Google is so weird

Nerd that I am, I was looking at the traffic log for my blog. And what did I find? That I'm number one in Google if you search for "favorite tech website"+why on Google Russia! Even more odd is the fact that this hit came from someone in Australia.

I mentioned another thing like this a while back but I had no proof once the ranking changed. So here's an image:

teaching ...

So teaching is cool, chatting with my students after class was fun, I learned a lot about the US, and I think I'm pretty much over any public speaking issues I might have had.

But oh my god I hate grading papers! I spent all day today grading 25 final exams, half of which didn't get passing grades (the key to success in school is ANSWERING THE ENTIRE F**KING QUESTION!). I still have a few papers left and it's such a pain ... and the worst of it is that I lost/someone stole (you never know) my notebook where I had about half of the grades for the presentations and papers, so I have to regrade them.

Sabrina, I don't know how you do it. I feel sorry for my professors. I'd love to just read the intro and conclusion like I know some profs do. The problem though is that too many of my students just can't write a decent essay. Apparently, not including an intro with a clear thesis statement or a meaningful conclusion, or writing a page-long sentence (I swear I'm not exaggerating) is ok in Spanish.

Back to the grindstone ...

Woah

Today we had to present our research to a class on migration issues at the university. While annoying, this meant we had to do a quick overview of everything we've done up until now, which can't hurt. So we were all working furiously on Powerpoint this morning, trying to get everything ready by none. We're a bunch of damn procrastinators, that's for sure.

It turned out ok, and, get this, it was my first presentation ever in Spanish! Ok, of course Margot was talking plenty and being really articulate and all, but I had my own sections and everything and it wasn't a complete failure. At this point that's all I'm shooting for really.

I was also really impressed with what Olivier and Noemie have been up to. Their project is really different from ours, though it's still on immigration stuff, so I wasn't really sure what they'd been doing all this time. And lo and behold, it looks like they have their shit together. Good job guys! I hope our part was as professional and impressive. We sure had some nifty charts though. Reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes: "I've got a secret weapon that will guarantee a good grade! No teacher can resist this! A clear plastic binder!" Charts are the clear plastic binder of the 21st century.

I should be working, but ...

Jean showed me the light:

pikapika got together and made this animated short -- not drawn, not stop motion, not rotoscoped, but lit! the nocturnal makers carouse about tokyo during nighttime hours, making bouncing pictures as fresh and staccato as all the minutes spent with friends. you can watch it here: quicktime.

Their site: tochka.jp/pikapika/

p.s. Jean, it will be a sad day when you no longer have time to scour the internet for all sorts of wonderous things. Nonetheless, I'll be back to visit soon to distract you from your wanderings around the internets.

Back in Black!

After ten days on the road, crisscrossing the Eje Cafetero, Colombia's coffee-producing region, Marguerite and I have finally made it back to Bogota! We didn't get kidnapped or attacked, but we did see a coca plant and a marijuana plant. We've got a ton of data and too much work for the week we'll be here in Bogota before heading down south to do more interviews. Details of the trip and photos soon.

If you care about American democracy ...

In case you hadn't heard, we're about to have a major election ... on electronic voting machines that are poorly designed and easily hacked, machines that will be setup and run by volunteer election officials who are probably not computer experts. This is not a partisan issue, election-day chaos is bad for everyone. Here are links to a couple of excellent articles on my favorite tech website, ArsTechnica.com, that lay out the potential dangers. Please pass this on.

Primary and early e-voting problems point to gathering storm (short and scary)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061101-8131.html

As we move toward the November mid-terms, we're beginning to a more detailed and depressing picture of exactly what we're up against as a nation in less than a week: two major new reports from independent research groups detail the myriad security breaches, and procedural and technical problems in the 2006 Ohio primaries; stories from early voting in Texas indicate that the paperless DREs in at least two counties may have a partisan bias; another major new report from the University of Connecticut details a whole raft of security vulnerabilities in Diebold's optical scan voting machines; finally, BlackBoxVoting.org has released "push this, pull here" instructions for multiple voting on a Sequoia DRE, no hacking skills necessary.
...
In sum, people will show up on November 7th at many precincts across America, they will select items on a touch-screen, a lucky few of them will see a paper record of their choices (correctly marked or not) scroll by under a glass, and they will return home having participated in a bit of high-tech political theater that may or may not amount to a bona fide election.

If you think that I overstate things just a bit here, then by all means, read on.

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How to steal an election by hacking the vote (long, but full of details on how flawed these machines are):
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars

PDF version
http://arstechnica.com/etc/How_to_steal_an_election-ArsTechnica.pdf