Wonderful quote about the way things are, and the way Americans see them:

Yet the rise of China means more than the emergence of a new great power. Its deeper import is that the ideologies of the past century — neoliberalism just as much as Communism — are obsolete. Belief systems in which the categories of Western religion are reproduced in the guise of pseudo-science, they are redundant in a world where the most rapidly advancing nation state has never been monotheist. Western societies are well worth defending, but they are not a model for all of humankind. In future they will be only one of several versions of tolerable modernity.

via Reading File – NYTimes.com.

A basic tenet of photography is that the best camera is the one you have on hand when you need it. For many people these days, that means an iPhone.

via Apps to Make iPhone Shutterbugs Smile – NYTimes.com.

Why American Consumers Will Spend Lavishly Again – Conversation Starter – HarvardBusiness.org.

Why we buy stuff and why we will return to buying too much stuff.

Career Advice: Those Humanities Ph.D.’s – Inside Higher Ed.

I wish I could read the full study linked to in this article (I can, but I don’t want to buy it). As an ABD, I can relate to the pressures that prevent candidates from finishing  Ph.D.s. The author of the article takes issue with this excerpt from the study:

17 percent of those who departed programs reported that they were in managerial positions, 13 percent reported that they were either judges or lawyers, and a majority of the rest found careers in education, mostly at colleges and universities.

This statement doesn’t match her experience, but it does match mine, in a way. I can say that I am in management, because I am. However, I don’t really define myself that way. Instead, I say that I am in educational technology because that is where my passion is. The fact that I am in a “managerial position” speaks to my success in the field.

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With Facebook as Alibi, Brooklyn Robbery Charge Is Dropped – NYTimes.com.

Alternate entry: “I’m going to rob a bank. Don’t tell anyone.”

Seriously though. This guy is probably innocent, but how long before people set scripts to post to facebook as an alibi? This is a new age of corroboration.

I first visited Berlin in 2006 and found it to be a wonderful city, one whose history was still clearly punctuated by segments of the wall now protected from souvenir hunters by fences. I am sure that I was not the first to contemplate the irony of protecting the wall with fences, but I can see the need. The desire to take a piece home with you is irresistible, “oh this, it is just a stone in my pocket….” I was able to get a piece from an area where there was really nothing but foundation left and it was about to be built over, so I don’t feel so guilty.
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News: Fans and Fears of ‘Lecture Capture’ – Inside Higher Ed.

When discussing lecture capture, the first concern should be capturing the attention of learners. A compelling lecture will be compelling in its recorded form and a boring lecture will be ignored in recorded form. I wish we had lecture capture available when I was in school. It is a key technology in extending the efficacy of in-class learning.

Blog U.: Ideas for EDUCAUSE 2010 – Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed.

Some excellent suggestions for EDUCAUSE 2010. I enjoyed the conference this year, especially because it was in my home town and I got to sleep in my own bed every night. That said, it felt a little old. Sure, it was my eleventh time, but I would like to see better use of social media and remote technologies. I look forward to participating in a conference that takes advantage of these suggestions.

Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art | CMO.com.

I like most of these, except for more Flash, not less. There are better ways of developing rich websites these days, and they are even accessible and can scale for mobil devices. Flash seems so old fashioned.

A while back I had a tumble category on this site and I posted links with short commentary, but I didn’t like the way everything ended up in the single category. Now that I have tags on the site, I am going back to tumble posts. I will retain the main category for all short posts, but will tag them for further identification.

So why am I doing this? Well, I have a problem with content. I don’t have much time to write longer posts and the blog gets stale. Tumble content will help me keep it fresh, as long as I don’t go overboard. I don’t plan to make this my social bookmarking site. Tumble will be for links that I want to say a little more about than I can with twitter. Longer posts will still be separated on the Articles page for easier browsing.

Speaking of twitter, I have installed a twitter aggregator that will post weekly summaries of my twitter activity at the end of each week.