Monthly Archives: February 2007

SimFarm

By Michael Becker | Published: February 12, 2007
An inter­est­ing story from the AP. Farmers have begun using Web forums to chat about farm­ing issues, a prac­tice the author of this report quaintly said was replac­ing the local cof­fee shop and feed store. While those of us who grew up in rural areas with cof­fee shops and feed stores know bet­ter, it is [...]
Posted in Social Networking | Comments closed

Thesis

By Michael Becker | Published: February 10, 2007
My first major ses­sion of the­sis draft­ing is now wind­ing down. I have about six pages drafted right now, roughly drafted; but at least the work is under way. I hope any read­ers of this blog under­stand that for the next three weeks, I won’t be post­ing much so that I can get this done [...]
Posted in Miscellany | Comments closed

Why Read?

By Michael Becker | Published: February 10, 2007
Why do stu­dents loathe read­ing? They would rather watch the movie than read the book. Is it that video lit­er­acy doesn’t require, seem­ingly, as much skill as read­ing a book? It feels eas­ier to kick back on a sofa or relax in your school desk in a dark­ened room than to sit beneath a lamp, [...]
Posted in Print Culture | Tagged , | Comments closed

Creativity and Plagiarism

By Michael Becker | Published: February 4, 2007
Read an arti­cle in Harper’s last night by J. Lethem called “The Ecstasy of Influence.” Lethem holds that all writ­ing is essen­tially pla­gia­rism in that we can­not be sep­a­rated from the influ­ences that have come before us. Consciously or not, other author’s word­ings, forms, struc­tures, ect., have infused our writ­ing, inflused the very lan­guage. Rather [...]
Posted in Authority Issues, Internet News | Comments closed

…a new wind was about to blow

By Michael Becker | Published: February 2, 2007
A panel of sci­en­tists in Paris released a study Friday that clearly blames human activ­ity for global warm­ing. The report warns that the effects of global warm­ing, mainly ris­ing sea lev­els and chang­ing local cli­mates, will hap­pen, regard­less of the steps we take to reduce our green­house gas emis­sions. Global warm­ing is hap­pen­ing and will [...]
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