Steven D. Brewer's blog

For many years, I've had the good fortune to work with Tom Hoogendyk on web development. In one of our earliest projects, he had this pie-in-the-sky idea that he could get a group of faculty to think through how a website could be structured in an a priori way before beginning development. I suspected that it wasn't going to work out the way he expected and I wasn't surprised: they rebelled and we ended up just building it ourselves and getting feedback along the way—once they had something to react to.

When we did a redesign of the Biology Department website, we went through a similar exercise but, again, we had a hard time getting buy in on the navigation system. A number of faculty have never been happy with it and I think I've just realized why: Tom was right.

If you let people get away with not wrestling with the hard issues of how the overall structure should be organized, people who only look at subsets will always be unhappy and complain. When you look at the whole thing, there are shortcomings for how any individual subset is going to turn out, but you can balance those to some extent. But when you only look at the subset, you can't understand those tradeoffs.

Today, I saw a tweet indicating that Verizon will start selling your personal information unless you opt out. They want to sell three kinds of information: (1) [the] "quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location and amount of use of the telecommunications services you purchase", (2) "the addresses or information in URLs (such as search terms) of websites you visit when you use our wireless service, the location of your device ("Location Information"), and your use of applications and features", and (3) "the postal address we have for you and certain consumer information such as your device type, language preference and demographic and interest categories provided to us by other companies (such as gender, age range, sports fan, frequent diner, or pet owner)".

We really need better protections regarding how corporations (or government) can collect and exchange information about people. In the meantime, I have opted out.

Today, the chancellor attended an MSP Board meeting, spoke briefly, and then answered questions. People asked questions about a number of issues, principally related to problems on campus and about his vision for the campus. Toward the end, I had an opportunity to ask my question.

Before he arrived, we'd been talking about potential questions and another faculty member mentioned that in a Boston Globe article from a few days ago, UMass lecturer says school is punishing her, appears this quote:

The school, McCormick said, has been trying for years to raise its ratio of tenure-track faculty to adjuncts, a move that would increase, not decrease, academic freedom on campus, since tenured faculty by definition cannot be fired for their opinions. It has declined to ­reappoint six lecturers since 2009.

So I finished my question with that.

The chancellor categorically stated that this was not his position and that everyone engaged in the academic enterprise, even TAs, deserves at least some measure of academic freedom. It remains to be seen whether the chancellor will follow his statement with action that empowers non-tenure-system faculty and makes clear that the University values them. But I was encouraged -- its a big change from last time.

I bought an Android Tablet last spring and have been using it for several months now. It's been interesting to have another point of comparison with other kinds of computing devices (Macbook, Ubuntu Netbook, and iPhone). Today I discovered an interesting deficit: In Android you can neither set the time accurately nor enable software to do it for you. They claim this is a security issue, because they don't want userland processes mucking about with the time. But that just goes to show you that time is important. One of the things I learned early on about unix system administration is that you really want the time on all of your machines set to the same standard and to be within a second of one another. Not only so that you can correlate events across log files, but also so that networked file share timestamps make sense and security protocols work correctly. You can't do that in Android -- unless you root the device.

In most other respects, however, I've found Android to be satisfactory. The interface is less consistent than the iPhone and the fact that the "back" button is often in the lower left, rather than upper left like on the iPhone, is often confusing when I switch back and forth.

The particular tablet I got, the Samsung Tab 2 7.0, has also been good. The battery life is reasonable, the screen is good, and the performance is generally snappy. I've been disappointed in one aspect, though. I had wanted was to view PDFs of magazine pages so that I could read them in full-page mode, but the screen is too small and too low-res for that. I had quit reading Esperanto publications on paper, but the ones I was interested in were only available in PDF, which I find particularly unfortunate on a computer. I had thought with a tablet, I might start reading them again, but it hasn't helped. I was pleasantly surprised to get a copy of the Drupal special edition of LinuxJournal in Mobi format (which is what I've been using for books). That appears to be very readable and makes me want to subscribe.

As an e-reader, I find the tablet to be extremely satisfactory -- generally better than a paper-back book. Lighting conditions are mostly irrelevant and the text is uniformly clear and crisp. I've been using the Kindle app. I haven't bought any kindle books, however, because they seem overpriced. I did buy a whole bunch of Baen E-Books, that were priced at $6/book and DRM free. That seems entirely reasonable to me. There is a kindle book I'd like at Amazon that I have wanted to get for a while, but they want $10 for it. That seems too much for a digital copy of a book that's available for $6 in paperback new or $2.31 used. If I thought the author would get the difference, I might spring for it. But I suspect the publisher will get the lion's share of the profit.

I have to admit, however, that the size doesn't make the tablet that much more useful than the iPhone. Yes, it's nice to be able to see pictures and things a bit larger. But the lack of a 3G connection means that there are a lot of places where the tablet isn't usable. And the Facebook app doesn't know how to use the larger screen real-estate effectively. Twitter messages are short enough that they aren't really helped by the larger screen either. And the tablet hurts a lot more than the iPhone when you drop it on your face in bed.

I am pleased to find that that there is a satisfactory alternative to the iPhone. I don't plan to buy another iPhone, unless Apple makes a radical change in direction (which seems unlikely, as they're raking in money hand-over-fist). Indeed, given their current direction, I currently think it unlikely I'll buy anything from Apple ever again.

Mi apenaŭ plu atentas kio okazas en la Esperanta medio dum la pasintaj monatoj ekde kiam mi demisiis de E-USA. Ĉisemajne, tamen, mi notis ke okazas la Aŭtuna Renkontiĝo kaj, malgraŭ tio ke mi ne partoprenas, iomete mi kontrolas kio okazas en Esperantujo.

Mi notas ke la E-USA retpaĝaro ankoraŭ stagnas.

En Libera Folio, mi legis pri Indjanan Atakon kontraŭ esperantismo, kiun la kuraĝaj olduloj forpuŝis. En la komentoj estas la samaj disputoj: "tradiciaj esperantistoj miskomprenas la veran rolon de Esperanto en la nuntempo" kaj "Esperanto estas iu amata chevaleto". Kaj mi plej ŝatas la komenton de Cindy McKee kiu resumas la debaton jene:

"Jen, nian e-klubon ni defendos kontraŭ hipioj!"

"Jen, ni estas portantoj de la Nova Vojo, flankenpaŝu, vi malaktualaj maljunaj movadanoj."

Mia resumo estas ke kiam mi serĉis ĉe Google por "Esperanto Bilbao", la plej alta ligilo estis al ipernity.com/blog/esperanto-bilbao kiu diris tiun ĉi:

esperanto-bilbao ĝis nun ankoraŭ ne verkis ion por sia blogo.

Trafe.

Hodiaŭ matene, mi notis la mesaĝon de Osmo Buller pri Zorgiga Evoluo.

En majo mi raportis, ke la evoluo de la membrostatistiko estas zorgiga
kaj ke la nombro de individuaj membroj riskas ne atingi 5000 chi-jare.
La situacio ne plibonighis.

UEA pluiras laŭ morta spiralo.

La reagoj de la komitato estas interese miksitaj. Kelkaj temas pri varbado kaj la ĉiama nenio-farado. Mi ŝatis respondon de Barbara Pietrzak kiu diris:

Marĝene menciindaj estas la intensiĝintaj en la lasta tempo kampanjoj de iuj organizoj ene de la E-komunumo - jes kun UEA-membroj - kiuj dum diversaj E-aranĝoj varbas laŭte kaj aktive por la movado.... sed kiam oni detale legas tiujn varbilojn, evidentiĝas, ke tute ne temas pri UEA.

Kaj Fettes, kaj aliaj, kiuj konstatas ke temas, ne pri la bezono fari kampanjon, sed anstataŭ necesas strategie respondi. La komitatano de E-USA nenion diras.

Mia loka grupo same velkas. Ni kunvenis nur unudufoje post la LK.

Anstataŭe, mi faras aliajn aferojn -- plejparte en la angla. Mi laboras iom pli, legas sciencfikcion, atentas teĥnologion, kaj laste sekvas usonan politikon. Mi ankoraŭ emas pepi kaj angle kaj Esperante, sed pli kaj pli mi notas ke la esperantistoj aŭ malaperas aŭ transiras al la angla. Sed mi ankoraŭ sentas la mankon de Esperanto en mia vivo.

Eble mi sekvos la konsilon de Philip por Trakti Unu Aferon Pli Serioze. Se mi ne plu esperantumos, mi devas trovi novan hobion. Estas pripensinda demando…

Last week, I asked the students in the arduino class to think of ideas for something to build with an arduino. I had hoped they would post their ideas in a website I'd set up but, unfortunately, they seem to think that this is too much like homework to try. I pointed out that, if we can move that discussion to outside of class, we can have more time inside class to build stuff.

A few of them had thought up an idea: one student had the idea of some kind of music synthesizer. An arduino really isn't what you'd want for that: there are music ICs that are much more capable. Still, you could use an arduino to control a mechanical drumset or something. Daniel had an interesting idea: a mobile device that could start fires, or "arsonuino". People thought it was just silly until I pointed out that forest or prairie managers need to start fires for controlled burns and that something like that might actually be useful. We talked about a few other kinds of robots (like for search and rescue finding people trapped in burning buildings or in rubble). Or a robot that could extinguish fires.

The teachers had ideas too. I mentioned my idea: a cloud-shaped mobile or sculpture that could use the weather forecast to change color -- maybe with flashes to warn of approaching storms. Peter, the co-teacher, had a challenge: a device to stop racoons from harvesting the figs in their fig tree.

I remember one really cool interactive electronic sculpture I saw one time (I think it was on the Secret Life of Machines, that always had a bunch of these things). It used a stock market feed and, among other things, had a dollar bill on a string that it would raise up and lower into a trash can.

It might be fun to make something like the Weasley Family Clock, that always knew everyone's location. We could have something that detected when people's devices were detected by a local network and so could indicate whether people were around or not. If we wanted to get really fancy, we could combine it with an app you could run on your phone that would ping a webserver with your location, so it could actually tell where you are. With that, you could make a map that showed your realtime location, but a steampunky device with a dial that pointed toward "Work", "School", "Home", and "Mortal Peril" would be a lot more fun.

My long range plan for the class is for us to come up with some really cool idea for something we'd all like, build a prototype, and then make a video for a kickstarter to raise money so that we could build enough to satisfy orders and have enough parts left over that each of us could have one.

Afterwards, we didn't have much time to build things. Peter and his group worked on setting up a transistor to control a toy motor. My group set up a light resistor to control an LED. We took the sample code and munged it together with some other code to change the behavior from controlling the brightness of the LED, to controlling the rate of flashing.

While I was at Shrimp in Lieu of Taxes, I spoke with Jane Wald, the Director of the Emily Dickinson Museum. I mentioned that I was planning to write a haibun about the museum which I envisioned, eventually, as part of a book of haibun about the Pioneer Valley. My first, Patro kaj Filo ĉe Sukerpanmonto, about Mt. Sugarloaf, was published in Beletra Almanako a couple of years ago. And my second, Spuroj Sub Franc-Reĝa Ponto, about the Adirondacks and Connecticut River, is supposed to come out in BA in February. I'm planning to write about the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Peace Pagoda, and the Quabbin next. I'm not sure after that.

When she heard I write haiku, she mentioned Haiku Emily, a new book where someone writes short poetry "inspired" by Emily Dickinson's work. I found a copy in the library practically the next day and tried to read it. And found that I couldn't.

They're not haiku. They're short poems that are sort of haiku-like. But they just feel utterly wrong to me. I can't stand pentastich, gogyohka, five-lines, sixwords, etc. They're like haiku, but wrong.

Of course, a lot of what people (especially Americans) think of as "haiku" actually aren't. But I think I've figured out a key part of what I find so objectionable.

I particularly like the structure of haiku as three complete units where two are together and one is apart. If you have four units (or more) -- or just two -- it feels wrong.

For example, take the haiku I wrote yesterday:

eating lunch alone
under an autumn sky…
a meager salad

It doesn't work for me nearly as well if you just change the word order blurring the first two units together:

eating lunch under
an autumn sky alone…
a meager salad

And even worse is losing the strong break:

eating a meager salad
for lunch alone
under an autumn sky

Or worst of all, adding something:

eating a meager salad
for lunch alone under

an autumn sky
'cuz they left off
the sunflower seeds

No, no, no! Three units: two together and one set apart with a strong break. Anything else is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Sorry, Haiku-Emily-guy. I just can't stand it.

Hugh Gusterson, in his article Want to Change Academic Publishing? Just Say No, expresses how sad he is that other people are making money off of his academic work. His solution is, in essence, "If other people are monetizing everything, let's us do that too!" What a sad outcome that would be.

We need academic freedom. We need academics free to pursue their ideas wherever they go. Basic research is the foundation of the progress of human knowledge. The more time faculty are constrained to consider the economics of funding their research, monetizing their time, and the value of the outcomes of their work, the more academic freedom is constrained.

This is also a fundamental underlying problem of neoliberal capitalism: it can't value anything except in dollars. How much is a human life worth? How much is your daughter's love worth? How much is the earth's climate worth? How much is an old-growth forest worth? How much are your ideals worth? The most important things can never be valued in dollars -- and it is a fundamental mistake to try.

Our society fetishizes numbers and quantification, as I've written about over and over again. Instead, we need to make sense of things and act according to how our reason dictates. Monetizing academia does not lead to where we want to end up. Instead, we should fight tooth-and-nail to get the money out of academic publishing and fully exert our right to academic freedom.

Alisa, after joining town government, started getting invited to semiannual town-gown events at the UMass Chancellor's residence. I've gotten to go a number of times as Alisa's "guest", which is fun. Normally there are no faculty at these events and it's interesting to see the administrators in their natural habitat.

Years ago, the town was trying to get the university to contribute more money to the town and someone joked that these events should be called "shrimp in lieu of taxes" and the name has stuck -- with me anyway.

At the time, these were formal evening events with an open bar, fancy appetizers, and an impressive buffet -- sometimes with several stations with chefs making custom dishes. After the financial crisis in 2008, the events were toned back significantly. Holub eliminated the meal and cooks. And the one last night eliminated even the alcohol. It was Indian themed in honor of our new Chancellor with mango lassies, juice, water, and few other weird drinks. There were some appetizers and deserts -- including gulab jamon. But it was all very sober -- painfully sober. And no shrimp.

I asked a dean if the new Chancellor was a teetotaler. He said that he was not and that the reason to not serve alcohol was primarily to set a tone consistent with the message to students regarding alcohol consumption. And for the appearance of containing costs.

It's hard to know the value of these kinds of events. There is always less cross-talk than you'd really like. The administrators tend to huddle together and the same with the townsfolk. A conference or retreat where people were forced into cross-disciplinary teams would probably be a better use of time and money -- maybe enough better to justify the alcohol. And even shrimp.

Today, I got a request for someone who wanted to update their machine to Lion (ie, MacOS 10.7). Their husband got a new Mac and she can no-longer sync with his calendar via iCloud. Unfortunately, you can't get Lion anymore. The Apple Store and the App Store both only sell 10.8: Mountain Lion. And her machine doesn't meet the technical specifications to run 10.8.

A few weeks ago, some other colleagues were interested in upgrading to Mountain Lion, but discovered that you have to be running at least 10.6 to update, but that you can't buy installers for 10.6 either. Eventually, they discovered that if you call Apple on the phone, you can still buy a DVD to update to 10.6.

In an email to our local Apple Rep, I said:

Just my $0.02 -- this kind of behavior on the part of Apple is exceptionally user-hostile. It's exactly this kind of behavior that's making me increasingly reluctant to recommend Apple solutions.

Not that I expect them to pay any attention. I expect they would just as soon jettison the Mac business altogether. And perhaps they will.