Cool!

But how does it work?

pamelia_kurstin_plays_the_theremin.html

helpful pinterest

I always want to ask, is there a reason Glenda can’t categorize it herself?

 

Google+

Ha!

Google+.

did I miss something?

Dear iTunes/iBooks customer support–

Thank you for your previous messages in your attempt to help me solve the “encoding error” problems I was experiencing after updating the software on my iPad, and which was causing most of my ebooks to appear to be empty of content. I’m sorry that you felt you were no longer able to help me. After much trial and error, I have found the solution, so I just wanted to update you, in case this situation presented itself again with another customer who was experiencing difficulties. It turns out that all I needed to do was run the iBooks app update. Everything is now fine. I’m actually surprised this wasn’t suggested in the first place.

S—-

 

Dear S—,

I just want to say that you are very welcome, and thanks for replying. I’m glad to hear that your issue has been resolved, and I was able to provide you with the support you deserve. I know it is always such a feeling of accomplishment, when things work out the way you want them to.

I am glad that I could assist you and best of all, put a smile on your face. Believe me, nothing makes Apple happier than knowing that we have pleased our wonderful customers. I truly hope that you continue to enjoy all that the iTunes Store has to offer.
 
Also, Apple (and myself) are currently striving for the best experience possible in making sure our customers have been taken care of to their satisfaction.
   
It was a pleasure to assist you, and I will now close this request. Remember support is just an email away if needed. You’ve truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store.
 
Best wishes and continued happiness!

Sincerely,

Ashley
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

I work Thursday, Friday 7:00 AM – 3:30 PM and Monday Through Thursday 12:30 PM – 9:00 PM EST.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you.

 

Let’s open this up for a vote, shall we?

How many people believe that Ashley has her replies to her customers reviewed by a superior, but not necessarily including the messages to which she is replying.

There is no possible way that she can suppose from the content of my message the she was of any use at all!!!

 

Just sayin’.

one of the darker sides of technology

In a report on this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland from the March 5 New Yorker:

There’s a software firm by the name of Tibco, based in Silicon Valley, which has generated data-sorting software for companies such as Amazon, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, eBay airlines, and the Department of Homeland Security. They have also designed a program for Harrah’s, the well-known casino, which “can figure out when a gambler is about to encounter a loss of such magnitude that it will cause him to leave the casino and perhaps never come back. The casino’s Luck Ambassadors [I'm not making this up] will then offer the gambler a free meal or a ticket to a show. . .and distract the gambler long enough to entice him to return later, to continue losing money in palatable increments.”

Well, at least it’s palatable.

 

A dog’s life

Okay, first of all, you have to promise not to laugh. I bought First Son a digital drawing tablet for Christmas, and it looked like so much fun I just acquired one for myself.

I’m just in the early stages of learning how to use it though, and have been completely surprised by how hard it is to draw on one surface while looking at another. Despite my obvious hand-eye coordination, it’s like I don’t really know where the tip of that pen actually is.

Anyway, here’s my first attempt at illustrated humor:

You removed my boy parts. I will never forgive you. Instead I will just lie here, dejectedly, and blink my sad little puppy eyes at you every time you look at me. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Must dance.

Too bad we can’t all get over all of our traumas so easily.

 

p.s. Hopefully by the next time I will have learned how to at least form legible letters. Or maybe I should stick to impossible yoga poses and Bach.

Something worthy of the 501st post. . .or maybe not

Politics: Is it really possible that the Republican party can’t come up with someone more viable than Mitt Romney and his millions and his condescension, or Newt Gingrich and his volatility and personal and professional unreliability?

Religion: Read this post by the Circular Runner. (Another one of those “what he said” moments.)

Home: Dexter the Dancing Dog has seriously backslid on potty training. I hope it’s just a teething phase or something. He was with Only Daughter at Only Daughter’s Dad’s (ODD?) house for the weekend — complete upheaval, probably, and I think he missed me. He won’t get out of my lap this morning. He’s very soft and cuddly, so it’s okay.

Culture: Saw two great movies on DVD over the weekend — Contagion and The Conspirator. The whole time I was watching Contagion I was worrying about picking up my own wine glass in case I was going to catch something. And Marion Cotillard has the most beautiful accent I’ve ever heard. Robin Wright was absolutely amazing in The Conspirator, and the issues addressed: the rights of civilians to civilian trials, the beliefs held by people in power that law can and should be suspended in times of “war,” hit way too close to home and the Bush/Iraq era.

Books: Just finished reading Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. Loved it. Don’t know what to read next. Any suggestions?

Music: Does anyone know how to use Ping? I want to be able to post music for my piano students to listen to. I thought that was kind of what it’s for but I can’t figure out how to use it.

Music part 2: Just finished putting the whole book of Honk! on CD for an area high school for rehearsals. Nothing like trying to learn and record an entire musical in a week, not to mention the 2-hour long argument I had to mediate last night between my digital recorder and iTunes. (I prevailed, finally.) Does anybody know why iTunes insists on reordering things when importing? I had to manually drag all of the tracks around (3 times, because the first two times didn’t seem to transfer correctly) and then when I burned it to the CDs it removed all of the labels from the tracks. REALLY FRUSTRATING! Although I’m sure it has a lot more to do with me not really knowing what I’m doing than about the limitations of the program itself.

Blogging: Two blogs I’ve recently discovered which I’m really enjoying: Redamancylit, where the blogger posts excerpts from various writings, many of them profoundly beautiful; and musicandstroke, written by a friend of mine, a percussionist, who suffered a stroke about a year ago, and who writes about the recovery process and how different life/the world looks afterwards. Check them out!

Family: First Son is about to turn 22. Why does that sound so much older than 21? And Only Daughter will be 11 on Wednesday. Sheesh.

Some pictures from the last week of facebook postings:

And this, just because you can never have too many boots, or cats:

 

pinterest

Just managed to “score” an “invitation” to join Pinterest.

I’m not really sure what this process is supposed to represent. Being the mildly cynical sort, I can’t help but feel that the manufactured experience of petitioning for an “invitation” is supposed to make you feel like you’ve gained access to some kind of exclusive club.

And at the risk of sounding paranoid, if I link my pinterest board to my twitter or facebook accounts, is there any way of knowing whether pinterest is pillaging all of my personal information for some nefarious reason?

(You know, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean the world isn’t out to get you.)

I do often feel that much of our time is spent shouting and waving our arms, like the chronic middle child: “Me! Me! Pay attention to me!” We write on facebook about what we’re doing today or what we’re eating or what we’re thinking; we write on blogs to rant or rave or muse. We spend a lot of time talking, but not a lot of time listening.

I’ve often wished my posts would trigger even more conversation, although I’m wondering if maybe it has something to do with how/what I write, and whether I could invite more discussion somehow. Without a trace of irony, I ask, any suggestions?

I do spend a lot of time reading, fiction, New Yorker/Sunday New York Times. I also spend a fair bit of time talking, primarily to my students, but also to my husband, daughter. I don’t think I spend enough time talking to my friends. Or my sons.

I’ll have to do something about that.

Meanwhile, if you have a pinterest account and are willing to share it, please post it in the comments.

You can find my board at http://pinterest.com/sheriji/pins/

 

 

 

 

do you hear that giant sucking sound?

The latest reports show that Rick Perry raised $10 million in the last 3 months. Mitt Romney, $18 million, Obama $86 million in the 3 months before that.

I can’t help but think what a tremendous waste of resources this is. You might as well just flush it down the toilet. It’s money spent on “public service” ads: ads that don’t really say anything about people who change what they think or mean or say they’ll do depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Meanwhile, 12,000 Michigan families will lose their jobless benefits in 2 weeks, more than half of our state police posts are closing, and Europe’s about to implode under the combined weight of Greece, Italy, and Ireland.

Wonder how many people $114 million would feed.

This system makes me sick. Nobody’s listening to the voices of the people, nobody’s looking out for the country or the world or any of us. They’re spending money so they can win, so they can protect the interests of the people who helped them get elected.

I jut heard that Steve Jobs died today.

Now I’m too sad to think.

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Sigh.

“privacy” in the age of email

Has this ever happened to you? You’ve written a casual email to a colleague who either knows you really well or is either equal to you in “rank” or only slightly above. This email then gets sent on to the “boss,” sometimes very deliberately, sometimes quite casually, say, as a way to clue them in to the discussion thread without having to take the time to write it up from scratch.

BUT, the way you worded the email to the colleague/barely superior is not at all the way you would have worded the same thing to the person now reading your exact words.

Example: our college has instituted a flagging policy, where instructors are encouraged to go to the online class rosters for each of their classes and “flag” any students who seem to be falling behind — poor attendance, poor performance on assessments, etc. so that the counseling center can contact them and try to “help” them. When this request first came through, I read the message that included the suggestion that we were being encouraged to do so, (therefore, it seemed to be implying that it was not required,) and, because I communicate these concerns directly to the student whenever I feel it is appropriate, I ignored it. A couple of weeks later I got a reminder from the counseling center, at which point I emailed back, saying that I already took care of this directly with students as necessary, and that I thought this practice seemed a little more appropriate to middle school, (I may have used the term “babysitting”) and may also work against our efforts to encourage students to be self-motivated and self-aware. This message was then forwarded to my department head by the person at the counseling center, on a message that was not cc’d to me, at which point I received a message from my department head asking if I needed assistance learning how to use the program.

I was then immediately concerned that I would seem to be a teacher who doesn’t care about her students’ success, which is very much not the case, and I felt I needed to go to great lengths to justify my position — a position I maybe would have expressed a little differently if the conversation had originated with the department chair in the first place, but which now made me sound defensive.

This was only one of several of these types of experiences over the past couple of years, one of which included a forwarding of a message on which I had written “confidentially” right before making a frank observation of a student’s perceived level of commitment.

This practice is troubling, in our age of email, when passing someone’s words on is as easy as a click of a mouse, and maybe deserves a little more time to stop and reflect before doing so.

I’m considering adding a privacy request to the bottom of my emails, much like those used by attorneys and other people who have the right, no, the obligation to expect privilege, although mine would be worded in a more please-and-thank-you sort of way.

Something like this:

This message (and any attachment) has been intended only for the person(s) to which it has been addressed by the sender, and any cc’ing has been done openly. It would be greatly appreciated if you would respect my privacy, and my right to address individuals in an individual way, by not forwarding without my knowledge or permission, and I will do the same for you.

Does this seem savvy, or defensive?