Jason Griffey

From the Guardian:

While I never quite agreed with his philosophy, and have trouble with his contribution to literary studies, it remains true that he was one of the towering figures of 20th century academia. Without him, we would have no literary criticism as we know it now, and Continental Philosophy would have been much less robust.

Derrida was known as the father of deconstructionism, a branch of critical thought or analysis developed in the late 1960s and applied to literature, linguistics, philosophy, law and architecture.

Derrida focused his work on language, showing that it has multiple layers and thus multiple meanings or interpretations, challenging the notion that speech is a direct form of communication or even that the author of a text is the author of its meaning.

Deconstructionists like Derrida explored the means of liberating the written word from the structures of language, opening limitless textual interpretations. Not limited to language, Derrida’s philosophy of deconstructionism was then applied to western values.

The deconstructionist approach has remained controversial, with detractors even proclaiming the movement dead. So divisive were Derrida’s ideas that Cambridge University’s plan to award him an honorary degree in 1992 was forced to a vote which he won.

As Derrida grew ill, death haunted him. In a Le Monde interview in August, Derrida said that learning to live means learning to die.

“Less and less, I have not learned to accept death,” he was quoted as saying. “I remain uneducable about the wisdom of learning to die.”

SpaceShipOne has successfully completed the requirements for the X-Prize, successfully launching an astronaut into space twice in a 2 week period.

Congrats to everyone involved. As I said last week, this is great, great stuff. Bring on the Space Tourism!

Presidential Debate Bingo! Print it out and play along at home!

…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.”