mamamusingselizabeth lane lawley's thoughts on technology, academia, family, and tangential topicsmobile phone services that make me happy- May 29, 2008 Over the past few weeks, I&8217;ve found myself using two services a lot on my mobile phone, and when I talk about them at conferences people tend to &8220;oooh&8221; and &8220;ahhh&8221;&8230;so I thought I&8217;d post about them here, as well. The first is one I thought most people knew about, but I&8217;m finding that&8217;s not true. It&8217;s Google&8217;s &8220;411&8221; service for automated directory assistance. You call 800-GOOG-411, and are prompted for city, state, and business name..http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/28/mobile_phone_services_that_make_me_happy.php creative constraints- May 17, 2008 I&8217;m attending a really great NSF-funded workshop on Productive Play this weekend, and Thomas Malaby, who&8217;s sitting next to me, just cited a lovely quote from Igor Stravinsky. I don&8217;t want to forget it, so the blog is the obvious place to save it :) The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one&8217;s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. Wonderful....http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/17/creative_constraints.php summer fiction plans- May 15, 2008 Lest you think I plan to spend my summer immersed entirely in professional reading, here&8217;s my fiction reading list at the moment: Daemon, by Leinad Zeraus (read each word backwards for his _real_name), which was highly recommended by Joi Ito. This arrived from Amazon this week, and I&8217;ll be bringing it on my trip to California this weekend. Robert Jordan&8217;s Wheel of Time series. I&8217;m listening to this in audiobook format, when I walk the dog (or sit on airplanes), and I&8217;m..http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/14/summer_fiction_plans.php occupational benefits- May 14, 2008 One of the very best parts of being a university professor is being able to get free books from many publishers. It makes sense for them, because I&8217;m unlikely to assign a book to my students if I haven&8217;t had a chance to review it carefully. During the school year, however, I&8217;m usually trying very hard to keep my head above water with the things I have to read, so I don&8217;t take too much advantage of the benefit. Summer is approaching, however. This is week 1010 for classes,...http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/14/occupational_benefits.php minitex conference keynote- May 5, 2008 I gave a keynote this morning at the Minitex ILL Conference in St. Paul, and I've uploaded the powerpoint file to Slideshare. Unfortunately, Slideshare doesn't show transitions, so a number of the slides are messed up where I have multiple images that aren't supposed to be on the screen at the same time, but if you go to the Slideshare page for the presentation there's a link to download the original .ppt file. View Upload your own (Since you can't hear my actual talk, I need to acknowledge...http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/05/minitex_conference_keynote.php you go, girlfriend- May 3, 2008 Wow. Just&8230;wow. Some people will one day try to convince you that what I&8217;ve done here is some sort of sickening betrayal of your childhood, and what those people fail to recognize is that I am doing the exact opposite. This is the glorification of your childhood, and even more than that this is a community of women coming together to make each other feel less alone. You are a part of this movement, you and all of the other kids whose mothers are sitting at home right now writing...http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/03/you_go_girlfriend.php coming up for air- May 2, 2008 Last week, my 95-year-old grandmother suffered a series of small strokes. This week has been a bit of blur what with hospital visits, social worker conversations, research on everything from stroke rehabilitation to long-term care insurance (for me, not her&8230;nothing like this sort of event to remind you of your own looming future) to risks of theft in nursing homes, covering classes for my mother, and trying to manage my own full-time job and family responsibilities. Today they moved...http://mamamusings.net/archives/2008/05/01/coming_up_for_air.php |