The Professor's Notes

There are now two days until CV THON starts. IF the storm stays away…

I am sure you are wondering “how can I donate, and ensure these kids get credit for it?” It’s simple. From their website:

For Members of the Community

Donations of $100 and up will receive a t-shirt.

Donations can be sent to:

CV Four Diamonds Fund
Cumberland Valley High School
6746 Carlisle Pike
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Attn: Elizabeth Rimpfel

These kids work hard year round.  They are planning, canning (raising funds at sporting events and retailers), and reaching out to the media.  They certainly know that it is important to work hard FOR THE KIDS.

BUT… they also know how to have fun.  Don’t believe me? Just watch this video.

Cumberland Valley HS’s THON is only three days away. As I mentioned before, this THON is like it’s (much) larger sibling at Penn State, raising money for the Four Diamond Fund and their fight against Pediatric Cancer.

Take the time to learn about the wide range of activities they have planned at the CV THON by visiting their site at http://cvschools.org/thon and then watch the video of last year’s LINE DANCE at CV THON!

FOR THE KIDS!

I finally received my Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera (Target had them in stock, and on sale! Go Target!)  I really am enjoying it, and I am even “digging” the Raspberry color.

Matt and I had a chat in the car while waiting for his Mom to join us for lunch.  We were talking about his iPhone which has  lived a good, but HARD life. And we chatted about it… on the zi8.

This post is from my “Archives of Incomplete Thoughts” but I wanted to share them with you all…

I have been pondering for a while the use of the eBooks (and specifically the Kindle) in Academia.  Ever since I considered purchasing my first eReader (the Sony eReader 505) I have found the convenience of having several books at my finger tips, without weighing me down, to be the most obvious benefit.  That said, I believe there are many others, and some which can result in the elusive “win-win” situations for producers and consumers alike.

• Affordability of textbooks
• Desk Reference/Review copies
• Physical size/weight relief
• notetaking and highlighting

Need to rethink old views:

• why see “a page”?
• how do I “flip” through a book?
• what is the focus/purpose of an “illustration”?
• are there other ways to “illustrate”?
• How do we do “citations?”

Challenges:

• How to compare two separated pages (i.e., pages 57, and 106) (side by side?)

Issues I want to see if they have added/changed:

• Highlighting:  does the menu appear next to where I clicked? How is that interface changed?
• can we move/sync highlights/notes between devices?

Have you given much thought to the changes we can see with Digital Textbooks?  What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments.

UPDATE:  Apparently Amazon is no longer selling the original Kindle even as a refurb.  They are selling the Refurbished Kindle 2 and the Refurbished Kindle DX though, and so far everything I have read says that this is a GREAT deal.  Check it out.

I have just found on the Amazon site that they are selling the original Kindle for only $149.99. (see update above)

If you are interested, check it out.  It’s “almost” as good as the Kindle2.  I have the original, and haven’t felt the need to upgrade, since the only really new features are the ability of the Kindle 2 to read to me (with a computer generated voice) and more esthetically pleasing buttons.  In fact, I personally like the ability, with the original Kindle, to add a memory card, thereby having unlimited storage (and I can remove the card–with my books–before I ship it out if I have problems).  Also, the original Kindle has a removable/replaceable battery, so you won’t have to send the whole unit off to Amazon if your battery dies.

Anyway–just wanted to share this with you.

As my readers may know, I like the notes and highlights feature of the Kindle, and I like the latest utility they provide, letting us view a consolidated listing of notes and highlights on a webpage.  I also like that if you have multiple “kindle-enabled” readers (Kindles, iPhones, etc) the whispernet will autosync you to the latest place you have read in your book.  The convenience is remarkable, being read a book in one device, read for a while, and then when you decide to switch to the other device, it asks if you want to go to the latest point read.  No more hunting and guessing.  Great!

At least, I thought it was.  Now I am not one to go all crazy over conspiracy theories and the like.  Personally, I like my aluminum foil wrapping leftovers, not as a hat.  But it occurred to me that Amazon is not only gathering information about our buying patterns (our actual buying patterns, and not simply what sites we look at or ads we see), but they are  now getting something more.  Amazon now is learning what we read, and how fast we read it. (Or perhaps whether we actually read them, or finish them?) But Amazon is essentially capable of gathering information on what we think is important by what we highlight, and what we think and believe by any notes we may write.

In my mind this actually puts them a step ahead of Google.

Will Amazon do anything with this?  Probably not.  But think about it–what does it say about you?  This is creating a “virtual you” that can be analyzed.  Tie this with the Google information, and what a picture it becomes.

Recently a guest on TWIT said that not only is this a virtual you, but it is a virtual you that knows more about you than you do.  It’s memory of what you read, highlight, and type is “perfect.”  Can you say that about yourself?

Would you want to learn about yourself?  Or would you (almost) be afraid to know?

I just felt I had to share this great stop motion video. TOTH (tip of the hat) to Twitter friend cc_chapman.

 . . . heck is this guy; and why is he posting to The Professor’s Notes?  Please allow me to introduce myself.  I’m a colleague/associate/friend of the “owner” of the blog.  Steve and I go back to our shared military service for the Air Force.  We were both professors teaching (Logistics and Supply Chain) at the Air Force Institute of Technology in the 1990s.  We have not always seen “eye to eye” on various issues over the years; but our mutual colleagues have suggested that the entertainment value of our discussions were worth the price of admission! [ref Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes?]

After a couple of posts to a variety of blogs on some issues of mutual interest, Steve invited me to step up as a “Guest Contributor” (all of the hassle, none of the pay?) on topics of my choosing.  Since I am new to this whole “blog thing,” I would ask you all to “be gentle” with me . . . Yeah, Right!

Let the games begin!

Scorch aka “The Other Steve”

I must admit that I, like so many others, had not read Andy Olmsted’s writings until today.  A blogging soldier in the US Army, he left a final entry, to be posted in the event of his death.  Since I have read it, I am sure you can gather he has given “that last full measure of devotion.”

The entry is thoughtful, funny, and touching.  One would find it hard to read this post, regardless of perspectives on the military and the war in Iraq, and not finish without a tear in the eye, and a warm spot in their heart for the American Fighting Man.

Our soldiers deserve our respect, and honor, not only in their deaths, but in their lives as well.

Please–take the time to read his post.  You will be changed.

And, while he didn’t want his death to be politicized, I feel it remains only proper that we remember him with the closing words of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg:

 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

 

President Abraham Lincoln

November 1863

Man Gets $218 Trillion Phone Bill – Yahoo! News

Wow. THIS is an interesting story, and is actually a good lesson in so many areas. Certainly, we can learn much about “common sense” from a company that doesn’t think that a bill of that magnitude is somehow incorrect and out of line. Or perhaps we can learn how automated systems, left to their own devices, without a conscience, can ruin peoples lives.

Yes, we can learn all these things, but let’s look instead at the economics of this. The man is charged 218 TRILLION dollars for his phone bill. For perspective, the national debt, according the the US National Debt Clock, is only 8 Trillion. Additionally, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports − imports)) is $1.57 trillion quarterly (and, with the current Bush Administration, growing quite nicely–see the BEA report.) In this case, the phone company in question is in Malaysia, not the US, so you can imagine the impact such a phonebill must have. Just look at the equstion for GDP. Add that level of consumption to the GDP for a single quarter, and you have quite a blip!

Okay, so then let’s look at this. This one example clearly highlights why there is no connection between cost and price. I cannot imagine the Telco will be able to argue that, if the phone was accidently left on or not, they have incurred a substantial cost. They may have some trivial marginal costs associated with providing the calls, but given that the infrastructure (fixed costs) are already in place, one cannot believe that the TELCO would have incurred such great costs. Instead, we now have laid bare the gap, understandable in economic terms, between what it costs the company to provide the service, and what they are able to charge as a price because, at our traditional rates of use, it is a price we are willing to pay.

So there you have it. One man racks up a phone bill 145 times the US Gross Domestic Product, and will perhaps go to jail if he can’t pay.

So yes, the old Science Fiction story seems to be correct. The phone company will own everything and everyone.

HOMEWORK: anyone want to compute the “Earth Domestic Product” and determine if he could even come close to paying off his debt.