More blog that link to those blogging the disaster

More New Orlean's blogs...or those that link to them WWLTV and SciGuy: A science blog with Eric Berger.

Posted by prolurkr at 04:12 PM | TrackBack

First hand accounts of Katrina's damage

Josh Britton has been blogging the hurricane and the first baby steps to recovery.  His posts are very detailed I recommend the blog as a way to keep up with what is really happening in the hurricane zone as the mass media seems to be only focusing on New Orleans.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast

I've avoided the mass media the last couple of days...listening to the first hand accounts of lose and devastation are more then my heart can stand, the stories quite simply make me cry.  Which is a bad thing if you are a pale skinned redhead because you get to look red and puffy for hours after a few tears are shed. 

But avoiding the mass media doesn't mean my thoughts haven't been on the folks and places that are the Gulf Coast that I love.  I read Kaye's blog throughout to keep track of her particularly and her part of the world as the winds raged and the rain fell. 

Yesterday while we were getting socked with the remnants of Katrina...you know wield things are going on when NPR refers to "the tropical storm now lodged over Indiana," ain't nothing tropical about Indiana even in the rain...I kept thinking about how much different everything would look if we had the winds as well as the rain.  Let me just say that I would not have been in my forth floor office with the picture window.

As the pictures are winding their way out the devastated areas and on to the net it's become very very clear that the places I loved in New Orleans and Mobile and Gulf Shores may simply no longer exist, Flickr has hundreds of pictures under tags like hurricanekatrina.  It's so clear that a lot of money will be required to house and maintain people until they can decide if they are going to stay in those areas and rebuild.  I encourage you to give as much as you can afford to help out the wonderful people of the deep south.  Check here for a list of relief agencies who are accepting donations. 

Posted by prolurkr at 11:56 AM | TrackBack

Most blogspot.com blogs are spam blogs

From The Blog Herald:

A test from Google Blogscoped indicates that 60% of all blogs hosted on Google’s Blogger blogspot.com domain are spam blogs.

The test of 50 random blogs found 30 of them to be rubbish. A later test by the site of a further 100 blogs on blogspot.com indicated a spam rate of 42%.

To quote Philipp Lenssen

Google itself shows there are around 7,500,000 pages hosted on Blogspot. If we extrapolate the number, we might estimate Google is hosting 4 million spam pages. (Of course, this number is by no means in any way precise.) Even though I expected some amount of spam, I was surprised just how much it is. From the small sample I took it looks like on average, a site hosted at Google’s Blogspot is more likely to contain spam than anything else.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Katrina Maps

Thanks to the Map Room for these links.

• Coastal Watches/Warnings and 3-Day Cone
  
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Tracker Katrina

Posted by prolurkr at 12:15 AM | TrackBack

Kaye's Hurricane Katrina Blog

Kaye Trammell - assistant professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University, colleague, and blog researcher extraordinaire - is blogging the hurricane.  Check out her site Kaye's Hurricane Katrina Blog for first-hand accounts of the storm.

Oh and Kaye batten the hatches it looks like a bumpy night and day is coming to Baton Rouge, to say the least.  Be safe.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Notes on Promoton and Tenure from the Faculty Retreat, and how that relates to grad students

Friday was the School of Informatics Faculty Retreat. We spent the bulk of the day at the Indiana Historical Society which I had not visited previously. It's a lovely building that runs along side the canal, or should I say the canal runs along side it since I think the building was there first.

During the retreat Larry Garetto, IU School of Dentistry, spoke to us on the topic of "The Research Agenda." In truth he said he was straying from his title and he did. Most of the talk was about preparing for promotion and tenure. I was gratified to see that much of what has already been addressed in my grad school series or is on the list to be addressed in future related posts, was right on the money with his presentation.

So here are some of the notes I took from his presentation with some tie-ins to our grad student world to follow the note in brackets.

• Promotion is recognition for your successes. [Or in the case of grad students retention and completion is our recognition.]
• Critical Issues in the process
  • Define and demonstrate. Make sure the data backs up your points, just like in good research. So if you say you are doing outstanding teaching or research or service, include the data to support that point. Oh and don't be afraid to include negative data as well, he said that some of the most persuasive portfolios and tenure packets he has seen demonstrate how one overcomes the negative.
    • Focus
      • What is your mission?
      • What mission were you hired to support?
      • Focus on these two areas.
      • Use your annual review to reset and refine your focus.
  • Collect and maintain documentation. He noted that it is his belief that most of the people he has seen have problems with the tenure and promotion process it is due to poor record keeping. Like I have said...learn now while it's easier.
    • Doing this is your responsibility. It would be nice is someone else would do it for you but they won't.
    • As I said above this area is a source of significant "promotablity" problems.
    • Strategies to use:
      • efiles
      • Calendar archives, i.e. save your paper and/or electronic calendars for clues to what you were doing.
      • Paper folders
  • Write a compelling personal statement.
    • This is your "primary" focus document.
    • The statement is your voice in the promotion and tenure process. [And the retention process as well.]
    • It explains and illustrates:
      • Academic philosophy
      • Achievements
    • Contains specific examples
    • In the document you MUST be outspoken about yourself. [This is a marketing tool, use it as such.]
  • Make linkages, and support them, between the three components of the process - teaching, research, and service.
    • Relate to focus and tie together teaching, research, and service.
    • Highlight the relationships.
    • Explicitly show connectedness and focus.
    • Document a breath of activities.
  • Peer review.
    • Peer review needs to become your standard mentality and a way of life.
    • Initially it should be formative.
    • Demonstrate the importance of peer review over time.
    • ASK for reviews, don't expect someone to just do it.
  • Timing and planning.
    • Simple rule - START NOW!
    • Be the tortoise not the hare. A rule I personally need to integrate.
    • Even if you do take it slow and start now there are times where there will be big pushes...i.e. 3rd year review or promotion deadlines. But it will be much easier to handle then if you don't start early.
    • Think of promotion as an element of all you do. [Same for retention.]
    • You should have a routine regular focus on collecting documentation.
  • Look at everything you do in light of dissemination.
    • Research, teaching, and service are personally rewarding and may benefit the "local circle."
    • Excellence goes beyond that local benefit.
    • Your work must benefit others:
    • Professional
    • Citizens
    • Society
  • Treat everything you do as something you plan to disseminate. [I think this is even a great way to attack class projects. What can I write for this assignment that I can publish or present somewhere? Where can I do that?]
• To document excellence in teaching you need:
  • Creative activities
  • Publication = dissemination
  • Requires a focus on learning
  • Innovation and risk are required.
  • Be critically reflexive.
  • Document
• For service:
  • You must be at least adequate.
  • Link with research and teaching
  • Opportunities exist at these levels:
    • Department
    • School
    • University
    • Community
    • Profession

Posted by prolurkr at 11:33 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Cyberspace Revisited: Digital Revolution vs. Transnational Digital Convergence

EAAS BIENNIAL CONFERENCE
APRIL 7-10, 2006
NICOSIA, CYPRUS
CONFERENCE THEME:
"Conformism, Non-conformism and Anti-conformism in the Culture of the United States"

Workshop Title:
Cyberspace Revisited: Digital Revolution vs. Transnational Digital Convergence

Chairs: Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou and Dr. Allan Lloyd-Smith

The initial enthusiasm that the emergence and popularization of cyberspace technology spawned in the 1980s has now given way to critical thinking.  The power it has in influencing common sense and globally manipulating the way knowledge and information is disseminated has altered the way we view and appreciate reality, think about the world and ourselves in it. This interdisciplinary two-session workshop will seek to address, within the
context of American literature, politics and culture, the following issues: globalization; identity formation; political and social activism; capitalism and commodity culture; digital modes of representation.

For enquiries and abstract submissions (150-200 words) please email:
trapatz@enl.auth.gr
a.lloyd-smith@uea.ac.uk

Posted by prolurkr at 05:06 PM | TrackBack

Katrina to make landfall on top of New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina is currently packing almost 160 mile per hour winds, a speed I simply cannot imagine.  It is bearing down on the Gulf coast with warning from central Louisiana to the border of Alabama and Florida, with the eye expected to come in with a direct hit on New Orleans.  This storm is so big that the we, in Indiana, are expected to start seeing the front end of it on Tuesday...MapQuest says I am 778 miles away from New Orleans.

My personal love for New Orleans has been pretty well documented on this blog check out these search results.  Dave at Blogography pretty much sums up my feelings about hearing that New Orleans is in danger from the hurricane.  The post was made before Katrina was upgraded to category 5:

As I leave for Asia, the news from hurricane Katrina is increasingly grim. The projected path is directly over New Orleans (one of my favorite cities), which could be disastrous. The "Big Easy" is very much below seas level, and a large enough storm could send water surging into the city at a cataclysmic depth. Pat O'Briens... Cafe du Monde... The Garden District... St. Patrick's & Jackson Square... Soniat House... The French Market... Bourbon Street... The Hard Rock Cafe... and so much more that New Orleans has to offer is all at risk of being destroyed. I particularly worry about the animals at the beautiful zoo they have there.

CNN has shocking footage of people fleeing the city, and all major routes have been converted to one-way highways leading out of town. It's bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way, and authorities are worried that an accident on any of these routes could trap people in the hurricane's path.

I suppose there's always a chance that the weather will change and the city can be passed by... but wherever the projected "Category 4" hurricane makes landfall, there's going to be a lot of damage. 150mph winds do not strike quietly.

It's going to be difficult to think of much else during a 13 hour flight where I am cut-off from the world and unable to find out what's happening. All my thoughts are with those facing the hurricane, and the city of New Orleans where I have been a half-dozen times (and love more and more each time I visit). Nothing would make me happier than to visit another half-dozen times in the future.

Over at SciGuy: A science blog with Eric Berger, Eric comments:

Here are some more facts from a story I wrote about New Orleans about six months after Tropical Storm Allison struck Houston:

It's been 36 years since Hurricane Betsy buried New Orleans 8 feet deep. Since then a deteriorating ecosystem and increased development have left the city in an ever more precarious position. Yet the problem went unaddressed for decades by a laissez-faire government, experts said.

"To some extent, I think we've been lulled to sleep," said Marc Levitan, director of Louisiana State University's hurricane center.

Allison dumped a mere 5 inches on New Orleans, nearly overwhelming the city's pump system. If an Allison-type storm were to strike New Orleans like it did Houston, or a Category 3 storm or greater with at least 111 mph winds, the results would be cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.

"Any significant water that comes into this city is a dangerous threat," said Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish emergency management director.

"Even though I have to plan for it, I don't even want to think about the loss of life a huge hurricane would cause."

The bottom of the bowl in New Orleans is 14 feet below sea level. Katrina's winds are now near 160 mph. Pray for the city and its people.

The BBC story - Are you affected by Katrina? - has some very interesting comments for folks in and around the area.

New Orleans Cams are available here and here and here, as long as they stay in place with the power on or connected to the net.

Think good thoughts for the people of and the place that is New Orleans, and those all along the Gulf Coast as well.  Their worlds will be pretty unsettled for the foreseeable future.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:59 PM | TrackBack

More than half of surveyed journalists rely on blogs

The Blog Herald has an interesting post on journalist's blog use.  Might be more then a casual relationship between this percentage and the media's focus on political blogs as the only "true blogs".

51% of journalists are using blogs regularly and 28% rely on them for their daily reporting, a survey of 1,202 US journalists from Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University.

Despite being happing to use blogs, only 1% believe blogs are credible.

According to the Editors Weblog, 70% of journalists who used blogs reported doing to for work-related tasks: they use blogs to find story ideas, researching and referencing facts, finding sources and uncovering breaking news.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:25 PM | TrackBack

Upgrade to Movable Type 3.2 complete...well mostly

Ok guys I'm sorry but I have to crow, I'm pretty proud of myself for pulling this off. 

You see before I ever decided to try and do the upgrade I had a multi-level backup plan (and lots of physical backups as well) so I could dig myself out if I made a complete mess of it.  I am not a systems administrator nor am I all that comfortable with programming in anything remotely resembling a programming language.  I've taken lots of programming classes over the years but I basically suck at them.  I do ok in HTML with the help of reference books but it's a markup language not a programming language.

So the point here is I got the upgrade installed I did have to send in one support ticket to SixApart and their answer did get me thinking though it didn't solve any of the problems.  Oh and I did have Elijah to bitch at and cry on his shoulder but he's not an MT guy so he couldn't answer either.

Well so with a couple of pointers from the SixApart folks and some diligent searching and examining on my part the blog is now running on MT 3.2.  I'm pretty proud of myself...not to bad for 18 hours work.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Upgrading to Movable Type 3.2

Ok...this may be a disaster but SixApart is making upgrading to 3.2 sound so easy that I'm going to try to do it myself.  *cracking her fingers*  We shall see how it goes.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:40 AM | TrackBack

Apparently I'm a Nerdy gal. LOL News to me

Via One Bright Star:

Pure Nerd 78 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful. Congratulations!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on nerdiness You scored higher than 43% on geekosity You scored higher than 22% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Posted by prolurkr at 08:44 PM | TrackBack

gVisit is a dog

Ok I posted earlier about gVisit under Where do blog readers come from? Check gVisit.  Well as of today I officially declare that gVisit is a dog.  I'm not at all sure where they pull their data from but if I go by there map prolurker has had only one visitor and that person is from Lake Oswego, Oregon.  To that one visitor welcome and to all of the rest of you that have been hanging out in the site...don't ask me I sure don't get it.  LOL

Posted by prolurkr at 07:47 PM | TrackBack

Getting involved in your department and beyond

You have opportunities within your department.  First plan on attending any governance meeting you are allowed to attend including faculty meetings, do that from the beginning.  Not all departments allow this.  I've done grad work in two different department of the same university...one did and one didn't.  But when I could attend I learned a lot.

Also look to your department's governance committees...curriculum, grad student, those sorts of things.  During my first masters degree work I served on a departmental committee that was drawn from all of the IU campuses.  I don't remember the tile of it but I do remember lots of debates about funding.  Most all of these type of committees will have grad student representatives.  Again serving here helps you learn what goes on behind the scenes, say, before a class is listed in the catalogue, or funding is allocated.  Pretty helpful stuff to know when you finally role out of school and into your first tenure-track. 

If your department has a doctoral student association of some sort, take on a role there as early as you can.  It gets you practice, helps you learn your way around the department and the university, and is a great moral booster for those days you are going to feel low.

Then look beyond your department to the university as a whole.  Most university bodies have grad student representative positions.  Though they are often "best kept secrets."  I have held the student representative to the Human Subjects Committee (HSC) at IUB for two years and recently extended my appointment for another two years.  How did I land this seat?  Well funny you should ask, cause that's what I did.  I don't exactly remember how I found out there was a student rep on the HSC but I expressed an interest in the seat and was told that it was not open at that time.  But then out of the blue I got an email asking if I was still interested as their student rep was stepping down...I was and I still am. 

Two years on the HSC has been like attending a monthly master researcher seminar.  I have learned so many things about survey research, experimental research, controversial research, and working with school corporations; all from just sitting and listening and asking questions.  And at the same time I am showing my interest in the university and helping the university get done what must be done.  I love those rare times in life you actually can find a win-win scenario.  Oh and I get to add my two-cents on tech issues which is great because it helps the committee and reminds me that I really do know a thing or two about my field.

Another great thing about serving on university-wide committee is that you get to meet so many more faculty members then you ever would through classes.  I now know a number of full professors in a wide-variety of departments.  That network has come in handy when I needed information or advise, now I can just look up a name and give them a call.  Not something that I would have ever experienced as a student had I kept myself inside the walls of my department.

Then also look to your academic professional organizations.  Most all of them have committees, student representatives - though elections are required for these, and conference related positions.  Take the time to do these so you get your name out there and you can learn as you go. 

In short this post is the beginning of the discussion on what you can do to help yourself flourish in grad school and to prepare yourself so you are well positioned for the job search head.  Now I need to tack on a disclaimer here...I've never gone through an academic job search as a candidate for a position.  But I have gone through business and governmental job searches both as a candidate and as a human resource person (I have literally filled hundreds of vacancies), and thought some will tell you the process is different from what I see it's not THAT different.  *S*  We shall see won't we.  Anyway my goal is to stand out...of course I could be shooting myself in the foot by telling all of you this and giving away my strategy.  Hummmm Might have to think on that one.  LOL

Posted by prolurkr at 11:36 PM | TrackBack

Political Commentary Warning

I can't help it I just love this picture. From the Associated Press via Wonketta via Feministing, and now to you dear prolurker reader. I must say that this is my kinda meme!

Posted by prolurkr at 04:50 PM | TrackBack

'Men cleverer than women' claimed by a team of male researchers

This one goes into the "No wonder some folks think academics don't have a grip. Academics in the UK claim their research shows that men are more intelligent than women.

A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests.

Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn claim the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered.

Their research was based on IQ tests given to 80,000 people and a further study of 20,000 students.

< snip >

Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four the study showed that, up to the age of 14, there was no difference between the IQs of boys and girls.

"But beyond that age and into adulthood there is a difference of five points, which is small but it can have important implications," he said.

< snip >

Dr Irwing told The Times the differences "may go some way to explaining the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds, such as chess grandmasters, Fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prize-winners and the like".

The paper will argue that there is evidence that at the same level of IQ, women are able to achieve more than men "possibly because they are more conscientious and better adapted to sustained periods of hard work".

Or, gentlemen, maybe your test just measure the wrong things.  The gender and racial bias of the IQ tests are well documented.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Tube Relief

Today is Tube Relief:

In late August 2005, we are going to go round all the London Underground stations in one day - and are encouraging people to join us! This is similar to a 'regular' world record attempt but instead it's as an act of defiance, solidarity and to raise sponsor money for the official charities for the families of the victims.

Since I couldn't afford to go - not in money and not in time away...sorry I'm not an one-night-trip to London type.  When I go I want to stay a bit.  But today I am following along on their progress via Going Underground blog and their frequent updates with text, pictures, and audio. Check it out and lend your support from a distance.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Youth doing research on youth subjects

Marika at Constructions blog has a fun assignment, I hope she will share some of the findings from the students study:

Next Tuesday I'm going to Fredrikstad to talk with pupils at Glemmen upper secondary school. They are one of six schools that are part of this year's The Holberg Prize school projects in which youth research youth. At Glemmen, they have chosen "youth and media influences" as their primary research theme. The pupils have formed three groups with the following approaches:

1. Are young people dependent on mass media? How do they cope living without?
2. What are the differences between the means of communication for youth today compared to those of their parents?
3. What media do youth use to develop love-affairs, and how are they used?

There is a lot to be said about the research questions they have chosen, and whether they are appropriately formulated. My assignment is to guide the pupils, and to give them an introductory talk about researching such themes. My own phd-project is clearly relevant, and I will obviously give examples from my work. I'm also supposed to talk about methodological approaches. Guess they'll have a few questions to ask as well. Cool project though.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:39 AM | TrackBack

Oh my god not another prolurker post?

Oh and this post was written on WB Editor 2, picture at right.  I also use w.blogger as a backup. Oh and I have a lot of the usual HTML coding I need programmed into ActiveWords, very very handy.

Funny thing is I commented to a friend late last night, roughly 10ish, that I couldn't believe I had seven posts up for yesterday AND I did first-day of classes prep AND taught from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.  No wonder I went to bed last night very very tired.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Blogs and the gift economy

Dave Pollard at How to Save the World has a fascinating post on Blogs and the Gift Economy as 'Disruptive Innovations'. It was really tough to pick a section to excerpt here...this is just a very dense and interesting discussion that I highly recommend. I'm going to have to reread it tomorrow when I am fresher and mind is fully engaged.

But blogs don't quite meet the definition of a Low End Disruptive Innovation (LEDI) because the incumbents do care about losing business (readership) to bloggers. And they don't quite meet the definition of New Market Disruptive Innovation (NMDI) either, because blog readers are not 'new' to newsreading -- they were mostly (except perhaps for 'pure' personal diary bloggers) already avid consumers of news in another format.

The legacy media initially ignored blogging as a fad, and then as blogging has continued to grow, they have taken potshots at it ("a million guys in pajamas") and tried to coopt it with their own blogs. A few have even formed partnerships with bloggers, using them as 'extensions' of their print and online editions. And many newspapers now offer stripped-down tabloid size editions free to commuters, funded entirely by advertising and full of teasers to additional information only available in the paid editions. Many magazines have done the same thing -- embargoing each edition so that paid subscribers get the 'scoop' first, or offering some articles only to subscribers. But bloggers persist because the legacy media can match neither the price (zero) or the variety (virtually infinite) of entertainment and information that bloggers offer. And the legacy media persist because:

* The majority of their audience is still on the other side of the digital divide (those who can't, don't or won't use computers and the Internet for information and communication).
* People don't have the time or inclination to search and browse the blogosphere (or time to read more than capsules and sound bites on any subject).
* Most people are disinterested in news and information that is not (a) actionable, (b) easy to understand, and (c) suitable fodder for social conversation.

What then is the future of blogs? Much has been written about what blogs could become or might evolve into, but as interesting as this is to read, most of it won't happen because of the three constraints bulleted above. In fact, the newest reports indicate that the proportion of blogs that are active is dropping sharply (lots of people find they just don't have that much to say, or the time to say it to people they don't know well) and that the ratio of blog readers to blog writers has plateaued and is now also falling.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:13 PM | TrackBack