Archive - Nov 2008

Not much to report, I am a little obsessed with this game World of Goo that Steven gave me, but I have to report I found this Youtube video of someone completing chapter 2 (which I will not watch all the way through because I am only on the windmill level) and this person is going way faster then I do. See:

I think it's time to admit that I am the person who spends $50 bucks to save $10.

See, when papa Verburg came to visit he took the bus. Apparently his trip cost only $40 bucks. Both ways.

Impressed, I decided to do the same for my trip home at Christmas. I wanted to show that I am not a fragile flower, and am perfectly willing to spend 3 extra hours on a cramped moving vehicle with mild nausea and the smell of other people's socks to keep me company.

So today, I check the date for the annual Chanukah celebration, and book a bus ticket for the morning of the dinner. Then, emailed my aunt to say, "I arrive at 4:00pm and will head straight to your house for the dinner.. etc" cc'ing brother and sister in law at the same time.

Not half an hour later, S - in - L and aunt both reply that dinner this year is a brunch. So I ought to switch my ticket to the night before.

Okay now, I know I should be more careful about reading emails, but for crying out loud, Chanukah is the festival of lights because it happens after the sun goes down! BLURGH.

All you organized people out there, think of this as a bird's eye view of the disorganized mind in action.

For those of us involved in youth media or technology, the last few weeks have been all about the results of a 3.3 million dollar research project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation called Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Culture. The project was carried out by investigators at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. The purpose of the research? To discover and learn about what young people are doing when they hang out online, doing what researchers like to call "informal learning" and what the rest of us usually refer to as 'playing', 'hanging out' and if we have an assignment due 'wasting time'. During this study dozens of research projects looked at teenagers use of MySpace, Youtube, Neopets, gaming and more.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Luddites is the Globe and Mail's take on the research. For a more nuanced discussion, here is a video of Mizuko Ito, lead author of the study talking about the findings.

If a three year study can be boiled down to one sentence, then Ito has it: "There are myths about kids spending time online – that it is dangerous or making them lazy. But we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age."

That's a headline that basically wrote itself.

So this college student, an undergrad in women’s studies at Sacramento State, wants to continue her career by becoming a family and marriage counsellor. Unfortunately she does not have the funds, so through a nevada bunny ranch (no I have no idea) she is auctioning off her virginity.

In this day and age 20-something virginity is a rare commodity but still, 3.8 million dollars? Go out and clone that babysitter you had a crush on when you were 8 years old lads, it'll be less expensive.

Like a Virgin paid for the very first time is Sasha's take on the issue.

In the article Natalie Dylan (a pseudonym) comes across as a slightly naive, (well duh isn't that the point Miriam) clearly idealistic young woman, who is convinced that her decision is a strategic feminist choice. A strategy that uses the patriarchy's desperate lust against itself, because the money is going to fund a feminist marriage counselor. Oh snap! Take that patriarchy.