Sociotechnical Road Show
I'm off to Troy, NY tonight to wave the sociotechnical banner at an NSF workshop. I'll be giving a short (~10 minutes) talk on Thursday afternoon, and I'm working on my talk notes. Some of you already know I like to give a different kind of talk - minimalist slides, helpful pictures and videos, lots of movement - but I'm not sure how such a talk with fly at this workshop. I chickened out in 2005 when I gave a talk about RideNow at the GROUP Conference, but I'm going for gold this week. The role of graduate students in these workshops is unclear to me, but it's obvious that I have an audience I wouldn't normally encounter.
Here's the white paper I submitted. One of the organizers must have liked it because they invited me to come and talk during the doctoral student forum. I'll be talking about how the data generated by wireless sensing technology may be used/studied for understanding the structural health of our civil infrastructure (think bridges). Real-time data about the health of a structure could be immensely useful for engineers monitoring its needs for repair, for rescue workers responding to a fire or other calamity, and researchers looking for ways to improve structures (and wireless sensing, for that matter). It's pretty easy for me to get excited about studying how first responders and rescue workers would use such data and the information flows it produces, but I think I need to stay closer to engineers in this talk. We'll see though, I guess.
I admit, I'm nervous about the workshop. Every list of invitees or participants that I've seen is incredibly male- and computer science-dominated. I'd rather not deal with gender and disciplinary politics at every turn, but such is life. I'll try not to let the various layers of politics derail me this week. I've been given an interesting opportunity in being invited, but I'm not quite sure what that opportunity offers. I'll follow up from Troy later this week.
My not-so-digital life
It turns out the physical world still very much affects me. I don't mean that I still have to walk around or that I still bump into things and bruise myself. I mean that things like DVDs, papers, and Cubs tickets still muck up my plans.
I'm on vacation in Okoboji, Iowa, and I thought I'd packed well. I thought wrong. I forgot to return some DVDs to Blockbuster on my way out of town, and I'm pretty sure I'm now the proud owner of The Long Kiss Goodnight and the not-at-all-proud owner of How to Lose Your Lover. Yes, I could just send them back to the store from here, but that would require effort I'm not sure I have the energy to muster.
I also forgot that my syllabus for "Getting Started: GSIs Teaching Graduate Students," a Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) orientation I'm teaching in late August, is due next week. Luckily, my very helpful officemate, Jun Zhang, was kind enough to send me all the papers I've gathered in preparation for writing that syllabus. UPS delivers to this remote area where DHL and FedEx fear to tread, and my papers arrived today. I guess that means I'll write a syllabus in the next few days. It seems strange to call a workshop plan a "syllabus," but that's what the guy at CRLT called it.
Two more things - Cubs tickets and more DVDs. I forgot to turn on my vacation status thing on Half.com, and someone bought my West Wing DVDs. Thanks, Chris, for getting into my apartment and sending those off for me! My eBay reputation stays unblemished this year; we can almost forget about that phone snafu from a while back Thanks to Nicki, I don't have to worry about the Cubs tickets I also forgot in my apartment. She got them off via USPS to my cousin's waiting family. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself had I ruined a 3 year old's chance to see a Cubs game. Unforgivable!
So what have I learned during the last few days?
- My friends are wonderful people (well, not learned, but reminded).
- My need to send and receive postal mail increases as my distance from my apartment increases.
- I do need more than my laptop to get work done.
I think I've sent and received more postal mail in the last 5 days than in the 5 months before that. Well, wait, I was the lucky recipient of a number of fantastic post cards. Maybe I deal with mail more often than I notice. It just seems odd to me that I've had to arrange for the delivery of so many items in the last few days. Of course, I haven't even mentioned Harry Potter. I had the last book sent to my parents' lake house, and it took until very late Saturday afternoon for the darn thing to arrive. 749 pages is too many. My eyes are tired, but my curiosity is sated.
Now that I've managed to blather on about mail for an entire blog post, I invite you to check out my Okoboji vacation pictures. You'll be jealous!
Communities and Technologies 2007 – Power
I'm in East Lansing for the Communities and Technologies conference, and I have some thoughts to share. First, the world needs more power outlets or wireless power. I'm glad I have a MacBook with a long battery life, but my MacBook often refuses to wake from sleep but does spin the hard drive as fast and hot as its little heart can. That, not surprisingly, runs down the battery, and then I'm stuck with no way to take notes. Remember, paper and I don't travel together. I walked over 7 other power cords to get back to my seat in a conference presentation room about an hour ago, and now I'm among a select group of people laptopping outside the auditorium. I'm all charged up, so I'm on a couch in the middle of the room. The other 6 people are lined up against the wall, slightly clumped near the few power outlets available in this room. The outlet scarcity does encourage some impromptu communication, I guess; I've had to ask irresponsible outlet users to rotate their plugs so I can use another plug on a multi-plug outlet or powerstrip too. Apparently we don't like to plug our computers in right next to someone else's. Every powerstrip I've seen has power cords spaced like single movie-goers - at least one empty plug between cords. I understand infrastructure like electrical wiring is pretty tough to change. Maybe I should start traveling with a portable power strip. Wouldn't it be great if it could fold up as small as my power cord and then pop out when I needed it? (Or maybe a wireless extension cord - found while I was looking for the link about MIT's wireless power project) Surge protection plus outlet multiplication = bliss!
Oh, Canada
Some friends invited me on a last minute trip to Toronto Saturday, and of course, I went. This was my first trip to Toronto, and I had a wonderful time. I took a lot of pictures. My favorite place on our whirlwind tour was definitely
They have yummy oysters and a fantastic beer selection (250+). The bar staff was super friendly and helpful. One of them (d'oh, I can't remember his name!) makes homemade hot sauces that are fantastic. I highly recommend oysters with his papaya habanero sauce and a little lemon juice. I would've eaten all they had if my stomach and wallet had room.
The real reason for our trip was to catch the True Colors Tour at the Molson Amphitheatre. The tour supports the Human Rights Campaign. HRC works for equal rights, and you should support them too. Jolie's friend Tara road managed The Gossip for this tour, and she hooked us up big time. We got VIP passes, free tickets, and to stand BACKSTAGE ON THE STAGE during Erasure and Margaret Cho. We would've been there for Cyndi Lauper too, but Ms. Lauper actually asked us not to come out on stage. The stage manager freaked and asked us to leave. I think Ms. Lauper just wanted us to stay put, not that she wanted us to walk away, but whatever.
Here's the video produced for HRC and the True Colors Tour:
Field Trips and Impoverished Media
You may be surprised to hear that the rest of life continued as usual even while my days were full of documentary filming. In the last few days, I went on a rather interesting field trip and had a couple long IM conversations.
My field trip was a Saturday night at the Detroit Eagle with one of my gay boyfriends and one of his friends from out of town. You may think a gay leather bar would be a dangerous or skeevey place, but you'd be wrong. The men at the Eagle were friendly (to me and to each other) and interesting. The bar was cleaner, less expensive, and less creepy than your average Ann Arbor bar. The Eagle is nicer than Scorekeepers, the Monkey Bar, Touchdown Cafe, maybe even Conor O'Neills on the weekend. There was an air of respect at the Eagle that is definitely lacking in those straight meat markets.
I was going to continue this post and include stuff about my IMing, but I think I'll start a new post. Is that the right convention? 1 post ~ 1ish topics?
Rewinding
It’s Alumni Weekend! I’m in Chicago for a few days to commune with my brethren - other nostalgic University of Chicago alumni. I arrived in Hyde Park this afternoon in the middle of a downpour and thought, how lovely! Maybe it’s all the travel this month; maybe it’s my frustrations with the University of Michigan. Whatever the cause(s), I’m happy to be here.
I spent a little over an hour reading Lucy Suchman’s new book – Human-Machine Reconfigurations – in the 4th floor stacks of the Reg (that’s the Regenstein Library to the rest of you). The smell was familiar. The strange turnings on and off of large banks of lighting were familiar. The odd look I got from a student I passed on my way out was familiar. She looked confused, and I’m sure it’s because I was in the stacks for only an hour. Only the weak leave the Reg so soon after their arrivals. The library was teeming with Maroons studying for finals and writing final papers. I’m willing to bet that the average size of the studying-Maroon book stack is a good two times as tall as the studying Michigan undergrad. I see a lot of UMich undergrads in the UGLi, and they don’t seem to carry around nearly as many tomes as the Maroons. The cute peeps in their glasses and rumpled hair with giant stacks of literature and criticism got my blood pumping, that’s for sure. The Reg during finals is like the Red Light District for nerds. Hot!
Why did I leave so soon, you wonder? Well, two reasons really. One is that the wireless network in the stacks is soooo sloooooow. I had to borrow credentials from a current student just to get access, and I wasn’t able to get Travelocity to load in any reasonable amount of time. So, I guess it’ll be another few hours until I can obsess over the price of flights from Detroit to Newark. The real reason I left though is that I was craving Jimmy’s French fries. Leaving the library for French fries may not make much sense to those of you not familiar with the culinary wonders of Hyde Park. Every one else, rest assured, the fries at Jimmy’s are as good as you remember them. I had a gooey grilled cheese (no pickle) and a small order of fries, and it was like I’d traveled six years back in time. I’m holding down the fort in the non-smoking room. I don’t know why more people don’t sit in here; it has the windows and is smoke-free. There’s even a Crown Royal mirror on the wall. What’s not to love?
Tomorrow I’ll be in meetings all day with the University’s admissions staff and other Alumni Schools Committee volunteers. We read anonymized applications in preparation for our mock admissions committee exercises tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get in to the College now, and I’m more sure than ever that my high school did not adequately prepare me for an elite undergraduate education. I’ll likely ruminate on that more later.
Now, it’s back to The Onion. I’d forgotten that one can pick up the Onion and the Reader in the vestibule of the Reynolds Club (Chicago’s student union). Just another thing I liked better about the RC than I do the Michigan Union. Ah. Nostalgia.
Trip to Bay Area
I returned this morning from a short trip to the Bay Area. My trip was quite fun, despite a minor setback of car sickness on California Highway 175. You can see pics from my trip on Flickr.
I saw the Rockies beat the Giants in 10 innings. Barry Bonds hit home run #746. Go, Barry, go!
One of the highlights of the trip were a day in Lake County with Meggie, Siddhartha, and Christian. Lake County is north of Napa and west of Mendocino. It's very beautiful and has a variety of non-pretentious wineries. We spent some time at Ceago - a biodynamic winery with wonderfu lavendar fields and a great view of Clear Lake. Lake County's pretty far from the Bay Area (3+ hours for first-time visitors), and if you don't know people there, it may not be worth it.
Tuesday I had the day to myself, so I rented a Ford Focus and wandered the area. Lunch with Beth in Mountain View was tasty. I headed to San Jose to check out The Tech Museum of Innovation. It's a pretty cool place, and I wish I'd had more time. I do not recommend the IMAX movie Mystic India. It was kinda boring and didn't have much exciting IMAX footage. I might've learned something about India though; we'll see what I'm able to remember down the road.
I needed to get from San Jose to Redwood City for dinner with Eileen, and I took the scenic route along 280, 92, and Route 1. Yes, it's also the roundabout way. I wanted to see some ocean, so I went through Half Moon Bay and drove up Route 1 through Devil's Slide to Daly City. The ocean smells wonderful and is remarkably calming. It was a great way to wind down from a busy weekend.
Drag queens and king sized beds
You may be wondering what those two things have in common. It's simple, really. They are both things that my four days in Philadelphia have that my life in Ann Arbor does not.
I'm in Philadelphia for a few days so I may attend Connections 2007. I'm presenting innovation diffusion research on Saturday morning. I'll post my presentation sometime this weekend so you can see what I had to say. The conference looks pretty interesting, and I'm looking forward to the chance to meet other iSchool grad students.
The drive from Ann Arbor to Philadelphia is not one I'd recommend. Police in Ohio have nothing to do, apparently, and so they set up shop every 500 feet on the turnpike. I drove from Ann Arbor to the Pennsylvania border, and my heart was pounding the whole time. I'm sure you all know how hard it is for me to obey speed limits, and so you must understand. I also drove us from the Lancaster Plaza to the Comfort Inn, and that portion of the trip was enjoyable despite the late rush hour traffic they have here. Traffic makes me feel urban, so I don't mind it in cities outside Ann Arbor. Well, that's not entirely true; the Dan Ryan project makes me pretty cranky.
Our hotel is next to the Ben Franklin bridge, and what a beautiful structure! I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them here next week. It's blue and wonderful. I like to think that I would've liked it even if I didn't study bridge building.
The drag show Jude and I saw was at Bob and Barbara's on South Street. Apparently they host this show every Thursday night. I have to say the drag king was much better than most of the drag queens we saw. Pictures to come. Bob and Babara's has a crazy drink special - a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a shot of Jim Beam for $3. Yes, that's just three American dollars. You may be thinking that such a combination would lead to a night of drunken horribleness. At first, I worried about that too. Then, I drank my Jim Beam and realized that no, such a combination ensured sobriety. Jim Beam burns and does not taste good. PBR is one of my favorite domestics, but I couldn't even finish my can after that shot. It was a cheap night out with decent entertainment. Thanks, Philadelphia!
Now my cheap night is over, and I'm retiring to my king size bed. I should look in to getting one of these. It's quite lovely. Although the folks over at bettersleep.org seem to think a king size bed is for couples and/or people with children (and that single sleepers should get queens), let me speak for all the other single, childless people out there when I say, "We deserve roomy sleeping accommodations too!" Sleep well, all!
Hitchhikers
I gave a couple of hitchhikers a ride from the gas station on Main and Madison to the Ann Arbor-Saline Road on ramp for westbound I-94 this afternoon. This is not something I would imagine myself doing, but I did it. They were maybe 19 years old and traveling in a pair with a German shepherd-like dog named "Bub." Hitching is their preferred method of transportation, and this year alone they've been from New Mexico to Florida to Michigan. They plan to spend a week at his mom's house somewhere in Michigan and then head on to Chicago and eventually back to New Mexico. I asked how long they usually have to wait for someone to pick them up, and his record was 5 days in Topeka, Kansas. Usually, though, it doesn't take longer than 45 minutes. His favorite on ramp is in Bixbie, Arizona; it's a wide ramp marked "No hitchhiking." Apparently it's a popular spot despite (or maybe because of) it's sign.
I didn't get to ask how many other hitchhikers they usually see or who usually gives them rides. I did learn that they prefer wide on ramps because they're less likely to get hit by a car, and people are more likely to pull over where there's more room. The best places to get rides are on the edges of towns; people will often offer hitchhikers short-term cash-only jobs such as tearing down a house in Pensacola, Florida. He didn't mind his 5 day stay in Topeka because he made $500 in hand outs for which he didn't even ask. Those Kansans are just that nice.
I wish I'd gotten their names. I hope their trip is swift and fun. I'm fascinated.