Day Nineteen - email, research into computer sex and porn stars

Day Nineteen

Catching up with email

Today has been hectic trying to catch up on all those things that get a little neglected when you travel, including email, thus a lot of today was spent going through inboxes to clear messages and reply.  The problem with that is of course that this just generates new messages as people respond. Which brings me to the news that Ray Tomlinson, the creator of the email and selector of the @ symbol passed away.  There is much wrong with email, or perhaps it is not with the technology itself but rather with the way that we use it, however for sure it has to be acknowledged that it has changed the way the humans communicate.

Getting more than intimate with your computer

As email has been accused of tethering humans to our work and computers, I was amused when I came across (pun intended – sorry) this academic paper today from Indiana University School of Informatics & Computing entitled “Pleasure is Your Birthright”: Digitally Enabled Designer Sex Toys as a Case of Third-Wave HCI, by Jeffrey Bardzell and Shaowen Bardzell.  For those who do not know HCI is the abbreviation for Human Computer Interface and the third wave – well you can Google it or read the paper.  I am going to refrain from so many obvious and cheap jokes about research and funding and so on.

Extra Curricula Employment

Then I saw that in the UK academe has been so badly hit by cuts that Professors now have to take employment on the side, as it were.  I have to say that there is a part of me that quite admires Prof Nicholas Goddard and his work as ‘Old Nick’, for there really are not that many in academia who leave the ivory towers to work in the so called ‘real world’. 

 

Acadmics come out of their shell.

Old Nick (yes a quick Google will find explicit examples of his work – which are Not Safe for Work) has been putting himself out there and doing his best to lay the stereo type of the boring professor to rest.

I am not one to stand on judgement of others but I do wonder if any of his students who had seen his other work might have become concerned if he had asked them for an oral defense.  (OK – yeah that was a cheap and nasty joke – I am sorry).

Not a typical post

Yes I know, this has not been a typical post today and things have taken quite a turn after my brush with aspects of philosophy yesterday.   This writing just sums up my mood right now as I write, just as yesterday’s writing summed up how I felt as I wrote that.

This is the problem of the writing challenge, that you have to write no matter what and your mood can vary.  Believe me I have been really disappointed with some of writing suggestions I have had each day in the email from the challenge organizer – one was write a rant (tough one for me)  another was to write a list (any list of anything) and so on and on.  Hardly inspiring or motivating, though to be fair to someone who might have just been staring at a flashing cursor I guess it would start them off.

But there we are, I have done it again.  I have pulled it out of the bag at the last minute to post. 

When this is over I am going to continue to write, but not as often and around a theme, but when I have something to say and at least once a week.  There may however still be a day journal, perhaps for myself, a place where thoughts and ideas can find their way to the page (screen).

So that is it for today.  I bid thee a goodnight.  Abide.