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eat up martha

Oct 31, 2008 //

So this is really cool. I am actually speaking this blog using my new copy of the Dragon software’s SpeakingNaturally. My hope is that I’ll be able to use the software to maximize my drives between Rochester and Ithaca. If everything works out I’ll use the software to write papers on the road, or atleast, the occasional blog entry.

The speech recognition is actually pretty good, and it’s supposed to get better the more they use the program. Unfortunately, the automatic punctuation needs a little work.

Today is just the day of voice recognition I also tried a new free service called Jott that allows you to call into a phone number and speak a message that will be translated to your blog or twitter feed. This morning I posted a tweet using the jot service, and it came out okay. I also tried to post an entry to the blog, but that didn’t work out – not sure why.

This is like Star Trek – “content” to just say computer, but it’s not quite that good yet (example, in that last sentance it somehow “I am tempted” turned into “content”). Still, it’s a pretty good start.

ps. points to whoever can identify what the seemingly nonsequiter subject has to do with this blog — and no googling!

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Categories personal, praxis

working hard at living in (at least) two worlds at once

Oct 8, 2008 //

As the title suggests, a lot of my time is being spent trying to balance my life in Ithaca and my life in Rochester. The core of this balancing act is layed out at the top of every page of this site:

PhD Student at Cornell, Researcher at RIT

Add to that husband and pet guardian, and there’s a lot to manage. And difficult decisions to make. I feel like a major ongoing life lesson that I am learning is how to say “no” to things (admittedly, its not going so hot right now). Its also leading to some tough decisions.

Up until this week, I’d be back and forth between Rochester and Ithaca, coming down for class on Monday morning, staying until afterclass on Tuesday night, returning to Rochester and working Wednesdays at RIT, travelling back to Ithaca on Thursday morning, and coming back to Rochester on Friday night. It amounted to eight hours of driving a week.

Last week, Dre and I came to the really tough decision that the commute was unsustainable. I was falling behind in my work at Cornell and bringing home way too much work on the weekend. So we made the tough decision that I’d stay in Ithaca from Monday afternoon (Monday mornings are spent at RIT) to Friday. This is the first week that I’m on the new schedule.

In many ways its good. I have more time to work and I’m rapidly getting caught up on work. By my heart is in Rochester and I miss Dre so much. These are going to be a long two years.

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Categories personal

back in Ithaca with a working clutch

Oct 2, 2008 //

2 months rent down the drain, but the car is running better than ever!

I’m back in Ithaca at the Library and watching/taking part in a meeting on Social Advocacy that’s taking place in Ohio at the excellent Midtown Brews forum. After that its on to the Debate. All of this will be watched online — it’s a brave new world.

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Categories personal, praxis

a long night’s sit into day

Sep 27, 2008 //

I’m right now getting breakfast at the Artisan Cafe in Trumasburg, the best french bakery I’ve discovered outside of Hyde Park Chicago, and trying to recover from the last twelve hours or so. Yesterday I attended an excellent (and slightly mindbending) anthro colloquium at Cornell. After it I was cohost of this year’s first grad student run potluck dinner (a Cornell Anthro tradition). After watching the debates and cleaning after the shin-dig, I had a second wind and hopped into my car for a trip back to Rochester.

So far, so good…

Or so I thought. Then my clutch died in the middle of nowhere on Route 89. At midnight. In a zone with no cell reception. At all.

I did the smart thing, and stayed with the car. And a sheriff finally came by. At 6am. Oy.

So I’m a bit bleary eye’d. Thankfully, the coffee is helping tremendously.

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i think i finally get marx and hagel!

Sep 8, 2008 //

Today was the type of day that makes the past few years of theory worthwhile.

Before I go any further, a brief digression: I’m not good with philosophy. Not in the “I don’t see the value of it” way. Nah, I’m at the more fundimental “I don’t understand it” way. I wasn’t trained to read it. And stuff like Marx’s “negation of the negation” stuff just causes my eyes to glaze over. It’s not for lack of trying mind you. But its been a stuggle since I dove into the social sciences.

Digression completed, my exciting news is that I think I finally “get” Hagel’s dialectic — the key to unlocking a lot of stuff. After an excellent lecture in my Professional Seminar class, it’s making a lot more sense. My professor, Dominic Boyer, gave an amazing lecture that really connected a number of dots for me (not the least of which was getting me beyond “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” to “becoming, negation, sublimation”).

Have a lot more to write about this, but I need to cut it off here so I can hopefully get in a proposal for Siggraph 2009.

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Categories personal, praxis
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