Value of the intangible

As I recover from a long and hellish December spent writing umpteen pages of essays for various courses, not to mention many application letters for grad school, I am looking ahead to the new semester that starts next week and considering what it means....my last one. Of my BA. Last one. Wow.

It's got me thinking about all the work I have done to get to this point. All the pages I've read of theory and articles. All the pages I've written of theory and ideas and garbage (sometimes). What of it is valuable? What is worth keeping? What would happen if I lost it? If my laptop got stolen?

Stories like this one about a stolen master thesis remind me that I should use the spanky new 200gb external drive I got for Christmas to back up the contents of my Uni folder. Also suggests that I should subscribe to a service like Xdrive when I head into thesis writing land later in the semester, when it is time for me to write up the results of the research project I'll be spearheading.

Sodoku isn't math?

Sodoku has become incredibly popular in La Belle Province of Quebec and has managed to infiltrate my household. I've avoided it, thinking it requires number skill, which I definitely do not have. However, according to American Scientist Online, it doesn't require math so much as it require logic and pattern recognition.

Okay I can buy that. But the medium of its message is still numbers. And I avoid numbers.

[found via Arts & Letters Daily]

Responsibility for action

Reading Arendt's Human Condition. Came across an interesting passage that could be useful in any analysis of the uses to which people put artistic works.

The perplexity is that in any series of events that together form a story with a unique meaning we can at best isolate the agent who set the whole process into motion; and although this agent frequently remains the subject, the "hero" of the story, we never can point unequivocally to him as the author of is eventual outcome" (p.185).

I take this to mean that the author/artist of a work can be seen in their work, but they cannot be held responsible for any action that is the outcome of their speech.

When one considers how this is otherwise often done around violence in video games, Hollywood movies, etc., this quote gives me pause to question my own beliefs.

Gaming in the old media

Does this Economist article that takes on Castronova's new book, Synthetic Worlds indicate that gaming and the analysts who cover it seriously have become newsworthy? I'll let Kelly do the dissecting of the article though, she's far more qualified.

Defining terms

A conversation with Kelly yesterday about terms and their definitions got me thinking about how common academic concepts get taken for granted in the classroom. While I have had an entire class that explained the concepts of ontology, epistemology and methodology, that was a rare occurence. Too often, the professors and instructors assume that we know what a given term or theme is or means.

To whit: dialectic.

Has anyone ever truly explained to you what it means? Independant of using it with Marxian thought?

I realized last night, as I worked through parts of Arendt's Human Condition, that the argument I'm attempting to setup for a long detailed paper on music as mass culture or art requires me to contrast Arendt's work sharply with Adorno's thought. It would seem to me that I'm attempting a dialectical argument.

My understanding of dialectic is the presentation of an argument that has a thesis, an opposing thesis (antithesis?) and a compare/contrast analytical conclusion (synthesis). But is this actually a dialectic?

I'd look downright silly if, in the title of my paper, I grandly proclaimed that I was presenting a dialectical argument, with Arendt on one side, Adorno on the other and my syntehsis of their thoughts with others and my own, if/when, in fact, I am not.

So what does dialectic truly mean anyway? And how am I supposed to know all of these terms and concepts that have cropped up if I've never had the chance to discuss them with someone?

There's my collaborative verbal learning style coming up to bite me again.

Anyway, if you have opinions on the meaning of dialectic, speak up please. My paper is due next wek and I don't want to read as a twit to the professor in question.

Yawning over movies

Yup, there it is. On the front page of my local daily newspaper. "Hollywood fears meltdown".

Seems that movie attendance in theatres is on a sharp decline with no signs of improving. Theatres are pinning their hopes on Jackson's newest, King Kong.

I have nothing against the big ape, but I was never interested in the other versions of this film. I mean, an oversized ape rampaging in Manhattan because he's fallen for a human woman? I have a lot of imagination, but that premise has just never worked for me. I'll be staying home this weekend.

And maybe that's the problem. For much of this year, I haven't gone to the movies. Oh sure I've seen films, including Narnia and the latest Hogwarts saga, and I've actually been very impressed and surprised by one (Derailed, believe it or not....see it definitely if you haven't already), but the year overall has been a big yawn at the box office, as far as I'm concerned. I've been getting more satisfaction out of my PVR.

Perhaps that's the reason? With so many of us able to now be choosy about what and when we watch anything, more of us are choosing to watch only what we think is interesting and forgoing the rest.

Or is it actually a sign that online entertainment, a la MMOs and downloadable TV via iTunes, has really started to hit it big?

I look at the near horizon and I see only one movie I'm looking forward to seeing...Brokeback Mountain. A big screen buddy movie about the lives of two cowboys and their more-than-average homosexual relationship? Wow. Count me in.

The rest of what's coming out though? *Yawn*.

Think I'll read a good book instead.

From the "OMG!" files

Talk about stupid ways to advertise...Alternet reports that Starbucks is paying people to drive around cities with fake coffee cups affixed to the roof of their cars. Why? Read the blogpost.