Peak Oil in Higher Education III

I’ve written previously that I believe the crisis in Higher Education and Academic Publishing was one that was centered around the fact that the price of the commodity they were selling dropped to zero. The discussions between Verizon and Google have rekindled interest in “Net Neutrality,” the idea that the companies that provide access to [...]

The Low Cost of Maintaining your Digital Past

In the past there was a cost to maintaining the past. Nostalgic items took up space, coming at a physical cost; they also had a social cost which came in the form of partners, others and friends: “you really are still holding on to that? Just throw it out!” The combination of factors force individuals [...]

Not Liking something is not the same as not “liking” something

I’ve noticed a worrying trend among news agencies. It seems that it has become de rigeur to use the number of members of a facebook group as an indication of the popularity of a trend or movement. For example, here is a quote from a recent CNN.com article discussing the “quit facebook” movement: “More than [...]

What I would do for Five Bucks….

I was intrigued. The question of what I would do for five bucks lingered for days; obsessively I thought about what I could do. I needed a mental break on the weekends away from work and school work and thought that this was the perfect chance to monetize some of my hobbies. I liked to [...]

Peak Oil in Higher Education, Part II

I had another thought while attending the Digital University Conference at CUNY on Wednesday and that was a serious question about who the experts will be under the new system of digital and open scholarship. Currently, Digital Scholarship is not valued or accepted on par with traditional methods of academic valuation. By that I mean: [...]

Peak Oil in higher education

I believe it was Chris Anderson’s Free that made the claim that much Science Fiction writing could be summarized as such: Take one thing that is currently scarce and make it abundant and see what happens to the people and institutions that rely and maintain that thing. This is the hope of much of the innovation in [...]

The Food Revolution is going to be televised?

I’m not a huge student of reality TV; however, you can understand how a student writing his thesis on Community Supported Agriculture as a Tool for Food Justice would be interested in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Now I’ve already briefly talked about why I think the show has failed to address the underlying issues in [...]

Spam from Beyond

This morning I received an e-mail from an acquaintance who passed on a little over a year ago. Apparently she has come back from the afterworld to sell me and all of her e-mail contacts about various wonderdrugs and assorted pharmaceuticals (and at discount prices). The online accounts of the dead have been in the news as of [...]

The Perils of Long Term Planning

Its a wonder at some level that the express stops along the IRT were so well planned from the outset and most were located at critical junctures before development could even take place. Second Avenue Sagas mused the other day about how Columbus Circle managed to not be an express stop whereas 72nd street did? [...]

“Mr. N.Y. Times, tear down this wall”

I sympathize with the New York Times. They’re a venerable institution with a long history of being a respected source for news, but I think they’re making a big mistake by moving behind a “paywall” in 2011. This is a case of an old media company not having the guts to stick to a new [...]