Musings

When spring comes to the University of Chicago campus, there are two annual events that inject a certain whimsical randomness into my work week: Scav Hunt and FOTA (Festival of the Arts). In the last few years, these events have occurred one after the other-- an ordering that helps people like myself who found a kindred spirit in the author of the blog post I'm Sick of Pretending: I Don't "Get" Art.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a blog post by Nina Paley, the cartoonist perhaps most famous for Sita Sings the Blues, that emphatically made the point that, with Creative Commons licenses, yes means yes. I don't think I could put it better myself.

I've been at Digital Humanities 2011 since Sunday, and it's been as delightful and inspiring as always. This is the first time I've actively followed the tweet stream at a DH conference while I've been there in person, and while the extent to which it has added value has varied depending on the session, it may have been one of the most fascinating aspects of yesterday's plenary (Chad Gaffield's "Re-Imagining Scholarship in the Digital Age").

In the week since the joint session between THATCamp LAC participants and the people at THATCamp Prime, I've found myself reflecting on that conversation a number of times. As I said then (in person, and to the Twitterverse thanks to Rebecca Davis), the collaborations that work well aren’t between institutions, but between people.

As a prerequisite for moving this spring (due to impending renovations by the new owners of our apartment building), my husband and I have been culling our book collection.

The Bamboo Planning Project, which consumed my life from 2008 to 2009, officially concluded on December 31, 2010, allowing me to publish a project I've been working on independently for over a year. You can read the full project description here, but in summary, I've organized the notes from the Bamboo workshops that have been public on the Bamboo wiki for 1.5 - 2.5 years by topic, and written summaries for the data that wasn't covered in the Project Bamboo Scholarly Practice Report; expanded summaries of topics related to scholarly practice are in progress.

After I hit "publish" on it all yesterday, it came to me that I've done this same project before. When I was 14, in the International Baccalaureate Program, I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok and came across a quote that's stuck with me ever since:

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to a talk by Qi Lu at the University of Chicago's Computation Institute. The President of Microsoft's Online Services Group, Mr.

Yesterday, a friend made the mistake of asking me why I switched from iPhone to Android, on an afternoon when I had some time to kill at the airport. His response to my long e-mail was that I should publish it on a blog somewhere. I've polished it up somewhat and added a few things, and the following is where I stand on the topic of device/OS choice.