Category: Digital Culture

…when it was pointed out to me that the spouse of my best friend Vicki is now an author! The Dictionary of Uncomfortable Words: What to Avoid Saying in Polite (or Any) Conversation by Andrew Witham and Brian Snyder, published by Cumberland House Publishing, is now on bookstore shelves around the country, and available at Amazon. Congratulations Brian! Some of the Amazon description:

The Dictionary of Uncomfortable Words contains more than 650 words and definitions that make people uncomfortable when in public. These are not dirty words, but rather uncomfortable words like “dike,” “flaccid,” or “penal.”

“Over the years,” the authors write, “we have repeatedly found ourselves stifling laughter at certain words, such as ‘tool,’ ‘dump,’ and ‘moist.’ Other words such as ‘spackle,’ ‘loaf,’ and ‘frothy’ sound plain peculiar. And still other words, while perfectly harmless, like ‘masticate,’ ‘climax,’ and ‘undulate,’ made us want to hide our heads in shock. We noticed that a lot of other people had the same reactions. They’re not dirty words, but they cause a markedly uncomfortable reaction in a group.”

Realizing a dictionary was necessary to alert the public, they created The Dictionary of Uncomfortable Words. Each word is followed by a brief explanation of why it makes people uneasy when spoken, such as:

• Abhor: Looks innocuous enough on paper but utterly filthy when spoken aloud.
• Bull: In most circles, this word is merely a prefix. We prefer the term “man-cow.”
• Congeal: Just because gooey becomes crusty doesn’t mean we want to hear about it.
• Crotch: This word is disturbing even when referring to trees.
• Dingleberry: This is one fruit you don’t want to eat.
• Half-cocked: Sounds like a circumcision that went too far.
• Horehound: A drunk with too much money in his pocket on Saturday night

Doing a lot of research for my new job regarding accessibility standards for disabled users of the web, and have a couple of good resources for anyone doing any kind of web design these days.

Online Accessibility Course from the University of Florida
Very good tutorial, with a ton of information that I would have never thought of on my own, like putting in links to skip navigation bars so that visually impared users can skip them in order to get to the content with a screen reader.

The NIDE Cascading Style Sheet Generator from the University of Toronto
A style sheet creator specifically designed for local CSS use for various disabilities. Allows you to create CSS for visually impared, motor-skill difficulties, and other differently abled patrons.

…for the course that Justin, Jean and I took with Paul Jones on Virtual Communities. From Wired:

“Aaron Delwiche, an assistant professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, often gathers students in his Games for the Web class in an unlikely classroom: the metaverse known as Second Life….In order to help teachers bring their classes to Second Life, Linden Lab donates accounts for each student, as well as an acre of land in the metaverse for the teacher and students to work and build on.”

…shiver me timbers, it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day. If ya be needed me, I’ll be on the mizzenmast, sippin’ my lot o’ grog. Arrrrr…….

Or, in our case, The Real Paul Jones. Via Justinsomnia, of course.

He finally caved, after two years of Justin, Jean and I bugging him about one. 🙂 Paul, if you’re reading this, why did you finally give in and become a blogger?

In other random online news, two of my favorite librarians are guest blogging over at Commons-Blog. Head over and say hello to Jessamyn and Eli.

It’s been way too long between posts. I started my new job as Web Specialist for Middle Tennessee State University this week. I’ll be assisting with oversight on the homepage, as well as consulting with faculty on their web projects. So far, I’ve just barely gotten a handle on the layout of their stuff…everywhere has a different workflow, and a different way of doing things. Not to mention different capabilities. Gotta learn that not everywhere is up on the whole PHP/MySQL method of web development. 🙁

Overall, I think it’s gonna go well. I’m guaranteed to learn a lot, and that’s still something.

From Wired, Dick’s latest inane commentary, along with a zinger from everyone’s favorite VP candidate, John Edwards.

“Is Dick Cheney trying to prove he’s hip to the internet? Speaking Thursday in Cincinnati, Cheney downplayed recent negative economic indicators, such as unemployment rates and consumer spending, because they miss an important source of income for Americans: eBay. “That’s a source that didn’t even exist 10 years ago,” Cheney said. “Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.” Let’s hope these folks aren’t selling off their belongings to stay afloat. John Edwards, the Democratic VP challenger, responded: “If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking.”
— Debra Jones”

Well, it’s that day again. I’m avoiding the TV today, just because I don’t really wanna see the footage repeated endlessly, with talking heads telling me that we should “remember.”

I hadn’t even planned to blog, but I started reading Fark, and they had linked to their original discussion thread on the day it happened, and re-reading that made me want to at least say something.

On 9.11.2001 I was at Kinko’s on Glenwood Ave in Raleigh, NC. I had opened that day, and so was there at like 6 or 6:30am. Early morning was slow, so I had various news sites open on the computer in the production area, reading while copiers hummed. Slowly everyone else filtered in for the workday, and we saw a few customers.

Then a customer came in, and said that she heard on the radio as she was pulling in that a plane had hit the WTC. We checked CNN, and sure enough, there were photos of the first tower smoking. There was a small TV in the back room…we all turned it on and crowded around it to find out what happened. I called Betsy at home, and told her to turn on the TV…she did, just about the time that we both watched the second plane hit.

After that, the day got seriously wierd. We were only minutes from Raleigh-Durham International, and on a major road, but the day got very quiet. No traffic, no planes, nothing. Just a lot of us staring at the TV, customers gathered around the counter to watch with us.

The oddest thing for me personally about that day is that I was supposed to fly to Atlanta…had a ticket and everything. My luggage was in the car. I was supposed to take off at 11 something in the morning for management training. Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the airport. I remember Betsy being very worried that I might go, before everything was locked down.

Now, on 9.11.2004, we’re in Sewanee, TN, and I’m appalled at the complete inappropriateness of things like this. Can’t say that I think our country has gotten any better since then. matter of fact, we’ve spiraled into something that I don’t even recognize as the US that I remember. Personal liberties and privacy have been given up for the illusion of security. We’re embroiled in a war in a country that had nothing to do with 9.11. I’m just hoping beyond hope that the upcoming election will result in something, anything that is better than the atrocity of a head of state we have now.

Today I took my first caving trip with the Sewanee Outing Program, to Grapevine Cave. It’s just off a part of the Domain called Lost Cove…not a huge cave (no one seemed to know a length, but I’d guess maybe a mile…probably less). Very nice though for a first trip. I’d call it an intermediate level trip, with LOTS of crawls, but very few squeezes. Very active, but not a lot of drip formations. Not sure if that’s due to a sandstone cap or if the cave is just young. Throughout the entire length, I probably only saw a dozen or so speleothems.

The interesting thing to me was that I was able to keep up with the 18 year olds IN the cave without issue. The climb out (several hundred feet of elevation in very little horizontal distance) was nasty, though. I felt pretty good, seeing as how I’m now almost double their age.