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January 14, 2007
Housecleaning
Have gotten the ol' big-blog blogroll sorted. Zuska moved onto ScienceBlogs a LONG time ago, and it took me way too long to update her link. Revisiting Zuska reminds me that I haven't written about science or gender/race issues in academia in darn near forever. I think this is the point where I blame the teaching load and just move on.
I've added the blogs of Dr. Shellie, Natalie Stadnick, and - a blog I have not found to this point for reasons I simply cannot understand - one of my academic heroes, Carmen Butcher. (Carmen also now has a MySpace page. I'm convinced that the friend requests from all corners I received in the past 24 hours are DIRECTLY related to this internet-shattering event, and are mere testament to the sheer unadulterated coolness of Carmen Butcher.)
I wish I knew, with WesleyBlog sitting dormant, who was in charge of the Methodist Blogroll. (Is that link an attempt to get cheap trackback so that Mr. Raynor will acknowledge my existence? Mmmmmm, could be.)
I really wish there was a sports blog out there that was as intelligent as the Sports Frog, but less of a boy's club.
And back to Dr. Shellie for the last word on the night, and what I think is a very good quotation from a very interesting little talk:
But most of all, I ask myself questions like this: am I smart enough to do science? Am I smart enough to work on the problems I am working on? Am I smart enough to find the answers? I have a female grad student, and she is very smart. She also doesn’t seem to ask herself questions like this. So one day I asked her– how do you know you are smart enough to do science?...She said this: ‘the length of time it takes me to solve a problem never exceeds the length of time that I am interested in it.’ I thought that was a pretty good answer.
It is, it is.
Posted by Chuck at 10:29 PM | TrackBack
January 07, 2007
In memoriam: Momofuku Ando
Now here's a man to be praised. Momofuku Ando, founder of Nissin Food Products, died yesterday at the ripe old age of 96. He believed in providing low-cost food for those who needed it - "Peace prevails when food suffices" was his watchword. He truly had a vision to change the world.
What was that vision? We can say it in one word.
Of course, I got the word from PhD. You don't think there's a LITTLE affection there?
Posted by Chuck at 09:01 AM | TrackBack
January 06, 2007
The nature of the beast
I've tried semi-consciously to avoid whining about my own problems on this thing, because the world hates whiners, and with good reason. So I hope you'll indulge me a bit.
I don't know what's going to happen with the posting rate this semester. I've been doing a pretty good job of taking the blogroll and turning it into a useful links page for me, and that's probably going to continue. (Honestly, that was the major purpose behind the last point, and the fact that it turned into a reflection on "adult content" and disclaimers was a happy coincidence.) But deep-thinking reflections on faith, academia, the world, and sport? Probably not, unless I get into a serious rant mode.
I'm going into this semester with a good bit of fear, because I know what last semester was like. That I'm overloaded is everybody's fault and nobody's fault - whatever concerns I have about my workload are tempered by the fact that I'm surrounded by people who understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and are willing to go to the wall to support me, which is honestly what anybody who goes through an overload like this can ask for. In all honesty, I'm blessed, and ridiculously so.
But I'm still a bit frightened, because I know how I felt after fall semester, and I know how I work in general. I can't do anything half-heartedly. And, as many things as I see that Need To Be Done, I'm going to HAVE to do some of them half-heartedly, simply because I don't have time to put everything I want into them. And That's Okay.
Unless you're the person who I'm doing something half-hearted for, in which case it's horribly unfair.
That's what I've got to shake. And it's simple, really. More than anything else, the people who depend on me need me to be available and functional. I have to manage my schedule and my time so that I meet those two standards - I'm there, and I'm doing stuff while I'm there instead of sitting around stupored. I'm not necessarily going to be fair to every last person, at least not in my mind. Then again, the standards of my mind are about ten thousand times higher than what the rest of the world sees anyway.
This was kind of a nifty self pep-talk. Again, thanks for the indulgence.
Posted by Chuck at 11:42 AM | TrackBack
January 01, 2007
Pottymouthed webcomics
The more I read webcomics, the more I find myself drawn to comics that have, shall we say, a less proper storytelling bent.
I blame Penny Arcade for this. Penny Arcade has been funny (and quite prophetic) for its entire run, potty-mouth or no potty-mouth. However, the potty-mouth will, from time to time, set up a real conversation that veers towards the hilariously bizarre very quickly. And, sometimes, the profanity is absolutely essential to the joke.
And I've already blogged about the quality of Something Positive's storyline, both here and elsewhere. Simply put, Something Positive is one of the most important webcomics I read right now. There's a GREAT deal of theological depth to the thing, however much that depth is mired in the misanthropy. It tells a story that a comic that's sanitized and prepared "for the kids" simply cannot tell. The characters grow up, change, the stupid things they did years ago come back to haunt them, often in unexpected ways...and I don't want my kids reading the thing until they're of age.
And I've found myself reading Sinfest more and more lately as well. If the comic is called Sinfest, then obviously it doesn't belong in a clean comics trawl, and there are so many ways in which that comic is so wrong. But, when God and Satan are two of the key characters in your comic, then you can explore the theology of good and evil in really intriguing ways.
I'm trying to work out why I am so drawn to so many of these stories. There's no question, in many cases, their use of profanity and sexuality is excessive and off-putting. Then again, that's the case in the broader media as well. I think I appreciate having the full backstory at my disposal and the ability to work out my own reactions to the characters' lives. The ludicrous sit-com situations are one thing; the deeply developed characters in a well drawn webcomic are something else entirely.
(None of these things, of course, explain why I like still laugh uproariously at the on-again, off-again in-joke goodness that is Indietits.)
The primary reason for this post is to kickstart the Webcomics heading in the blogroll. The listing I'm placing below the jump will be linked in the blogroll as "Warning attached", not only to place another block for the kids (because, let's be totally honest, there's a great deal on the internet the kids are going to find whether we want them to or not) but to make sure all parties know what they're getting into when they read these comics. The warning goes something like this:
I read these comics because I enjoy the storylines, the characterization, or the broad message. I do NOT read these comics because I condone the language used or the lifestyles portrayed.
But I'm not going to pretend that this language doesn't get used either, nor am I going to pretend that these lifestyles don't get lived. Misanthropes exist. One-night stands happen. People cohabit. Traditional morals, in so many corners of society circa 2007, have been obliterated, and there are plenty of people of my generation and younger who are confused and trying to figure out how to clean up the mess. A lot of what's in here reflects that confusion.
And quite often, the responses to the confusion are downright funny.
When you read something offensive in these comics - or anywhere else in the popular media or literature, for that matter - talk about it. And this goes about a hundred times if you're a minor. One of the things we screw up most often, as parents, is that we don't get involved with what our kids are watching on television or listening to on the radio or finding on the web. Please, if you're our kids, don't hesitate to help us out.
In order of how long I've read the comic in question, this is what I read:
(I'm also going to pay attention to the "director's cut" of the recently-completed Narbonic, because it has been recommended so highly by so many people. We'll see how this goes.)