The power of the intertubes in action! Some wonderful soul named PÃ¥l Kristiansen found a solution to my Firefox problem!
Found a solution that worked for me:
1. delete the file located at
/Users//Library/Application Support/Firefox/pluginreg.dat
2. Restart Firefox.
…as I said, it worked for me :
And low and behold: no more flash problem! Thank you so much PÃ¥l.
I was alerted that my RSS feeds are currently very ugly, given that there are no line breaks or links.
This is a known issue with the version of Podpress that strips the formatting…I’ve implemented a hopeful fix, and would love for someone to let me know if it’s helping.
🙂
I’m following the events and news from this event online, trying to find the Long Tail of the news. Some of the things I’ve uncovered:
A horrifying video from a student on campus during the events. No direct violence, but disturbing due to reality.
Another video, this one from an injured student describing the shooter.
The wikipedia page on the event is here.
And there’s a report online that Jack Thompson has already claimed on Fox News that this is because of video games.
Fuck you, Jack. Fuck you.
I got fed up with trying to keep fixing the theme I had, so I decided to go ahead and move to a new one. It’s very different, but I hope that everyone likes it. This is a variant of Sunburn, heavily modified to my liking by a bunch of spacing adjustments, changing the sidebar to be absolutely positioned and swapping in a bunch of content, and adding my “pulse” to the header/footer.
So: whatcha think?
Seems that something in my adding Podpress to the blog to try and handle the previous post led to my right sidebar going wonky.
I’ll fix tomorrow. I’m tired now.
Next week I’ll be heading out to Crystal City, VA to attend CiL 2007. It’s the first conference in many moons that I don’t have a presentation or other formal commitment to attend. This means, of course, that I have completely overbooked my time in sessions, because there is so damn much good stuff. Plus, I’ll get to catch up with lots of good friends.
But, if you are attending, and you want to catch up with me, take your pick as to calendar format:
Forgive the metablog post, but I was looking at some trackbacks and such, which led me down the road of Technorati, and then back to the mothership: Google.
I’m not sure how, but I made the first page of results for “Pattern Recognition” on Google, at least for now. Given that it’s a phrase that is not only the title of a bestselling book by one of my favorite authors, but is an entire academic field of study, I didn’t expect to be there.
But there I am.
I’d like to thank those that sent condolences, and for the few random readers who might not know, and might care…my mother-in-law, Beverly Sandlin, passed away this past weekend. Betsy and I have spent this week with her family, and while it’s been a terrible time, the support of friends and family have gotten us through this initial grieving.
Thanks to everyone, and I hope to be back online soon and back into a routine.
An interesting article came across the wire today from the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled Bloggers Need Not Apply. A few snippets from the article, with commentary:
What is it with job seekers who also write blogs? Our recent faculty search at Quaint Old College resulted in a number of bloggers among our semifinalists. Those candidates looked good enough on paper to merit a phone interview, after which they were still being seriously considered for an on-campus interview.
That’s when the committee took a look at their online activity.
In some cases, a Google search of the candidate’s name turned up his or her blog. Other candidates told us about their Web site, even making sure we had the URL so we wouldn’t fail to find it. In one case, a candidate had mentioned it in the cover letter. We felt compelled to follow up in each of those instances, and it turned out to be every bit as eye-opening as a train wreck.
I can certainly understand following up on the provided URL (since the candidate clearly wanted it followed, or he/she wouldn’t have provided it), but how much detective work is too much? Yes, a Google search takes 2 minutes, and can provide you with a lot of publically accessible info on the person. But LOTS of public information isn’t allowed to be asked in an interview (for instance, whether the candidate is married is public information, in the form of a marriage license, but it is off limits for a job interview). What would the legal ramifications be if Job Applicant A was denied a position, discovered that it was partially due to a Google search (which happened to reveal his/her marital status) and sued the university on that grounds? I don’t know the answer, but I’m willing to bet that it’s possible there’s a case there.
Worst of all, for professional academics, it’s a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation
“Worst of all…”????? That’s the best aspect of the publication medium in question. The harkens back to the academic bias I talked about in the past, as well as the wonderful piece by Jeff Pomerantz that I’ve pointed to before. Unfiltered writing is powerful writing.
The most worrisome part of the article by far is this jewel of a paragraph:
The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.
Sure…and a clean record of sanity and lack of criminal record is no guarantee that the applicant won’t come into work and bludgeon everyone to death with his copy of the OED either. If you don’t trust your potential employee because he/she writes things that others might read…well…let’s just say that’s a bit on the paranoid side. Ok, I’ll be a little more blunt: it’s fucking stupid (see, that’s exactly the sort of thing they were worried about…).
I’d love to hear others thoughts on this topic….esp. the legality of the searches/disqualifications due to online information. The “to blog or not to blog” question is one that came up repeatedly during both Betsy and my job interviews these past couple of years, and I’m not sure there’s an easy, across-the-board answer. I made a choice that if a committee decided they didn’t want me because of my blogging, then I certainly didn’t want to work there, and that was fine.
EDIT: Thanks to Justin, here’s a couple of other people discussing this article: Tygar-blog and Planned Obsolescence.
EDIT (2): Another note on the article over at PomeRantz.
So last night was Nine Inch Nails at the Orpheum in Boston, MA.
All I’ve got to say is: wow.
Not only did NIN play nearly everything I could have wanted to hear (Wish, Terrible Lie, Head like a Hole, Starfuckers, Hurt, and on and on and on) but they also gave a phenomenal stage show. The real surprise of the night though, was The Dresden Dolls. They opened for NIN, and just about rocked my face off. Crazy noise for just two people, great voice, the drummer was just nuts…I’m all over this album.
Today = heading to NY/NJ for some Raw Deal action. Wish me luck.