There is an interesting article in the current issue of Crain’s New York Business, which is the hand’s down best New York City business weekly, about how the senior editor at Crain’s New York Business magazine found his job through Facebook. While I am not fond of this social networking tool, it is interesting to to see a positive outcome, as opposed to just more hype.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Crain’s New York Business

The newest book in Bill Irwin’s The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, Family Guy and Philosophy just came out (the link is to my Amazon Store that helps in a very minor way to pay for this blog’s expenses). Too bad Amazon does not have the image for this book yet. It is partly thanks to this book that a wider audience gets exposed to philosophy at all. Philosophy as a discipline has gotten (perhaps even promoted?) the reputation that it writes for and speaks to only itself. While this is far from its roots in the Greeks, much of the philosophy in the English-speaking world has become more and more focused upon issues that do not have an immediate relevancy for ordinary people. Am I the only one who notices this and thinks that perhaps many in academia may be missing something here?

Technorati Tags: Family Guy, Bill Irwin

In a new research study unveiled at the British Association Festival of Science, it seems that people who have oodles of Facebook “friends” have in fact the same number of close friends as those who do not use social networking sites. I have a suspicion that a lot more research needs to be done in this area, with studies probably already underway, to investigate this phenomenon.

One of the more interesting items this study revealed is the active “defriending” process in social networking sites rather than the gradual losing touch that happens in face-to-face (F2F) relationships.

I wonder what other things may be learned by following this research further? Perhaps that more casual friendships may effect F2F relationships? Perhaps geographic proximity may play less of a role in social relationships, thereby benefiting the travel industry? I wonder if this will positively or negatively affect cultural, religious, or socioeconomic sensitivity? What role will education play in this? How about online crime, personality deception, racketeering, and predatory behaviors?

Oh, what brave new world . . .   

I am currently participating in a discussion entitled Active Learning Strategies for Online Learning at SCoPE, and one of the participants posted this image that struck me as very applicable to a host of learning issues. I used to believe that information could be dumped in, but have since learned that socio-cultural and historical factors make this impossible. No two people could ever learn the same thing in the same way–context is against it.

I think about how this exemplifies Paulo Freire and his criticism of traditional pedagogy as “banking” education. In this form, education is banked and thus controlled by those in power to choose a curriculum. All knowledge is conveyed through this lens, with what is considered right and wrong, good and bad, and just and unjust seen in this manner as being what should (morality?) be done. Power is thus maintained by promoting a worldview that protects the establishment, even while on the surface claiming to challenge it. There is no more certain way to challenge a social system than by challenging both the content as well as the methodology of its educational establishment.

It is no wonder why many in society complain about our current state of education, yet it seems nearly impossible to fundamentally change the system itself. That would disrupt many whose careers are built around promoting the very thing that they claim is wrong. I wonder, in a psychoanalytic way, if this is a veiled form of self-hatred?

Technorati Tags: Paulo Freire, SCoPE, banking education

After seeing the Tribute in Light last night, I have been thinking about the causes of the current war in Iraq.

How did we go from Osama in Afghanistan to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to the mess we are in now, with no end in sight and many many people in Iraq in a more dangerous situation than under Sadam himself?Whatever happened with Osama, anyway? Perhaps he got clouded in the dust around Bagdad?

This war is certainly not helping oil prices, which went to an all-time high today.

Technorati Tags: 9/11, Iraq, Saddam, Osama

I took these photos this evening of the Tribute in Light where the World Trade Center used to stand. These and a few of the other photos I took of this are on my Flickr account.  As much as this is a reminder of a tragedy that happened six years ago, it is also a reminder of what happens when issues remain unresolved. Healing can take place, but it appears that those who caused this still have not been brought to justice. I think we have a lot left to learn about the events before and since 9/11, about ourselves as well as the extremists who caused this to happen.

Technorati Tags: 9/11, New York City, Tribute in Light, World Trade Center

I am an adjunct instructor at New York University in the Stern School of Management and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies. In this capacity, I receive a lot of official email communications from the university, and one of them that I recently received struck me as being one of the better emergency notification ideas I have come across in some time. From the email I received:

One of the fastest ways to reach you in an emergency is probably sitting in your pocket right now: your cell phone. The University has developed the capacity to send blast text messages to your cell phone to ensure you get direct and timely information in case of an emergency. To help us enhance your personal safety, we are asking employees to store their cell phone numbers in the Human Resources Information System (HRIS) through ePass. This number will be stored in the HRIS database and kept confidential. We expect to conduct one test per semester (the first test will take place on Thursday, September 27); other than that, it will only be used in emergency situations.

The email then gives simple instructions to set this up. While this is undoubtedly another step within their HRIS system, with the ubiquity of cell phones, this is a no-brainer for emergency alerts. I suggested this to my full-time job, and they seemed interested in this but not quite ready for an automated system yet. Where else may this be useful? How about:

• local public transit alerts?
• weather emergencies
• work closings due to power outages, weather issues, or disasters
• schools to alert students about snow delays or other emergency needs
• shopping alerts when stores get new merchandise in stock
• surprise sales or sudden markdowns
• the list seems almost endless.

I wonder, with smart phones, Blackberry’s (I finally have a great Blackberry World Phone), Twitter, and wifi, if text alerts may be the next formalized and immediate communication methodology to be used by folks over age 25? There certainly appear to be enough organizational needs for them.

Technorati Tags: emergency notification, New York University, NYU, Stern School of Business, texting

Om Malik reports that Facebook will open to public searches (aka Google), and while they seem to state that certain areas and parts of profiles will remain closed, the old adage that there is no privacy on the Web continues to hold true.  

Granted there seem to remain some limits, but while we are electronically connected nothing can be taken for granted. Certainly not from a free site that aggregates information about its members as does Facebook. Hmm, seems more and more like Google’s own databases . . .

I came across this list of editorial cartoons about Senator Craig and the Republican “Family Values:”

http://cagle.com/news/SenatorCraig/main.asp 

Some of these are critical of a whole range of issues, yet humor can be both revealing as well as instructive, among other things. However, I am still somewhat unclear as to what exactly his crime was.