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Consider the huge amount of texts that have been scanned by Google and its academic partners, now available for indexing from any Internet-connected computer. Then consider the texts owned by your university's library. Now consider the intersection of these sets. What is stopping your university and Google from being able to fully offer this searchable, digitized library to its students? Clearly, the answer is "the rights of the publishers and authors". But when will this progress, and how will this progress? It seems inevitable to me that that's the direction things will go. It just seems so attractive. Surely something can be worked out such that there can be some fixed number of licenses available for each book. I do this all the time whenever I fire up MATLAB and the software retrieves a license from the school's server. Basically, I dream of a day when I have a few color, highly-responsive Kindle-like things that'll let me pull up an entire library's worth of information without ever having to leave my desk. The technology has some ways to go from the current generation, no doubt, e.g., the ability to easily take notes on the pages, the adoption of color (however, see the soon-coming PixelQi for advances in these directions), easy document sharing between devices and your computer and the Internet and libraries-- but I'm excited for the direction it'll eventually head and the products which'll soon be out. The padds of Star Trek, anyone? Sorry, I sort of exploded into nerdiness halfway through this post. But anyone with insight on academic library infrastructure or on publishing or on the recent Google Books settlements-- please inform and please speculate to your heart's content. I'm also curious to people's thoughts on e-books in general. I absolutely abhor reading documents on my computer, but it wasn't until I saw how paper-like the kindle was that I changed my mind on this entirely. I have to imagine that publishers are nervous, though. Suddenly textbooks will be way more amenable to piracy. You can already find almost any academic text (in math, at least) with an easy Google search. But those who do this are likely few in number, given the difficulty in printing it all out or reading it on your laptop. But to download an 8 MB file then to sideload it onto your device...? Crisis. Also, unimpressed luddites, please come to the table, too. I'm interested in your thoughts.
I'm going to be collecting video data in classrooms, and my advisor/PI has told me that we have money for some new video cameras! Yay! The old ones take little tapes that take forever to copy onto a computer, and I don't even have the software to do so on my computer, only in a lab. So I've talked him into new cameras that record right onto SD cards, which will both be a lot easier to access and can hold a lot more at once. But we have one major need that most cheapo digital video cameras don't worry much about - we need really good audio. We need to be able to hear kids across the room, possibly with other kids talking. The big advantage of our current cameras is that as you zoom the video in, the microphone "zooms" in as well and picks up the audio from where the camera is focused better. Does anyone have recommendations or opinions on good cameras for this purpose? Yes, we may also be using individual audio recorders (especially for kids doing group work), but for full-class discussions it would really be nice to have one recording with both video and decent audio.
Two years ago, when I started my doctoral degree, I already had an idea of what I wanted my dissertation to be on. Now that I'm almost done with my coursework and comps, I've begun doing some research on my topic, just to be ahead of the game. Here is my dilemma: the topic I've chosen has not been extensively written about. This is, in a way, excellent! It means I will be writing a paper on a subject that has not been extensively covered(although it has growing interest in my field), and could therefore lead to some possible publishing (I am not required to have my paper published). The bad is I have very little to go with, and I obviously can't base a dissertation on let's say five articles and a website. I have a paper advisor, but he cannot meet with me until next semester. I'm just curious as to what the general consensus is about thesis topics and the amount of research already done on said topic. There is no big hurry, I'm just a little worried. Thank you for your help!
Congratulations to this week's winners!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) i First Place
kitchenbeard Second Place
mickthesuave Third Place
This week's theme starts now - "Mint"
Next week's theme will be... "Current"
Thanks for your patience during this transitional time!
If a British student quotes an American-spelled paper, is the protocol to use the American spelling, surreptitiously correct the spelling, use the American spelling followed by a [ sic], or correct the spelling and indicate the correction somehow? What's the protocol in cases of typos and non-typographical errors that slightly obscure the meaning of the sentence, or that are incorrect in a way that doesn't obscure the sentence's meaning?
I've posted this on philo_major, but it couldn't hurt to get other opinions! Currently, I am in the health administration industry and I make large amounts of money. I'm a year away from getting my health administration degree, which I would make even more money with. Eventually, my goal is to get a ph.d in philosophy..but for now... I do extensive reading outside of class, and I've taken quite a few philosophy courses. While I don't take formal education in philosophy too seriously, I'd still enjoy the classes. I'm not too keen on getting my philosophy bachelors from this school though, but I could get my minor. The money for me was never an issue, but I honestly support my whole family, including the extended family that have it pretty bad. I would start on my goal right away, but I would first like to make some money. This is my plan- and you guys are welcome to destroy it to pieces! I will finish my health administration degree with a minor in philosophy. I would then prepare for a masters program, while working..I'm sure that at that point I would be able to support myself without working too much. I'm sure this sounds like a good idea in my head- but what do you guys think?
Perfection, 2398 © Bill Pusztai 2009
Next week's theme will be... Mint Sorry for the additional delays. We'll get things back to normal around here soon. |
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