copier/scanner. Once, this sort of task was impossible. I remember carbon paper, ditto machines, and mimeographs. Members of the academic generation before mine shared stories about typing their dissertations on carbon paper, and storing copies in the freezer to ensure they would survive a fire. Editing and revising under those circumstances were herculean. Carbon paper gave us the origin of the phrase carbonRead More →

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In: Technoculture, This Internet Life!
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* I can’t remember the last time I heard a busy signal. Busy signals disappeared due to voice mail and call waiting, a phenomenon that happened in the 90s. This is an early step in the direction of 24/7 accessibility and connection via new communication technologies. Although, looking backward,  we can say the same thing for the invention of the telephone, telegraph, printing press, and even writing itself. Still, the loss of the busy signal bespeaks a “jacked-in-ness” unmatched in older information technologies. * The Guiding Light has gone off the air after 72 years. I watched that show with my grandmother when I wasRead More →