Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Author: tokyokevin

  • Weakly Post #16

    A collection of things I have read this week, and some tools for tech and/or learning new stuff, especially languages. Your first comment is checked, after that you are free to comment.

    I posted this week about Other Kevin Ryans because I found the collection in my weekly (automatic) search even more than unusual.

    I posted this week on FB (breaking my weekday “fast” routine) with a post about Colorado Governor Jared Polis (great guy) signing a “Red Flag” gun bill that allows judges to take away guns from really dangerous people. A great first step.

    I just finished reading Team Human, but Douglas Rushkoff. He talks about how humans need to shape technology to their needs, and that is not the way it is happening. He starts out pretty dark.

    This is the true meaning of “the singularity”: it’s the moment when computers make humans obsolete. At that point, we humans will face a stark choice. Either we enhance ourselves with chips, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering to keep up with our digital superiors; or we upload our brains to the network.

    Mostly because of capitalism, and the inherent qualities of technology, but there are other factors as well. The biggest takeaway came late in the book..

    These stages of video game play—from player to cheater to author to programmer—are analogous to the stages we passed through as a civilization.

    It has gotten me to reconsider what cheating is all about. Whether it is not really as bad as it seems, but is simply a way of playing the game in a different way, not intended by the authors.

    The US has now officially regressed to developing nation status. On the skids.

    A nice analysis of YouTube algorithms and how they are designed to create a false environment of anger and outrage. The initial case shows that search results for education show more negative results than positive ones. This is followed up by results that show teachers in a sexual light.

    Another Digital Media entry, with a great interactive article (check out the maps of Austin) about how the US government is increasingly writing warrants to search for people’s phones near where a crime is committed. This seems like a terrible breach of the 4th Amendment (unreasonable searches and seizures). For now, Google is complying with these requests. Apple said that it was not possible on their system. This is really disconcerting.

    It may seem counterintuitive, but removing a big highway may actually improve traffic. Six cities have tried it and it seems to work.

    The 2019 Peabody Awards for news-related media have come out. I have already watched Bride and Brothels, The Rohingya Trade . Not in the Peabodys, but it should, I am about to watch Japan’s Secret Shame about Shiori Ito. Both of these are about an hour long. Check out the other Peabodys. Make time.

    A great podcast about telling stories, The Moth is celebrating its 20th anniversary with, what, a book? I don’t get it.

    A new book of photos about “half” Japanese (my kids are double), is coming out this month.

    Play this addictive web-based game in French. Bet you can’t stop.

    I like cartoons, comics, graphic novels. My seminar students are reading Media Meltdown and In Real Life. But now there is the Global Problem Solvers. I am investigating for possible application in a course.

    For the techies. 1-minute explanation of Searle’s Chinese Room (as opposed to Alan Turing) on Artificial Intelligence. Why did I read the books?

    An open source kit to build a robotic cat. Looks enticing until you see the price. Still, ….

  • Other Kevin Ryans

    Having a relatively common name like Kevin Ryan sometimes has a comedic advantage. I have google send me an alert each week with Kevin Ryans in the News (not a boy band name). Anyway, last week I found a Kevin Ryan in upstate New York (Buffalo) that bowled a 279 in a league game. He plays for the Midnight bombers.

    Another Kevin Ryan near West Point missed his court date so police are looking for him. Check the bowling alleys.

    Danbury Connecticut has a Kevin Ryan teamed up with Kevin Pape to score 45 points to beat the Bethel Royal Fish and Chips team. I really don’t care what game they were playing.

    Black belt KR showed off his skills by breaking boards in Dallas. He is 12. Stay away.

    There is a US Attorney (for the Federal government) that prosecuted a prostitution ring in 2005, with the help of 400 law officers, which lead to the “recovery” of 100 sex workers. He was asked about it in relation to the sex ring in Florida where some basketball (?) coach and friend of DaTrump got caught with his pants down.

    The internet entrepreneur Kevin Ryan is in the news again. After making millions by adding advertisements to web pages (doublespace, or something like that), he is now a venture capitalist, spreading capitalism around as if it were peanut butter. Something about Bluegound Business, but the link is broken. That’s OK.

    Another Connecticut Yankee named Kevin Ryan is a politician. The Hartford-based state Rep is pushing a bill to give a rural area of Connecticut more mental health resources. Kudos. A good one.

    Some soap opera character has two personalities, one called Kevin, the other Ryan. Double duty. But does it count?

    Another politician in New Jersey, mayor of the small town of Verona, looks like he is for legalizing marijuana, asking people who voted to legalize gambling which hurts more people. Yeah.

    Yet another east coast polititican, Kevin Ryan from Lincoln Rhode Island won re-election to the health board.

    That was this week. The guitar maker (luthier), the Irish race horse owner, the Irish hurling coach (owner?), the Dublin Professor (some science), and one in Germany often show up, but not this week. Any I beat them all to the domain name. I had a page redirecting to others for years, until Facebook came on the scene.

    What about your name? Have you looked it up lately?

  • Weakly Post #15

    A collection of things I have read this week, and some tools for tech and/or learning new stuff, especially languages. Your first comment is checked, after that you are free to comment.

    Getting started with the new academic year. The entering students usually look really young each year. This year not so much. Not sure why. My colleague said it was because they used social media. I don’t think so. They just seem more sure of themselves. The good job market?

    Candidate Pete Buttigeieg has a lot of good ideas, but one that he is going against is universal tuition support for students capable of a degree. An analysis shows that this goes back more than 50 years, with 2 factors changing our ideas: that public works should be considered by cost-benefit, as should an education. But this is short-sighted. You can see why it makes sense in many other countries in the world. (Washington Post)

    On the race front, a black person goes into details about when and why women clutch their purses when he is around. (blog) In another sad story, a pioneering history researcher is worn down by the academic system in the US, relegated to adjunct jobs. It finally, slowly, killed her. (Atlantic)

    Mama. What goes around. When I was a kid, the old-fashioned people used “mama” to call their mother. Now I guess it is the opposite. But among the stuff about the US is some good information about how cultures call their mothers. (LongReads) Speaking of great mamas, this photographer took pictures of her own baby being born. (Petapixel)

    I threw away most of my floppies. I have a a DAT and a ZipDrive somewhere in my office. That is the 5 missing years of media storage they are talking about here. (BBC)

    Flipped Learning has given new life to homework. At least it isn’t workbooks. Yet still, we should think very carefully about what kind of homework we give out. It gets abused way too often. A nice look at the issue from many sides. (Atlantic)

    Burger King introduces the beefless “impossible whopper“. I want to try this out. (NYTimes). Also from the NYTimes, we need unions in the game industry.

    Very interesting looking video content resource at Ready to Run. There is a free level to check things out. Then individual and class subscriptions. I am going to look into this.

    If anyone is into Twine and interactive fiction, get this book, especially if you are teaching it. Great simple introduction. The only bad thing about it is the cartoon on the cover. This would work with adults, too.

  • Weakly Post #14

    A collection of things I have read this week, and some tools for tech and/or learning new stuff, especially languages. Your first comment is checked, after that you are free to comment.

    I posted this week about a course in Democratic Erosion. The course is taught over 25 universities, with students sharing blog posts about specific cases. This is something I want to do too. For my English and content classes.

    Media: One for biting criticism, this guy can’t stand cable news. Of any kind.

    Conference: This is one I really want to go to. Designing playful courses. Wow. What an idea. And the two main speakers are people I have been reading for a long time. Stuart Malthrop (author of Victory Garden, my first hypertext novel) and Kris Klimas (creator of Twine).

    Music: With Spotify and Shazam, who can both show lyrics line by line, doing music in the classroom has become easy again. So this semester I am going to do a song a week, selected (and researched, and explained, and presented) by my students. Here are 10 new artists to look out for. There is a lot of buzz around Billie Eilish. Her music is depressing but interesting. A sign of the times?

    TESOL famous people sniping at each other is a great way to learn where the field is heading these days.

    Teaching. Opinion. This is how you kill a profession. Actions, even unintended, have consequences. These seem to be intended. My generation is certainly screwing up the world for the next one.

  • Open Pedagogy Live

    Probably the most remarkable content this week was an interview (45 min) with Rob Blair on his (and many others’) course on Democratic Erosion (syllabus). This was all part of the online course I am taking for #openlearning19 at the Open Learning Hub.

    This is team teaching on a whole new level. It is team learning. It is collaboration between students, professors, and institutions. It works because faculty, starting at Brown University, then expanding last year to more than a dozen universities, were all able to work together on a common syllabus, then sharing comments and produced work. This year there are over 25 universities involved.

    Do watch the interview. Gardner Campbell covers the issues, starting with the technical, then moves on to design and administration. They get into the nuts and bolts of how the program was set up. It was enlightening. It is revolutionary. It breaks down the classroom walls and tasks students with creating relevant materials for distribution to a real audience. The content is now being collected by graduate researchers who will use it to synthesize into a body of work useful to the outside work. This is a truly relevant audience.

    I floated the idea of working together within our department, and it went nowhere. I am now considering how to adapt this framework to my language classes here in Tokyo. There is a lot of potential.